The tendril led to a door marked CONFERENCE ROOM. Next to the door was a placard: WINNING LOSERS SUPPORT GROUP. Gluttony—in a dieting club? Uh-oh. I spritzed myself with holy water and opened the door.
Half a dozen people sat around a conference table stacked high with extra-large pizza boxes. With my senses open to the demon plane, I couldn’t see their faces. Gluttony tendrils covered them like kudzu in a Georgia forest. All I could see was slice after slice of pizza disappearing into Gluttonypossessed lumps.
“Did you bring food?” a lump demanded.
The holy water made me invisible to the Peccatum, but not to the humans it possessed. I reeled my senses back from the demon plane, making the tendrils disappear, to see who was speaking. A plump woman of about thirty had paused mid bite to address me. Pizza sauce was smeared on her face, and a string of mozzarella dangled from the corner of her mouth.
“No, I—”
“ Then get out!” she shrieked. “There’s not enough for you!”
Five other angry faces glared at me. “Yeah!” a man yelled. “We’re starving here.” He turned to a college kid who wore a baseball cap adorned with a slice-of-pizza logo. “Call your boss and order a dozen more. Extra large with everything.”
“Double everything!” someone added.
“And garlic bread!”
“I want a calzone!”
“A meatball sub!”
As the dieters clamored for more food, the kid pulled a cell phone from his pocket. Between bites of pizza, he placed the order. Or tried to. It was impossible to keep up with all the shouted demands.
Looking at all the empty pizza boxes, I was glad Tina had quit being my apprentice several weeks ago. Tina’s a teenager and a zombie, and that combination makes her a nonstop eating machine. Plus, like all zombies, she’s super strong. Holy water or not, if Tina had walked in on this pizza fest, she’d have taught everybody here a lesson in Gluttony. And it’s a little distracting when your apprentice gets possessed by the demon you’re trying to kill.
“Didn’t I tell you to leave?” the plump woman snarled. “ There’s not enough to go around.”
“Don’t worry about me,” I said. “I’m not hungry. I’m here to do some maintenance.” I didn’t have time to waste with the Winning Losers, anyway. I had to find the Peccatum. Another spritz of holy water, and I stepped inside. I opened to the demon plane a little, enough so I could make out both the faces of the support group members and the tendrils that gripped them. They regarded me suspiciously, ready to fight to defend their pizza. I stayed near the wall, studying the floor, trying to see where the main tentacle left the mass of tendrils. Soon they forgot about me and started arguing over the few slices that remained.
The conference room had a folding wall, the kind that could be pulled back to accommodate a larger meeting. The tentacle, much thicker than it had been in the hallway, passed through it. I skirted two support group members who were playing tug-ofwar over a pizza crust, and left the room. The door to the next room, the one on the other side of the retractable wall, looked ordinary. No tendrils passed underneath it. In fact, it was the only door in the hallway clear of tendrils—kind of like a big, flashing neon sign proclaiming, “Nothing to see here. No demon behind this door. Move along.” I’d bet my fee the Peccatum was inside.
I misted myself with holy water and tried the knob. It turned. I cracked open the door and slipped inside.
The room was dark, but that made no difference in the demon plane. A dim gray twilight, the constant half-light of the demon plane, permeated the place, along with a stronger stench. A huge blob, bulging and distended from gorging on sins, was sprawled on the conference table. The head, which looked like a muddy garbage bag filled with sludge, sat on top of two huge tentacles—Gluttony and Sloth, each as fat as a fire hose—and five shriveled ones: one for each of the other deadly sins. The head pulsed and shivered as the demon fed on the sins of those it trapped. Finally. Now to kill this demon, go home, and dress for dinner.
I could douse the Peccatum with holy water or gut it with a bronze dagger. Either way, I’d have to get in close.
I stood with my back against the wall and inched the door closed. There was a soft click as the latch caught. Immediately, exploratory gray tendrils—Sloth—sprang from the Peccatum and wafted toward me. The holy water kept me hidden. The tendrils felt their way around the door for a minute, then receded.
Another self-misting with holy water—I’d used up most of the atomizer already—and I stepped forward. I loosened the caps of the bottles of holy water in my holster and took another step. A few tendrils snaked from the gray tentacle and swept back and forth across the floor, as though the demon suspected that there was someone in the room but didn’t know where to look. I advanced cautiously, watching the searching tendrils, moving toward the demon then pausing. The holy water’s protection held. Whenever a tendril got near me, it changed direction, as though glancing off an invisible barrier.
Halfway across the room, I removed the caps from both bottles. When I got close enough, I’d dump their contents on the demon. A half gallon of holy water should be enough to dissolve the Peccatum into a puddle of goo.
I eased the left bottle from its holster and held it ready. Another step. I tugged on the right bottle, but it was tight in the holster. I pulled harder. The bottle came out, but some water sloshed from its neck. I looked down in time to see a drop splash onto a tendril near my foot.
Yellow steam, stinking of sulfur, hissed and shot upward like a geyser.
Immediately a mass of tendrils sprang from the gray tentacle. I ran toward the Peccatum, but I’d barely gone two steps before a fuzzy gray net wrapped around me and yanked me to the ground. A bottle of holy water flew from my hand, hitting the floor and rolling to a far corner of the room, spilling its contents as it went. Tendrils wrapped around my other arm, holding it immobile, as more tendrils plucked the second bottle from my grip and flung it away. It rolled under the conference table.
Peccatum tendrils are usually wispy and insubstantial, a creeping suggestion, but these were like bands of steel. I struggled, but the Sloth-woven net weighed me down. The more I tried to move, the tighter it got. As it tightened, Sloth claimed me.
Sleep. More than anything, I wanted to sleep. I was so tired. I knew there was something I was supposed to be doing, but remembering what, exactly, took too much effort. Better to rest now, just for a little while, and worry about it later. Whatever “it” was. My eyelids drifted shut.
The tendrils loosened slightly, letting me curl up on my side. They didn’t feel like a net anymore; they felt like a soft, warm sleeping bag, enveloping me in coziness. Nice. The floor, covered with thin, cheap commercial carpeting, was surprisingly comfy—except something dug into my thigh. I reached down to see what it was. Oh, right. My dagger in its sheath. How odd that I’d strap on a dagger before taking a nap. I adjusted the sheath so it wasn’t directly under my leg. There, that felt better.
I let my consciousness sink toward oblivion. It felt good, so good, to rest.
I wanted to sleep, but I couldn’t. A strong, unpleasant smell, like dirty diapers mixed with month-old body odor, wrinkled my nose. I forced my eyes open, but I could barely see through the warm, gray mist that clung to my face. Tendrils slithered into my nose and down my throat. They squeezed my body. This is bad, I thought, strangely calm. The Peccatum was cocooning me in Sloth—and that was where Sloth became a truly deadly sin. If I didn’t do something, the demon would smother me. Sloth would seep into my body until my lungs couldn’t be bothered to draw in air, until my own heart grew too lethargic to beat. Yet the realization felt far away and unimportant. Sleep was so much more appealing.