5

Ever since he’d met that girl, nothing seemed to be going right for Lux. He’d left her in the woods the night before with the full intention of finding a replacement girl for Valefor and returning to his normal life. Unfortunately, he’d been unable to obtain a girl.

Every time he met a suitable one, he’d feel this weird knot in his stomach when he thought about taking her back to Valefor. He’d never felt anything like it, at least not that he could remember, and he wondered if it was guilt. That seemed to be a common affliction among humans.

Valefor hadn’t tried contacting him yet, or at least as far as he knew. Lux had been avoiding his usual haunts, including his home. He didn’t want to hear what Valefor had to say about all of this, not until he had something better to give him than a lame excuse.

The night had felt long and exhausting, and he’d rented a room just so he could wash up and get some sleep. But sleep never really came. He tossed and turned, feeling a weird anxiety spreading over him. No matter what he did, he couldn’t get comfortable or shake the feeling of dread.

His solution to this was his solution to all of life’s problems: find a beautiful girl to help him pass the time. Lux didn’t even care about finding someone for Valefor anymore. He just needed someone to calm his nerves, to take the edge off the way he felt. He dressed to the nines in a new suit, his hair slicked back, and set out to find someone to do the trick.

Then Lux discovered a disturbing problem he’d never had before. He couldn’t do it. He could see a beautiful girl, even go up and talk to her, but the nauseated pit in his stomach only intensified the more he interacted with her. As soon as he’d lean in for a kiss, all he could think about was kissing Lily. Her lips had been cool and tasted of peppermint, and nothing would ever be as sweet. The hair on the back of his neck tingled.

And just like that, the very thought of kissing another person disgusted him. He tried three different times with three different girls, but he could never bring himself to kiss them. He could charm them as much as he wanted, but he got no pleasure from it. In the end, if he couldn’t have more than a conversation, he didn’t see the point.

At the very edge of Insontia, buried in a cave on the side of the cliff, was a dank little bar called the Devil’s Knee. The lights were dim, the patrons were ugly, and it smelled of wet dog and urine, so it was the kind of place that Lux never frequented. That made it perfect for avoiding Valefor, but that’s not why he went. On any given night, at any given time, he could find Gula seated there, getting sloshed on stale mead and eating barbecued goblin wings.

Lux didn’t really have friends. His lifestyle didn’t allow for that, but Gula was the closest thing he had to one. He’d known him the longest since they’d joined Valefor around the same time, and Gula had to be the friendliest of the peccati. In fact, out of the seven peccati, only Lux and Gula seemed interested in interaction on any level. The rest were happier doing their business and keeping to themselves as much as possible.

When Lux pushed open the door to the bar, a hunchback with one arm tried to trip him. Lux knocked him down without a second thought and looked for Gula. He always had the same booth, near the back under a broken lantern that flickered just above his head. Most of the patrons were horrible, sniveling looking men, if they were even human, and Gula stood out like a sore thumb.

Gula was a massive man, easily weighing a quarter of a ton, and well over six-feet-tall. Lux had never seen Gula come or go, so he could never understand exactly how he fit into the booth. His dark hair hung just past his shoulders, and his green eyes were always smiling. Lux had always suspected that Gula would be an attractive man underneath the rolls of fat, but he’d never had the chance to see him that way.

Thick red barbecue sauce covered his mouth, hands, and face. Even when he wiped it clean, his skin had a perpetual stain from being covered in it so frequently. A platter on the table overflowed with the greasy, fat goblin wings, and their brittle bones littered the floor where Gula discarded them. An amber pitcher of mead sat at the table, its edges marked with barbecue lipstick from where he drank from it. Gula had no need for tableware of any kind.

“How are the wings tonight?” Lux smiled and slid into the booth across from him. He leaned as far back in the booth as he could, afraid of getting splatter on his shirt.

“Lux, my good man!” Gula’s face spread into a happy grin. “I didn’t see you come in!” He hadn’t seen him because he never bothered to look up from his food, not unless it was gone.

“I’m quiet as a mouse.” Lux looked away from his friend and motioned for the bartender to bring him a pitcher.

“Well, that’s probably very good about now.” Gula wiped off his chin with the back of his arm.

“What do you mean?” Lux slipped off one of his rings and bobbed it back and forth over his knuckles. He did it mostly to busy himself, since he hated watching Gula eat. Few things in life were less appetizing than watching him slam down wing after wing.

“You know.” Gula looked around and lowered his voice, then leaned across the table as much as his gut would let him. “Our boss.”

“What are you talking about?” Lux stopped fiddling with his ring and looked at him sharply.

“You don’t know what you didn’t do?” Gula’s face scrunched with confusion.

“No. I don’t even know what that means.” Lux shook his head. The bartender dropped a pitcher and a glass on the table, making them clank loudly. Lux barely glanced at him, preferring to study Gula’s reactions.

“What did you do last night?” Gula asked, still keeping his voice quiet.

“This is about the job?” Lux knew it was about the job, but he wanted to know how much Gula, and Valefor, knew about all of this, so he played dumb. He also had no intention of telling anyone about Lily, or what he’d done with her.

“Did you do the job last night?” Gula asked.

“I picked up a package,” Lux replied evasively and poured himself a glass of mead. The glass was still dirty, so he wiped at the rim with his sleeve before taking a drink. “Why? What did you hear? How do you even know about it?”

“How do you think?” Gula gave him a hard look and bit into another wing.

“I don’t know what you do or how you find out what’s going on.” Lux stared down at the glass on the table, turning it absently. “I mean this as inoffensively as possible, but I’ve never understood the point of you. As far as I can tell, you only sit here, eating and drinking.”

“I do more than that,” Gula said jovially. “I do whatever the boss asks of me, but this is the point of me. We’re all supposed to spread our part, and luckily for me, my part is eating and drinking as much as I can.” He took another huge bite, and with a mouth full of food, he continued. “Your part has always been women, which is why they suspect you have a hand in this.”

“What are you talking about?” Lux looked up at him and wiped at spittle that had landed on his forehead. “And please don’t talk with your mouth full, Gula. This is a very expensive suit.”

“You have more suits than I have goblin wings.” Gula rolled his eyes and gulped down the rest of his food. “Last night, were you sent to pick up a girl?”

“I was.” Lux took another drink of his mead.

“That girl never arrived at her appointed destination,” Gula looked at him seriously. “And I don’t want to know where she is or what happened. The boss wants me to find out and report back to him, but he won’t come out here to speak to me, so …” He shrugged.

“Can’t he just get another girl?” Lux asked. “There’s nothing special about this one.”

As soon as he said it, he knew it was a lie. He couldn’t place it, but there had to be something about her. He couldn’t stop thinking of her, and he’d disobeyed Valefor for the first time in his long tenure of service.

“I don’t know,” Gula shook his head. “He wants this one, but he isn’t saying why. She’s very valuable to him.” He lowered his voice even more, afraid of who might be overhearing. That’s why he never used Valefor’s name in public, lest someone be listening. “You need to bring him that girl.”

“What if I can’t?” Lux asked.

“Did you kill her?” Gula’s eyes widened with shock.

“No, you know I’ve never been fond of murder. It’s far too messy.” He took off his ring so he could roll it over his knuckles again and stared off at an empty point on the wall. “I just… I can’t give her to him.” He sighed heavily, unsure of how to explain it. “For one thing, I don’t have her. But even if I did … she’s put some kind of spell on me. I can’t stop thinking about her or worrying, and I can’t let him destroy her.”

“You know what your problem is?” Gula asked. “You’re too pretty. You’ve always been too pretty, and you get everything you want. You can’t always get it, Lux. You can have nearly everything, but you can’t have the things that belong to our boss.”

“I’ve been afforded all the same opportunities in this life as you,” Lux shook his head. “And that’s not what this is about. It has nothing to do with our boss.”

“I don’t understand what’s going on with you. But he will kill you,” Gula said. “I’m telling you this as a friend. You need to bring him the girl before he destroys you. I like you, and I don’t want to learn to deal with some new jerk because you let a pretty girl dazzle you.”

“I can’t do it.” The pain in his chest and stomach intensified and Lux squirmed uncomfortably. “I don’t care what he does to me. I can’t bring her to him.”

“You’re putting her needs in front of your own?” Gula asked skeptically.

“It appears that way,” Lux sighed and rubbed his temple. He’d never put anyone before himself, and it was such a horrible time to start.

“You’re freaking me out a little bit,” Gula said.

“It’s freaking me out,” Lux admitted drearily and took another drink of his mead. “So what am I to expect from him? Total and utter destruction?

“I don’t know why I’m telling you this,” Gula exhaled.

“Telling me what?” Lux cocked his head at him.

“He’s going after the girl.” He rested his burly arms on the table and leaned in. “He’s not concerned with you, at least not right now.”

“What do you mean he’s going after the girl?” Lux moved in his seat, facing Gula more face on. “He’s personally going to find her?”

“No, not yet, but he’s using everything he has,” Gula said. “He’s sending Ira and the canu after her.”

“Ira? The canu?” Lux asked incredulously. “Why didn’t you tell me this sooner?”

Gula was taken back his response. “I didn’t realize it was so important.”

“I’ve got to go.” Lux finished his drink in one quick swallow, relishing the way it burned bitterly down his throat, and got to his feet. “Thanks for your help.”

“Where are you going?” Gula looked up at him, getting more shocked and confused.

“I can’t let them find her. You know what they’ll do to her.” Lux shook his head and backed away to the door. “I have to get her first.”

Gula stared after him, his eyes wide and confused. As soon as he’d heard Ira’s name, Lux’s stomach had twisted painfully. The canu were bad enough, but he should’ve expected them. Ira, on the other hand, had a temper far worse than Valefor’s. Even if Valefor commanded Ira to bring Lily to him alive, which Lux wasn’t even sure was the case, it would be more likely that she would upset him, and Ira would kill her or hurt her.

The sun had already started setting, meaning Lux would have to go into the Necrosilvam in the dark to look for Lily. He didn’t care about the creatures in there, since they could do little to hurt him, but she’d be harder to find. Assuming she’d made it alive through the first night.

As he raced to the forest, he cursed himself for leaving her alone like that. What had he been thinking? The Necrosilvam was no place for a young girl, especially not one who’d had the peccati after her. He should’ve known that Valefor would send them after her. Truthfully, Lux was just lucky he hadn’t summoned all of them yet, and that his attention was focused on Lily so far.

That made him nervous, too. What was so special about Lily that Valefor wouldn’t even waste his anger on Lux for betraying him?