Sloth Read online

  “I see…” Mercy finally tasted her coffee. It needed a touch more cream. “Why me?”

  “Huh?”

  Sighing, Mercy leaned back in her seat. Fatigue washed over her again. Was it already time for her to take another nap? Now I’m threatened with endless sleep. Go figure. Wasn’t that what she was after not so long ago? “Why me? I’m sure I’m not the only suicidal woman in the world who could use some help. I’m far from the worthiest.”

  “How would you know that?”

  Mercy shrugged.

  “Well, if you must know how I chose to help you…” Acedia bit her lip. Her distaste for making eye contact was noted. “It was… fate! Right place, right time. I was looking for someone to help, and I heard you crying out for help! Next thing I know, you’re about to jump off a bridge, so I had to act quickly. Don’t exactly want to lose you to the darkness, now do I?”

  “Uh…” Mercy narrowed her eyes. “About this darkness everyone keeps talking about…”

  “That’s the last thing we should talk about. Look, I don’t have a lot of time. The more the day grows, the less I’m effective in the mortal realm. I’m here to give you a message.”

  Mercy crossed her arms. “I’m listening.”

  “You’ve done well so far,” Acedia continued. “You’re responding to treatment better than I anticipated. I honestly thought you would be more reticent with my style.”

  Mercy snorted. “Sleeping with beautiful women not of this world isn’t exactly hard to convince me to do.”

  “Be that as it may, you’re a stubborn woman… but that’s not your message.”

  “Well?”

  Acedia finally noticed the bit of cream in her hair. With an awkward smile and giggle, she pulled it out with her fingers, leaving behind a fine, white smear in her hair. “The first half of your therapy, if you may want to call it that, is the easiest. I’ve noticed that you’ve had difficulties containing your sinful ways once they’ve been blessed upon you again. That’s why I sent Sloth instead of the one I usually send third in line. You really needed to slow down and get some rest before you literally killed yourself. I mean… in some other fashion.”

  Mercy needed more coffee.

  “You must be careful going forward.” Acedia’s voice was graver than before. When Mercy took notice of that, her heart sank. “Mind your sinful ways before you fall deep into the darkness. You ask me what that place is. I’m afraid… I’m afraid that if I told you, you might recognize it already. To know that darkness is to always be attracted to it. When you’re undergoing your healing is when you’re most vulnerable to succumbing to that place.”

  The way she said it made Mercy look up from her coffee. “You care about me, huh?”

  “Of course I do.” Acedia gripped both sides of the table, nearly knocking the hot coffee out of Mercy’s hands. “I take what I do very seriously. Perhaps too seriously. What else is there for me to do, though? It’s what I was created to do.” She lessened her grip. “That’s why I must tell you to be careful. If I lose another lover to my sister, then I do not know what I will do.”

  “Does that… happen a lot?”

  Acedia looked away. “It didn’t used to.”

  That humility touched Mercy’s heart. This is real, I guess. I shouldn’t offend her. What good was offending a goddess trying to help her, anyway? Any malice Mercy felt toward her after the first night they met had melted away. Perhaps it was the sin slowly growing within her again. The more Mercy became whole, the more she appreciated the faith one minor deity had put into her.

  It was only right that she put her faith into Acedia.

  “I will take care of you, Mercy,” Acedia insisted. “If you are willing to put in the work and heal with me.”

  Mercy didn’t know what that meant. Instead of asking, however, she said, “For someone thousands of years old, you don’t look a day over…” She had to choose her words carefully. After all, the more she looked at Acedia, the less she could discern the goddess’s true age. Age meant nothing to her, after all. What was four thousand years? The length of mankind? She had been born from the cosmos to do one thing, and Mercy was merely next in line. Take her gift and run, girl. Even if it turns out you really are crazy, it won’t matter. Nobody must know.

  “I’ll… do my best.”

  “Here you go, hon.” Mercy’s attention was caught elsewhere as someone brought her breakfast platter, complete with eggs, hash browns, and bacon. Mercy gave the woman plenty of room to put down the plate. “Is your friend all right?”

  “Huh?” When Mercy looked in Acedia’s direction, she realized the goddess was gone. In her place was a woman with stringy black hair rubbing her eyes and yawning. She nearly knocked over the Italian soda before realizing it was there. “Oh… uh…” Mercy spotted the empty table next to them and immediately moved her plate and coffee over, as if that were where she had always meant to sit. “Sorry. My mistake.”

  She barely had the appetite to eat. The acidity of her coffee simmered in her stomach. As Mercy poked at her food, she thought about what Acedia said. She called me her lover… Mercy vaguely remembered that her nighttime visitors were a part of Acedia. Somehow. Did that mean she was really making love – all right, having crazy sex – with a being who could barely look at Mercy in the flesh without grinning like an idiot?

  She looks so many years younger than me but is really thousands of years old. Now that Mercy’s attentions were better focused on things that mattered, she considered the reality parting before her very eyes.

  Gods were real. At the very least, immortal beings with the power to meddle with her inconsequential life were real.

  No wonder she couldn’t eat. Facing everything she ran away from twenty years ago had a habit of souring a woman’s stomach.

  TO BE CONTINUED…

  In installment two, ENVY, now available!

  Join Us On Facebook!

  Hildred (and her alter ego Cynthia) have a private Facebook just for our readers! First looks, fun (and safe for work) pictures of lovely ladies, book talk, and everything about our world of F/F! Come join us!

  ENVY

  (Sins of Mercy #4)

  GET IT!

  For the first time in months, Mercy enjoys a day all to herself. After spoiling herself silly without a care in the world, she takes a wrong turn around the wrong alley and encounters Envy, a goddess who wants Mercy to hold a grudge. A plethora of bad memories awaits Mercy before she can continue on her healing journey… and nothing holds a candle to the very real issues in her place of work.

  None of that would be so bad if there weren’t a darker, more sinister pair of eyes waiting for her to fail again.

  Good thing Mercy has an angel looking out for her. As long as Mercy doesn’t discover the true feelings Acedia harbors in her immortal heart…

  GET IT!

  Life has not been kind to Mercy: her girlfriend is gone, she’s unappreciated in her corporate job, and depression has always haunted her. That’s how she came to stand on the bridge where she meets Acedia, the deity who oversees the Seven Sinners, bringers of peace and carnal healing.

  MERCY’S LIFE IS ABOUT TO CHANGE… FOR THE BETTER.

  Hildred Billings is a Japanese and Religious Studies graduate who has spent her entire life knowing she would write for a living someday. She has lived in Japan a total of four times in four different locations, from the heights of the Japanese alps to the hectic Tokyo suburbs, with a life in Shikoku somewhere in there too. When she’s not writing, however, she spends most of her time talking about Asian pop music, cats, and bad 80’s fantasy movies with anyone who will listen…or not.

  Her writing centers around themes of redemption, sexuality, and death, sometimes all at once. Although she enjoys writing in the genre of fantasy the most, she strives to show as much reality as possible through her characters and situations, since she’s a furious realist herself.

  Currently, Hildred lives in Oregon with her girlfriend and dreams
of a cat.

  Connect with Hildred on any of the following:

  Website .:. Twitter .:. Facebook