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.
Stinking gray tendrils clogged my nose. I couldn’t breathe. My mouth opened in a gasp; invading Sloth filled it like dirty cotton. I gagged. A spark of self-preservation flared in me, and I snorted, trying to clear the tendrils from my nose. My hand lay near the hilt of my dagger. In the tight cocoon, I couldn’t move enough to get my hand around it, but my fingers walked the dagger, inch by inch, from its sheath. Each inch felt like a mile; all I wanted was to stop and rest. But I kept going. When the blade was clear, I angled it upward and poked at the Sloth that smothered me. It gave a little, and I forced the dagger upward. Sloth dissolved around the blade, adding the stench of sulfur and brimstone to the stink in the air.
I pressed my advantage, cutting a bigger hole in the cocoon. When I managed to grip the dagger’s hilt, I swept the blade back and forth. In a moment, my arm was free, and I sliced away the Sloth that was wrapped around my head. Sloth recoiled, the cocoon loosened, and I pushed myself into a sitting position. I drew my second dagger and sliced with both hands, cutting the tightly woven cocoon to shreds.
More tendrils reached for me, but I severed them as they approached. Stinking yellow smoke filled the room. I crawled toward the conference table, where a bottle of holy water rested against one of the legs. I got under the table and grabbed the bottle. About a quarter of its contents remained. I splashed holy water over myself and stayed where I was, directly beneath the Peccatum. Tendrils of Sloth slithered on the floor around me, searching, but the holy water kept me hidden, even as I coughed Sloth out of my lungs. Gray clouds puffed from my mouth as I hawked up the last of it.
The door burst open. One of the dieters—the woman who’d told me to get out—stormed into the room like an avenging Fury. She was no longer a yellow lump of Gluttony; now she was burning with Anger. Her face was scarlet, and she was wrapped in flames. Behind her loomed two bodybuilders, both of them also in the fiery clutches of Anger.
The woman scanned the room until her eyes locked onto me. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” she screamed. In the human plane, she couldn’t see the demon that wrapped her in flames. Only me. And I was the target of a massive Anger overdose.
She rushed into the room, fingers curled into claws, and swiped at me under the table. When I drew back, she kicked. I tossed some holy water on her leg, extinguishing the flaming tendrils that clutched her. She staggered back, confused.
Her bodybuilding friends charged me. I threw holy water at one. The other made it to the far side of the table and grabbed my ankle. I shook the bottle over his hand, but the few remaining drops of holy water barely dimmed the flames. He dragged me from under the table.
I slashed his forearm with one of my daggers—barely a scratch, but he let go. I scrambled to my feet. He bellowed and charged at me, arms swinging. I ducked and ran around behind him. When he turned, his arm drawn back for another punch, I sliced through the tendril of Anger that held him. He staggered as it let him go, and gazed at his own fist as if wondering where it had come from.
With a screech, the woman launched herself at me, her fingernails aimed at my eyes. I sidestepped her and stuck out my foot, tripping her and sending her sprawling. As she fell, I slashed through the Anger tendril that clutched her. But then one of the bodybuilders charged again.
I could take him. I could take all three of them. As a shapeshifter, I’m stronger than any human, even one who spent most of his time pumping iron when he wasn’t in the grip of Sloth. Fighting off these norms wasn’t what worried me. The Peccatum could keep this up forever. As soon as I severed a tendril, it sent out a new one, possessing the human with Anger again. Shouts and footsteps came from the hallway, as more Anger-possessed norms stormed the conference room. And the holy water I’d doused myself with was wearing off—I didn’t have any more.
Tendrils of Sloth snaked toward me. I could sever them with bronze, but they’d keep coming. Eventually they’d get me. And I’d stand still, indifferent, while a throng of enraged dieters and bodybuilders beat me to bloody mush.
I had to get close enough to drive my blade into the demon’s head.
Again, all three norms in the room flamed with Anger. They spread out, trying to encircle me. The woman snarled.
Her fury gave me an idea. The thing about sins—they’re equal opportunity. They don’t care what their object is.
“Hey,” I said to her, “did you hear what that guy said about you?” I pointed at the closest bodybuilder. “He called you a fat cow!”
The dieter stopped in her tracks. Her head whipped toward the bodybuilder, her eyes narrowed with rage.
“And you know what she called you?” I asked the bodybuilder. “A stupid slab of meat!”
The two of them bellowed and charged each other. They went down, wrestling on the floor. As soon as they hit, the other bodybuilder ran at me. When he got close, I pointed at the wrestlers and said, “ That guy said you’re a wimp and his grandma can bench-press twice as much as you.” He ran right past me and jumped into the fray.
I didn’t waste any time. I ran to the Peccatum and plunged both my daggers into its head. I moved the blades around, making as much contact with the oily mist as possible. Tentacles thrashed. More norms, possessed by Anger, barged into the room. Barely glancing at me, they were drawn to where the Anger was strongest, the three people pummeling each other on the floor. The newcomers leapt into the brawl.
Anger lashed at me, too, cutting into me with fiery whips. I gritted my teeth. Let it. I channeled the fury into my attack on the demon, stabbing and slicing and slashing the disgusting blob. I hacked through the Anger tentacle at its root. My rage diminished, but that didn’t slow down my attack on the head.
The Peccatum began to deflate. It tried to regenerate its Anger tentacle, but the result was thin and pale, barely flickering. One by one, tentacles dropped from the body and withered, curling like dried-up slugs. Across the room, the grunts and smacks of fighting ceased. I moved the bronze blades through the demon’s body like I was stirring a big vat of sludge. The vat got smaller and smaller, until the Peccatum collapsed on itself. A puddle of grayish glop spread across the table. Thick, viscous strings oozed over the edge.
I wiped my blades, resheathed the daggers, and turned around. People stood in the room, looking dazed. The Anger had worn off, and they weren’t quite sure what had hit them. The bodybuilders were helping the dieter to her feet. Her dress was torn and she had a black eye, but she’d held her own. She clutched a big clump of hair (once she noticed it in her hand she flung it away with a gasp), and the faces of both bodybuilders bore long, bloody scratch marks. All three apologized profusely to each other. Those who’d joined the fight late slunk quietly out the door.
As I left the conference room, one of the bodybuilders was making a date with the dieter. “Dinner?” he asked. The idea made her turn green—not surprising after all that pizza. They agreed on a movie instead.
Back in the lobby, the receptionist looked bewildered and a little green herself. She dialed the gym owner to come and fill out the final paperwork and cut me a check. He’d been smart enough to stay far away from the club once the Peccatum got out of control. Now, I assured him over the phone that it was safe to come back, and he said he was on his way.
