Chapter Three
I blinked. My mouth opened and closed, but I had nothing to say to that. Ri rubbed his hand over his face.
“Fucking hell, Lux. This is why we let Eli do the talking.”
“Do you guys mean metaphorically or something? Are you a doomsday cult?”
Oz laughed and Eli shook his head. “No, we aren't a cult. Valery, get the book.”
Valery stood from the table, walking with heavy feet to the living room. He picked up a heavily gilded tome from the bookshelf and brought it over. It was a beautiful leather-bound book that I instantly wanted to stroke. The title was in French. He flicked to a page in the center and handed it to me.
Staring up at me from the pages of a book that had to be at least a hundred years old, was Valery, and dressed in a powdered wig with rouged lips. Underneath, in beautiful looping script were the words ‘Marquis de Roux, 1788’.
Valery looks good in that shade of lipstick. I wonder if he'd share.
I looked at Valery. “Is this an ancestor of yours?” I asked hopefully, ignoring Ace again.
“No, that is me,” Valery said.
“Wow, you look good for 220 odd years old there, Val." I sounded like a bitch but I hated that they were making a fool out of me. “Look, this is ridiculous. If you don't want to tell me, just take me home.”
Valery sat back down on his chair with a great sigh. “It is the truth. My name was Valery de Lyon, the last Marquis de Roux. I died during the French Revolution, guillotined in the streets of Paris because I ate sumptuous feasts every night while the people of my fiefdom starved to death in the fields. A portrait I commissioned hangs in the Louvre. I was loaded and hedonistic and I died horribly for it.” He sounded sincere but he couldn't possibly be telling the truth.
“Yet here you sit, your head completely attached. Eli must be one hell of a surgeon.”
“I am, but I died a hundred years before Valery was even born.”
I was beginning to think that this whole day had been a prank, an elaborate scheme for someone to post on YouTube for hits. If that was the case, they better cut me in on the money they made at my expense
I pressed my fingers into my temples. “Okay. What about you? When did you supposedly die?” I asked Lux.
“Around 70 BC by the Julian calendar.”
“You are all insane. I mean I thought I was nuts with the voices and all, but you guys are certifiable.”
“Voices?” Eli asked, instantly in doctor mode but I ignored him.
“Let's put aside reality for a second and pretend you are all super old yet literally look like models-”
“I only died in the seventies. Just sayin’,” Oz interrupted.
I gave him a hard look and he mimed zipping his lips.
“As I was saying, you all look pretty youthful to me. And alive. So what are you? Immortals? Vampires?”
Tolliver physically winced, and Sam shook his head.
“This is going to sound crazy no matter how gently you break it to her. Maybe Lux had it right, just put it all out there and rip the Band-Aid off,” Ri suggested. “I'll get the brandy.”
He disappeared into Val's kitchen and returned with a bottle of brandy and eight glasses. Not that I was going to get drunk around these guys. I still wasn't convinced they weren't some kind of cult going to lock me in their basement as a way to reproduce come the Zombie Apocalypse. Though they totally chose the wrong girl if that's why they were going to all this effort.
Lux took a deep breath. “Just try to think outside the box, okay?” I shrugged and he continued. “We are the physical embodiment of the seven deadly sins given a redemptive second chance at life because the big guy is not so bad.”
“The big guy? You mean God?”
“No, the Devil. Who we were in our former lives meant we were relegated to his domain,” Sam explained.
“The Devil is the good guy? This isn't thinking outside the box, Lux, this is thinking outside the stratosphere.” I was beginning to understand how Alice felt in Wonderland; I was definitely tripping my way down a rabbit hole right about now.
Oz had moved away from the table and laid on Valery's couch. “I wouldn't say that he was a good guy. He's still the Devil. He's just a lot more forgiving of humanity's foibles than the other guy. But he isn't someone I'd trust in a bar fight, you know?”
Uh, no. I didn't know. I'd never been in a bar fight or met the Devil. There was literally nothing in that statement I could relate to.
“Just a quick recap guys, just to make sure I've got this all. You are all dead, as in formerly alive people.”
Lux nodded.
“You all went to hell and met the Devil.”
This time Eli nodded too.
“And now you are zombies back in the world to atone for your sins, so you decide to become models and UFC fighters?”
Tolliver laughed mirthlessly and shrugged.
I sighed and stood up from the table, walking over to the couches where Oz was lying. I was tired, mentally and physically. Today had just been too much. I could hear the scrape of chairs as everyone stood to follow me. I eyed the only sofa and Oz moved to sit up, offering me his spot. It was kind of sweet. I sat down where his feet had been, tucking my own feet under me.
“Other than some musty old books, can you prove what you are saying?”
Eli sat down on the armchair opposite me. “Well yes and no. Normally, if we went out amongst the humans, we would instill part of our sin in them, causing them to act a certain way.”
I frowned.
Say what, now?
Oh, good. I wasn't the only one who was confused as hell about this.
“I'm not explaining this well. Think of our sin as contagious. We infect those around us with it.” He pointed to Ri. “Take Orion for example-”
“Wait, Ri is short for Orion? That's… a pretty nice name,” I quelled my enthusiasm a little.
The man in question gave me a lopsided smile. “Thanks, Beautiful Girl.” His eyes looked at me as if he wanted to devour every inch of my body with his tongue, and my body was a very willing victim right now.
Oz gently took my feet out from under me and placed them on his lap and I turned so I was more comfortable as he began massaging. No sane woman turned down foot massage, especially when it felt so good. I bit my lip to hold in a sigh of pleasure. Zombies gave great foot massages apparently.
Eli cleared his throat. “As I was saying, Orion was sentenced to hell for the sin of Lust. Now, if he goes into a crowd of humans alone, people will stop what they are doing and immediately start fornicating with each other, despite their mental consent. Or if there is no crowd, they will try to have relations with Ri himself. If one of us goes out with him, the results of two Sins together seems to dampen the effects of either one. So while the human would still feel lustful, they wouldn't be inclined to act on the sensation against their will. ”
Okay. Ri was Lust in the Seven Deadly Sins. My body's willingness to jump on him and ride him to Timbuktu kinda made sense now.
I stared at Ri, who stood there and let me peruse his body with smug grin. His body was broad and strong, with thick muscular thighs, and an ass that would make grown women weep, strong arms and biceps wrapped in swirling tribal tattoos and that face. Strong jaw, dimples, and eyes that promised your every naughty fantasy would be fulfilled.
Yep, I could see how he would be the sin of Lust. He certainly set my libido on fire.
“I can see that.”
Ri grinned so wide I thought his face was going to crack. I was drawn to him like a moth to a neon sign.
“Ah, you see, that's where you come into this.”
I turned back to Eli, pinning him with my gaze. This was the part I needed to know. The rest of this story had been cuckoo, but I had no idea what it had to do with me.
“The redemptive part of our deal with the Devil states that we have to find the One, the Redeemer, and that she will help us find our redemption and be our salvation. We will know her because she will be immune to our sins.”
I could feel the eyes of every one of them burning against my skin, but I needed a minute just to wrap my head around this madness. Oz had stopped rubbing my feet, but was still clutching them tight like a life buoy.
“What makes you think it's me? I mean, I seriously want to jump Ri’s bones, so I can't be immune to his Lust juju or whatever it is.”
Orion smirked again.
Lux made a strangled noise from where he was sitting on the ground beside the couch. “I knew it was you because you were polite to me in the subway. I confirmed it when I touched your face and you didn't try and take my eyes out. I am Wrath.”
I studied him, his warrior body and gentle voice, his face marked with old silver scars. Wrath. Vengeance. Such negative emotions in such a beautiful package.
“So you think I'm the Redeemer, because I have good manners?”
“Coupled with the fact you didn't press yourself into Orion like a cat in heat when he touched you. That confirmed it. What you feel for him now is just ordinary attraction. It has nothing to do with his sin.”
That explains the smirk. Ace sounded smug.
That's all you have to say to this whole thing? This doesn't sound crazy to you?
Ace snorted.
Okay, wrong choice of words.
Look, Arcadia. There had to be a reason I was saddled with you, and maybe this explains it. Maybe you are this ‘Redeemer’ character who is meant to help them find… whatever it is they have to find, and maybe you aren't. But, girl, you're already a dead woman walking. What do you have to lose?
She was right. I could just be a temp worker until I eventually dropped dead from heart failure, or I could help these guys and go out with a bang.
Hopefully literally and figuratively with a bang, Ace purred. My unholy attraction to them all was a problem for another time.
I mentally scrabbled for any knowledge I had on the Seven Deadly Sins. Lust, Wrath, Sloth... Bashful? No that was one of the Seven Dwarfs.
A small giggle escaped my lips and turned into a full blown belly laugh as I imagined them each as a dwarf.
“I think you guys broke her,” Oz/Dopey said.
I took a deep breath in through my nose and out through my mouth, trying to get the giggles to subside.
“Sorry, sorry. I was just trying to remember all the deadly sins and thought of something funny.” I pointed to Ri and Lux respectively. “So you're Lust and you're Wrath.”
I pointed to Eli.
“Pride,” he said.
Hmm, made sense.
“Valery?”
“Gluttony, of course.” He gave me a self-deprecating smile. There was a quiet brokenness to Valery, his eyes permanently sad even when he smiled. I wanted to fix him. But later.
I pointed to Sam and Tolliver, who were being super quiet, letting the whole thing play out.
“One of you guys has to be Envy, but you are both ridiculously beautiful I can't tell which one.”
Sam laughed. “I'm not sure if I should be flattered or insulted. I'm Envy, Tolli is Greed.”
Tolliver shrugged and stared at me in the eyes, daring me to judge him for it, hurt and anger simmering beneath he's outwardly beautiful exterior. I wanted to hug him, but I'd sooth his hurts another day. I looked at Oz.
“I can't remember the Seventh Sin.”
“It's Sloth. I am Sloth.” There was an anxiety in his face, a fear of rejection. I pulled my feet away and watched his face fall but I quickly swiveled so my head was lying on his lap instead. “I think better when someone's playing with my hair.”
He smiled down at me through his ginger beard, his green eyes sparkling with an emotion I couldn't name. But he obligingly started running his fingers through my short hair, it was still growing back from my chemo, his nails gently scraping against my scalp. I resisted the urge to purr.
I stared at the ceiling, sorting through everything I'd learned.
“Okay.”
“Okay?” Tolliver echoed with disbelief.
“Okay, I will help you guys. But I'm not sure how you think this will work.”
Oz pulled me up into his arms like I weighed nothing and held me tight against his body. “We’ll take care of you too. You'll never feel lonely again.” I pulled back and looked into his face. He was surprisingly perceptive for the joker of the group. I gave him a smile and let myself succumb to the insane urge to snuggle into his chest. Just for a little while.
“I think I'm ready for that brandy now.”