The smog hunched over the Los Angeles basin was particularly thick and unyielding today. The Sin of Lust sat in a tree on the roadside of Mulholland Drive, watching the noon sun struggle to pierce the hazy veil so it could shine on the valley below.

The metropolis was as busy as ever, full of irreverent mortals too busy to take a breath and notice the world suffocating around them. Cars whipped by on the drive behind Amoroth and tourists oohed and awed over the view, but none of them had seen her. None considered looking up.

Amoroth's hair bobbed with the wind as she smoked and waited in her arboreal perch. Her phone began to ring, causing two passing joggers to glance around in confusion, and the Sin huffed as she stuck her cigarette between her lips and fished the phone from her pocket. She was expecting several emails from Dorian—but this was not emails. This was a phone call. From Jackson.

"Hell and damnation," Amoroth softly fumed as she accepted the call and held the phone to her ear. "Amoroth speaking."

"Why aren't you here?" came Jackson's reedy command.

"Your tone leaves a lot to be desired, Jackson dear," she said as she inspected her nails. An inebriated lowlife climbing the unkempt hillside spotted her in the tree. He stared, baffled and unsteadied, until he toppled backward and disappeared into the bush. Amoroth snorted.

"I don't care if you don't like my tone!" Jackson yelled, pausing to have a hacking cough fit. "The corporation is in a nosedive and the CEO isn't. Even. Here!"

"The corporation is not in a nosedive. My presence isn't required. Not at the moment."

"Your presence is required if I say it is. I own you!"

The bark on the tree crackled as the sap froze and the leaves wilted, falling one by one.

"The profits for this quarter are unacceptable. You told me this problem wouldn't affect my bottom-line—but it is. There are news vans and police cruisers outside my house every day and night! You will fix this now, Amoroth!"

"I am handling the problem. You own nothing, you sniveling punk," Amoroth retorted as she flexed her fingers and tried to rein in the miniature climate shift.

"I own you. Even after forty years, I could call our arrangement void and you'd get nothing. I could tell the world exactly what you are."

Amoroth stood on the branch, ripping twigs away from her face. "You could," she acquiesced, sucking essence through her bared teeth. None of the humans had noticed the snowcapped tree yet. "And I'd be banished—but I can promise you, boy, I'd rip your head off before I went, soul or no soul. And yes, you could tell the world that I'm a big bad monster. But remember, Jackson, I'm not the only shark swimming in the abyss. I'm not even a big shark, really. You should think before sticking your blood-soaked hands into the water."

The Sin didn't wait for his response. She crushed the phone in her fist, swearing when she remembered the emails she was supposed to check. The crumbled remains fell from her palm with the leaves.

Darius appeared in an adjacent tree, his heavier weight causing the chilled foliage to creak ominously. Amoroth's eyes narrowed as she dusted off her hands.

"About time," she spat as she stepped forward from her perch. The younger Sin shifted through the Realm to land on the bough at Darius' side—and she noted the air about his sizable frame rippled with cold, his eyes black and his teeth narrowed. Amoroth shivered before she could restrain herself.

The Sin of Pride tilted his ear toward Amoroth, lowering his chin to his chest. "That was an...interesting conversation, fifth-born."

Amoroth's lips pressed together. She averted her eyes, allowing her gaze to wander over the bursting county below. "It's none of your concern, prick."

The older Sin didn't rise to her provocation. Amoroth knew he was on the edge of starvation, that he was precariously close to his end and the void yawned wide before Darius, as it did for all the Sins. It came for all of them, eventually. Darius was no longer capable of handling a contract similar to Amoroth's, though she had her doubts over whether or not Pride had ever been capable of completing a contract that took political and financial finesse. Too much had changed. The speed of the world would overcome his ability to adapt, and therein lied the true killing blow to any Sin. The ancient ones became too tired, too bored, too something, and they could no longer change.

That Darius was here at all, preparing to interrogate a syndicate, spoke of his desperation.

Of course, Amoroth was here as well.

"Hmph. Fine. Are you prepared? Did you give your shadeborn a kiss goodbye?" she mocked, shifting out of his reach.

Darius' dark eyes swiveled to land upon her. The glassy surface below his lids reflected the harshness of the bleary sunlight. "I've no time for your juvenile tongue." Having spoken, the Sin of Pride vanished in a gasp of soot. Irritated, Amoroth followed suit.

She appeared a number of miles away in the valley she had been overlooking not seconds before, caught in the shadow of a church falling across her and the Sin of Pride, concealing their presence on the aging street. A birch tree leaned its generous bulk onto the side of the diminutive basilica, plastering the sharp roofline with dead foliage. The roots worked their way to the sidewalk, where they buckled the pitted concrete slabs, and the constant geological tremors that plagued the basin wrought hairline cracks into the stucco façade of the unnamed church.

Darius stared at the steeple with a sneer on his lips. "I forgot the Arcanum disguises their, ah, congregation."

Amoroth sniffed and wiped the vestiges of ash from her lapel. "They've more sages in their number than is typical. Pretending to preach in Latin allows them a chance to conduct their magic under the guise of religion."

"Clever." The Sin of Pride held his hand before himself. Violet constructs flared to life in the air and fizzled beneath the grating pressure of Darius' presence. "Perhaps too clever."

"They've nothing else to do but attempt to be clever." Amoroth strolled past Darius and shoved through the metal door. He came after her, trailing with silent, ominous intention.

The interior of the church was banal, lit by a single dusty fixture and a skylight clouded by the untrimmed tree outside. A man—mage—in traditional priest garb rose from his seat in the alcove when he heard them enter the sanctuary. Confusion was plain on his spelled countenance.

"Hello! The, ah, church isn't open for worship today," the man said, clasping his hands together as Amoroth and Darius continued to approach. The runt of a man was one of the aforementioned sages—a so-called "materialistic mage," denomination of their kind who used to words or other paraphernalia to anchor and direct his power. If he'd been a wizard—a construct mage, one of those who warded the bloody church—he would've felt the invisible circles beneath the feet of the Sins dissolving with pained, static sighs.

"Oh, we're not here for the good word. Not today." Amoroth smirked, allowing energy to spill into her eyes and elicit the expected response from the mage. He paled and froze in place, his cross swinging freely about his ruddy neck. "Where is Bekras?"

He attempted to backpedal but caught the hem of his pants on a pew and tumbled to the dirty carpet. "W-who?"

Amoroth worked at her lip with her teeth, striving for patience. "Bekras. Bekras Gray. Where is Bekras?"

The mage fumbled at the neckline of his buttoned shirt, discarding the clerical collar so he could coax free a silver medallion. His quivering lips parted to form the first part of an incorrect banishment incantation—but Amoroth had already crossed the sanctuary and ripped the medallion from his pudgy hand.

She was sick and tired of people trying to banish her.

"What is with you people and silver?" she snarled as she pulverized the flimsy metal in her palm. "Do you honestly believe this shit does anything at all?!"

"Lust."

Amoroth snapped to attention, finding Darius at the altar. He shoved aside the false icons, letting them hit the covered floor with muffled thuds. His long-fingered hands splayed themselves on the altar's top, then fanned across the expanse. Runes glittered like embossed gems before vanishing in broken fractals of color, and the image of the altar wavered once the script broke, finally disappearing to reveal a set of concrete stairs leading down into the dark.

Amoroth tossed the blithering mage aside. He smacked his head on one of the pews and knocked himself senseless, which was all well and good in the end. The two Sins descended the cramped stairs, cognizant of constructs and runes embedded into the very earth surrounding them. The Gray Arcanum were up-and-coming, powerful, but they were not as learned as their eastern counterparts, not as storied and entrenched.

Los Angeles' Cult of the River, a mercenary corp of mages contracted to Blue Fire, spread out across the whole of the bloody world, was meant to be controlled and regulated by the Itherian mages back east. Here, the Cult was a half-baked bunch of ingrates hardly capable of stringing an illusion incantation together, because no one wanted to be sent so far west and anyone with real talented stayed in Itheria. The Arcanum had contracted the ferrymen to create several constructs and wards meant to hinder creatures of Amoroth's ilk—but they didn't have the prowess to ward against the presence of a minor Sin, let alone a monster like Darius.

It wasn't long before the Sins came upon their quarry. In fact, Bekras Gray came to find them. As a wizard, he must have felt the constructs being obliterated by the anathema of Darius' presence, the magic and essence vanishing as he cannibalized it with every breath. Bekras skittered into one of the gloomy halls burrowed beneath the mages' deceitful church and gaped. The man was short and thin, completely shaved but for the two dark brows curved above his brown eyes.

"Lust," he uttered as his breath escaped in a panicked, unrepentant gust. "Why are you here? I thought we had an agreement? Who is—?" He spotted Darius and went silent with dread. The Sin of Pride slipped further into his hunger, the visage of a famished Absolian becoming more prevalent. His presence dominated the thin corridor and paved a veneer of fragile ice upon the tiled floor.

"Oh, we do have an agreement. I am simply here to ensure you abide by it, Bekras." She cocked a hip, her arms crossed beneath her ample chest. "Show us to a room where we discuss this amicably."

Bekras swallowed but did as the Sin said because he really had little choice in the matter. He'd invited the devil into his house, as it were, and it was notoriously difficult to exorcise a welcomed evil. He could summon a mage from Blue Fire, but he'd have to confess to his prior dealings with the Sin of Lust, and he would have to bend his knee to the Itherian mages—the Arcanum's bitter rivals. Bekras would never do it. He would rather bend his neck to Amoroth.

Bekras escorted the Sins to a nearby study. The air in the room smelt heavily of viscera and bleach, though neither Sin commented on the stench, having smelt far worse in their long years. Amoroth chose the larger armchair and positioned herself upon it so she had a view of the majority of the room. Darius leaned against the far wall, his eyes dark and lost to distant thoughts.

Bekras sat on the stained ottoman, reeking of spent mana and withered cologne.

"Allow me to be blunt; are you killing Klau employees?"

The mage's eyes rounded as the Sin's compulsion swept through him. "No."

"Do you know who is killing Klau employees?"

"No."

"Is the Gray Arcanum involved, in any shape or form, with people who know or are killing Klau employees?"

"No."

Amoroth hummed as she crossed her legs, considering the twitchy little man. "I am satisfied...for the moment. Pride?"

Bekras wasn't afforded the opportunity to blink before Darius bore down upon him. The man snarled as his shoulder struck the floor and broke with an audible crack, Darius' foot pressed on that wounded shoulder, the Sin seeming to grow taller in the finite space of the subterranean room. The shadows lost saturation and heat as they drew nearer and nearer the furious creature, hellfire crackling softly in his veins.

"I'm not like her," Darius murmured as he increased the pressure on the wriggling mage's arm. "I won't coerce you, little wizard. I've no need for such tricks." Blue flames emerged from his palms and steadily climbed Pride's blackened hands. Amoroth's brow rose. She hadn't seen that particular trick before. "Regardless of your answers to me, I may kill you for sheer spite."

Sparks dribbled from Darius' fingertips and Bekras screamed.

Frowning, the Sin of Lust lifted her gaze toward the closed door. As far as Amoroth could tell, there were three other mages on the premises—but none came running for their leader. Nasty as they could be on their own, she knew mages were pack animals by nature—or perhaps more like a swarm, bloody irritating insects that they were. Three mages were not enough to face two Sins, one of whom was Original, and so they would wait for more to arrive. By then, Amoroth and Darius would be gone.

"You need to persuade me, Bekras Gray. Persuade me to spare your pathetic life."

Amoroth considered Darius as the eons of bitterness and hatred pooled from his pores in terrifying effulgence. It was heavy, that outpouring of disquiet, of fear, of sublime eternity, standing upon the mage's chest, and though she may hate the Sin, Amoroth could acknowledge one thing; apart from Balthier, Darius was the most terrifying Sin there was.

She laughed.

Bekras sputtered weak-willed spells under his breath. As a syndicate leader, he was obligated to know a second branch of arcane magics—but either the spells weren't activating or they had no effect upon the elder demon. Darius' grin bore sharp teeth.

"I am not being persuaded, Bekras."

The mage screamed. "God save me—I don't know what you want! What do you want?!"

Darius' smile became fixed in eerie stillness, a derelict vessel floating upon a sea of hellfire. "Have you heard...of the Exordium Insaniam?"

"The what?!" the mage cried, his eyes squeezed shut so he couldn't see the demon. "I—I don't know!"

The mage may not recognize the term—but Amoroth did. Her gaze narrowed as unease prickled along her spine.

"You wouldn't be lying to me, would you, Bekras?"

"No!"

Darius emitted a deep, primal note of satisfaction as he continued to bear down upon the man's chest. Ribs were in danger of being broken.

The mage coughed in pain, fighting to lift the Sin's foot. It was impossible. Bekras didn't know Darius could shift his weight and crush him—and the concrete under him—in a literal instant. "W-wait! I'm telling you the truth! You said you'd let me live—!"

"King's breath, you're a pathetic mage," Amoroth mumbled, stroking the ice that had formed upon her chair's armrests.

"No, Bekras, I told you to persuade me." The muscles in Darius' leg tightened, jerking downward in a sharp motion. Bones broke with tired cracks. Bekras screamed in agony and rage. There were five mages in the vicinity now, their energy building within the hall outside this deathly study. The Sins did not have much longer for their interrogation before their visit ended in a slaughter. "I am not persuaded."

"Christ!" Bekras panted, his fingers darting in clumsy circles upon his chest in an attempt to form numbing constructs. "What do you want?! What do you want me to say?! I'll say anything—I'll give you anything! Money? Spells? Anything!"

Darius' tongue probed his lip, exaggerating the shadows upon his elongated teeth. "Anything, you say...?"

* * *