The door slammed. Everyone looked up and around. The only person missing was Kevin, who had left some time ago. When Kevin didn’t appear from the entranceway, Greed threw his hands in the air.
“Okay, seriously? This dump is haunted. I’m telling you.” When the fireplace sputtered and almost went out as if to punctuate his words, Greed gestured to it. “See!”
Wrath rolled her eyes. “Yes, it’s haunted. We’re going to be murdered in our beds, blah blah blah.”
“You laugh now, but who’s gonna be laughing when a monster is skinning you? Huh? Me, I’m gonna be laughing. And possibly the monster skinning you.” Greed wrestled his way to his feet from the sunken and broken-down couch. “There’s gotta be something we can do. Envy?”
She didn’t even look up from filing her nails. “We’re bound as sure as a wart to a witch’s tit. That summoning circle in the basement is rock solid. Has been for generations, from what I can tell.”
Gluttony crunched on a Fuego Takis chip and grimaced. “Kevin is out of control. This is the only food in the house. How does he exist on these? I’d be proud of his dedication if it wasn’t so sad. I miss Prohibition.”
The door slammed again and they all looked up. Greed moaned. “No one else is worried about this?”
Wrath threw a couple of logs in the fireplace and tried to stoke the flames. Greed just snorted at the sad attempt for warmth. It was always cold in Kevin’s house, and that was saying something as they were beings of Hell. And should have been immune to the cold. Like Kevin was apparently, damn his soul.
“Where did Kevin go?” Lust strolled in from the kitchen and Pride scowled. Mr. Neat Freak did not like it when her naked ass was in there.
“He was gone when I got up.” Sloth slumped deeper into the only good leather chair in the entire house.
Greed danced around Lust and sneered. “You’re always just getting up, lazy. Lust, did Kevin tell you where he was going?”
When she sat down on the coffee table even Wrath had a pained oh-my-god expression on her face. “Yep, something about clothes shopping.”
The door slammed twice in quick succession and Greed spun around with narrowed eyes. No movement. No draft, as if the front door had actually opened and shut. No avarice in the air as if something hungered for souls. Or demons. Or anything in this Godforsaken house.
“OW! Bitch!” Greed looked over and pinched the bridge of his nose. Wrath had a handful of Lust’s red hair wrapped in a fist and was dragging her off the coffee table.
“If you can’t wear clothes you can’t sit on the furniture. That’s the rule! Nobody wants to sit where your taint has been!” Wrath gave a sharp tug and Lust screeched even louder. “Put some damn clothes on, your wiles are useless anyways. All of ours are.”
Envy finally looked up from her nails. “They’re not useless, just ignored. Kevin don’t give a shit. Then there’s the curse.”
At that, they all looked at Envy in surprise. Greed from where he stood by the arched entranceway. Lust from the floor between the couch and coffee table. Wrath from the couch where she hadn’t even had to get up for their small tussle. Sloth from the good leather chair. Gluttony from the other couch. And Pride where he had been preoccupied with his own self-importance at the dining room table.
“What curse?” Greed blinked as if coming out of a trance. Of course, a curse. It made sense now. Well, not the slamming door – there was something else funny there – but everything else. The cold. Kevin. Their lack of effect. Mostly Kevin, though. His eyes narrowed. Kevin was a witch.
Bored with them, Envy returned to her nails. “I don’t know. But a curse. Nothing else makes sense.”
Granted, they hadn’t witnessed any power from him. To be honest he didn’t feel like anything. It was like nothing was there. A void. That’s why Greed had problems. He didn’t like being trapped in this house where there was nothing to hoard. He didn’t like not being able to fuck with beings. He especially didn’t like not being able to go out, the binding circle wouldn’t allow it. One positive, the basement was the same footprint of the whole house, which meant the binding circle encompassed all the upper floors.
“Any ideas about this curse, Envy, or are you going to ignore the predicament, as usual?” Wrath narrowed her eyes when Lust made to get up. “Did I say you could get off the floor?”
For fuck’s sake, it was always like this when there was more than one female in their make-up. Greed frowned. He wasn’t the thinker that Envy was, that bitch was always plotting, but why weren’t they all male? Or all female? Usually, their summoning was specific to the witch’s spell? And why were they all there? That was unprecedented.
The door creaked open, full horror movie effect style, then slammed shut. Greed, standing towards the entranceway caught the faintest hint of sulfur. “That’s a door to hell?”
It came out like a question but Pride finally took an interest in something other than himself. “Yes, we came out of it. Don’t you remember? It’s in the basement.”
That prick was a trial and Greed was going to do something horrible to him later. Maybe put Nair in his shampoo again. Let’s see how snarky the vain bastard was when he was going bald. “No, dumbass, that’s a summoning circle. One way. This is a door that opens and closes. I’m pretty sure it’s to hell. I smell sulfur.”
Lust adjusted her position until she was kneeling. “Oh, that’s what that smell was. Yeah, it’s by the front door, like all the time.”
Greed just closed his eyes. The dumb. It pained him. So much. “You’re from hell, how do you not realize that’s sulfur? It’s only the smog that permeates our entire home!”
Wrath cackled, she was always happiest when someone else was losing their shit in anger.
Lust just shrugged. “I don’t go outside when I’m home. Too many horny demons.”
He literally waited for the realization of that great pun, but again, dumb as a post. Greed decided to just ignore it. Now that he understood the slamming door, maybe they could escape. Or be murdered in their beds because there was no telling what was coming and going. It could be anything, and some didn’t like the Sins. And there was Kevin. Surely he knew there was a door to hell in his house?
The door opened, the front door this time, and Kevin came sauntering in with a trash bag over his shoulder like a hobo Santa Claus. Greed just couldn’t fathom it. With the seven of them there, Kevin should have been as polished and GQ as any being ever. Instead, it was this. Hawaiian shirt. Board shorts of an indeterminate color. A bathrobe stained in Takis dust. Grey socks that should have been white and slides from whatever dollar store had them on sale.
Was that, yes it was, a stray Takis in Kevin’s oily honey-hued hair. A guacamole one if his eyes didn’t deceive him from that puke green color. Greed watched him drop the bag on the floor and immediately pull his cell phone out of the bathrobe pocket. “Clothes, losers.”
He was the embodiment of Greed. A being who had brought many a financial institution and made man down to roast in Hell. He was going to go through that bag first to take all the good shit. When Gluttony made to get off the couch, Greed hissed at him and his eyes flashed bright yellow.
“Okay, okay. Jeeze. No need to get all Gollum.” Gluttony threw his empty Takis bag on the coffee table.
Pride wandered over from the dining room while Sloth opened sleepy eyes to watch. Greed ignored them all and dumped the contents of the trash bag out on the floor. Immediately a beautiful fleece-lined leather jacket caught his eye. And the only pair of jeans that looked like they would fit him. Ooh, and a simple t-shirt with some obscure logo on it. He gathered up his spoils and headed over to the couch closest to the fireplace.
Kevin sauntered back from the kitchen with a bag of Takis and an RC Cola and plopped down on the couch next to him. Once again, Greed was struck by how much of a nonentity Keven was. Nothing, not even a tingle of avarice or want. Just bland space, that smelled like processed junk food.
Greed didn’t pay any attention to the others as they went through the clothes. He knew that they were just as excited about human garb as he was. Anything to get out of the ridiculous robes that management insisted they show up in when summoned. Not that Lust ever wore that damn thing long. He wasn’t salty about that, though.
The jeans were buttery soft, well broken in and the t-shirt had the faded look that had been through many a washing. But the leather jacket was a true work of art. Supple, dark brown leather. Pale and plush fleece on the inside. High collar and zipper that wasn’t busted. Greed was pleased with his haul. And that the other Sins hadn’t challenged him for such nice pieces. At a loud pitched squeal, he looked over and cringed.
Lust had found a bikini. And not just any bikini, one that was hot pink and shiny. Greed thought maybe they were sequins. The rest were in relatively normal clothes, although the chaps on Wrath did give him pause over the yoga pants. That was just tacky. As was the bedazzled sports bra. Was that, for the love of...it was. Sloth was changing into a muumuu. A garishly flowered muumuu. At least Gluttony and Pride had gone his route with normal-ish clothes. Envy didn’t bother. She remained in her robe.
“Kevin, you know anything about a curse?” Greed picked up his clothes but paused at that bland question from Envy.
The door slammed and Kevin didn’t even look up from his phone while he munched on Takis. He didn’t respond either, so Greed added.
“Or the door to hell?”
That caused a slight divot between Kevin’s eyebrows. “Not really. That story was just some bullshit made up by that asshole Kenton.”
Holy shit. An expression. Greed glanced over at Envy who was staring at Kevin while . She gave a slight shake of her head, indicating to him that now was not the time to delve into that. It made Greed wonder if she actually knew more than she was letting on, or was pretending to know more than she knew. It was a crapshoot, always. Best to leave it for now.
Greed whipped off his robe and pulled on the jeans and t-shirt. When he picked up the jacket by the collar, he frowned. Was that a price tag? That didn’t seem like Kevin, to actually pay for anything. That would require effort and interaction. Flipping open the jacket, his jaw dropped at the fashion label inside.
Brimstone Outfitters. Right below that was the standard laundry label that said the jacket was dry clean only. And below that, neatly stitched into the jacket was a handwritten label that read: DO NOT ANOINT WITH THE BLOOD OF VIRGINS, IMMOLATION WILL OCCUR.
How the heaven had an item from Hell’s premier tailor gotten topside? A quick sniff and Greed immediately identified Asmodeus’s nasty claws all over this thing. That made more sense. That greedy bastard would take souls any way he could. And if some idiot was wearing this jacket and happened to get virgin’s blood on it, their sacrifice was appreciated, willingly or not.
What to do? Greed really didn’t want to be immolated and certainly not into whatever cage Asmodeus had set up for his captive souls. He’d never hear the end of it. Asmodeus would laugh himself sick. But, what were the odds that virgin blood was that accessible?
Greed’s eyes slid to Kevin and narrowed. Surely not at his age? And there was no one else in the house that would be a risk. He snorted, certainly not any of the Sins. A glance in Lust’s direction and Greed decided he’d rather be immolated than ask that bimbo even if she could tell with just a look.
Decisions, decisions. It was cold. No doubt about that. And even if immolation happened, was heading home really the worst? Even if he’d be the laughing stock of the demons until something else came along? Greed stroked the warm fleece. Fuck it. If he burst into flames because Kevin was a thirty-seven-year-old virgin so be it.
It wasn’t until after he was already halfway shrugging into the jacket that it occurred to Greed the label could have lied .