by Con Template
As he and Eclipse easily raced one another on the TV screen, Sloth laughed at my inquiry.
“Oh no,” he replied, completely engrossed in the game he was playing with Eclipse. He roughly tilted his remote control to make a right turn. “The Demons in my Kingdom are far more hard-working than these kids. They would never sleep in my presence.” He glanced quickly around the room. “These children are merely my entertainment. My college buddies as your kind would say.”
“Is there a reason why you’re hanging around here?” I asked further.
“Is there a reason why you enjoy being surrounded by the misery of others?” Sloth countered sadistically, nearly giving me a whiplash at the severity of his soft, but indicting, words. He roughly sloped his remote control to the left and spared a glance at me. He smirked upon seeing the shock on my face, enjoying the fact that I feared him so.
“Please watch your tone with her, Elder,” Eclipse said in my defense, his attention still on racing his brother on the TV screen. “I would hate to not only kick your ass in this game, but also outside it as well.”
Sloth smiled lightheartedly, obviously used to Eclipse speaking to him this way. It was clear that with anyone else, Sloth would kill them for daring to speak to him in such a rude manner. With his baby brother, he let it slide.
His cold eyes thawing, Sloth stopped hazing me.
“Being here,” he began in a professional and well-spoken tone, “amongst those who indulge in my sin is therapeutic and very entertaining. There are other places which promote my sin, but no place is a better playground than a college dorm.” He chuckled, casting a pitiful look at all the inebriated humans lying pathetically at his feet. “It is a gift to be around so many intelligent, yet lazy folks who are not working to their full potential and squandering their futures away. There is never a more beautiful way to watch my sin unfold than to be here, where the future of your kind lays, drooling pitifully at my feet while they waste their worthless lives away. Such a wonderful form of therapy if you ask me.”
The irony of his appearance was that even though he appeared very immature, Sloth was very articulate and, much like Eclipse, very intelligent. He looked like a kid who didn’t know better but spoke like a powerful entity who had seen the ages.
I knew then why Eclipse chose him to be his counselor for our dilemma.
Sloth was a wise Demon, and any wisdom we received from him would be invaluable.
Sloth used this moment to turn to Eclipse, awareness brimming in his cold and knowledgeable eyes. “So how goes it, baby brother? I’m gathering that you would not voluntarily bring your human here unless you needed something. And judging by how arrogant you are, I’m also gathering that what you need is exorbitant because you would not seek help otherwise.”
“ . . . I am screwed,” Eclipse voiced to his older brother as soon as Sloth opened that door. His tone was dejected. He was no longer playful or arrogant. He was simply miserable.
“Now, now,” Sloth appeased, still focusing on the game. His demeanor remained aloof. “I’m sure whatever it is could be easily resolved.”
Eclipse paused in mid-race, fully turning to his brother. “A part of her soul has been stolen.”
Sloth’s eyes enlarged as the sounds of the TV racecar crashing could be heard in the background. Automatically, the game of racing was over and the game of counseling was about to begin. He faced Eclipse, shock reveling in his previously emotionless eyes. “You are screwed.”
Eclipse dropped his remote control and groaned to himself. He massaged his temple as a child would when he realized that life had effectively screwed him over. “Did you know about this when I took on the job?”
Sloth laughed disbelievingly, shaking his head as the weight of this revelation came over him. He looked at me briefly. “It’s been said that she would be a difficult one to convert, but I had no idea that one of the difficulties lies with a part of her soul being stolen.”
“What do I do?” Eclipse went on to ask, helplessness lining his usually egotistical demeanor. “How do I even begin to go about finding it?”
“Finding the stolen piece of her soul isn’t an impossible task, but it will be a time consuming one.”
“My time here is limited,” Eclipse stated in exasperation.
“Yes, I realize that.”
Even a blind person could see the smile on Sloth’s face through his voice alone. Anyone who had half of a brain could detect that he didn’t feel any sympathy for Eclipse.
Raising his eyes to meet his brother’s, Eclipse confronted Sloth by bluntly stating, “You don’t seem too upset about it.”
“After the shit you pulled back home, you think I’m going to keel over and cry?” Sloth retorted, steel present in his voice. His angry eyes penetrated Eclipse’s fearless ones. The animosity in his tone was undeniable. Whatever happened in their past, Eclipse had fucked up royally, and Sloth wasn’t one to forget. “You’re lucky I’m not taking advantage of your dimmed conditions and killing you myself.” His eyes then landed on me. The severity in his gaze quickly manifested from one filled with animosity to one filled with pure amusement. “Though, of course, hearing about you being at the mercy of this cute little thing and a missing piece of her soul is more than entertaining for me.” Sloth’s eyes went over my outfit again, and I concluded all but too clearly how much Demons hated the color pink, especially when he said, “You may be the pinkest prospective Demon I’ve ever met, but I guess it’ll suffice if you possess the fundamental qualities that one needs to be a Demon.”
I bit back the desire to defend my favorite color and only used that moment to instinctively correct any misinterpretation that he may have had about my soul and humanity.
“I never agreed to give him my soul and I never agreed to become a Demon.”
Sloth’s expression turned cold at my words. Fuming, he relinquished all composure and turned back to Eclipse in disbelief.
“What the fuck are you doing? How long has it been? She should be on her knees begging you to convert her.”
“Drop this,” Eclipse warned his older brother, exhibiting absolutely no fear. “I know what I’m doing.”
“Do you?” Sloth inquired heatedly. “What have you been doing to persuade her to convert?”
Eclipse merely found interest in staring at the TV screen instead of answering him.
Despite Eclipse’s silence, Sloth persisted with his interrogation. “Have you killed her loved ones?”
“She has none.”
“Have you mutilated her body?”
Eclipsed laughed, giving his brother a dry look. “I want to sleep with this girl, and you think I’m going to mutilate her body? Are you crazy, bro? I’ll skin you alive before I touch her like that.”
“Fair enough,” Sloth replied blithely, casting another glance at me before turning back to Eclipse. “What have you done? Have you even tried to ruin her life?”
“I’ve tortured her,” Eclipse offered as if there was some evil connotation behind it.
Sloth’s face grew suspicious. He appraised my outfit one more time. Then he dryly pointed out the obvious. “How? Tortured people don’t wear pink.”
Eclipse laughed again, glancing at me with doting eyes. “I’ve been making her accident-prone and giving her F’s.”
“F’s?” Sloth twisted his brows in confusion. “Is that some kind of disease?”
“F’s,” Eclipse elaborated, “on her homework, tests, and projects.”
A blank look slated Sloth’s face. “You’ve been giving her bad grades and making her trip in the process?” Sloth scrutinized Eclipse for a few serious moments. “How much do you like this girl?”
“Enough to not make her more miserable than I have to,” Eclipse answered unthinkingly.
I must admit, even though I had been complaining to Eclipse about how horrible he had been making my life, it put everything into perspective after hearing Sloth sum our whole situation up. Eclipse had been going easy on me. S
uddenly, I had a whole new appreciation for Eclipse. I couldn’t imagine having Sloth or some other Demon in pursuit of my soul. I doubted that any other Demon would look at me like I was a treasured gem and treat me with kid gloves like Eclipse had. Truthfully, I’d take bad grades, tripping every now and then, and sexual frustration over worse demonic tortures any day.
Sloth let out an exasperated breath, interrupting my thoughts with simple words that wrapped up our dilemma. “You are so royally screwed.”
“Don’t concern yourself with my endeavor to turn her into a Demon,” Eclipse appeased, bringing his brother back on topic. “I can deal with that all by myself. It is the missing portion of her soul that has me doing double takes and has me coming to you for help. I’ve never heard of anything taking a mere part of someone’s soul. I didn’t even know it was possible to take only a part of someone’s soul until now. I thought souls were unbreakable.”
“It rarely happens, but it does occur,” Sloth explained, getting serious as well. “Sometimes the cause could be minute—a slip of error, so-to-speak. This in itself has existed in the past and continues to exist now, where a human would be born with a part of their soul missing.”
“Hence the existence of serial killers,” I unthinkingly said out loud.
Although Sloth nodded, it only appeared to be a conditional agreement to my observation.
“Humans, even with small pieces of their souls missing, would lack the basic and fundamental skills to be humane. Some, depending on how big that missing piece is and depending on that individual’s own personal strength, could overcome this deficiency and lead a normal life. Though they would have the innate need to perform sadistic tendencies, they, at the very least, could control it. Some could control it so well that they could lead normal lives, never once indulging in their sadism.”
He smirked, going right into the reason why his nod to me was only conditional and not absolute.
“But those, as you have just mentioned, serial killers, pedophiles, and other classifications of humans who do not follow the bylaws of the human world, all of them are not always products of a missing soul. Some, even with their souls intact, are truly horrible people who are simply sick in the head. The truth is that there are very few in the world who are actually born with a piece of their soul missing. For many, they are just truly and utterly fucked up human beings who take joy in inflicting pain onto other living things.”
“I’m aware of genetic mutations,” Eclipse began resignedly, “but I’m talking about the deliberate stealing of someone’s soul.”
Sloth nodded at his younger brother, returning to the original topic. “Like I said, a missing portion of someone’s soul could be attributed to a simple genetic mutation or it could be something bigger—something that entails a powerful entity being involved in this mess. In the olden times, there were whispers of ancient entities, if the conditions were right for them, being able to take a part of someone’s soul without their permission.”
Eclipse gaped at his brother in absolute astonishment. “What’s the use of stealing only a part of a human’s soul?”
“I don’t know,” Sloth replied honestly. His expression was disconcerted as well. “Whatever it is, you know that you need her along with you to figure it out.”
Eclipse acquiesced with a sigh. “I know.”
“But don’t you need the owner’s permission to take their soul?” I asked, perplexity threading my voice. I glanced at Eclipse and then turned to Sloth. I thought about how easily something could steal a piece of someone’s soul—or my soul to be exact—and wondered why Eclipse had to waste his time trying to persuade me to give him my soul if he could just take it from me. “I mean, why would Demons need to waste their time convincing humans to give them their souls if they could just take it without permission?”
“There is a binding spell that comes with the human soul,” Sloth explained, picking up a bottle of beer from the ground and drinking from it. “God’s grace, so-to-speak. No Demon could unbind the blessing that God graced upon your souls. Only humans themselves could unbind it, only humans themselves could renounce the gift God gave them. Only then could a Demon own their souls.”
He studied me carefully.
“But that binding spell is wrapped stringently upon the entire soul, making it virtually impossible for someone to attempt to steal it because the consequences are known to be very fatal. An entity has to be very, very powerful to be able to steal a part of someone’s soul because even with permission from the human, a soul cannot be broken apart, not unless something unearthly powerful is administering the ritual.”
Sloth then faced Eclipse.
“How did you know a part of her soul was missing, and why would you be so quick as to say that it has been stolen?”
“I attempted to channel the memory of the night she killed her family and I couldn’t see anything,” Eclipse began to explain.
Sloth gave him an unimpressed look. “And that simple impediment made you think that something actually stole a piece of her soul?”
“My hand,” Eclipse emphasized, holding his right hand up. “I held her cheek with it to channel her memories. During the procedure, it became burned and marred beyond the point of recognition. If this was any Demon other than a Royal Demon, then that Demon would’ve been obliterated on the spot.” Eclipse smirked self-deprecatingly. “A simple genetic mutation in her soul cannot harm me in this manner. To add to that, I could feel this barrier. It wouldn’t let me through.” Then, he gave his Elder brother the icing on the cake. “And during the procedure, the world grew violent, and from what Gracie told me, blood was pouring from the sky.”
Sloth’s eyes grew wide. He whipped his head towards me with the velocity of a cobra. “Blood poured from the sky?”
I nodded, feeling the fear run through me at the reminder of what I saw.
Sloth studied me with uncertainty. Not believing me, he suspiciously asked, “Blood everywhere?”
“Only the area around us,” I clarified quietly. “Everywhere else, rain was just rain. But in the circular area close to us, it was pouring blood.”
Apparently my specific explanation of how it rained stirred a nerve within Sloth. Dawning knowledge began to shine in his eyes. It was the type of ominous knowledge that one wouldn’t want to see, for it only meant bad news. I imagined that for Demons like Eclipse and Sloth, little to nothing unnerved them. Seeing their disconcerted demeanors, I couldn’t help but feel anxiety pillage through me as well.
Sloth turned back to Eclipse, concern teeming in his bronze eyes. “What did you see while you were attempting to channel her memories?”
“Darkness,” Eclipse replied. “Complete and utter darkness. It was like she didn’t exist for that brief moment.”
“A veil has been placed over her,” Sloth finally breathed out after all the cards had fallen into place for him.
Now it was Eclipse’s turn to give Sloth a blank and unimpressed stare for stating the obvious.
“We know that, Elder,” Eclipse deadpanned.
“Not the veil we know about, but another one—a more specific, more complicated, and more powerful one,” Sloth amended quickly. His eyes assessed me carefully. “Someone doesn’t want her remembering them. This would thereby mean that Grace here has stumbled upon something she wasn’t supposed to see when she was a child or this could be something bigger. The raining of blood meant that a powerful entity sacrificed a portion of their life-force to place a specific veil over her. This also explains why you saw nothing but darkness when you attempted to channel her memories. That entity’s sacrificed life-force literally took her memory to the grave with them.”
Sloth’s face grew firm as Eclipse and I gaped at him, completely stupefied with the bomb he threw on us. He averted his full attention back to Eclipse. Urgency pulsed in his voice.
“Whatever the case, your best bet is finding out what happened the night she murdered her family. It seems that everything in Grace’
s life stems back to that night. It only makes sense that if you were to find out what occurred, it would lead you closer to finding her missing soul. Know this though . . .”
A dark shadow crossed his face.
“Not every run-of-the-mill Demon can steal a part of someone’s soul. Not every run-of-the-mill Demon can elicit a binding spell so powerful that even a Dark Majesty cannot penetrate through it, and last but not least”—he eyed me—“not every run-of-the-mill Demon can find her.” His eyes swiveled back to Eclipse. “Even you needed help with lifting the first veil so that you could find her. Whoever this entity is, I’m sure it wasn’t an accident that only a part of her soul is missing. I’m also sure that it wasn’t an accident that it was Grace’s particular soul that was stolen. Whoever and whatever was behind this, you can bet that they will not give up that missing soul easily.”
Eclipse let out a groan once the enormity of this situation rained down on him. “I did not anticipate having to deal with all of this when I agreed to the deal.”
“You knew that it was difficult to begin with and you signed up anyway,” Sloth replied harshly, displaying no sympathy for his baby brother. “I already warned you once that converting her was a suicide mission, yet you still pushed for it. Now it seems that your suicide mission has become even more suicidal.”
“Have faith, big bro,” Eclipse pacified, doing well to pull himself out of his state of self-pity. “You know once I set my mind on something, I see it through to the very end.”
“And your end is very near, so I suggest you take things a bit more seriously, Junior,” Sloth retorted firmly. “You’re on a very tight schedule. It will be a time consuming task to find the missing portion of her soul. Once you find it, you need to convert her right away. With that in mind, I suggest that you stop trying to woo her and start persuading her more.”
When it looked like Eclipse was about to reply, his face, as well as Sloth’s, changed when they lifted their heads up in unison. It was like both had heard something in the air.