”Sounds like you had a nice chat,” commented Lucifer smoothly, a hint of amusement on his face.

“He seemed…um…” Melody didn’t know how to express her misgivings in a diplomatic way. “Disinterested,” she finally concluded, a bit lamely.

“You look even more worried now, huh.” And now Lucifer decided it was time to laugh. Poor timing as far as Melody was concerned.

“Well, if you were suddenly brought to a strange place and then get told that an unfamiliar face will now take care of you, you’d certainly feel anxious,” Diavolo stepped in to point out, looking a bit concerned himself. Melody honestly couldn’t imagine Lucifer with a worried expression. “However, Mammon isn’t the only one to help you out. Now then…we still need to introduce our new friend to your brothers, Lucifer. And it’s probably better that you do that instead of me, wouldn’t you say?” Diavolo was chuckling again, apparently quite amused at something. As for Melody, she didn’t have time to sit and analyze how she felt about a demon, specifically a demon prince, calling her a friend.

“Yes… As much as I dread the idea of doing so, you’re right.” Now Lucifer was not looking at all amused. He looked somewhat weary actually. Melody felt a bit uncomfortable at that; she knew she wouldn’t be thrilled to introduce her siblings to anyone.

“Oh, come now. Really? You should be honored that you get to introduce such a sweet and charming little brother like me!” said one of the other men in the room, his voice a higher, softer one than Lucifer’s.

Melody gave a startled jump; she had forgotten there were others here. This demon, with a youthful face, was very pretty and had very light brown hair with a slight hint of red. His eyes were a beguiling amber. His uniform was much like Lucifer’s only instead of a black shirt he wore a green one with a pinkish orange tie.

“This one here is Asmodeus. He’s the fifth eldest.” Lucifer gave the name of his brother with a tired sigh. “He is the Avatar of Lust.”

Melody almost choked on her own tongue. Somehow being so blatantly told that this man was the embodiment of lust was disconcerting, more so than hearing about pride or greed. Shyly she looked away from Asmodeus. She also admitted to herself that this wasn’t what she would have expected from someone associated with lust; she would have imagined a voice closer to Lucifer’s.

“Wh…I can’t believe you just totally ignored what I said! And not only that, you referred to me as this one. How rude!” Asmodeus raised a fist in an angry gesture.

“Hmph. At least he didn’t ignore you altogether. How do you think I feel?” The owner of the next voice was a blond man with green eyes and a sad expression. His voice wasn’t as light as Asmodeus’, nor was it deep like Lucifer’s. His uniform was almost identical to Asmodeus’ except he wore a pale green bow-tie with it.

“That one there is Satan, the fourth eldest of us. At first glance he may seem like a responsible demon with a good head on his shoulders, but looks can be deceiving.”

Idly Melody wondered what the definition of a responsible demon was, or a good one for that matter.

“Aha, so I’m that one, am I? Nice to meet you, Melody. I am Satan, the Avatar of Wrath.” His sad expression had changed when he spoke to Melody directly, and he even tacked a little laugh on the end.

Melody gulped. Of all the names so far, Satan’s was the one that sent the most chills down her spine. It was a name that was irrevocably tied in with all manner of evil things. Yet he was standing there, smiling and greeting her. In a bow-tie no less. Melody felt her grasp on reality slip further.

“Wrath?” she asked, only able to make herself echo the last word said to her. She knew her manners were lacking, but at the moment, she couldn’t scramble enough politeness to care.

“It basically sums up what he’s about. He may flash you a pretty smile like that, but you had better be careful because it is all an act,” said Lucifer. He really seemed determined to push home the fact that Satan was not a good guy. As if his name wasn’t clue enough, despite his smile. But Lucifer’s words didn’t seem to dampen his brother’s spirit. In fact, he seemed somewhat pleased.

“If you continue saying such nonsense, you’ll just scare Melody. Don’t take him too seriously, Melody.” Satan sure seemed to like to say her name, but each time he did, Melody felt a lump in her throat. “Lucifer enjoys speaking ill of his brothers. He is the Avatar of Pride, after all.”

“Are you done?” Lucifer asked Satan, sighing again. He didn’t seem at all amused by his brother’s reproof. “Now, the one there with the very grumpy look on his face is Beelzebub. He’s the sixth oldest.”

Melody was instantly put in mind of a song, the only place she had ever heard that name before. But somehow Queen just wasn’t helpful at the moment, and she was sure that laughing would be a bad idea. Especially since the demon indicated did, in fact, look incredibly grumpy. Not only was he grumpy, but he was tall and muscular. Even if they had been normal humans running some sort of deception, he would have been quite a threat. His uniform was the same one his brothers wore, except it was quite rumpled up and he had no tie at all.

“Lucifer, I’m hungry,” he said with a scowl. It seemed like such a mundane complaint to Melody. Lucifer looked less weary now, and was bordering on cross himself.

“That’s too bad. Now behave yourself.”

“I’m Beelzebub, the Avatar of Gluttony.” The introduction was punctuated by a gurgling growl from his stomach. He put his hand up to it as though he were in great discomfort. Melody wondered if he had no tie because he had eaten it already.

“So… There are seven of us brothers in all, and I am the eldest. Mammon, the second oldest of us, will be here soon. My other brothers aren’t here at the moment, but…well, we can get to them later. All in good time.”

Pride, Greed, Wrath, Lust, Gluttony. That was five sins. Melody tried to wrack her brain to remember the last two, but she couldn’t quite manage. Then again, she could never name all the Seven Dwarfs without help either, so she tried not to fret over it.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

“During your stay in the Devildom, the seven brothers will lend you their strength. To keep you safe, you are to stay with them at the House of Lamentation,” explained Diavolo. It was not a comforting name to Melody at all. Lamentation was sorrow, wasn’t it? Why would anyone call their place of residence that?

“Keep me safe?” Nothing about this so far had been what Melody would call safe.

“Most agree with Diavolo, but that doesn’t mean that there aren’t vulgar demons out there who wouldn’t harm you.” Lucifer’s smile was less than reassuring; he was far too amused at her expense.

“If anything were to happen to you, it would be our responsibility. And I won’t betray Diavolo’s expectations. So I will do everything in my power to make sure you survive your stay down here in the Devildom.

Although we will all be living together, you should still have the means to reach us at any given time. All of our phone numbers are already in there. And your D.D.D also has a messaging app. Make sure to add all of us.”

“I’ll go ahead and send you a message!” chimed in Diavolo.

“Is that nice, Melody. Now you will be friends with the future king of the Devildom!” Again there was that emphasis on friends. She barely knew them, and they could hardly know much about her, so it was a bit soon to be calling anyone her friend, demon or otherwise. But nothing about this situation was normal, not in the least.

There was a brief respite in the conversation as she waited for Diavolo to text her. Moments later the text showed up on her screen. It was pretty standard fare as far as messaging services went: it even had stickers. True, those stickers looked like little demon birds and other cute demonish things, but the normalcy of the D.D.D just made everything else feel stranger by comparison. Diavolo even made the classic error of sending the wrong sticker, which Melody had personally done a few times in her life.

“Well, you’ve got that done now, and it seems the idiot has arrived as well.” Lucifer didn’t look at all happy when Melody looked up from her screen. He looked rather dismayed. Turning slightly, Melody heard a few angry bootsteps on the floor. Finally she was seeing Mammon in person, this time in a uniform like the others; he had been wearing more casual clothes in his D.D.D image. Personally, Melody thought he looked better without the glasses on.

“HEY! Just who do you think you are, human? You’ve got a lotta nerve summoning the Great Mammon! Listen up, because I’m only gonna say this once. If you value your life, then you’ll hand over all your money now! And anything else of value, too! Otherwise I’ll wipe that stupid, happy-go-lucky look right off of your face…by eating’ you! Startin’ at your head and working my way down, until —”

Melody barely had a chance to process even half of Mammon’s words before he was interrupted by a very cross looking Lucifer.

“Mammon, shut up or I’ll punch you!” It seemed a somewhat less elegant thing for Lucifer to say, but Melody supposed that elegance was hard to achieve while annoyed and angry. It would have been even harder to achieve while punching Mammon, which is exactly what Lucifer did.

“GAH, OWW! Hey, what’s the big idea?! I thought you were actually gonna give me a chance to shut up before punching me!”

“Melody, Mammon here is the Avatar of Greed. He governs and oversees all forms of it,” Satan helpfully supplied. “Whenever he takes a liking to someone, they suddenly find themselves awash in money. But from what I hear, if he decides to break it off with someone, that wealth evaporates. They’re left without a Grimm to their name.”

“And he’s also a masochist. That part’s important,” Asmodeus added, somewhat less helpfully. Meldoy blinked, not sure why it was important to add that. It wasn’t as though she was about to inflict anything on anyone here.

“Indeed. And it just so happens I have a job for my masochist of a brother.” Lucifer using the same description made it seem more likely, but Melody was still a bit wary.

“Y’all stop telling lies! I ain’t asked for that punch, and I AIN’T a masochist!” Whatever Mammon was, or was not, he wasn’t refined. His language was rather awful.

“Mammon, you are going to be in charge of seeing to this human’s needs during the whole exchange. I expect your full cooperation.” Lucifer referring to her as ‘this human’ was off-putting, and she had a moment of sneaking sympathy for both Asmodeus and Satan; she didn’t like it any more than they did.

“What?! Why me?!”

“Aww, lucky you, Mammon! I’m so jealous…” Asmodeus piped up.

“All right, then why don’t YOU do it, Asmodeus?!”

“What? Hell no, too lazy.” Melody was relieved at this; she wasn’t sure if she’d be able to handle being taken care of by the Avatar of Lust. Greed would be easier, though certainly not optimal. She had more experience with it at any rate. Come to think of it, none of the sins attributed to the brothers were ones she felt much of.

“I thought you said you were jealous of me?!”

“Just give it up, Mammon. There’s no getting out of this. You know you can’t refuse a direct command from Lucifer, correct?” It was Satan’s turn to talk again; he seemed a little too pleased over shutting his brother down.

“But why does it have to be me?! What about Beel. Why can’t he do it?!” Mammon was still hell bent on shifting the responsibility to someone else. Melody wanted to object, since she was right there in the room, being quarreled over as though she were a troublesome pet that no one wanted to take care of. She wasn’t planning on being trouble for anyone. She was used to staying out of people’s way, not making a fuss, not rocking the boat. Yet they all seemed to think she would take particular effort to manage.

“This isn’t a job we can entrust to Beel. We might as well ask him to eat this human.” It was the second time someone mentioned eating her, and Melody didn’t want to find out if they were being literal, figurative, or just trying to scare her in general.

“Mm, yeah. I can’t promise I wouldn’t.” Beel hadn’t said much so far, other than to talk about being hungry. Still, Melody was surprised at his frank admission, and the fact that he didn’t seem to have any malice or cruelty in his tone or face. It was just a simple fact that he might actually eat her. She felt her eyes go wide, and her throat go dry.

“You’re useless, you know that?!”

“…Mammon?” It wasn’t a question so much as a prompt from Lucifer.

“…Wh-what?

“Surely you’re not going to tell me that you object to this assignment, are you?” There was an aura radiating off of Lucifer that immediately caught Melody’s attention. This, more than anything else so far, seemed to lend credence to the possibility that they were telling the truth about being demons. Mammon’s reaction only solidified that; he jumped nervously. While Lucifer was a little taller than Mammon, neither one of them looked heavily built. In a fist fight she would give them almost even odds, so the fear must be from something else to get that sort of response.

“Ugh… I hate you guys! Every last one of ya! Fine…FINE! I’ll do it, okay?!” Mammon turned away from his brothers and faced Melody directly. She tensed up. “All right, human, listen up. As much as I don’t want to look after you, I’ve got no choice. It’s a huge pain in the ass, and I’m too important for this kind of thing, but Lucifer told me to do it, so I will. But in return, you better make sure you don’t cause me any trouble, got it?!”

It all seemed unnecessary to Melody. She had been watching and listening the whole time, so Mammon’s words seemed more an attempt to save face than actually tell her anything she didn’t know. But she wasn’t going to point that out to him; she had observed enough to know it would likely make things go even more sour between them. Instead she just nodded meekly.

“Oh, okay,” she murmured.

“Good, that’s what I want to hear. As long as you do as I say, we won’t have any problems. Just be sure you don’t forget which one of us is the boss here.”

There was precious little chance of that. Melody had never been in charge of anything really. As the youngest sibling, she had always been at the bottom of the totem pole. Mammon, according to Lucifer, was the second oldest. Which meant he had a lot more to prove than perhaps any other sibling. Melody had two older sisters, and three older brothers, so she knew a bit about family dynamics. Though, technically, they were her half-siblings. Regardless, she knew that it was a bad idea to get involved in a dispute between siblings, and she only hoped she wouldn’t be pitted by one against the other.