The last part of me

by Vengerin

Summary:

Eight years ago a woman in red caught the eye of a resentful, bitter and abandoned king.

Eight years ago Alastor lost almost everything. His thirst for vengeance moved him near the princess Morningstar and her misguided project, risking the overlord his own afterlife for a chance to get revenge over the King of Hell. He knows he's playing a dangerous game and still have something to lose, something he can't lose. He will do whatever it takes to recover what wasn't destroyed and to exact vengeance over the Devil.

Notes:

Well, some notes before we begin: My english is bad, I write very fast so expect some error (bad english and fast typing, the horror) and I don't have a schedule to upload.

More notes: I still have to write the last two chapters of my long fanfiction but this idea was festering in my mind. In this story Alastor is trans, is in a hellbend path to vengeance and Lucifer is in his crosshairs. While my other fanfic is more fluff, humor and good vibes, this is more angsty and there will be smut in some points. End game is still Radioapple.
Aside from that, this story is the result of a fever night and influences from the series Once Upon a Time and a very old anime called Ribbon no Kishi or Princess Knight, a very, very old anime... it was old when I was a child, in fact. Hope you like it and beware the tags, they may be more in the future.

Chapter 1: The woman in red

Summary:

A woman in red enters in the party of the Queen of Hell, catching everyone eyes, specially Lucifer's.

In the present, Alastor wakes up after a memory induced nightmare.

“Death, dressed in his crimson attire,

danced among the revelers,

reminding them of their fleeting mortality”.

~ The Masque of the Red Death

 

Everything that Lucifer did in his long, very long life, had been in the name of Love and love always betrayed him, leaving him feeling filthy, empty, a shell of his formel self too damaged to be repair, to be fill, to be loved again.

 

The angel left his throne in the Golden City to his twin brother for his love of creation, for his imagination and his wish to let it be rampant. He left his family for love and compasion for a woman, he broke the rules for that love, following her lead to liberate another from the cruel yoke of forced marriage and procreation.

 

He was punish for loving humanity, for gifting them the only thing they could always call theirs: the ability to chose. He was hurt by his family that he loved so much, he was casted away to a new Realm of Nightmares, vomiting his Sins while his body changed, losing his angelic semblance just to adapt, to survive. Lucifer always lamented his actions, sometimes the shame was too much.

 

And shame gave way to regret, and regret and shame to fear when he became a father.

 

Charlie came to that damned world and the Fallen Angel could felt the eternal, inconditional love he felt for her and she for him. For the first time in his life, he was ready to stop wallowing in self-pity and regret, ready to protect his daughter and make her happy.

 

And that backfire too, like a poorly loaded revolver, that exploded in his face when Heaven decided to begin with the exterminations. He made a deal that costed him deeply: the disgust of his wife and time together with his daughter.

 

Lilith was a very vengeful woman. And he enjoyed it, when he wasn't the objective of her white hot fury, he enjoyed when someone insulted him or her and she plotted a world shacking vengeance, when someone didn't show enough respect or fear for the terrible rulers of Hell, she created those amusing complots to strip them of everything they holded dear, utterly destroying their spirits. It was fun, drink wine with her, listening to the ways she prepared every single detail and how worked everything.

 

But now... she hated him, called him coward, half a man, no fit to rule... and how that got the best of him, making him mad to the point of a physical fight, to the point of reminding the woman he will always be far stronger, far more powerful than her. And she derived to a more punishing way, a way not from raw power, but from pure manipulation.

 

She broke up with him, she took his daughter and... Lilith took something from him that he always thought nobody could take because he had it in abundance: Time. She robbed him of time with his daughter, breaking his spirit, his pride and even putting out his hellfire.

 

And that party was the Queen's magnum opus of her cruelty: A masquerade to celebrate her triumphs, her relentless pursue of the benefit for demonkind, her kindness and achivements.

 

Lies, over lies, adulation over adulation and he was there, in a baroque prince outfit in blacks and golden, with an elegant venetian mask of a goat, a present from a witch that called him to the Living World, some centuries ago. He was alone, with an arm rested over a grand piano where a sinner was playing Moonlight Sonata, the adagio part, acompaning with the notes his fleeting thoughts and memories, his darling regrets while moving a whiskey glass, taking solace in the sound of the ice.

 

Everyone there loving Lilith, hailing the queen and he was there, punishing himself with her, carrying a ring for mere habit, seeing her smile and dance and talk and... a dark goddess that he worshipped too just to has his heart rip out in her tallest altar.

 

Oh, Lilith... was his thought.

 

He drank the rest of his whiskey in a single gulp and placed the glass over the piano.

 

Masochism was maybe his vice but in that night he had enough of it. He took the decision to remove himself from the party, he presented himself for his daughter and she barely talked to him, going to her mother, adoring her and trying to get her approval with that beautiful smile and that light... But he had enough. He let Lilith get her cruel amusement, he just needed to go now.

 

He will be alone, sure, but far better be alone in the darkness of his manor that in the palace, surrounded by people.

 

Lucifer moved a couple of steps and stop... Something new, a new aroma coming to his extremely sensible nose. The delicious smell of a dark and ancient forest, petrichor with wood... sandalwood. Petrichor, sandalwood... there were two more notes in that fragance but while he was trying to determine the composition, also he tried to determine the origin.

 

He moved through the party, passing guests, service, until his eyes met the origin of the smell in the same time he recognized one piece of the puzzle: aged rum.

 

Near the entrance of the ballroom a new guest just arrived, a woman that everyone was looking up for the nuance of her presence, for her dress. It was a very tall woman, Lilith's type of height, with an imposible big black gown, victorian but with a slightly gothic aesthetic, full of lace. The dress cover her completely, leaving just part of her neck and the lower part of his face to the view, with a skin that was shimmering like burnished silver. With a mouth both sensual and dangerous, with a radiant smile and razor sharped teeth, with perfect lips.

 

The woman, sinner, had crimson curly hair fixed in a pompadour style and he noticed her tips were jet black. She was wearing a victorian mask with lace in the form of a doe, elegant, refine... but red, not at all matching with her black dress.

 

She was smiling and then Lucifer noticed the skull. A human skull with crystal over the orifices and there was the last piece of the olfactory puzzle: blood, sinner's blood.

 

The pianist change the sonata to the 3^rd movement, the Presto agitato, and like a performer called on cue, the woman in black widened her smile, raised the skull like a salute to the present public, drinking then part of the vital liquid, inking her perfect lips with the color of blood... to then smash the skull at her feet. Lucifer felt the magic before it made presence, the gloved hands of the woman glowed with a green hue and the blood ascended, coiling around her, over her head, directing it like a maestro with music, with every musical note to then let it go... raining over the woman, only in her dress... changing its color to the vivid red, equal to her mask.

 

What a performance! That woman was an artist. She prepared that just with the idea of catching every eye in the party, practically steeling Lilith's thunder. Oh, Lucifer needed, desperately, to know her.

 

The red woman made a gesture with her right hand and a french folding fan appeared in her hand, she opened it with an elegant gesture and started to socialize, talking to the swarm of men and women that wanted the attention of the mysterious newcomer.

 

Finishing with Beethoven, the sinner at the piano decided to jump to Debussy with Clair de Lune and the king decided that was his cue to make his move.

 

“At last something interesting at this party” said the king.

 

Some recognized the elusive ruler and made some space, some didn't want to leave the side of the new enchanting creature. The woman smiled at him, with the folding fan in her right hand, she lowered it, measuring the short man before her. Then she changed it to her left hand and placed it near her face.

 

That was... fan language? Oh, Lucifer didn't saw that number in ages. What a delightful creature, playing coy with him.

 

“Care to dance?” he said, with a little inclination of his head and presenting his gloved hand.

 

The woman laughed and her laugh was soft, delicate, musical... she moved the fan to rest over her right cheek. That was a yes.

 

She took the hand of the devil and went with him to the dance floor, again, catching sights, promoting envy, jealousy and curiosity. The doe masked woman was a lighthouse of novelty in the middle of that ocean of same old boring normality.

 

And she knew how to dance, how to move with that impressive ball gown.

 

“Can I ask your name?” asked Lucifer after minutes, with a hand in that delicious wasp waist and the other over her shoulder.

 

“Your majesty can call me Milady” she said and her voice was... soft, femenine, clear.

 

The devil looked directly up, to her eyes... they were visible through the mask and they were red as rubies, with crimson sclera, beautiful.

 

“Oh, fan of monsieur Dumas, I see” he said, with a playful smile. “And you recognized me.”

 

“It's impossible not to recognize the illustrious King of Hell, mask or no mask” she said.

 

He raised an eyebrow.

 

“Is that a jab to my height, Milady?” he asked, not annoyed, for the moment, but cautious, still too fascinated with the creature dancing with him.

 

“I'll never dare, your majesty” said the red woman. “You irradiate power around you, real, raw power. Your presence is intoxicating, I don't know how the rest manage to be so relaxed with you in the room when I have to use all my will just to move my legs and breathe.”

 

Lucifer felt his chest growing, his pride sated. He laughed and kissed the hand she had over his shoulder.

 

“Oh, you're good with words, Milady” he complimented the woman.

 

“Well, thank you, your majesty, talking is my bread and butter, so to speak” she said, smiling with pride. “It's a tool I perfected around the decades.”

 

The music changed and the Waltz of the Flowers from the Nutcracker impregnating the room. The woman grunted with disdain.

 

“Oh, Heavens... is he going to play all of the most vanilla of classics?” she rolled her eyes.

 

The devil nodded and sighed.

 

“If you feel better, Milady, I didn't select the... entertainment” he said, with weariness.

 

Lucifer thought for a moment.

 

“I'm enjoying your delightful presence, in fact, I was retiring for the evening when you appeared” he confessed, a truth sometimes went a long way. “Are you amicable to accompany me to my private parlor? Unless you want to remain here, socializing and listening to the most ABC textbook of classics.”

 

The woman laughed musically when the king presented his arm, dialing up the charm with that smile and brilliant eyes. She took it and let him guide her.

 

“If you have something to drink and let me select the music, I don't mind” she said. “I'm a social butterfly but I can't refuse the gracious offering from my liege.”

 

They started to move to one of the less crowded parts of the ballroom.

 

“You said you a social butterfly, but I think is the first time I see you in one of our parties” said the king. “Mask or no mask I'm pretty sure you could take my attention anyway.”

 

She was hanging from the ruler's arm with his left arm, with the right hand she was fanning.

 

“Oh, your highness” she said. “You'll make me blush. You talk about my ability for words but his majesty's ability is unparalleled.”

 

When they both were far enough for the rest of the guests, Lucifer snapped his fingers, making a golden circular portal and making a gesture with a light bow, offering Milady to pass first and when she did, he followed her, closing the portal behind them and provoking a total cut of audio.

 

They weren't in Pandaemonium, Lucifer's palace, they were in Magne Manor, his residence in Pentagram City, were he was living since he broke up with his wife. The devil clapped twice and a soft light presented itself in the parlor. It was very elegant, cozy and simple. A big couch in L near a window, overshadowed with huge and heavy curtains. A hearth, various bookshelves full with literature and... for Milady's appreciation, an old radio.

 

“Do you like jazz, your majesty?” asked the woman.

 

The king, who was moving to a well dispensed licour cabinet near the windows, looked back to the woman and nodded.

 

“Yes, in fact, I like jazz” he responded.

 

Milady hummed and the radio turned on by itself, playing a song called Bye, bye, Blackbird. It was something tantalizing, a raspy femenine voice, soft, the lyrics talking about a woman not easy to love. It was perfect.

 

“What's your poison, Milady?” asked Lucifer.

 

“Whiskey, on the rocks” she responded, going to the couch and sitting in it, fanning slowly and giving some sights to the frame of the king.

 

“A lover of strong drinks, a woman after my own heart” he said, preparing the same for himself and presenting the glass to the red sinner. “You never responded to my question.”

 

“Hmmmm... Well, I'm a social butterfly but that party wasn't my element” she said. “All so... artificial, static, sewn in time. Adulation for our gracious Queen aside, it was so dull. I prefer soirées with a little bit of chaos, improvisation, nuance. A life in Pride Ring can be cut short by various means, we sinners are dancing in the edge of a blade or at the point of a exorcist lance, wasting time in boring things its almost a sin in itself.”

 

She took the glass taking some precious seconds to caress the king gloved fingers before taking it, drinking a little while observing the monarch. He offered his glass for a toast and she did it, clinking the glasses.

 

“And why you were there, then, Milady? The party that you describe of loving is far from the... asskissing gathering we escaped” said the devil, smiling.

 

The red woman laughed.

 

“Well, let's say I'm in the middle of a bet with an old friend of mine” said the sinner. “Her idea, not mine, I may add.”

 

Lucifer removed his mask and placed it aside in the nearby tea table.

 

“I'm part of that bet, Milady?” the king thought it could be a pity to have to destroy such a delicious creature if she was just toying with him for a bet.

 

“Not at all, darling” she responded. “The bet was going to the Queen's party, make enough of an impression so people will talk about it for days, enough to reach her ears, and socialize... I'm socializing, n'est pas?”

 

She said, tilting slightly her head, drinking a little, humming with the music.

 

“Want me to remove my mask too, sire?” she asked, touching the side of the mask with her gloved hand.

 

Lucifer smiled, curiosity and desire were starting to mix in him.

 

“Sure, I removed mine... But you already knew who I was, maybe you don't want me to know who you are, Milady” he said.

 

The woman thought for a moment, to then place her glass of whiskey on the table, taking both hands to lose the ribbons of her mask and letting it go slowly, almost timidly, reveling a soft face, crimson eyeshadow, long eyelashes and perfect thin eyebrows. She rested the mask over the table and covered a moment her mouth with her fan, leaving only her eyes to be the center of attention and Lucifer looked them, he submerged in that sea of red. She then moved the fan to her left hand, opened, far from her face. An invitation to talk.

 

He moved nearer the woman.

 

“You got such gorgeous eyes” he affirmed. “They are like lagoons of clear water dyed by the light of a blood moon, I must say, pardon my abruptness, that I could never be tired of looking at them.”

 

“Your highness, I'm starting to see the famous temptation of the devil” she said, smiling, all the time smiling. “I must say, pardon my abruptness, wasn't it? That if your majesty continue to be so charming, I could start to think you want something from little old me.”

 

The fallen angel bit his lip playfully.

 

The music on the radio changed, a song called Somebody loves me.

 

When this world began

It was Heaven's plan

There should be a girl

For every single man.

Someone has upset

Heaven's pretty program

For we never met.

I'm cluching at straws

Just because

I may meet him yet...

 

“It would be so bad to be tempted, Milady?” he responded.

 

The woman thought for a moment and moved her fan to a position and gesture that Lucifer also was able to read. The fan closed, the handle near her lips... Kiss me, she was saying.

 

“Well, what I have to lose?” was her answer.

 

***

 

Alastor woke up suddenly, panting, sweating and angry... glowling like a beast.

 

His mind had the habit of torturing him from time to time, specially when he was playing really dangerous games, having his neck on the line. When more calm and concentration he needed, more his brain wanted to fuck him.

 

He took some air, forcing his breathing to a more steady and calm pace, still baring his teeth because that wasn't a dream, it was a memory. The beginning of his end, eight years ago. The overlord played a very dangerous game and he lost everything... almost, everything.

 

He needed to calm himself, he had a hard day in front of him. Things to fix at the hotel, a group of miscreants to manage, a hyper positive princess and... that man he hated with all his being.

 

The Radio Demon had to put his best face, yeah, some jab, some quib but nothing more, nothing that could ruin his plans. Nothing that could alert the Devil about who he is... Who from his past, from eight years ago, was near his precious daughter.

 

He couldn't know, not being him so near... even when something broken inside him was telling him that maybe the most painful part was that he didn't remember him. Lucifer destroyed him and he was not even a blip of dejá vú for him.

 

No, he thought, raising from the bed and walking barefooted into his bayou.

 

He lost almost everything eight years ago and he couldn't think in those stupid things ever again. No, he had still something to lose, something he couldn't risk to lose, and he was ready to recover what he lost and avenge what was broken.

 

The game was set.

 

Lucifer will end up regreting even knowing the color red.

Chapter 2: The truth about apples

Summary:

Alastor is in a better mood, ready to present his facade on the hotel.

But Destiny always wanted to test his resolve and the first person he had to face that morning was Lucifer.

“When angels go bad they are worse than anyone else. Remember Lucifer used to be an angel”

~Neverwhere, Neil Gaiman

 

Alastor came back from the inner sanctum he had in his bayou relaxed, in high spirits, feeling a fleeting calm, all the memories and the hatred washed out, stored for another moment. For a future.

 

He moved to the bathroom to take a quick shower.

 

The wound was acting again, suppurating a foul mix of gold and black. Didn't matter how much he re-sew it, what herbs he applied or his magicks, it never finished to close. He knew he needed to address that sooner than later but he has priorities.

 

First was to recreate his bayou, that was and always will be priority one, something that couldn't wait and something that could almost kill him but was too much important to wait. It almost kill him, actually, to use so much energy after a battle and after an almost mortal wound but he managed, he then needed to rest for a couple of days but he managed. Then his microphone cane... With the new radio tower that Charlie and the rest made for him in the top of the hotel, he only needed to sacrify some of the souls lingering still in his radio waves and voilá, good as new.

 

Now the wound... he removed the bandage around his chest to then removed the one over the slice with a grunt. He entered in the shower and the hiss of static was almost deafening, a show of his pain at the contact of the water.

 

“This... is... nothing” he said, baring his teeth, biting the air.

 

He dried himself and sat in his favorite armchair, making a set of suture to appear, taking the small blunt scissors to cut the green thread holding his flesh together. Alastor was biting a cloth, centered in his task painfully, taking out the old thread to then pick the needle after cleaning the wound and applying a new one. When he finished, he spat the cloth and breathe heavily and when the pain decreased to his tolerance levels, the demon cleaned the blood and dressed the wound, bandaging then his chest, tightly.

 

Then the corset, pink undershirt, the shirt, then the crosspattern suspenders, the gloves, light red socks, pants, the belt, then his italian leather shoes. Alastor moved to the bathroom to comb his hair... Looking for a second at the mirror he thought it could be a good idea to go to see Rosie for a haircut. He didn't want his hair near the nape to grow too much. That zone was the most punished area of his scalp during his panic attacks and he didn't want to show to all of Hell the little bald patches he had there.

 

He touched his hair... a shave underneath and some touch of the tips, nothing fancy. He knew he could count on Rosie for that.

 

Going out of the bathroom, he doned his monocle and finally dressed with his coat, buttoning it. He felt extraordinary, the proper image of a gentleman, even if he didn't have any full body mirror to certify it. A gesture in the air to make his microphone appear and, with the jazz music that permeate the air around him when he was relaxed, Alastor went out of his room. First stop, the kitchen.

 

At those hours, he was the only soul around the hotel, he walked a couple of steps and then entered into a shadow, appearing in the kitchen.

 

The Radio Demon rested his cane in the nearby table and started to prepare the coffee. In a world of peace, he smelled the grains then a sigh. He took some to grind, with a cocoa bean and a pinch of nutmeg. Always, when he was making coffee, he remembered his mother. She woke up always early, toasting her own grains, grinding the mix... the kitchen smelled like coffee even before it was done.

 

He started to prepare the italian coffee maker like an artesan, compacting the now coffee powder softly, closing it while twisting.

 

“Oh, it's you” said a voice, that made his ears twitch and go against his skull like a charm. “Are you making coffee, bellboy?”

 

Alastor sighed and turned slightly around, smiling widely and adjusting his monocle.

 

“Top of the morning, your highness!” he greeted the monarch to then point to the closed coffee maker. “Well, yes, sire, I was about to prepare it. Do you want a cup?”

 

He offered, waiting for the response of the short man.

 

“Ha! Are you gonna try to poison me?” he asked, with a smirk.

 

“Oh, Heavens, no!” he said, placing the coffee maker over the stove and turn it on with a snap, green flames licking the silver coffee maker. “I'll never spoil the taste of my coffee and most poisons do and besides, I don't use poison, is a matter of pride for me.”

 

Lucifer moved to a chair and sat in it. He left his cane to the side and talked sarcastically to Alastor.

 

“Poison is not bloody enough?” he asked, mockingly.

 

“Stereotypical and unpersonal” responded Alastor, with a little less glee. “Even when I only killed degenerates and scum, I always took my time to make it personal, face to face. They all were confronted with their sins, they could all claim their reasons or sing the song of repentance before my knife severed their vocal cords, they all got their comeuppance knowing they purchased a ticket to your Kingdom with their own actions.”

 

He widened his smile and tilted his head to a side like a cut down marionette.

 

“I reaped them for you, speeding up the process, sire, with delicate and dedicated touch... because what can the harvest hope for, if not for the care of the Reaper Man?” he said, placing his hand over his own chest, wicked smile.

 

Lucifer had a shiver and twisted in his chair for a second. He didn't fear the creep, but that sinner was creepy, nonetheless.

 

“Fuck, you're a fuckin' psycho” said the king.

 

“Well spotted, my good man, I think that's the definition” said Alastor, turning to take the coffee maker, now full of coffee to place a little in his mug and some for Lucifer in another. “Besides, sire, returning to the original question, I don't think poison works on you. Taking my knowledge in the matter, only some potent poisons don't smell or lack taste and I have the inkling you're immune to them.”

 

He moved his hand to the chin.

 

“Maybe if I manage to include some angelic metal shavings... But surely you will notice before consuming enough to make some real damage to your throat and stomach lining, cht, a pity” said the overlord, taking the cup for Lucifer. “Cream and three sugars, your majesty?”

 

The king had a burst of anger. That fucking sinner was talking so carefree about killing him? In front of him no less?

 

“You piece of shit, you talk about killing your own king to his face?!” he demanded a response, with his eyes going red and his horns showing up in his head.

 

Alastor was unfazed by the rage of the king, know he was just all bark and no bite... Not at least with his daughter around, he'll never show her his despicable true colors.

 

The demon added some cream and three sugar cubes one by one under the furious gaze of the devil to then place the cup in the table in front of the monarch.

 

“Yes, your highness” he admited. “I'm thinking at all hours how to dispose of you. You and everyone around me. This is Hell: for survival, to gain power, for boredom or hunger, I'm always thinking in artistic ways to kill everyone, here and in the streets. I believe the only demon that never provoke intrusive thoughts in me is dear Charlie. Ah, such a sweet young demoness, our Charlie. But, anyway, talks volumes about my composure, self-control and manners that I never harmed a fly in the hotel.”

 

He said, with a chesire smile, making a little spoon to appear and placing it in the cup in front of Lucifer.

 

“You're despicable, sinner” said the king, stirring his coffee. “Taking your tendencies I don'tk know why my daughter keeps you around, specially having me now.”

 

Alastor took a sip of his coffee, savoring it, before responding to the king. Granted, that was a retorical question, but rhetoric was never a deterrent to annoy pieces of shit in white ringleader clothes.

 

“Because power doesn't equal ability or readiness to help and the princess knows this very well” he throws the jab at the king, making him growl.

 

Egotistical piece of shit, thought Lucifer. He hated that sinner the first time his eyes met him when he came to visit his daughter and his opinion of him only soured with every day that passed. But, he had to admit he made incredible coffee and, he didn't know if was a lucky guess or his daughter told him, he knew exactly how he liked it, so he decided not to dignify that jab with an answer to enjoy better his beverage.

 

Lucifer took a sip and sighed.

 

“I believe we still have scones from the ones I baked yesterday, do you want me to heat them for you, your highness?” offered Alastor, taking out the plate with the scones from the fridge.

 

“Oh, so accommodating all of the sudden” said the king, with a half smile. “It's like you learned your place and want to serve me, sinner.”

 

Alastor laughed a little.

 

“I'm always ready to serve you, your highness, I hope I didn't give another impression” said the demon. “I'm here just for you.”

 

He said, tilting his head to then use a pan to heat the scones.

 

“Whatever...” said the devil, making a gesture of no importance with the hand. “Is there apple mermelade? I particulally like that most.”

 

Withouth looking to the monarch, the Radio Demon denied.

 

“No, sire, I'm sorry” he said. “I don't deal with apples, they are poisonous.”

 

The red demon said that sentence maybe with too much vitriol and seriousness, so he moved his head to smile to the king over his shoulder.

 

“Apples are perfectly fine, you sicko” said Lucifer, with expression of pure annoyance.

 

Alastor moved with the scones in a white plate, placing it in front of Lucifer.

 

“They are treacherous deceiving little things” said the Radio Demon. “They look innocent enough and you bite and the juices fill you with sweetness, their flesh feeds you... But if you dig deeper and taste their seeds, they kill you with the kindness of cyanide. I learned not to trust little apples.”

 

He said... ominous enough for Lucifer staring at him, seriously, like trying to read a book in a language he didn't know but with regular roman alphabet, enough to scratch the surface.

 

“Oh, Charlotte, good morning!” said the demon, moving near the door of the kitchen to greet the princess with his usual charming personality.

 

She smiled to then look over the side of the overlord to see her father sat at the table, with coffee and hot scones.

 

“Good morning, Alastor. What are you doing here with dad?” she asked.

 

“Taking your advice, we're bonding! I made him coffee and re-heated some scones” he said, smiling. “There is more coffee in the thermos, darling. And more scones if you want to. Sadly I can't re-heated them for you, Rosie is expecting me.”

 

She was extremelly happy that her hotelier and her father were starting to stand one another, maybe with time they could even become friends, talk and work together. Alastor, for her impression, was a loner and her father needed company also after the divorce from her mother, it could be good for both.

 

But that with time. She denied.

 

“Don't worry, I'll manage” said the princess.

 

“So charming, as always” he said, booping her nose. “Do you need something before I go out?”

 

Alastor offered and she shook her head again.

 

“No, don't worry, give my regards to Rosie” said Charlie, she really liked the cannibal dame.

 

“With pleasure” said the overlord, making a gesture in the air, his cane flied to his hand, he twisted it around with a floriture. “Ta-ta, my dearies!”

 

He said, going out of the door.

 

“Yeah, yeah, fuck you” murmured the king, making some apple mermelade and cream cheese to appear before him.

 

Charlie went to her father and kissed him in the cheek.

 

“Good morning, dad” she said. “Did you sleep well?”

 

She asked, going to the kitchen counter to serve herself some coffee.

 

“Like a log, sweety” he lied. “Say... Charlie, did you notice Alastor more... pissy these days? I don't know, I dislike him when I met him but now... I don't know, I have the sensation that he dialed the creepiness to eleven, if you know what I mean.”

 

The princess, smiling, denied with her head.

 

“Alastor loves to present himself scary and sinister at first but... Give him an oportunity, dad” said the princess. “He's strange and I know his reputation but even when he says he's here just for the entertainment, he fought on our side, he helped me with Rosie and the cannibals and Rosie helped with Vaggie... I trust him, his actions talk volumes.”

 

Lucifer remembered the conversation he just had with the demon, how he said that even with his tendencies, he never harmed the hotel. And, begrudgingly, he had to admit that was true... But he also had a gut feeling about the overlord and he didn't know why.

 

Certainly that dialogue about apples unsettled him a little, it was like he was talking more about him? Than fruit.

 

He shook his head and then nodded to his daughter.

 

“I trust your judgement, you know the guy better than me” he admited.

 

Besides, thought the devil, if the sinner tried something, he would reduce him to powder in two seconds flat. And that will be a pity, because he made excelent coffee.

Notes:

As a note, apple seeds contain cyanide... not enough to kill a person with the seeds of one apple but Alastor's metaphor is factually correct :P

Also, yes, he pulls his hair when he has a breakdown or a panic attack, like the one in 'The Show must go on'.

Chapter 3: Sacrifices

Summary:

Alastor take a stroll to Cannibal Town, to ask his friend for a little favor.

Memories flow over the Radio Demon, reminiscenses of what he was ready to sacrifice eight years ago, for a promise and a yearning.

“I have an entire underworld of beings throwing themselves at me every second of my existence. Some of the most beautiful and wicked creatures of all time are down there because they're very good at the very bad, enjoyable things.”

~Lucifer, Hellblazer: Rise and Fall

 

Alastor was walking in the direction of Cannibal Town, his eternal smile in his face, his perfect posture, his microphone cane to his back and the secure happy steps of someone that doesn't fear a thing in a place like that.

 

A deer, he may be, for the wicked sense of humor of Hell, dishing forms and punishments, but he was an absolute apex predator in the malcontent cesspool that was the ass of the universe. Not a single demon of the ones around him deserve the recognition of having him worried, not single one of them, from the rest of overlords to the most pathetic of imps, his mind, his dedication, his body, his drive, was only for one single entity, just one.

 

And getting near Cannibal Town, it was not the first time he was so centered in an objective in this part of the Pentagram.

 

***

 

Eight years ago...

 

Alastor and Rosie were sat in her private quarters in the emporium, on the top of the shop iself were she lived, in that moment alone after the death of her third husband. The Radio Demon and the Cannibal Overlord were partaking a delicious Civet de Cerf that she prepared for specially the man. The red demon was easier to talk to when he had food he liked.

 

“Ah, delicious, Rosie, darling, as always” said the deer cleaning his mouth with a napkin. “It's a travesty that... what was his name again? The last one?”

 

Rosie smiled.

 

“Guillaume, dear” she responded, cleaning her mouth too and starting to collect the things from the table.

 

“Yeah, it's a travesty that man didn't appreciate your incredible talent” said the demon, moving to help her like he always did. “You did well gifting him to me, though I must say, you don't know how to pick them, he tasted like sandpaper and sadness.”

 

The cannibal lady laughed a little.

 

“Oh, Alastor, always such a jokester but yeah, I have a horrible luck, they're never good husbands and they always taste so bad” she said. “Care for a cup of tea, darling?”

 

“No, thank you, darling” he said.

 

“I insist, I procured black tea for you, I know you don't normally like tea but you'll love this one, dear” she offered him, taking him from the arm to made him sit again.

 

“Rosalyn, are you trying to delay me?” asked the overlord raising a brow. “I hope you procured everything I asked...”

 

He said and the woman made a gesture, like he was asking something he knew the answer.

 

“Of course I did, darling, never doubt me” she sighed. “But... to be true to myself, I wanted to talk to you before you do this, Alastor.”

 

The Radio Demon also sighed but was more frustration that other emotion. They already talked, long and thoroughly about his plan, what he wanted to do, why he wanted to do it. Rosie was his only confident in this and she knew every small detail... and she was trying since the Queen's Ball dance was announced to made him change his mind.

 

“We already talked about this, dear” said the overlord. “I made up my mind. I'm ready for this, to give my all...”

 

Rosie moved, downing her hand, stricking the table to then point to Alastor's face with the other one.

 

“See? That's the problem, darling!!” she said, almost exasperated. “You're thinking in giving and giving and giving... And the only thing you want in return are... the basics! That's not healthy! It's mental! You're gonna hurt yourself, deary.”

 

She moved the hand to caress the overlord's cheek, softly, like a mother trying to console his unruly little boy.

 

“Oh, darling, you're gonna hurt yourself and Rosie will have to pick up your pieces” she sighed. “I know your heart is in this, darling, but you can't do this, there should be another way...”

 

He sighed.

 

“It isn't, Rosalyn” he said, placing his hand softly over hers. “I tried. I tried to get near him with other methods and I was brushed aside and discarded like nothing. This is my last resource, the last cartridge in the shotgun... I need to try, I don't have any securities of success, but I'm ready for this last try, for my last possibility and it's now or never.”

 

He took the hand and kiss it like a gentleman to then raise from his seat.

 

“I'll do anything in my power to not throwin' away my shot” said with security, with the same conviction an innocent man weared to the gallows.

 

It was a sacrifice and he was ready to do it.

 

“But this...” she moved him, near the full body mirror she had in her room. “This! You constructed this. You fought tooth and nail to be this... For you, that fought so hard against Destiny itself to be yourself, to be Alastor... Darling, you're sacrificing Alastor for what?”

 

She was almost ready to implore, her tone was saying volumes of what she thought about his plan, his aspirations.

 

“For a promise, for the person I'm been carrying in my heart... Future happiness” he said.

 

“Happiness in a lie, Alastor, in the greatest of sacrifices” she said, with tears in her black eyes.

 

The Radio Demon inhaled deeply, closed his eyes and then he left the air out, little by little.

 

“Happiness at all cost, Rosalyn” he said, starting to retire his bowtie, monocle and coat.

 

“I can't believe I'm going to help you kill Alastor, the Great Radio Demon” she said, taking his clothes when he removed them. “The destruction of oneself... you're crazy.”

 

The demon started to unbutton his shirt.

 

“Most everyone's mad here, dear Alice” he said, taking out the shirt and the undershirt.

 

Alastor used two things to conceal his bust: the suspenders in cross pattern outside his shirt and, directly over his breats, bandages, tight ones. He had really small breats but were a disgrace for him nonetheless and now he was releasing them, ready to use them like... a trollop, just to get his most cherish desire.

 

He removed his shoes, socks, trousers and underwear, staying there, naked, in front of the mirror... Alastor hated to look to his image, he loathed it with passion. No photos, no video, no mirrors... because that, the thing he was looking back, wasn't him.

 

A feminine hourglass figure with very small waist, small breasts. His body a tapestry of fights and disagreements that he resolved battling tooth and nail and power. Mostly small cuts but he had a huge lichtenberg scar in the left side of his torso from a fight with Vox, another small one in his right shoulder. Bite marks, cut marks, lightning scars and even a perforation from an exorcist lance over his right thigh... That body, even when was the wrong body, was a tribute to a survivor, a fucking monument to relentlessness.

 

Every bit of respect, power, deals... everything he had was despise than fragile and wrong body and now that body was his ticket to get what he wanted the most.

 

“I always hated this body” he said, lowly and between his teeth.

 

Rosie was seeing him in the mirror too, placing her delicate hands over the overlord's waits.

 

“And now you're gonna use it...” she said, displeased with the situation.

 

“Since he split with the Queen of Hell, all the reports say he only took female companionship” said Alastor. “All his lovers were women. I tried to sail those waters being me, but me isn't enough. At least this cursed body will work for me, for once in my life or afterlife.”

 

Rosie, hugged him softly to then kiss his cheek.

 

“I don't approve, love, but... I know how important this is for you” she nodded, more to herself and her own determination, than for him. “I'll help you. I'll help you to turn heads and conquer the Devil himself!!”

 

She moved to her dressing room, returning with something in her hands.

 

“First, lingerie... We don't know yet if it will come to this, but being positive always helps” she said, with a renew smile.

 

***

 

Present day, Cannibal Town...

 

“Rosie!” said the Radio Demon entering her Emporium with his huge smile and transatlantic flair.

 

“Alastor, darling, so good to see you!” they hugged, they always greeted each other like it had been ages from the last visitation.

 

The red demon looked around with curiosity.

 

“My, my, darling, you're busy” he said, laughing lowly. “So much perusers of the finer things. You must be swimming in money and souls right now!”

 

She made a gesture, like downplaying what the demon was saying.

 

“Oh, Alastor, you know me, I'm always doing everything for my clients” she said. “And the new angelic products are selling like crazy! We even had people from other rings, can you believe it? Ha!”

 

He presented his arm and she took it.

 

“Mariam, darling, man the front desk, I need to attend one of our VIPs in private” she said and the young cannibal girl just nodded, going near the register.

 

They moved to Rosie's foyer and the cannibal started to look to her food reserves.

 

“What are you craving, darling?” she asked. “I got pinky fingers, eyes, I got some angelic liver too, they said is amazing for the skin.”

 

“Eyes and some coffee, if you have, darling, I don't want to trouble you” he said. “In fact, I came asking for favors, sadly. I'm in a extreme need of a haircut and I only trust my locks to you.”

 

Rosie placed the dish of various eyes in the table and then moved to manhandle Alastor to see his hair.

 

“Oh, you been fuckin' with your hair again?” she moved his long and soft fingers over the shaven part of his head. “I knew it!! You being pulling 'em again! Oh, Alastor, darling, what I'm going to do with you?”

 

She moved outside the foyer a moment to ask one of her employees to prepare some coffee and she returned, observing the red hair of his deer friend like an artist trying to determine how to tackle the canvas.

 

“You know me, Rosie, I can't control it” he admitted. “I'm stressed these days.”

 

She snorted.

 

“Pretty normal, having to live with that horrible little man around you” she hugged Alastor's head and started to scratch him between the antlers. “How are you managing, darling?”

 

The Radio Demon sighed, he loved that woman. She was always so affectionate with him, so ready to fight for him, to help him... and to tell him what's what everytime. In fact, part of his being really regretted to not listening to her eight years ago, another part of his being was not on the same opinion for its own reasons.

 

“Fine, fine... I have to control my temper and my bloodlust everyime I'm near him but...” he denied. “Fine, just fine.”

 

She sighed.

 

“You don't have to lie to old Rosalyn, you know that, right, dear?” she moved to place a hand over his chin, raising his face. “Did he recognized you in anyway? Any comment?”

 

Asked Rosie, worried for his best friend.

 

He denied... and he was always smiling but his smile faltered a little and his eyes were... sad, more than angry.

 

“For a man that always said he will never forget my eyes...” he said, biting the words, trying to push rage as his main emotion in that moment instant of the sorrow that was threatening to tear him apart.

 

“Don't think about that, not now!” a young cannibal woman entered in the foyer with a silver kettle smelling deliciously to coffee and two little teacups with saucers, all in a beautiful pink and champagne colors. “Thank you, darling...”

 

The girl went out, leaving the two overlords alone.

 

“Now, tell me, he already knows the deal you have with his daughter?” asked the woman after serving the coffee.

 

“No, not yet... I bet dear Charlie knows he will try to kill me the same moment he learns about it and she's trying to protect me” he sighed. “It's a pity the little thing is in the middle of this, she doesn't deserve the curse to carry his gens. And of course, she doesn't know the monster that lies beneath, he cares to hide his real nastiness when he's around her or the rest of miscreants of the hotel.”

 

She added some sugar to her own coffee.

 

“I liked the girl, I like her, Alastor” she said. “I don't want the little thing hurt for all of this, as you know, better than anyone, daughters shouldn't carry the blame for their fathers.”

 

Said Rosie, taking an eye and eating it before taking a sip from the coffee.

 

“And don't get me wrong, I don't know if I could manage to get my composure in front of the vile thing if someday I need to be near him in the same room” said the woman, with hatred. “After what he did to you... If you weren't taking care of it, I could give him a piece of my mind and an angelic blade to the gut.”

 

Alastor moved his hand, taking the hand of the woman and kissing it.

 

“You're my best friend, Rosie and I love your instints of protection but this... retribution, it's mine. It's something I need to do for myself” said the Radio Demon, taking an eye and eating it too. “And I won't be hurting Charlie, as you said, I'll never blame a daughter for her father's transgressions but she's bound to be hurt. Depends on how this resolves... She will be hurt for the situation or the truth. There is no way around it.”

 

She clicked her tongue.

 

“It's a pity, really...” she denied. “Anyway, how is your bayou?”

 

She asked, Alastor expression softened and relaxed a little.

 

“Marvelous, you know... Slightly bigger but it's still my peace, my happy place” he said, with that soft smile.

 

Rosie smiled softly too to then point to her own chest.

 

“And the wound?” she asked.

 

Alastor growled.

 

“Problematic... but I contacted someone that owned me favors to get me some medicine from Sloth and, as a last resource, I'm working on a possible goetia connection to get a book of healing magic. It's tricky but it's the typical stuff for a rainy day” said the red demon, taking a sip of his coffee with delight.

 

“Ok, darling, when we finish the appetizer, I'll take care of your hair and a look to your wound” Alastor was about to protest. “Ah, ah, ah, mister... You'll let me take a look and dress your wound properly. You won't amount to any vengeance bleeding all over that silly hotel.”

 

“Yes, Aunty Rosalyn” he said, mocking her.

 

“Good boy” she responded.

Notes:

Rosie is that friend we all want and few lucky have :P

Chapter 4: Empty words

Summary:

Alastor stays with Rosie while she deals with his haircut, having memories accosting him in the meanwhile.

He returns to the hotel with the idea of cooking for everyone, in a good mood... But like always Lucifer tries to sour his good disposition.

Notes:

Well, now that I finished my long Radioapple fanfic (I was slightly sad and happy at the same time for finish it), I could center more in this one (tho I'll continue to write the Secret Archives (the smut parts) for the other), so I'll try to upload more regularly.

Love all your lovely comments, btw ^^

“People who cease to believe in God or goodness altogether still believe in the Devil... Evil is always possible. And goodness is eternally difficult.”

~ Anne Rice, Interview with the vampire

 

Rosie prepared everything in front of the big full body mirror she had in her apartment above her Emporium, letting Alastor sit comfortable in a chair while she started to cut his hair. It wasn't the first time they were in the same situation, about his hair... Or, better say, in a situation about it that wasn't exactly like this one.

 

***

 

“And what about your hair, dear?” asked Rosie.

 

“What about it?” was Alastor's response while he was seeing how the lace lingerie in red adjusted to his body like a glove. His friend sure knew her business.

 

The cannibal overlord moved to be right by the side of the deer, looking to the mirror to look to his face in that way, touching his hair with a hand.

 

“This look is perfect for Alastor but darling, we are constructing a woman that could daze a king and not a regular one” said the woman, moving her hand to her chin. “And a wig won't do. You can use your magic to change your body, right?”

 

She asked to the overlord and he nodded.

 

“Yes, but not in the ways that mattered” he said looking to his femenine body. “That's how I got my antlers, you know. Hell wasn't generous with me giving me some semblance of reafirmation at least.”

 

“I know, darling... But you can do it with your hair, yes? That's how you keep it straight” she said, knowing well that data but knowing how hard that was for her friend.

 

“Yes, I can make it longer but...” he clicked his tongue, bothered.

 

“But, dear?” she asked.

 

“I can't only do one thing at a time” said Alastor. “If I change the length, I can't keep it straight and I don't want to...”

 

Rosie sighed.

 

“Alastor, darling, I know it's a pain point from your living life but the woman we are constructing doesn't have that past” she said, trying to encourage him now that he decided to do this maddening thing. If he was about to pull this out, he needed to commit with everything to the role. “This woman, that is to gain the favor of the king, loves herself, loves her body from the tip of the hoofs to her perfectly manicured claws, hair included. And your curly hair is beautiful, is something we can use, darling.”

 

He had to think about for a moment. Alastor was feeling it, how he was losing everything that make him, him. The deer demon even had the temptation of cancel all his plan, stop that before it began and... He remembered the promise, how his heart skipped a beat when his lips pronounced the words. No, no, no! If he renounced in that moment to fullfit that promise, all the things he did, all the plans, suffering, both in the Living World and in Hell were for nothing.

 

Resolute, the demon focused in his hair and for a moment the curls appeared, framing his face, then he shook his head and the hair grew in a second going as far as to his waist.

 

“You have such a gorgeous hair, darling” said Rosie. “Don't worry, I'll stylish it in an incredible way!”

 

She said, moving a little trolley with hair products and makeup.

 

“And what about the antlers, dear?” she asked.

 

“No, the antlers stay” said the overlord, firm in that. “At least this... construction will have something from me.”

 

The cannibal lady just smiled softly and nodded.

 

***

 

Such a gorgeous hair... Said Rosie but after a time, she wasn't the only one that told him... her that.

 

Milady was in the kitchen at Magne Manor cooking while humming, dressed only with a simple white apron that barely covered her breats and cucci, with her long and lustrous mane tied in a pony tail. Her permanent smile had a soft tone that day, thing that Lucifer noted when he entered, licking his own lips to the show that was that woman.

 

“Someone woke up in a good mood today” he said, approaching the sinner, looking at what she was cooking. “Mmm... Is that lamb, my love?”

 

Asked the king, placing a hand over the waist of Milady, looking from a side and grinding a little against her.

 

“Yes, my lord” she said. “Lamb roast with creole spices. I thought you could like it.”

 

Lucifer smelled the food and nodded.

 

“Smells delicious...” he then smelled into her hair, grabing it softly with a hand. “You also smells delicious. I'll never be tired of your smell and your gorgeous hair.”

 

He said and for a moment Milady couldn't be more happy. The life she was living, the compliments of that man, his attention, how he liked her body even when it was covered in scars and damage. She was loved... A jank from her hair took her out of her mind at the same time she felt his fingers, caressing and trying to enter inside her pussy.

 

“So perfect for me...” he said with a raspy voice, making her soft smile to falter a little. “I'll never be tired of your gorgeous hair, your smell or this amazing cunt... open your legs for your king, sweetheart.”

 

He purred the order... No permission asked, not sweet words, no preparation... not even in the days she felt good with herself, when she was happy, he allowed her to enjoy it.

 

She was his to...

 

***

 

Alastor, with the memory burning in his mind, growled and when he did, the mirror broke in place, with several cracks coming from the place where he was concentrating his gaze.

 

“Alastor...” Rosie wasn't angry, worried more than any other emotion. She moved to see her friend face from a side.

 

“I'm so sorry, dear” said the demon, sighing. “These days I'm slightly tense, with... you know. I can't stop the memories from coming after me.”

 

The woman denied with the head and continue, now using some shaving cream with a brush to apply over Alastor's shaved part.

 

“Don't worry, love, you don't have to apologize” said the cannibal. “It's normal and more with that monster living in the same building as you.”

 

She said, moving to get a comb and a razor, evening that part of Alastor's hair style.

 

“In any case, I'll pay for the mirror in full, my experiences are no justification to not be a gentleman” he said, sighing.

 

“Of course, darling, you'll be always a gentleman with me” she said, with a smile.

 

They talked a little more, trying to avoid again the topic of Lucifer and when they finished was almost lunch time, between the haircut and the dressing of his chest wound. He could stay there and eat but he really wanted to cook for the hotel, so he paid Rosie for the mirror ready to go.

 

“Before you go” the cannibal overlord presented a square box for Alastor, not taller than three inches, and around eleven inches of lenght, in soft pink with the label of the Emporium. “Here, for you.”

 

She said, Alastor widened his smile when he opened a little to see inside. A smile so bright as soft.

 

“You didn't need to” he said, closing it again.

 

“I know, and that's what makes me so great, darling” she said, moving to give a cheek kiss to the overlord. “Till next time, Alastor! Give my best to the princess!”

 

With the box in his left hand, the overlord made a bow moving his microphone cane near his chest.

 

“A pleasure as always, dear Rosie” he said, with his mood certainly improved, taking his steps in the direction of the Hazbin Hotel.

 

When he reached the hotel, Charlie was there, in the lobby, talking with Lucifer about something of a magazine or interview or something like that, he managed to catch before the princess rose from her seat to approch him.

 

“Ah, Alastor, you're back! Oh, I see you saw Rosie” she said, pointing to the little box in his hands.

 

“Yes, my dear, she sent her regards as always” said the overlord, ready to move to the stairs to go to his room. “Ah, today I'll cook for you and our lovely troupe.”

 

She emited a sound that was almost the chirp of a bird.

 

“Are you gonna do your jambalaya?” she asked, with both hands curled into excited fists.

 

“Oh, no, darling, I'm going to cook étouffée, got my hands in some crab from Envy, really fresh and I thought I could regale you with another of my dear mother's recipes” he said, with his smile at full potency. “You'll love it! I just need to leave this in my room and...”

 

Charlie was curious... She was as curious as she was positive, so she tried to see what was carrying the overlord in that cute pink box.

 

“Oh, what did you buy at Rosie's?” she asked, extending her hands to the box.

 

Alastor, in a graciuos movement, just dodge her and raised the box out of her reach.

 

“Ah, ah, ah, darling, that aren't manners for a young princess as yourself” he said, not angry with her at all, at least in appearance. “It's unbecoming of royalty to snoop in other people's business.”

 

He said, booping her nose and continuing his walking to the stairs.

 

“Sure is some nasty body parts” said Lucifer, looking to him with contempt. “I can smell demon blood from here, surely he killed some poor sob and he's gonna eat the rest in his spare time.”

 

Alastor stopped and looked to Lucifer, with the smile of someone that is about to tear apart, at least metaphorically, the object of their hate.

 

“It takes around twenty minutes to go from Cannibal Town to the hotel walking at my speed and with normal, regular size legs” he said, looking for a second to the short legs of the king, making him growl. “If this was some cannibal hors d'oeuvre at this point the cardboard of the box would have some blood stains. My good man, Rosie knows how to present cannibal treats, she would never use cardboard.”

 

He said, showing the box around to see that was clean, no blood whatsoever.

 

“And why in the Seven Rings I should be hidding my dietary preferences from young Charlotte when she knows them pretty well?” he said, taking Charlie from her waist and moving her near him, with the hateful expression from Lucifer more present, with his horns starting to show up. “My good man, our young demon belle knows exactly who I am and what I do, don't confuse her rose colored vision of Hell for naivete or stupidity, I'm dissapointed in you, my liege, thinking in your own daughter in such crude terms...”

 

He clicked his tongue in disapproval.

 

Lucifer was fuming, wanting to tear apart the sinner with his bare hands. He was showing his horns and he had his mandibule clenched, grunting.

 

Alastor, with Charlie so near him, just moved his eyes slighty to her side, just a tip... The king catched and understood the fucker, he couldn't do anything to him unprovoked in front of Charlie or if she could find out. She, he didn't know why, saw that cannibal maniac overlord as her friend and that made him untouchable.

 

He tried to relax.

 

“And then what's in the box?” he asked.

 

The deer demon just widened his smile and tilted his head to a side.

 

“My new undergarments” said the overlord. “If his majesty is in need to have a new pair, I could be persuaded to lend you one. Though you'll have to endulge in some torture to fit in... maybe some days in a medieval rack will do wonders to add the necessary inches.”

 

Charlie first became red in the face and then she started to laugh when Alastor just winked at her while moving to the stairs. The overlord gave just a last gaze to the suddenly stunned and flustered king to finally made the rest of the way via shadow.

 

“That fucker...” muttered the king, crossing his arms.

 

Charlie laughed a little more and sat besides her father.

 

“You walked right into that by yourself, dad” she said.

 

“I'm pretty sure I smelled some demon blood on the bastard” said Lucifer, almost pouting.

 

Charlie shrugged to pass an arm over her father's shoulders. She could be happier if those men were more friendly to each other, the princess didn't know why they hated each other so much... Well, she knew, because she wasn't obtuse, that her father wanted to make amends for the lost of time and seeing the help and care Alastor had for her wasn't pleasant for the king. He was... jealous, even when she thought that was absurd.

 

Alastor, in the other hand, she had no clue, but it was clear he didn't like her father. Maybe it was an authority problem, maybe for other reason... She wanted to think, because it was a perverse but soft sentiment, that he hated Lucifer because he wasn't there for her. But that was just that, a thoughtful thought.

 

“Alastor is... Alastor” she said. “He's a cannibal and I bet he smells like demon blood by default but he promise to not do anything bad in the hotel and I believe him.”

 

Lucifer was not so ready to believe the fucker but he just nodded.

 

At least, he knew he was a good cook, so for the time he could delight in his cooking, the king was ready to be amicable with the fucker.

 

***

 

Alastor growled when he reached the room, losing all the composure he manage to muster in front of that fucking beast.

 

He opened slightly his shirt and saw the new bandages that Rosie so expertly applied to him starting to have some little spots of blood. He'll have to contact his servant that afternoon for any results on the sanitary supplies from Sloth.

 

The Radio Demon took a look to the pink box from Rosie to then sighed. That could have been a problem if either the king or the princess look inside of it, that was something that could have been difficult to explain.

 

He sighed again, buttoning his shirt, he took the little box to move to his bayou, catching some breaths from the place to relax himself, with those aromas so near to home entering in his lungs, bringing him the peace he needed.

Chapter 5: TV was just an error

Summary:

There were several instances in his life where Vox's mere existance was damaging to Alastor.

After a moment of peace interrupted by the Devil, the overlord had to deal with a consecuence of his battle with Adam.

Notes:

I'll update the tags with this chapter, so mind the tags ^^

“I find television very educating. Every time somebody turns on the set, I go into the other room and read a book”

~Groucho Marx

 

Alastor came out of his bayou in good spirits, with a happy smile and a wooden box with some pincers coming out of it to try to strike him. He took a vicous look at the blue crabs before going out of his room, humming, in the direction of the kitchen.

 

“Are ya cookin', Smiles?” asked Angel, seeing the Radio Demon going to the kitchen with the box while browsing his phone.

 

“Yes, darling, one of my sweet mother's recipes” said the demon, not stopping to socialize, just going directly to do his task.

 

Not the first time he cooked for the hotel and even wasn't that rare of an event but taking the other cooks used to be Charlie and her experimental cooking, Angel that only learned from his nonna to cook lasagna and spaghetti bolognesa and Niffty and nobody dared to taste her cooking skills yet, when Alastor cooked it was almost a celebration. He didn't only have creole or cajun cooking but also some french dishes that were a delight but they noted he made an extra nice effort when it was one of his dear mother's recipes.

 

Alastor was a mama's boy and he wanted to make her proud even being in Hell and the dishes that were related to her were always the tastiests of all.

 

The demon, in the kitchen, placed the box over the counter top and made a black apron to appear, with bright lettering in red saying 'Don't kiss the cook'. He weared it, making soft knot in the back. The deer removed his gloves to leave his hands free and rolled his sleeves.

 

The kitchen when he cooked was his domain, nobody interrupted him so he always felt like in his bayou or his radio tower. Himself, only himself... He started to hum to the sound of the song 'We'll meet again' from Vera Lynn.

 

The faint sound of the music was accompany his humming, like it was playing from some radio in the distance.

 

He was happy... for a moment there were no problems, no bad dreams, no trauma... For a moment he wasn't a broken man, destroyed by the Devil himself from his core to his exterior. He wasn't thirsty for vengeance from a being he knew pretty well could end him with a snap, a being that he maybe could never get the satisfaction of seeing suffer like he was... No, in that moment he was free, he was happy.

 

“Are those crabs?” And, like in the past, he couldn't ever let him have that false happiness.

 

The growling that escaped his throat, he couldn't avoid it. The music from the distance was cut with the sound of a scratching record the very same moment Alastor stopped humming.

 

The deer demon turned around with his most jagged smile, just when he was about to place the pot with water over the flame.

 

“Oh, your majesty” he said, with a tone that was both trying to be gentle and cutting like a knife. “Well, yes, my lord. These are crabs I got from one of my employees from Envy. Fresh blue demon crabs.”

 

He said, pointing to the box that the short man was examining.

 

“These aren't fresh, they are alive” pointed out the monarch.

 

“There are nothing more fresh than meat with a heart pumping blood attach to it” said the sadistic taller man with that dangerous smile.

 

Lucifer growled in disgust to then look to the tall big pot with water that the demon placed over the stove.

 

“Don't you need to... you know, kill them before?” he asked while Alastor was adding salt to the water.

 

“Oh, no, my good man, they taste better when they are cooked alive” he said with cruel satisfaction.

 

The devil growled again, taking some distance from the overlord and the stove to sit in one of the chairs at the kitchen.

 

“You're despicable, sinner” said the man, again the disgust dancing in his face, taking everything from Alastor to not let his tongue lose or try to claw that expression out of him.

 

He just smiled, until it hurts, until stitches were visible in the sides of his lips.

 

“Yes, your highness, I am” he said, clawing the top of the wooden box to open it with brutality.

 

Like the claw of a machine on an arcade, the Radio Demon moved his hand over the crabs, trying to select the first one and he, maliciously, picked the smallest one. The crab try to pinch the demon but couldn't reach his fingers and, with pure malice, the red demon started to let the crab in the boiling water, laughing a little when he let go.

 

The smallest crab... oh, how much he wanted to do the same with the smallest man in that room.

 

“You really love hurting creatures” said Lucifer, looking with revulsion and some fascination to the deer demon.

 

“Yes, my liege” said Alastor, moving the rest of the crabs to the pot. “It's something you and I have in common, I guess.”

 

“You and I don't have a thing in common, sinner, and less that” said the Devil. “I don't enjoy hurting people or animals.”

 

The Radio Demon turned around and walked towards Lucifer, getting near him to look down to him, with that smile countering his very severe eyes.

 

“You don't need to lie, your highness” said the demon. “Here we are only you and me. Dear Charlotte isn't here to hear sweet and convenient lies about yourself. We can be honest here... I'm a monster but you're the king. How many lives you destroyed just for the fun of it, I don't know, but you did... You should embrace your dark nature, my king, not try to hide it like Heaven is watching to punish you further.”

 

The monarch didn't know what to say. The way that Alastor talked was almost like he knew his personal sins, he knew his misdeeds in the past, his regrets and those that weren't... That was just not a phrase of someone raised in the Living World thinking the Devil was always tempting them from their shoulders and laughing at their misfortunes. That looked like knowledge.

 

Alastor, for his part, didn't wait for an answer and return to the cooking.

 

His mind again flying with memories...

 

***

 

Milady was in the floor of the hall, crying. Lucifer was over her, drench in pure fury, screaming at her.

 

“Tell me the truth, woman!!” he shouted.

 

“I told you the truth! Please, believe me, please... I was going just to see my friend, nothing more” she said, between her tears, sad, scared. “He jumped me, he... He's just someone from my past, he means nothing. There is nothing but hate between Vox and me.”

 

The king was furious, walking like a caged animal in front of the woman and that was terrible enough but when he bridged the gap between then and took her from her face, she was fully terrified.

 

“Be mindful, sinner, you have been living here for six months now and I've been nothing but kind to you” he said, with fire coming from his mouth, his horns in full display with fire between them scorching in her direction, his tail trashing like a whip of a cruel master. “But if you betray me, Milady, you'll know a side of me that few saw before. You won't be the first life I ruin for the fun of it. Did I made myself clear, darling?”

 

The woman nodded, with her face still pressed between the hand of the king, pressing enough to hurt but not enough to damage. And he could damage her, she knew it.

 

“I promise I'm being truthful, my king!” she said, sobbing. “I love you, only you.”

 

“Good” the king smiled again, his devil attributes hidding again. “Don't forget you're mine, that's all I ask.”

 

He moved the hand to caress her lustreous hair.

 

“You won't go out of the mansion again, not to see your friend or any other” he said, softly. “In that way, we'll avoid these problems, my pet.”

 

She was surprised but... she nodded. She knew there was not a way to talk about that, not a way to discuss that. Vox almost recognized the woman and took her hard from her arm, the Devil was spying on her in her outing to Cannibal Town and where any other lover would defend her from an obvious aggressor, the Devil just became possessive and jealous, blaming her like she was asking for it.

 

In her heart, Milady took that with solace, maybe he was really starting to love her, maybe that was just a sign. Maybe... yes, yes, better to submerge her mind in that idea.

 

***

 

Alastor hissed, he was with the vegetables and he cut himself by accident near the thumb.

 

He moved the hand to suck on the wound.

 

“Clumsy, aren't you?” said the Devil, mocking the demon.

 

“I was distracted, your highness” said Alastor. “Our good miscreants usually let me to my own devices when I cook.”

 

Lucifer laughed.

 

“Tough luck, big guy, I'm not feeling moving from here” he said with a smirk.

 

The demon, growling, returned to the cooking process but after some minutes, the stupid little devil talked again.

 

“Could you play some music?” he asked.

 

The deer turned around, again, with the knife in his hand and a huge desire to drive it between the Devil's fourth and fifth ribs, directly through his rotten and blacken heart.

 

“Maybe I'm the Radio Demon, your highness, but I'm not a jukebox nor I'm broadcasting and I rarely entertain requests... In fact, my guests usually aren't in the mood to make them” he said, with his broad smile of dangerous teeth.

 

He turned around, ready, so ready to ignore that man dressed in white.

 

“Oh, don't be a poor sport, bellhop” said Lucifer with the smile of someone that know very well is a nuisance and have the knowledge that he can't be removed. “I thought you liked music. Maybe even that could improve you sour mood... I don't know, something from Salieri, for example.”

 

Alastor rolled his eyes.

 

“Of course you like Salieri” he muttered but Lucifer heard him.

 

“Hey, Mozart was maybe better but Salieri had very impressive pieces, Palmira regina di Persia is one of my favorites” said the Devil. “If not, maybe something from Brahms, Verdi, Wolf? Not up your alley?”

 

Alastor sighed.

 

“Something more modern perhaps? You were from around... 20s, 30s? Maybe from that time, I doubt you know music more modernd than that” he mocked the demon.

 

The Radio Demon thought for a second.

 

“If I play something modern, after my time, you'll shut up?” he asked, without turning, just over his shoulder.

 

Lucifer nodded.

 

“Yeah, I can do that, if I like the music” he said, raising a brow with a smile plastered in his lips.

 

The demon thought for a moment, something more modern that his time, something that he listened and liked it, maybe not in the Devil's alley, using his same phrase but something that called to the deer's very core, something that he wanted to say and he wasn't able to without betraying who he was, what he wanted to achieve.

 

After a sigh, the demon snapped and music started to sound, soul music, rhythm and blues to be exact. That music, the same that blues and jazz, called to his core and he was able to enjoy some songs here and there over the years, specially from the woman that singed that one: Aretha Franklin.

 

There was once a rose I knew, I met her once or twice before

She was a pretty sweet thing, not the least bit insecure

Then you cam with your slick game and played with her youth

unashamed of the way you lied, played with the truth

 

The voice from that singer was around the kitchen, the music. Alastor resumed with his cooking while the Devil remained in silence.

 

He didn't say a thing, Lucifer didn't know why, but something, something in his intuition was telling him that song talked in the past to Alastor, reached his very core. In fact, looking with attention, real attention and not just disgust and hate, he noticed things like the demon moving his head to the sound of music, his lips moving with the lyrics even when he wasn't singing. And his eyes... The smile was a lie, he knew that had to be permanent, he knew some sinners with permanent smiles or frowns before but his eyes were expressive. He didn't even notice before and they were sad.

 

Lucifer knew the demon was a mama's boy, Charlie not only told him about the cooking but he warned him to not mention the woman in their arguments, she didn't wanted that bickering to scale to full blown aggression so she warned him. That song talked about abuse and a despicable man... Maybe he liked it because it reminded him of her?

 

She never knew what hit her

Steal her honey, then forget her

And the rose (is gone)

and she wears a flower

she tryin' to forget about you

 

'Cause a rose is still a rose

Baby, girl, you're still a flower

He can't lead you and then take you

Make you and then break you

Darlin', you hold the power

 

The Devil decided to remain in the kitchen but keep the silence between them, just music between them while Alastor was cooking and the shorter man had to admit to himself, that red haired man knew what he was doing. Lucifer wasn't a bad cook himself, he was rather lazy sometimes to actually do it... Alastor, in the other hand enjoyed it so much.

 

Ignoring the presence of the king improved his mood, making him feel lighter... The selected song, a cry he wanted to be able to had out of his chest in a way, also helped. Not that the self-centered piece of ex angelic crap could catch the hidden meaning after his selection.

 

He prepared the Étouffée and served several dishes to the residents of the hotel, taking a huge plate himself full of food to move to his room. He always did that, he cooked, he presented the dishes and he secluded himself in his room to eat alone.

 

Charlie, being the good bean she was, tried to made him feel included but he prefered things his way.

 

“That's a lot of food, bellboy” said the Devil. “I don't know where you put it because you're a scrawny fucker.”

 

Alastor widened his smile.

 

“Well, I was blessed or curse by a good metabolism... I eat a full deer for breakfast and not a gram out of the usual. This is nothing, your highness, I'm so touch for your concern about me.”

 

“Fuck you, don't get your hopes high, I could care less if you die” said the Devil.

 

“Dad!!” Charlie scolded him. “That's not nice! At least thank Alastor for the food.”

 

Lucifer sighed with a little grunt.

 

“Thank you, Alastor” he said, between his teeth.

 

“No need, my dear” said the demon to the princess. “I know that you father didn't gain a set of manners with the horns so false gratitude is unrequired.”

 

He said, going out of the door while the king was insulting him.

 

Alastor then used the shadows to go to his room and started to move to the inner most part of his bayou to eat.

 

***

 

After eating, the group decided to see some television and the first thing they saw was Vox in a self-insert segment in 666 news.

 

“...And well, this is the uncut, direct exclusive video I was talking about” was saying the overlord.

 

Lucifer growled as soon as he saw the TV head demon.

 

“I hate that guy” he muttered.

 

“Enjoy the pathetic display!” he said, before the imagen changed to a drone type perspective of the last extermination.

 

The video was slightly corrupted by Alastor's anti-cam influence so the imagen was distorted but it was clearly him versus the leader of the exterminators' Adam, the First Man. Of course Vox wasn't showing the part where Alastor was toying with him, dodging every attack like a dancer and even landing some hits over him. No... the video started when Adam broke the microphone cane with a flash of light to then land a hit over the chest of the overlord.

 

The blood was visible, both in his chest and mouth.

 

“Have to disagree with you there” was the voice of Alastor from the TV. “Radio is not dead but it is ending this broadcast.”

 

“See? Fucking pussy!! Hahaha” was saying Vox, playing on repeat the moment of the hit over Alastor's chest.

 

Charlie was horrified, tears showing in her eyes.

 

“I didn't know Alastor was hurt that badly” she said. “I... I... I just thought he was out before any real damage.”

 

Vaggie was trying to console her.

 

“You couldn't possible know, honey” she was saying to her.

 

“And I mocked the bastard when he returned” said Angel, denying with his head. “Ah, fucks, I told him he was skimpin' on work and he was lickin' his wounds.”

 

“That's why he didn't help with the reconstruction, he was hurt!” said the princess. “He almost die and we didn't... Wh... Why he didn't come to us for help?”

 

Husk grunted and took a long drink from the bottle of beer he was taking as dessert after the meal.

 

“He's a proudful motherfucker” he said. “He won't show weakness.”

 

Lucifer was thinking. He thought the demon runned like a coward in the middle of the battle and then he decided to let him do all the work but... That wasn't his character, was it? No, he was a control freak and when returned he made changes almost right away. Sure he would love to be there in the construction making his horrible and distasteful touches. He was hurt, badly hurt.

 

That was a huge wound from Adam's angelic weapon, no less.

 

“He must be still wounded and in pain” commented the Devil, voicing his thoughts. “An angelic wound doesn't heal easy. When is small, yeah, but that big? Without some healing power he must have it still.”

 

Sighing, Lucifer rose from the couch near Charlie and Vaggie and moved to go out of the parlor.

 

“Where are you going, sir?” asked the other fallen angel.

 

“To heal the bastard” he grunted. “He almost lost his fucking head fighting a battle with no real gain in sight, he helped you until I could enter the battle and resolve it. I feel I own him and I don't want to have debts with the fucking Radio Demon.”

 

“Thanks, dad” said Charlie, with a soft smile.

 

“Don't worry, applepie” he responded.

 

He went to the last floor of the building, where both his room and Alastor's were and when he reached the door, he knocked with no response.

 

“Motherfucker, you won't make it easy for me” he muttered.

 

Well, he was the King of Hell, he went where he pleased so he moved the doorknob and entered.

 

The room was dimly lit by the fire in the hearth and some of the liquids in flask the demon had in the room. There were also some lights coming from...

 

“A swamp?” said the Devil, seeing the fireflies coming from that bayou producing a eery light in the room.

 

Two armchairs in front of the fire, bookshelves with flaks with parts and creatures and, he was sure, horrible things he didn't want to look at. A lot of books, looked like the demon was a bookworm. A wardrobe, a bed, a bedside table with an unfinished book in it. He shouldn't be snooping around but his curiosity for the sinner was bigger than his decency, if he had any left, so he looked the cover.

 

'The Amazing world of woodcarving and whittling'

 

He was learning how to woodcarve? That demon was fucking strange. But strange or not, he wasn't there, unless...

 

Lucifer moved to see better the bayou. That was a pocket dimension that stretched the space who know for how much. It was a really impresive work, paltry for him, of course, but that sinner could give some ars goetia a run for their money not in power but with ability. Even the smells were very realistic, the sensations, the temperature.

 

He thought that Alastor could be inside so he decided to go and found him instant of just wait, not in vein he was making him a favor. So he stepped inside but after a couple of feet, the sheer force of a full demon form Radio Demon impacted on him, dragging him from the bayou to the door of the room, impacting him in the wall near the door while the overlord was growling at him.

 

“You're traspassing on my bayou!” he growled, with his face double his regular size, dripping black ooze from his mouth.

 

Alastor was out of himself, he was more than furious, he was almost feral, rabid... Lucifer knew that. That demon wasn't an idiot to attack him, to jump him in that way without a real provocation, knowing he hadn't a real oportunity to hurt him and a real chance to be humbled in return. No, no... that was something else.

 

“Easy, I was just looking for you” he was trying to calm him.

 

But the demon was adamant to keep holding him there, holding back himself enough to not try to kill the king but just barely. And Lucifer was seeing that clearly, seeing clearly that Alastor was at nothing of losing control.

Notes:

I know, a cliffhanger, I know... I'm so bad but if not, with the next scene, this chapter could be very huge. I'll try to not prolongue the agony much time ;)

Chapter 6: Aftermath wounds

Summary:

Lucifer is a devil in a mission and if he said to his daughter he was about to heal the bastard from the angelic wound, that was happening.

Even when Alastor didn't want that man to touch him or to see him without clothes. Was the king always be the one that demanded and take from him?

"In the pale light of the moon I play a game of you. Whoever I am. Whoever you are. All sense of where I am, of who I am and where I'm going has been swallowed by the dark. And I walk through the stars and sky... a trinity of dreams beneath the moon."

~Neil Gaiman, A Game of You

 

Alastor in his demon form was holding Lucifer against the wall, near the door of his room, with both claws, one over his throat and one over his chest.

 

Still the demon was containing himself to not do extreme pressure but if the Devil wasn't himself, a regular sinner or a lower hellborn, he'll be porridge by now. Well, note to self, thought the King of Hell, the Radio Demon was very, very territorial.

 

“Ok, ok... just release me, Alastor” said the monarch, moving his hand to the one over his throat to force him to lose the grip, showing strength of his own. “I told you, I was just looking for you.”

 

The demon growled, black saliva was dropping from his mouth. The king had to admit that for a low sinner, Alastor was very impressive in his display. Nothing for him, but sure he had the perks to scare people with ease.

 

“You didn't need to invade my sanctum for that” said Alastor, moving his face near the Devil.

 

He was starting to notice the strength of the ruler's grip over his oversized hand and his lack of patience making an appearance, a thing that he knew painfully well, so he decided to release him and tried to calm himself. The Radio Demon grunted, moving away from the king like an animal, trying to normalize his breathing, returning to his regular form little by little. The deer demon took some air and close his eyes, exhaling slowly to then look to the Devil.

 

Lucifer was fixing his clothes in place, he was in a step up from serious to almost reaching angry but he wasn't there yet.

 

“Ok, shitass” said the shorter man. “You can keep your fucking swamp to yourself.”

 

“Bayou” he corrected the king. “And you're not allowed inside, no one is.”

 

“Whatever...” said Lucifer with a gesture. “I was looking for you, sinner. Today is your lucky day, you're about to receive an offer to help from your gracious king.”

 

Alastor made his microphone cane appear to rest with both hands over it.

 

“I don't have the memory to ever asking for that” said the demon.

 

Lucifer moved over the room and finally he settled in one of the armchairs in from of the flame, without asking permission or even making a gesture of good faith. That fucking Fallen had a problem with intruding with his small body where not a soul wanted him to.

 

Alastor just sighed and rolled his eyes.

 

“You didn't need to” said the king. “We were watching television in the parlor and that overlord, the one with the TV for a head, showed some interesting footage of you losing like a bitch against Adam. It was a pathetic display, really, losing so fast and easy.”

 

Said the Devil, laughing a little, looking first to his pointy fingers and then to the overlord, trying to catch his reaction.

 

The Radio Demon was holding his composure by a thread and he didn't need the taunts of the blond man minutes after he tried to enter in his domain uninvited.

 

“If your way of 'helping' is trying to mock my efforts to protect your daughter and her dream, you can stop now” he pointed with his cane to the entrance. “There is the door, your highness.”

 

Alastor was thinking that maybe he could spare a moment or two from his vengeance to deal with Vox once and for all and he also wanted the king out of his room. The closeness of the Devil to his bayou was creeping over his nerves.

 

The shorter man, in the other hand, sighed.

 

“Ok, enough teasing and jokes” for him those were jokes, go figure, thought the Radio Demon. “I want to help you with that wound.”

 

Said the king.

 

Alastor raised an eyebrow and moved his face to a side, not looking at the devil.

 

“The wound has been taken care off already” he moved his eyes back to the monarch. “Your concern is appreciated, my liege, but it's not necessary. You can leave.”

 

Lucifer jumped from the armchair and started to roll up his sleeves.

 

“Normally, I would let you to suffer and rot, sure you deserve it” said the king, making Alastor move his eyes into a thin line. “But... don't know why, my daughter takes you for a friend. Cares for you... And after seeing that video, she was worried. She can't have another death over her head, so I'm about to heal you.”

 

Alastor moved his cane to press over the chest of Lucifer, forbiding him to advance nearer to him.

 

“I think not” said the overlord. “The wound is healed, you can leave.”

 

Lucifer just slapped the microphone away.

 

“I'm not stupid, sinner” said the king. “A big wound like that sure is still a huge problem for you and, trust me, it can still kill you.”

 

The red demon scoffed, resting over his cane again.

 

“I dealed with angelic weapons' wounds before” said the Radio Demon and the king knew that was true.

 

Well, that man was a monster, an overlord and sure after terrorizing Pride for a few decades, sure now he had a list of enemies extremelly long and deserved and some could access to angelic weapons, due to Carmilla Carmine selling them or weapons created with them.

 

“But this is different, right? This is a big wound and Adam's weapon isn't a regular one” said the Devil. “So... stop the bitching and the facade of self-suficient demon, removed the shirt and lay on your back. Make it snappy.”

 

Lucifer didn't want to lose any more time trying to convince the demon.

 

“I'll tear apart your hands with my own teeth before I'll let you touch me” he said, showing his black guns with a little growl while talking, pure unnadultered hate coming with the words.

 

The king sighed after the display of animosity from the Radio Demon and then just shrugged.

 

“Suit yourself, I tried to make this nice and easy for both of us” he snapped and golden thin threads of pure light appeared around Alastor.

 

“No!!” he knew what was that but before he could enter into a shadow and escape, the threads coiled around him, forcing him to the bed and tied him to it. He tried to use his magicks, he tried to enter in a shadow, he tried to invoke his tentacles, nothing was coming to him.

 

And he knew why and that frustration made him growl and haul even louder.

 

“Don't be a baby!” said Lucifer going to the bed. “I said to Charlie I was about to heal you and that's what I'll do. I blocked your powers so you can let me work.”

 

He said and, like nothing, he started to unbutton Alastor's coat.

 

“I said don't touch me!” yelled the demon, trashing against the angelic restraints.

 

“Yeah, yeah, I heard you the first time” said the shorter man, moving the jacket to leave the torso free. “And if you continue to move that way, you're gonna hurt yourself. You can't escape me.”

 

Alastor knew tha painfully well, nevertheless, he still tried.

 

Lucifer took a look to the strange crosspattern suspenders. Why he had that other piece around his chest. He denied with the head and continued, removing that piece of clothing to then start to open the shirt.

 

“Let's see what we are working with” said the devil, more to himself than to Alastor.

 

He moved the shirt opened and saw the undershirt and corset.

 

“Are you kidding me? You're wearing a fucking corset?” he asked, shaking his head. “Well, I guess is a method to get your guts together but that's more pain.”

 

He looked to the man, with that smile almost showing a twisted grin of pain, with those eyes in full panic, sweating and heavy breathing.

 

“Are you in pain?” he asked the red demon.

 

“No! Stop, just stop...” and killing his pride a little, he added. “Please...”

 

Before that please, the king just sighed. Ok, that was more heartfelt that he anticipated from that strange man. He looked very desperate for him to not continue but he needed to. Lucifer thought he could try to add some calm and sympathy his way to make that easier.

 

“Look, you're uncomfortable with this, I get it” started to say the king while lossing the bindings of the corset. “I'm not an evil man, I don't want to step on other people's boundries...”

 

“You're touching me when I'm telling you not to!” growled Alastor in response.

 

“Yes, I know” said the Devil, sighing. “I can asure you, I not doing this for my pleasure. I really want to help you, to heal you... So, taking you don't want my touch, I'll go as fast as I can and later we don't need to talk about this, never happened.”

 

He offered, removing the piece of clothing to then just snapped to remove the pink undershit. Was that or cut it and sure the demon won't appreciate that in the slightless. That piece of fabric reappeared at the foot of the bed.

 

Lucifer had the torso of Alastor now in front of his view, still not bare because it was covered in bandages, new ones but starting to be soaked in blood. That stunt hulking out to his demon form and pinning Lucifer to the wall reopened the wound farther.

 

“Yeah, healed my ass” said the king. “See? For this I wanted to help, not because I have it in my list of chores for today to touch your scrawny ass.”

 

He made a golden pair of scissors to appear and started to cut the bandages. Alastor has his head raised, looking with a permanent growling to what the devil was doing, baring his teeth. When he saw he started to cut the supperior ones, near his upper chest, he protested.

 

“Those not...” late, too late. Lucifer cut all bandages and they moved aside.

 

The king looked with a question forming in his face when Alastor told him to not cut those but when he lowered his gaze, he started to understood why. Those bandages weren't part of the ones Rosie applied, those were separated and those weren't pectorals, those were breasts.

 

“Are you a wom...” his question interrupted by Alastor's fury.

 

“Finish that sentence and you'll need to add the necessity to regrow your windpipe and vocal cords to that little list of chores you have!!” he said and even when he had Lucifer's restriction over his powers, his eyes went full radio dials anyway.

 

Lucifer raised both his hands and tried to not look to Alastor chest in that moment.

 

“Ok, ok, I get it, my bad” he said.

 

Seeing the king not continuing, knowing that part of the cat was out of the bag anyway, Alastor rested his head over the pillow and grunted.

 

“Finish already!” he said between his teeth.

 

“Ok, ok.. Let's see” Lucifer decided to laser-focus on the wound and nothing but the wound. “Yeah, this one is a nasty one. You're lucky to have my help.”

 

The Radio Demon was grinding his teeth.

 

“I healed angelic wounds before” said the demon.

 

“Yeah, I don't doubt it... fuck, you have a ton of wounds” he said, looking to the ones that were in his vision in that moment.

 

A lichtenberg mark to the side, several cuts... and a very long horizontal cut under his belly.

 

“You sinners love to fight” said the Devil, disapprovingly. “You're not the first sinner I see so badly damaged.”

 

***

 

And Alastor's mind went to the first night with Lucifer, in Magne Manor, afer they slept together, Milady rose from the bed to go to the nearby stand to serve herself some water and when she was about to return to the bed with the king, she made a stop in front of the full body mirror the monarch had in his chambers.

 

The lights were off but some of the lights from Pentagram were giving a little illumination and the sinner started to catch her reflexion in the mirror, her all to known scars all over her body with the new addition of a bite mark made by Lucifer over her shoulder. For a moment she thought it was a pity that one was destined to heal and fade.

 

“What are you doing, sweet thing?” asked the king, going to her, both naked before the mirror, with the monarch holding her from behind with his hands over her belly.

 

“Seeing how good your handy work complemented my body” she said with a playful smile, passing softly his fingers over the wound.

 

Lucifer hummed.

 

“In the heat of the moment I didn't notice but you really have so many scars” he commented.

 

“Are you displeased with them, my lord?” she moved her tail a little, brushing over the skin of her lover.

 

He denied while licking his teeth.

 

“Not at all... When I railed you to my bed, I knew you were a tough woman” he said, kissing her back. “But I'm curious now. This is a mark of lightning, for example.”

 

She nodded.

 

“A little love tap from an ex” she said, with a hint of disdain. “He loves to gives those.”

 

Lucifer started to kiss over the scar to then move his hand to the right thigh of the woman.

 

“And this one?” he asked, tracing with his fingers the circular pattern of the scar.

 

“Tip of angelic spear from the lover of my ex lover” she said. “I paid the favor destroying one of his antennas with it.”

 

She said, the king moved in front of her and started to kiss and lick over the wound.

 

Milady moved her hand over Lucifer's hair and she made a little presure, not much, just enough to gather the attention of the king, making him raise his eyes to her.

 

“All my body is a map to my life” she said. “Every obstacle, every wound, every scar is a victory... I came to Hell as naked as I was born in the human world. I clawed, bit and persevered, just so I could be worthy of standing before the king with this body as an offering. Am I worthy of satisfying you, my king?”

 

She asked, passing her pointy fingers over the golden locks of the monarch.

 

Lucifer smiled to then lick his lips, leaving a pattern of saliva over them.

 

“Let me show you” he said, with his heated breath near her, over her skin making her shiver.

 

The king descended with both knees, kneeling and his mouth moved to her entrance. A little lick between the crimson hair where the folds showed a little, tearing apart a moan from the woman, moving Milady by reflex both hands over the head of the monarch before he dug deeper with his tongue.

 

***

 

Lucifer's voice took his mind from memory.

 

“Anyway, I'll heal you now” said the king. “This wound was made with an angelic weapon made from pure angelic power. Adam, fucking bitch... At least he knew he was useless as a fighter, his weapon is like coating one with poison. The cut can be small or you can try to heal it but eventually the energy eats you alive.”

 

That explained why the exorcists' leader didn't persue him when he escaped or was laughing while he was doing so.

 

Fuck, the least thing he wanted was a debt with that horrible man... No, not a debt. After all he said and done, he healing him wasn't a debt to pay, also, it didn't clean his slate by any means.

 

“This is gonna hurt” advice the Devil.

 

“I'm used to pain” grunted the Radio Demon.

 

Lucifer just ignored his words and started to move his hands over that wound, placing softly his fingers over Alastor's skin.

 

Traitorous body, was thinking the red demon. His body remembered the touch, the fingers, the softness, so impossible, like that man never touch a thing in his life and his body was reacting to it, he was feeling the humidity making all that moment more humiliating for him. Even with the pain, that was nothing to him in comparission to the pain he felt in the past, his body still reacted to the Devil in the same way as seven years ago.

 

He just hoped that man couldn't smell it or feeling, centered as he was on the task at hand.

 

Golden energy was pouring from the wound into Lucifer's hands, closing the wound inch by painful inch... The pain was raising, the more his hands were near his upper body, more Alastor was feeling the pain overwhelming him, little by little, using all his will to not scream, to not show weakness, not in front of that monster that surely will enjoy it more than anything.

 

The demon was clunching his teeth to the point that blood was dropping from his mouth, he had to hold himself, he won't scream, not in front of that man. His tied hands clawed the bed, entering in the mattress, tears were in his eyes and he was trying, at the same time, to retain them and not close his eyes completely, he needed to control what the Devil was doing to him.

 

He needed to... He... He lost consciousness, fainting from the extreme emotions and pain.

 

Lucifer didn't notice initially, just when he finished. A last flash of golden light the covered all the large wound and it sealed, still tender but healed and free from angelic corruption.

 

The king sighed and moved his eyes to see the demon, with the sweat, the tears and blood over his face. He made a gesture with his fingers and the light restraints dissapeared. He returned his sight to the chest and stomach of the deer demon, analazing the details.

 

“Are those...” he said, passing his fingers softly over some lines at the sides near his belly “stretch marks?”

 

The devil looked again to his face and then to his breasts.

 

When he was about to look for more details in his skin, something catched the king's eyes from his peripheric vision and he moved the head. In the limits of the bayou, where the room gave way to it, there was the shadow of the overlord, like a guardian dog, growling with no sound to the king, with big antlers showing and arms to the side, with huge claws, a warning.

 

“Shoo, I won't enter in his stupid marsh” said Lucifer but the shadow didn't move.

 

Curiosity was always one of the king's vices and now he really wanted to know why that place was so important to the Radio Demon but... He trampled over some boundries already that day and he really didn't want to step on more with the sinner.

 

He look back at him and saw he was moving, dreaming? Or maybe a nightmare?

 

***

 

In the nightmare, Milady was running from Magne Manor. She couldn't use her powers yep, she was still recovering from the last restriction of the king. Any moment, any moment now and she will be far enough to be able to use them, entering in a shadow, running from there.

 

Her sprint was interrupted by the royal guards, huge smiles, shining blades.

 

“The king is displeased, whore” said one of the voices, now only shadows, smiles and shining blades.

 

“Get her!” she ran, they followed, she fought, they were trying to hold her.

 

“You know the orders, aim for the belly”

 

“Cut the bitch!”

 

Milady fought, claw and teeth, she was wounded, she was bleeding... and she felt it, Alastor creeping out of her. Alastor returning to reclaim...

 

Shadows at the command of the woman, tentacles at her call...

 

Blood, meat, screams going silent.

 

Alastor was weak... bloody, in pain... He entered into a shadow to appear in Rosie's Emporium. The last thing he saw was Rosie running to him and his bloody body.

 

***

 

“No!!” Alastor sat coming out from his fainting, sweating and with tears in his eyes.

 

The awakening was so sudden and so charged by the nightmare that all the lights flickered, the shadows moved like crazy and his voice was full washed with radio waves.

 

Lucifer was still there, looking susprised to the demon.

 

Alastor didn't notice but he had both hands over the long and old scar he had under his belly, breathing heavy. He only noticed when he followed the eyes of the king.

 

A sudden wave of fiery rage fueled him and tentacles sprawled from his back, capturing the king. He rose from the bed, growling, baring his teeth and with his demonic attributes stating to show in the form of bigger antlers and black sclera eyes with red radio dials.

 

“Get out of my room!!” he said, in his demonic voice. “If you try to enter here again I'll shred you like a chicken!”

 

With one tentacle he opened the door, with the rest he tossed the king out with force to then closed the door hard.

 

“Hey, jackass, a 'thank you' won't hurt you!” said the king, raising from the ground to fix his clothes.

 

Well, that was done. Now... Maybe he needed to talk to Charlie about the things that he learned in that extreme exchange. Did her daughter knew that Alastor was really a woman?

 

In the other side of the door, the Radio Demon, free from the presence of the king or any other soul that could see his vulnerability, dropped with his back to the door, raising his legs with his knees near his chest, embracing his legs and crying... just crying. Not a single sound, not a single thing that could betray the current agony he was feeling... nothing that could alert anyone that there laid a broken man with so many missing pieces.

 

A man that still felt things he didn't want to... feelings that were making all worse.

Notes:

Hard chapter but necessary... Now, Charlie will need to teach her father some very important lessons.

Chapter 7: A lesson on sensibility

Summary:

Charlie and Husk has a talk with Lucifer trying to explain the Devil some concepts about gender.

Lucifer doesn't have a good memory except for his past trauma but after the chat with his daughter and the bartender, he remembers something linking him to Alastor.

Notes:

Chat with Charlie incoming... Lucifer really needs it.

“He allowed himself to be swayed by his conviction that human beings are not born once and for all on the day their mothers give birth to them, but that life obliges them over and over again to give birth to themselves.”

~Gabriel García Márquez, Amor en tiempos de Cólera (Love in times of Cholera)

 

Lucifer was going down the stairs to the lobby of the hotel while he was feeling stiffness in his body. That fucking Radio Demon... He was ready to help him, he saved the sinner and he first attacked him and then he tossed him out.

 

The king had a small back pain and was annoyed by the attitude of that guy and Charlie catched on it immediactly when she saw her father returning from the room of the hotelier.

 

“Dad!” she moved near him, following him since the small man didn't stop, going on route to the bar because he needed a drink. “It's Alastor ok?”

 

The king rolled his eyes.

 

“Yeah, the bastard is amazing” he said, annoyed. “I healed him, not something he deserved, mind you. He attacked me, he yelled at me, his shadow threated me and then he tossed me out like a sack of potatoes after I helped him. No manners that beast, I'm telling you...”

 

He said everything, counting even with his fingers about the affronts the deer demon did to him while he was just being a good king, a good person, showing his magnanimity using his power to save his mangy life.

 

“But he's ok, right? You healed him, so he's out of danger?” she asked, they reached the bar and the monarch asked Husk for an appletini.

 

“Yeah, yeah, he is... Tho, now that I think about it...” he said, sitting in the tall stool with a jump and waiting for his drink. “I learned some things from him... or... Did you know he's really a woman?”

 

Asked the king to his daughter.

 

Husk let go the glass he has in his hand as a reaction and his eyes were wide open.

 

“Fuck...” he muttered, starting to clean it.

 

“What?” asked Charlie, confused.

 

“Yeah, you didn't know?” said Lucifer. “Go figures... I thought you know more about... her, that could explain why you care for the bastard. But yeah, he, she... have breasts and I'm pretty sure that a cucci too, I smelled her...”

 

Charlie, with her eyes wide opened like Husk, made gestures with her hands for her father to stop.

 

“Dad, dad, please, that's not ok” she said, sighing and sitting in the other stool near him. “I didn't know and you didn't need to tell us. To tell me and... Alastor is a guy, he always presents himself as a man.”

 

She was trying to go soft with her dad.

 

The thing is, her dad wasn't an anachronistic person, quite the opposite, he was always trying to be updated in terms, slang, jargon, technology and part of the Original Sin affected him too linking him to Humanity. He could talk and comprehend any language from the Living World, for any part of the world and even make up languages and his knowledge of music, literature and other arts, like cinema, was great but... Apparently there were areas in where her father needed lessons.

 

“But... He... has...” and he made the gesture to point out breasts.

 

“And?” Charlie sighed. “Dad, he's a guy. And pretty sure he doesn't want people to know with what body he was forced to be in the world.”

 

Lucifer took the appletini when Husk offered to him and took a sip.

 

“But what he wants doesn't change the truth” said the king, mulling over Charlie's words.

 

“Oh, dad, please...” she was starting to become annoyed and Lucifer picked in that.

 

“Sorry, applepie, maybe you can explain...” he offered, not for Alastor's benefit, it was obvious, but he was feeling he was dissapointing his daughter and he didn't want to.

 

Charlie took some air and thought for a moment.

 

“Ok, let's see... Some people, humans and hellborns, feel they are in the wrong body” she tried to explain, trying to find the correct words. “Sometimes they... don't like their bodies, sometimes is more profound. When I was in high school I read some studies from Sloth about that, some brains are wired for a sex that isn't exactly the one they are born with.”

 

The princess then remembered something.

 

“When I was little, mom tried to explain it this way: When people is about to be born, they are constructed by Creation in separate parts” she started to explain almost like it was a story, with a huge nostalgic smile. “And sometimes the body is assamble following instructions, some times Creation gets creative and there are changes here and there... and when the bodies are assambled, they need a heart, a spiritual one... And sometimes Creation, due to volume of work, use a heart that doesn't go well with the body. And... there is born someone with a body saying one thing and a heart saying another.”

 

He knew by fact the creation of humans wasn't like that but... Lucifer had to admit it was a good metaphor.

 

“So... in the case we have here, he thinks like a dude and acts like a dude, he feels like a man” said the king.

 

Charlie was nodding.

 

“Yeah, he's a guy and today's people can do things about it, there are treatments and operations and other things... But Alastor is from the 30s, he told me, so when he died he came here with what he had” and now the princess wanted to reassure the Radio Demon but she knew that needed to be organic, she couldn't go to him and hug him, right? “And it's like... well, dad, you can transform in anything, right? Even in woman?”

 

She asked. The Devil just nodded.

 

“And you don't stop to be you, right? You are still you, you are still a guy” she asked, trying to move the train of thought from his father to the final station.

 

“Yes, doesn't matter in what I transform, I'm still me” he said, still doesn't seeing the idea that his daughter was trying to present.

 

“Alastor can't change his body but he has clear what he is” she said, with hope her father understand completely. “He knows his a guy and his body doesn't matter.”

 

Lucifer sighed, drinking the rest of his appletini.

 

“I understand, sweetheart” he said, now he was starting to feel... bad about all the whole exchange with the Radio Demon. “I guess is bad that I almost call him a woman.”

 

He said, a little ashamed of himself.

 

“Oh, dad... it's bad, it's really bad, really hurtful” she sighed. “You said he yelled at you and tossed you out. Sorry, dad, but you deserved it. I thought you knew what a trans person was!”

 

Said the princess, Lucifer denied.

 

“Not the first time I hear the term but... You know I wasn't never a socialite like your mother, I deal with the Sins, I deal with my guards when I had them, the service of the palace or the manor... But I, you know, I'm not so use to talk to people like people. The rest of my experiences are with witches and warlocks... I know what a non-binary people are, I met a witch two years ago and they were so sweet to explain but... I maybe never met a... Or maybe I did.”

 

The full face of the devil was repentance and shame, he was unlocking a memory... because his memory was a disaster zone except for awful experiences that were always in repeat and high definition color... from time ago, decades? A century?

 

“Oh, fuck...”

 

“I don't know what you remembered, dad, but trans people don't need to say they are trans, they can, there is nothing bad about it but... They only want to be them, just that, maybe you met more than you think” she said, placing a conforting hand over her father's should.

 

He wasn't a bad man, he was so much time on the shadow of Lilith, not talking to people, making friends and so much time seeing the worse from sinners, he really needed to learn.

 

“I was just remembering a witch that invoked me years ago” he said. “She summoned me for her da... son, for her son. Her husband was abusive and he hit them both and when he tried to abuse the boy in other ways, according to her to 'remind him what he really was' they both killed him. There was an investigation and she wanted to save him from prison or even death sentence, it was a very messed up time with... well, some problems that I don't want you to think in them. I was there a week to sort it out and... I was good with the little guy but... Now I think about it, I don't want to be like that guy, the father... Fuck, maybe I need to apologize with Alastor.”

 

He said, remembering also moments ago all the thing with the Radio Demon, all his pleas to not be touched.

 

“He even asked me not to touch him” he shook his head, he was starting to see that maybe he was an asshole.

 

“Alastor has aversion to touch” said the bartender, grunting. “Ok, I didn't say a thing, I didn't know nothin', I didn't opened my mouth but... I want the guy holding my soul to be in a good mood, ok? So I'll tell you both these couple of things and that's that, you got me?”

 

Both royals nodded.

 

“Good, the guy hates his body and and doesn't want to be touched” started to say the bartender in a whisper, controlling the shadows around him. “Specially for people he doesn't know or doesn't like. Charlie, Niffty, Rosie and I are ok, Mimzy too. The rest? He can initiate touch and all but... Ok, he doesn't like to touch some substances also, some textures. Blood, viscera, that's ok, oil not so much... I don't know if is for a trauma and I won't bet over the guy that, again, holds my soul.”

 

“So you know he was trans?” asked the devil.

 

“Yeah, I helped him with some wounds in the past and he talks to Niff about things... The point is if the guy gets mad, you aren't gonna pay for it, got me?” he asked, specially the king because that chat was focused in him.

 

“You think he will hurt you or innocent people?” asked Lucifer.

 

“Oh, no, no innocents, first this is Hell, but... Alastor never goes for the little dudes” he said. “But if my boss isn't happy, I'm not happy... And property damage is a thing. And his last big hissy fit created Doomsday District and we don't want that, do we?”

 

He asked, Lucifer denied.

 

“No, we don't... Oh, fuuuuck” said the Devil. “I'm starting to see that I need to apologize with the bastard and I don't want to.”

 

Charlie took his hands, smiling to him.

 

“But maybe this is good, dad” she said. “Maybe you start with a sorry and built from that. I know maybe it's too much to ask you to be friends but at least I'll love if you are not so... cruel with each other, specially you. These days you are finding ways to annoy him. I'm not asking much if I ask you to respect his boundries, right?”

 

She asked softly.

 

“Yeah, I guess not...” he admited.

 

“Besides, you told me you changed your vision of sinners, your heart! I know that Alastor is... Well, Alastor but he has good qualities too and he deserves some peace and respect. Maybe he doesn't want to change but he's helping from the start. And you saw that video! And you saw that wound, how it was?”

 

Lucifer nodded.

 

“Bad, was bad... He was badly hurt” the guilt was starting to weight on him and he knew he needed to swallow his pride and do the right thing.

 

“Dad, we can only be what we want to be” she said. “If you don't want to be like that man you talked about, don't be. You're a good man, I know it, so do the correct thing.”

 

She kissed his father in the forehead.

 

“I need to go, I have to prepare the next group session with Vaggie” said Charlie. “Bye, guys!”

 

The princess say goodbye with the hand and moved out of the bar. Lucifer stayed there for a moment, thinking... The memory of that young lad he helped almost a century ago came crawling to him again. He treated that young guy with respect, he could do the same with the Radio Demon, right? But he knew himself, his mouth had the habit of write checks that he could regret paying later and the consecuences later came biting him in the ass.

 

The debacle of the apple all over again.

 

“Please, give me a shot of tequila” he asked Husk.

 

“Are you worry about having to play nice with Alastor?” asked the bartender after serving the shot.

 

“The guy loves to get under my skin and he's too good doing it and I fear I'll run my mouth upping up the ante and... yeah, I want to hurt him but not hurt him, hurt him, ya know? And I don't want other people to pay the price also” said the monarch. “I don't want more negatives in my column, so to speak, I'm suffering enough for errors in the past and I don't want to add the dissapointment of my daughter.”

 

Husk started to clean the counter.

 

“Yeah, Alastor can be abrasive but... even I have to admit the guy isn't completely bad” said the demon cat. “What I told you before stands, he doesn't go for weak people... People of fairer means, like he calls them. Weak guys, he won't care for them but he won't hurt them or let them be hurt by others.”

 

Lucifer took the tequila and drank it all in a fast gulp.

 

“Doesn't care for them but protects them? That's... strange” said the king.

 

“Yeah, with no danger you should be able to stand in your own two feet, right?” said the barman, taking the glass to clean it.

 

“You have a contract with him” Husk nodded. “But you say the guy isn't that bad and he has your soul.”

 

The cat demon sighed to then rest his elbow over the counter.

 

“I was making stupid mistakes, even when we were friends, the guy saw an opening and took it” confessed the demon. “It could be worse... He has me here cleaning bottles and acting like a psychologist, my soul could end in the hands of bitches like Vox, for example. Alastor maybe is a psychopath but he's a very pleasant and functional psychopath, most of the time. In fact I only saw my chain twice and one was your fault.”

 

Said the demon, moving to return the good tequila bottle he used for the king to the top of the shelve.

 

“Mine?” he asked.

 

“He was fucking tense the day he met you” said the cat demon. “I pushed, like other times... specially with Mimzy, I don't know why he allows that bitch to use him... I pushed it and he jumped like a claymore mine and he chew me. So yeah... your fault.”

 

Lucifer sighed deeply.

 

“My fault...” he said, another thing people blamed on him without him doing a deed.

 

But he didn't commented on that and decided to go to the kitchen and wait for the demon. He needed to return the plate from the lunch and he used to make and drink coffee around five (Lucifer knew because he was always ready to drink more of that coffee) so he'll wait and try to make that apology... going to his room was out of the question.

 

Again, he was so curious about that swamp...

 

Anyway, he moved his steps to the kitchen, sat down with a magazine and wait.

 

***

 

Alastor never let himself to swallow in self-pity for much time.

 

He has obligations, he has objectives... A little emotion was well and good but he needed to center himself. The demon returned to the inner part of the bayou to recover his plate after dressing up again.

 

The demon went out of his room in the direction of the kitchen. He will clean the plate and then go with Charlie to see if the princess needed his help with anything. Alastor entered the kitchen just to find the Fallen there, reading like he was expecting for him because he let go the lecture as soon as he entered the place.

 

The Radio Demon didn't say a word, he decided to ignore him completely and went to clean the plate. When he heard how the king cleared his throat, he was ready for the next mocking, insult or vexation that surely was in the mind of that impish little man. Maybe, he thought, his condition was now making the monarch salivate with the oportunity to humiliate him. Alastor braced for impact.

 

“I... I wanted to say I'm sorry, Alastor” said the devil with a remorseful tone that made the demon turn around and see him like he was a mirage. “I really wanted to help you and I became demanding and impatient and I waltzed all over your boundries. I shouldn't touch you without your permission and I'm sorry I tied you.”

 

The crimson eyes of the demon were fixed in the figure of the king, trying to find a molecule of mocking, a spark of teasing, a falsehood... He found none, so he sighed and nodded.

 

“It's ok, your highness” said the demon. “Apology accepted. I... I should have asked for help with the wound. I thought I could heal it by myself like others I had in the past and I don't wanted to worry young Charlotte.”

 

Not completely true but not a lie either.

 

“Also... I'm sorry I said... almost said... You know, that you...” he didn't know how to say it without say it.

 

Alastor sighed, returning to clean the plate.

 

“Let's not talk about that, please” he asked softly. “Not about my body or my wounds if it pleases your highness.”

 

Lucifer nodded, a little relieve not having to find a way to apologize about something he didn't know how to do it correctly. At least the demon didn't look angry with him or angry in general... that made things easier for him and he was a huge fan of easier things for him.

 

“Ok, I can do that... In fact, I was thinking, not the first guy I meet with the same condition, I met a young fella years and years ago...” he started to say, like trying to start conversation.

 

“That's not exactly 'not talking about it', your majesty” said the demon, trying to stop the train of thought or the mouth of the king.

 

“Oh, yeah, sorry...” he apologized again. “The funny thing, the mother of that guy called him Alastor too. Hell of a coincidence that you chose that name here too.”

 

Said the king with a smile.

 

Alastor was... sighing and had serious eyes, his smile faltered a little.

 

“I didn't change my name” he said, finishing with the plate place it over the rack to dry.

 

“No? Most guys change their name here” said Lucifer. “They want the importance or the uniqueness and 'Alastor' as a name is much that. It's another name for Zeus, you know?”

 

The Radio Demon dried his hands and turned around to look at the king, placing his hands over his cane.

 

“Yes, I know” said the demon. “Avenger, in greek. It was also the name of one of Hades' horses. My mother gave me that name not knowing that context, she read it in as the title of a poem and liked it. In my times, my mother was fortunate to be able to write and read and cleaning the house of a college professor, she found this book of poems from Percy Bysshe Shelley, the name catched her eyes and she read it.”

 

He moved a step, just a step.

 

“Favour my solemn song, for I have loved

thy shadow, and the darkness of thy steps,

And my heart ever gazes on the depth

of thy deep mysteries. I have made my bed

in charnels and on coffins, where black death

keeps record of the trophies won from thee,

hoping to still these obstinate questionings

of thee and thine, by forcing some lone ghost.

Thy messenger, to render up the tale

of what we are...”

 

Recited the demon, without changing his posture, without his usual flair for the dramatic or his showmanship. He was just there, with a soft sight, soft smile reciting the words while looking to the king, his head slightly tilted.

 

“It's not the first time I hear that poem, isn't it?” confessed the Devil, with his mind now going rabid with memories.

 

Lucifer tilted his head slightly, mostly like Alastor. The demon sighed and nodded.

 

“Creole, from Louisiana...” the king clicked his tongue. “You can't be that sweet lad. He was so... good, so polite. He was Heavenbound, you can't be that boy!”

 

“And I thought you angels have perfect memories” said the demon.

 

“We are built like working bees, we don't need perfect memories and even so, I don't have one and... The fuck, even if I remembered in the moment, I could never relate you with that teenager” maybe Alastor was so unpleasant with him when they met because he hoped for him to remember.

 

But those were seven days of a very long, long life and not the first time he helped in that way... even when, yes, he had to admit, the lad made an impression. He still remembered the promise he made him.

 

“I made you a promise, your highness, and I'm a man of my word” said the demon.

 

***

 

Lucifer was ready to part, he solved the problem for the boy and he was going free, free to be whoever he wanted to be, even in that cruel world with cruel morals so ready to punish and condemn a person for the color of their skin.

 

“Thank you again for your help, my lord Lucifer” said the woman, kneeling and lowering her head. “Thank you for saving my boy.”

 

She was still emotional after the veredict in the courthouse, she knew that without the help of the Morningstar, her poor Alastor had not salvation and being... what his baby boy was, even prison was a death sentence.

 

“No need to thank me, he's a good lad” he said, looking at the boy.

 

He was a teen, tall for his age but frail, too thin. With chestnut stretched hair, russet color skin and brown eyes behind the circular glasses. He was kneeling too but he raised his head glowing with pride when the devil said he was good, he was blushing a little and his eyes were beaming just for looking at him.

 

“Thank you, my lord” said the young man. “I promise you, this opportunity will not be in vain. I'll take care of my mother, I'll work hard, I'll become someone important and I'll help the people of fairer means. And when I die, I'll serve you, my lord, I'll be at your side ready to serve you and your family with my all. I'll make you happy, my king, I promise.”

 

Lucifer moved his hand to take softly the face of the young man and the lad let a heartfelt sigh, with his mouth slightly opened.

 

“We won't see each other, young one” said the king. “You're a good man, you'll never step on my Realm but I'll treasure the sentiment and I'll remember this last week as fond memories.”

 

The man smiled softly.

 

“I'll remember you too, my king” he said, lowering his head with devotion.

 

The Devil nodded with a smile and red mist enveloped him, returning him to his own dominion at the same time the young man moved his lips, saying something with no sound, not a word muttered.

 

***

 

“I can't believe is you” said the king.

 

“Well, I don't belong among the angels, your majesty” said the deer. “I made sure of that, so I could fullfit my promise.”

 

Lucifer thought for a moment.

 

“That's the reason you approached Charlie? To serve my family, make me... Happy?” if that was the reason, thought Lucifer, he was being more of ass that he realised.

 

Sure, so much time to make his presense known but... If that was true and he wasn't so ready to believe it yet, he wasn't an oportunist trying to get some power gain from Charlie after all. Maybe he didn't believe in her project but he wanted to help her... for him.

 

“Let's say that's the reason” said the demon, not admiting anything or denying it. “Does that change in any form the way you see me?”

 

Lucifer was ready to say yes but he denied.

 

“No, I guess you're still a killer, an overlord and a cannibal but... how that young sweet Alastor became... you?” asked the man.

 

“With a lot of effort, my lord” he responded with a wicked smile.

“You know... just for the name I couldn't know it was you when we first met” said Lucifer. “That name is not a unique name, you know?”

 

The Radio Demon nodded.

 

“Yes, your highness, right you are” for once, thought the demon. “But we met before. I tried to approach you as soon as I arrived to Hell.”

 

Said the demon, going to prepare the coffee, selecting first the grains.

 

“Of course, I was nobody and I couldn't get an apointment to see your majesty” continued to explain the deer. “So I decided to continue my great work here too, to be someone... And we met in an overlord reunion hosted by the gracious queen, fourty years ago, give or take. I tried to approach you and you brushed me aside like a fly.”

 

Lucifer tried to remember that moment. Sure, he went with his wife to some overlord reunions in the past but he was... absent from the politics, unintrigued and uninterested. Lilith adored to be informed of everything, to have her greedy fingers in every pot and to see the sinners dance and grow and fade...

 

“I... I don't remember” he admitted, with his eyes fixed in the sinner.

 

“Of course, your majesty” said the demon. “No matter how powerful an overlord one can be, we sinners were unworthy of your attention. Ants to a boot... I learned that in that meeting. I thought I won't be able to make good on my promise but young Charlotte was there, hoisting her dream in prime time. What a performance!!”

 

It was so strange, normally Alastor bursted with radio sounds, canned laughs... in that moment, he used none of them. Just his regular voice, with almost not radio filter, so soft and calm.

 

He grained coffee and started to prepare it with the italian coffeemaker.

 

“I didn't see it but they told me she was ridiculed” said the king, sad.

 

“Well, yes... her dream sounded like wacky nonsense and she decided to place all her faith in Angel Dust” said the demon, turning around as soon as he left the coffeemaker over the flame. “And with an absent king as a father, she wasn't getting the respect she deserved. No matter what, a father should be always there protecting their young, saving them from any harm.”

 

Lucifer moved his sight to a point on the ground, he was ashame and sad and... furious. The demon was right, Charlie had that experience because of him, she relied on Alastor because of his absence and when she hit a wall and decided to reach to him, her was so ready to dismiss her efforts, he dreams.

 

“You're right, I am a shitty father” admitted the king.

 

“You are” said Alastor seriously.

 

The king rose his eyes to Alastor, he was just there, the smile always in his face but his eyes were telling another tale, so serious with other feelings he wasn't catching completely. Sadness, regret, hate? He wasn't sure.

 

“But, nothing of that is of consecuence to me” said the demon, turning around to pick up the coffeemaker and serve some coffee for him and for Lucifer. “I'll do whatever I'll need to do. Maybe for his highness this Avenger was nothing more than a simple molecule lost in time after passing through the sieve of memory but this Alastor...”

 

He moved the cup to the table, with cream and three sugars.

 

“has promises to keep, my king” he said, taking his mug with him and walking out of the kitchen.

 

Lucifer didn't know why, maybe the selection of words, maybe the knowledge now that the man has something linking him to his past, maybe it was the tone... But for the first time in long turn of the years, the Devil had a shiver.

Notes:

All the data about the meaning of Alastor's name is correct, not an invention. The poem is a real 1815 much longer poem that you can read online free if you're curious about it. I took a part that I thought it was perfect with certain meaning.
And don't worry, there will be more flashbacks to Lucifer's time on the Living World ;)

Chapter 8: Paganini's teacher

Summary:

Feelings and music are connected in more ways that the obvious. Feelings and music could be also memories, raising a heart or sunking it in darkness.

After hearing again the perfect notes of that violin that so many emotions brought to his mind, the Radio Demon resume his path of vengeance with a crucial piece to his plan making its way to his hands.

Notes:

It took me more to find the perfect quote for this chapter than to write it, go figures! And it took me time to write this because I was taking some exams over a course I was taking so... Hope you like it, I'll try to upload to this one more often.

“So I followed his light and it's set me free, cause Lucifer's the one who's praying for me.”

~Me and that Man, Angel of Light

 

Two days after that little conversation on the kitchen and Alastor was waking up after one very particulally nasty nightmare. Some nights were better than others, some nightmares were more damaging that others... He moved so much in his sleep that the sheets went out of his mattress, he was dripping sweat and his breathing was heavy, with the memory forcing him to bare his teeth in aggression, with his ears resting painfully over his hair in alert mode.

 

He passed both hands over his face and tried to normalized his breathing. He had no windows in his room but he felt the sun wasn't up just yet.

 

Well, he had a lot of things to do, so he decided to take a searing hot shower to remove the memories and feelings his dream arose, so he went to the bathroom taking out his pajamas and the bandages around his breasts, taking a quick look in the bathroom mirror, looking down his healed chest wound.

 

It wasn't tender anymore, completelly healed and going near the same color as the rest of the wounds that decorated his skin. He passed the fingers softly... Lucifer healed that, it wasn't a problem any more so he could continue with his plans and machinations, resuming in full swing his desire for vengeance.

 

His desire for vengeance... and the feelings. Alastor moved the hot faucet to the max and he left the hot searing water to hurt him, trying to suffocate the sensations and feelings that Lucifer's touch produced over his body. He pushed those memories down a long time ago, he had to... And now, they were raising over again to the surface of his mind, going hand on hand with the good memories he had with the king.

 

The demon started to grow a growl in his throat, little by little, raising his breathing, baring his teeth until he finally let it go while hitting the tiles with the fist, denting some of them. He had to focus, he had to remember... all the things he lost! All the things that evil man took from him!!

 

He couldn't go weak for some memories and a touch when there was so little left of him as it were. No, no... he had to focus in his plans, all the pieces were starting to move in the chestboard to screw things now.

 

No, the reason because he needed his vengeance was too important to him. He couldn't be weak, he couldn't have compassion...

 

He couldn't let the fragments of his heart that still loved the man to dominate his being.

 

Alastor couldn't let him win, he couldn't let him go uncheck... It was too important, not only to make him pay, but to protect was left of him.

 

Going out of the shower, the demon used the towel to dry his body, replacing his breasts' bandages with new ones and dressing just with his trousers, undershirt, corset and shirt, going barefooted to his bayou.

 

Two hours later, he came out of it just to see Niffty trying to stab a cockroach with a long needle, going to his bayou so distracted by her future victim to notice or care.

 

The Radio Demon emited a burp of sharp feedback and catch her front the fabric of her back, raising her to look to her face.

 

“Niffty, darling?” he said, trying not to sound angry with the small demoness.

 

“Ah, good morning, Alastor!!” she said, chirpy, energetic and happy was usual. “I made your bed, now I'll dust a little and I'll mop.”

 

The demon just nodded.

 

“That's good, darling, thank you but you almost entered in my bayou” he said, chosing his words.

 

“I did?” she asked.

 

“Yes, darling, you almost did” said the demon, showing that patience that he reserved only for the people he really cared about. “You know you're not allowed there. Nobody is.”

 

Niffty nodded while the demon let her go softly to the ground, with a soft smile just for her.

 

“Yeah, I know, sorry, Alastor” she apologized.

 

She never questioned why he didn't let her in or why he never let anyone go inside, she just knew she shouldn't and that was good and all, she trusted the Radio Demon completelly. If she wasn't able to enter, it was for her own good, like all the things he order her to do.

 

“No harm no foul, darling, just be mindful next time, ok?” said the red demon with that soft of smile. “If a roach go inside my bayou, you wait for it here or let it be consume by the horrors inside.”

 

He laughed slowly, petting the head of the woman.

 

“Enjoy your cleaning, darling” he said, doning his coat and monocle, taking his cane and moving out the room to the lobby of the hotel, and that's were the music hit him.

 

Violin music and for the mastery that was in the air, the perfect notes, the almost burning fire that sound was moving over his body, the deer demon knew perfectly how was the maestro.

 

In the parlor of the hotel, Lucifer was in a world of his own, with his eyes closed enjoying the piece his fingers and bow were playing to perfection. Alastor stopped at the door and he couldn't refuse the necessity of his mouth to open slightly, the sigh to rupture out of his chest. He knew the song tho it was the first time he heard Lucifer playing it.

 

Oh, he heard him plenty but never that one... Mephisto's Waltz. Every note was precise, every passing of the bow was meassure perfectly and even that, the song brought notes of chaos, of beauty, of frenzy.

 

Charlie, Vaggie, Angel were there, hearing the improvised concerto, all fascinated by that mastery even when not all could muse of his talent, could catch in the subtle notes, even when they weren't classically trained to appreciate him, to be flabbergast by him, there were enthralled, mesmerized by that violinist of devilish beauty and talent that was making Alastor's heart to feel less broken, less hurt... Every note a touch on his soul calling him home, like if he was a lost child in a forest catching on the beautiful melody of the Pied Piper.

 

He was not... but he was a child, once...

 

***

 

Or a teenager, a teenager in danger for an act of pure survival in a very unjust world... but young Alastor didn't think in that when he was practicing his music.

 

His mother, blessed be her soul, worked two jobs just to not only make end's meal but to have the best she could muster for her little boy. She managed to pay for his education, clothes and she even managed to gave the young man a full tutoring in music.

 

First she paid some tutors, then she made him enroll into a prestigious academy for young musicians and Alastor thanked that oportunities giving them his all. He learned piano, violin, trumpet and saxophone and the young man was starting to become really good, specially with the piano.

 

Alastor's mother just wanted the best of his boy and maybe music could be that calling. Sure, he liked radio, a lot, he loved the broadcasts with good music and stories but she wasn't so sure he could make it but there were always place for a good musician, being in orchestras or clubs. Also, his babyboy had a very unique voice that could turn heads too and mixing one thing and the other, he could make it, he could be a star.

 

She was worried those days, with good reason, him too but... in that moment, where he was practicing with the piano, he felt free, like floating, he felt that only the music mattered, that everything was gonna be alright.

 

He was practicing Mussorgsky's Night on Bald Mountain because, of course, he couldn't take his mind from the... man? Person? Angel? God? That was living temporarily in his house with him and his mom, the Devil, staying with them until his debacle was resolved.

 

Alastor was so centered in the frenetic music, in the speed of the ivories under his fingers, in his mind in those yellow and red eyes... that he didn't notice when those eyes started to look at him.

 

Lucifer was at the door, leaning over the wood, arms crossed and head moving with the notes, like he could play them with his mind and movement. He tried to clear his throat but the teenager was centered in the piece... he wanted to ask him something but... He was good, so the Devil made his violin appear and started to play with him. And after several notes, the lad moved his head seeing the short man there, playing that instrument, following his steps, at his own pace, with a mastery he never saw even in the academy's best teachers.

 

Lucifer had not only far more experience than him, he was more talented without a doubt. In fact, the blushed young man couldn't describe the abitlity of the Devil, he didn't have the vocabulary for it. The only word that came to mind was 'sublime' but not only that, he, with all that mastery, was going to his pace, playing the violin to his rhythm.

 

When they finished the piece, Alastor was drenching in sweat, he was vividly blushing and his breathing was heavy.

 

“I felt honored, your majesty” said the young man, stepping out of the stool and bowing.

 

The king made a gesture.

 

“Don't be, lad, you play rather well” said the Devil. “It's amazing, being you so young.”

 

The teenager beamed with pride, carried by the compliment presenting a soft and grateful smile. He started to caress his own neck, not knowing how to respond to a compliment from that being.

 

“Hmm... Do you need anything, your majesty?” asked the young man.

 

“I wanted to ask you something but can wait” said the short man, moving near the piano in the living room, passing his fingers over it.

 

It was a very old piece, his mother found it on sale and they restored together. It took a time for Alastor to learn how to tune it but at least he had a instrument to practice, the rest of the ones he learned he could only practice in the academy.

 

“Since when you play piano, lad?” asked the Devil.

 

“Ehmm... I been playing since nine? So five years” said the young man. “My mother wanted me to learn earlier but... well, my father didn't approve.”

 

He said, with words like ice, his eyes hurt for the memories and Lucifer catched that.

 

“More impressive even” said the king. “Five years... You have such a talent. Do you play only piano?”

 

Alastor denied.

 

“Sax, trumpet and...” he took some air. “Violin too but not even in my kinder dreams I could match his majesty's expertice. I'm classically trained but I'm been in the academy just a couple of years and... well, not even with a century I could compete.”

 

He was blushing under the gaze of that crimson irises, the attention that the Devil was placing in him, with his pride beaming under his compliments and with a knot in his stomach he couldn't explain.

 

“I would give anything to know how it feels to be so good with the violin” said the young man.

 

Lucifer, like an idea occurred to him, smiled going near the man. Alastor noticed he didn't make his golden fiddle dissapear. He moved behind him and helped him place his instrument over his shoulder.

 

“I can give you a taste” said the Devil, behind him, almost chest to back and the young man let him.

 

In that moment he knew, he could let that man do whatever he wanted with him and that thought alone scared him.

 

The monarch moved his fingers to place them over Alastor's and made the young man hold the bow placing softly his hand over his.

 

In that way, moving the hands of the young mortal, the Devil started to play Largo by Handel, a soft easy piece so he could move helping the young boy to play.

 

The subtlety of movements, the loving piece, how soft were his hands over his, the heat irradiating from him and that smell, that aroma of roasted apples... Never Alastor felt so overwhelmed, so overtaken by emotions, sensations. In that moment, in that minutes the piece was being played by them, all that was important for the mortal was that ultraterrestrial man and how he made him feel.

 

Never in his life, except when he was killing his father, he felt this alive.

 

They finished and Lucifer moved from behind the young boy, making his golden instrument puff like nothing.

 

Alastor didn't have the words initially and just looked back to the Devil, with his mouth slightly opened, with a smile that was showing timidly over his lips.

 

“Ehmm... Th... Tha-thank you, your highness” he bowed.

 

The king placed a hand over his shoulder.

 

“No need, lad, maybe we can jam a little before I'll go, after this is resolved” said the monarch. “Right now, I need to create a timeline, I need you to recreate for me all you did that day so we can play with that on court. Are you up to it?”

 

He asked.

 

“Of course, my king, whatever you ask” said the young man.

 

***

 

Whatever you ask...

 

Those words were his downfall, his doom. Asking whatever made that wicked man happy, following his desires like a dark gospel, it was lead him to his afterlife like it was in that moment.

 

Lucifer continued to play and Alastor notice his shadow was reflected in the opposite wall... and his own shadow was near it.

 

The king was playing and Alastor's shadow was kneeling in suplication and adoration, offering his hands like a tribute, like it was crying over his talent and beauty and asking how, being that alluring, that angelic, he could hurt him that badly, asking the questions that the man wasn't able to say.

 

The red demon made a gesture, forcing his shadow to return to him before someone could notice and make inconvenient questions and he forced himself to stop listening, to stop being just there, spellbound by the trickster.

 

When he moved out, Husk moved near him.

 

“Boss, I have a message for you” and he presented the Radio Demon with a piece of paper.

 

Alastor's eyes brighten with a dangerous light that made the cat demon recoil by pure instint, seeing the unadultered malice that took place over his master's face. It was not the regular 'creepy Alastor', presenting himself in that way just for kicks and giggles. That was... more less deliberately and more a reaction.

 

“Excellent” said the demon, using his hellfire to consume the piece of paper. “Thank you, Husker. I'll be out a couple of hours. If dear Charlie needs me, tell her I'll be back before she knows it!”

 

The cat demon just nodded, something inside him told him to be clear of Alastor's presence as soon as possible and he always listened to his gut... well, outside of gambling, of course.

 

Alastor turned around over his heels and went out of the hotel.

 

***

 

Maurice's Curiosities was a pawnshop in Imp City.

 

The man in charge was a sinner with the characteristics of a stray cat, black and white and with bald patches here and there. He dressed always in brown comfortable pants with suspenders and a shirt. Over his head a bowler hat that saw better days, always tilted to a side.

 

When the bell of the door produced a sound, the sinner took a good gulp of his flask in the back room of the shop to then go to the counter.

 

“Welcome to... oh, it's you” said the man. “Good to see you, sir.”

 

Alastor widened his smile.

 

“Good to see you, Maurice” said the Radio Demon. “A little black cat told me you have something for me.”

 

The sinner, how was serious as someone stepped over his tomb, nodded to opened the counter for a side to let the red demon pass, making him a gesture to go with him to the back room.

 

“I think this time I got the genuine article, boss” said the man, going to the multitude of boxes and boxes in the back of his shop to get a long thin box in dark blue, going with it to the nearby table, cleaning a little of the dust over it. “One of my contacts bought this for me in Sin City on a clandestine auction, very hush hush, you know.”

 

Alastor was impatient but he let the man ramble. He knew him from a long time, not so much as Niffty and Husk but from almost two decades and he knew how to make him tick and it was easier if he wasn't afraid of his presence. A rack of nerves, that guy... he could totally paralize if the Radio Demon raised his voice in the slightless.

 

“But I think is the one you wanted, boss” he opened both the clasps that closed the box and opened slowly, showing his master the piece inside.

 

It was a short sword, with a blade made from angelic pieces forged together in a pattern similar to a broken crystal. The handle was beautiful, in a material similar to silver and in the pommel a coat of arms: a half apple guarded by six angelic wings. The Morningstars' coat of arms.

 

The edge still had some blood and the deer demon moved his hand over his belly by pure instint.

 

“Yes, this is the one” he said, making the sinner to nod feeling easier now that he knew he did good for the Radio Demon. “I'll refund all the money your contact and you expend and I'll add some. You did an excellent job.”

 

The cat demon closed the box and present it to his master.

 

“Ehmm... Thank you, boss” said the sinner to then add, after gathering some courage. “Can... can I ask you a favor, boss?”

 

Alastor, who was ready to go with the box under his arm and out of the counter already, turned around, placing the object over the wood and placing his hands over it.

 

“I'm in a good mood, of course... tho I don't promise I'll do it, so let's hear it” he said.

 

The cat sighed, taking his flask out and drinking a little from it.

 

“You know I have a daughter... I told you back in the day and... she ended up here, not a surprise” he said, with a note, of sadness mixed with dissapointment. “Thing is, she lives in Pentagram and we talked just once and I fear she fucks up even further that being in Hell. I was thinking maybe you could persuade her to come to live here, you know, Imp City is a more relaxed place than Pentagram and maybe, you know...”

 

Alastor sighed to then click his tongue.

 

“You see, I'm a firm believer of people using their free will and make their own mistakes” said the demon. “And besides, if I go to her, I'll get her soul. You don't want that, do you?”

 

Asked the demon and the sinner just nodded after thinking it for a while.

 

“No, I don't, boss but there are worse overlords out there...” said the cat demon.

 

“I doubt it” said the deer demon. “Don't be confuse by my sunny disposition and my smile, good friend, I'm not a kind master and I have no patience with faulty employees. You didn't see that part of me yet because you're being useful and obedient. Your daughter doesn't sound like the 'following commands' type.”

 

He said, moving slightly nearer the sinner, his voice low and velvety, with a dark undertone.

 

“Talk with your daugther, be there for her, fight for her... Do the things in the right way because you asking me to take her soul so she can be forced to be with you here, is borderlining something I don't like” the radio dials started to show in his eyes. “And I'm warning you, I have a severe appetite for bad parental figures so don't place yourself in the menu.”

 

The lights flickered a little and the very scared demon just nodded, to afraid to move or say a word, feeling his legs like pudding in that moment.

 

Alastor, not a second word said, took the box and entered into a shadow.

 

The demon appeared in his room at the hotel and sitting his bed, he opened it again.

 

His blood was still over the blade...

 

Destiny wanted his rightful vengeance, Creation wanted his wrath... There was no other way. He found the weapon just when he was free of the wound.

 

The pieces were moving on the chestboard, he now just needed to play his part, move his strings. He needed to play it with precision, to get what was his and then... the sword will fall in the right moment and with that... A future, free from sorrow and fear.

 

Alastor passed his fingers like feathers over the weapon... That was poetry, the monster finding his end by the same blade.

 

“Lucifer will pay for the silence he imposed” he whispered.

Notes:

Well, the plot is ticking!

Chapter 9: Chess lessons

Summary:

Only the opponents in chess that could predict several movements from his rival in advance could accomplish victory.

Alastor learned chess in his teenage years and he was about to use all that knowledge to vanquish one particular king.

Notes:

I know, I know, the quote is massive but I loved that quote from Vetinari and represents a lot the train of thought of Alastor here and in the next chapters.

“One day when I was a young boy on holiday in Uberwald, I was walking along the bank of a stream when I saw a mother otter with her cubs. A very endearing sight, I'm sure you'll agree, and even as I watched, the mother otter dived into the water and came up with a plump salmon, which she subdued and dragged onto the half submerged log. As she ate it, while of course it was still alive, the body split and I remember to this day the sweet pinkness of its roes as they spilled out, much to the delight of the baby otters, who scrambled over themselves to feed on the delicacy. One of nature's wonders, gentlemen. Mother and children dining upon mother and children. And that is when I first learned about evil. It is built into the very nature of the universe. Every world spins in pain. If there is any kind of supreme being, I told myself, it is up to all of us to become his moral superior.”

~Lord Havelock Vetinari, Unseen Academicals

 

The first thing you learn in chess is how the pieces move in the chessboard, the little rules to capture enemy pieces. A pawn can't capture a piece in front of it, only on the sides, only the knight can jump over other pieces and, even when the game was decided by the status of the king, the queen was a far more powerful piece.

 

And of course, you can't capture a king with a pawn. Said piece moves only one square at a time, going only forward... except in the first move, that they can move two and when they capture one, they moved to a side. The king only moves also one square but he can capture in any direction... A pawn can't kill a king, not by itself, but can lure one. And a pawn can be such a powerful piece that if they reach the opposite side, they can transform into queens.

 

It was a poetic move that the person who taught Alastor to play chess was the person... or entity, he wanted to eradicate from the board, that Devil prancing around the hotel like he was the most innocent creature in Creation when he knew the truth behind his smile, his apparent joviality.

 

The deer demon expended several days moving pieces from the distance, moving contacts and preparing. Now, a week later, all the players were in their starting positions, all the black pieces in his side and whites made the first move of the game.

 

Everything was set, like dominos, preparing a Second Fall for the Great King of Hell.

 

***

 

Charlie was in her own cloud of happiness when the two new patrons interested in the hotel appeared. The sinners couldn't be more different between them even if they wanted to.

 

The woman was short, curvy, very timid and easy to startle, jumping like a bunny when the Radio Demon materialized in the lobby of the hotel. She has some animal attributes similar to a goat and it was obvious she favored the tones of blue for her clothes.

 

The man, in the other hand, was tall, almost as tall as Alastor. He was very humanoid looking, except for his blue skin. Secure and chatty, charming even, he had a very short black hair shinning with the use of hair grease and moved completely behind. A small moustache like two thin layers over his upper lip and he dressed smart, in greys and whites.

 

“Oh, Alastor, perfect!” said the princess, calling the attention of the deer demon. “This is Alastor! He's our facility manager, our hotelier, our concierge! Al, these are new additions to the hotel.”

 

She said, almost singing.

 

“This one is Petunia” the woman recoiled a moment when she took a look at the Radio Demon's smiling face. “And this is...”

 

“Greco, it's a pleasure” he extended his hand towards Alastor... The demon saw the gesture but remained with his hands over his microphone cane.

 

“Pleasure to be meeting you, quite a pleasure” responded the demon, to both sinners. “So you are new patrons of the hotel, I take? Perfect... Charlie, can we talk?”

 

Asked the demon with his trademark sweet smile for the princess. The woman nodded and moved with the overlord far from the new residents of the hotel.

 

“Yes, Al?” she asked.

 

“Darling, the patrons of the hotel, how do you found them?” he asked.

 

The princess took a look back to the pair and then to Alastor again, it was obvious she was distracted with the happy idea that more people were interested in her project.

 

“They saw the commercial!” she said, moving her hands to gesticulate. “And... they are friends and they decided to give it a try!! Isn't it wonderful?”

 

The red demon moved his eyes to look them to then tilt his head when his eyes returned their attention to the princess. He widened his smile.

 

“So we don't know much from them, right?” He asked.

 

Charlie catched into the question, going out for a second from her bubble of happiness and hope.

 

“You... Don't trust them?” she asked. “Oh, Al, we need to trust people for this to work! I trusted you and you helped me a lot. Sometimes having a little faith in people can be beneficial.”

 

She said, with a soft smile, trying to put down possible grievances the demon could have with the new residents. They didn't know them so she was ready to give them the benefit of the doubt and she wanted her friend to do the same.

 

“Oh, Charlie, I remind you I'm here just for the entertainment!!” he said, canned laughs around him.

 

“Al, you know that you don't fool anyone and you don't need to lie to me” The princess moved her hand over the arm of the overlord, she was showing a very compassive smile. “Despise your history and past, you helped me. You fought for us. You were hurt for us, for me. I won't forget that.”

 

The Radio Demon laughed a moment, placing his hand over the hand of the woman. His smile wide.

 

“Charlie, I won't say I don't have a soft spot for you, darling” said the demon. “Specially knowing your current... parental situation... But two things can be true at the same time.”

 

The deer demon did two taps softly with his hand over the hand of the princess and she understood that was enough contact for him, so she moved the hand with a 'I'm sorry' expression, full of blush.

 

“I'm only asking you, dear, to be careful with new residents” said the demon. “Who knows what type of trouble they bring with them. If you like, I'll give them the tour of the hotel and keep an eye on them, just in case.”

 

Charlie thought for a moment and nodded.

 

“Sure, I'll be on guard for any problems...” she moved and hugged the demon. “Thanks, Al! I really hope they are ok with the hotel... I'll prepare a session for them to introduce themselves!”

 

The demon nodded and moved to the residents.

 

“Well, if you're so kind to accompany me, I'll show you the amenities of the hotel and, if you are ready for your stay, I'll show you to your rooms” said the demon with a smile at the same that Lucifer was coming out of the elevator, without his hat, cane or coat.

 

The Devil looked around like trying to find something and then moved directly to the Radio Demon.

 

“Hey, bellboy” they didn't exchange a single word after their last conversation days ago but for the nickname, the shorter man returned to his usual jerk self. “Did you saw my daughter?”

 

Alastor just smiled predatory, placing his hands over his cane, making a pause before responding.

 

“Good day to you too, my liege” said the demon with his usual flair. “Did you slept well? I sure did... What a gracious morning we are having. Yes, I saw young Charlotte, she went to the parlor just minutes ago to prepare an activity for our possible future residents.”

 

He said, moving a hand to the said to point out the couple of sinners so the king could notice them.

 

Lucifer growled a little.

 

“Ok” he said, he was slightly annoyed that morning and he didn't have his social battery charged, so to speak, so he just wanted to go.

 

The male sinner presented a huge almost seductive smile.

 

“Is this who I think he is?” he asked.

 

“Well, yes, my good fella, good eye!” said the Radio Demon. “This is our illustrious resident king, the gracious Lucifer Morningstar!”

 

The woman just looked even more nervious, with some extra fear over her bones while the male moved near the king and extended his hand. His smile was charming, almost seductive and, with a finger, he made sure his moustache was in perfect condition.

 

“Greco, a pleasure, your highness” he said.

 

Lucifer just wanted to go to his daughter but he knew he has to be amicable with the sinners of the hotel and the Devil wasn't ignorant to the idea there will be more of them. He slept bad the last days, he was tired and feeling annoyed, but he made an effort to response to the handshake.

 

But it ended up not being a simple handshake, because Greco took seconds to pass his thumb over Lucifer's hand.... It wasn't so long but the Devil catched in the intention and moved his hand out as soon as he could.

 

“Charmed, now if you excuse me, I need to talk to my daughter” he said, with a forced smile to then move to the parlor.

 

Alastor just turned around to the sinners with his trademarked smile.

 

“Please, follow me this way” he said, pointing with his cane to the stairs that separated the lobby from the first floor of the hotel and the elevator.

 

***

 

Days later, Alastor was in the kitchen very early preparing the lunch. In that moment he was showing his mastery over the knife chopping vegetables with precision and speed.

 

Swing music, an old song called 'Puttin' on the rizz' was around the Radio Demon and he was moving his head to the sound, a moment of pure tranquility, with his mind far from his plans and the things that tormented him daily. An island in the middle of a tempestous ocean.

 

“Hey, sinner, can we talk?” asked the king, entering in the kitchen and making the demon sigh by pure reflex.

 

“You're already talking, your highness, it's not like I can accomplish your silence or I could try to do it sometimes” said the demon, resuming his task.

 

“Yeah, yeah, well...” he was about to talk whatever he were when he saw what the deer demon was doing. “What are you cooking?”

 

He said, pointing to the huge cooking pot over one stove and two smaller ones in the others.

 

“Today I was craving some italian food” started to said Alastor “so I was ready to make some pork ragout for the sauce when darling Charlie told me that our new resident, Petunia, was coming down with something and asked me if I could do something healthy so I'll do some chicken soup too.”

 

Lucifer raised an eyebrow with a sardonic smile in his face.

 

“Like if you care about those sinners” said the monarch.

 

“I don't but Charlie knows that, I don't pretend in from of our dear princess to gain some resemblance of a relationship with her” the king defaulted to angry, almost baring his teeth. “But she asked me and what am I if not accommodating with her?”

 

The king scoffed but they didn't added a thing about that, he just cleared his throat.

 

“About those sinners I wanted to talk to you about...” said the monarch, going to his previous statement. “what it's your opinion or impression of them?”

 

The deer demon moved the tip of the knife until it touched his own chin, thinking.

 

“My, my, who could know that my king valued the imput of this lowly sinner” he said, raising a brow and smirking.

 

Lucifer growled again.

 

“Just respond” he ordered.

 

Alastor resumed his task with the vegetables.

 

“Let me ask a question first, sire” said the red demon. “Are you sleeping well? You seem more irritable than ever...”

 

And like a confirmation to that, the monarch emited a low grunting.

 

“Yes, jackass, I'm not sleeping well, happy?” he said, biting the words.

 

“Hardly, your highness” responded the demon.

 

“Somehow I wake up in the middle of my sleep several times at night” started to explain the king. “And I don't need to sleep but I got used to it and now... irks me. And medicine doesn't work on me, so sleeping pills are out of the question.”

 

The deer demon continued cooking, placing the vegetables into the big pot, with a little sprinkle of olive oil.

 

“Maybe I can prepare some brew for your highness” he offered. “Maybe some relaxing infusion is in order, I'm pretty sure I can find a combination that will help you with sleeping.”

 

Lucifer clicked his tongue.

 

“Like you fuckin' care...” muttered the Devil.

 

“I did, time ago...” said Alastor. “And with your initial question: I think the woman is ok but the man... Not so much. I felt something in him when we met. My gut is telling me he will become a problem, that maybe he has some ulterior motives... But again, my gut failed me before.”

 

He moved the vegetables to then look to the king, raising an eyebrow.

 

“Why you ask, your highness?” asked the demon.

 

“Fuck, I don't know, ok? But... I got a gut feeling too and I saw how that guy looks at me” said the monarch, with a shiver.

 

“Oh, I see... maybe is because he's a man” commented the Radio Demon.

 

Lucifer reached with the hand to Alastor's arm and made him turn to face him.

 

“What are you insinuating, creep?” asked the monarch.

 

“Nothing, nothing bad at all, your majesty” said the demon. “Maybe you are uncomfortable because that sinner sees you with desire and not being your preference...”

 

The shorter man grunted and release the arm.

 

“That doesn't have a thing to do with this... It's... I don't know how to explain it...” he growled and turned around. “And why the fuck I'm doing trying to explain it to you? You don't fucking care for me!”

 

And he turned to leave.

 

“I remember the day I saw you crying” said the demon, same tone, looking to some point in his memory in front of him to then resume the cooking. “That image haunted me for decades, the pain of impotence.”

 

***

 

Lucifer was sitting in the spare room in that mortal woman's house, using an old table as a desk and revisiting the notes he had about that case and... He couldn't hold it anymore. With the elbow over the table and his hand over his forehead, he started to cry.

 

Alastor entered into the room without knocking, his hands carrying a tray and he went almost paralized for the scene, going immediactly red in the face and feeling a tuck in his gut.

 

“I... I'm so, so sorry, your highness” said the teenager. “I should have knock. I was carrying this and I...”

 

The king cleaned his tears and smiled softly to the young man, even when that smile was washed down by sadness.

 

“Don't worry, lad” he said, making a gesture to Alastor to get nearer him.

 

The boy moved and placed the tray in a side of the table free from documents and papers.

 

“My mother made some cookies and prepared some coffee and she thought you could like some?” he said, timidly.

 

The Devil nodded, moved the papers and annotations aside and the tray nearer him.

 

“Thank you, Alastor” he said, with that sad smile, taking a cookie. “And thank your mother for me.”

 

He said, tasting the homemade cookie with certain delight when he catched in the apple flabour from the first one, with a little mermelade filling.

 

“This are delicious!” said the Devil.

 

“My mother special recipe” said the young man with a proud smile. “Hmmmm... Your highness?”

 

The entity turned his attention to the mortal.

 

“Why... were you crying?” asked the young Alastor with a soft voice, completelly unsure that if that was a good idea or no. “I didn't even knew you could...”

 

The Devil laughed, sadly and low.

 

“Oh, young one, I can” he said, softly, showing kindness to the young man so he could be at ease knowing he didn't do a bad thing asking. “I didn't lose my feelings with my Fall, you know. Love, happiness, compassion... rage, calm... and, of course, sadness, loneliness. Let's say I'm not in my best moment in life, so to speak.”

 

“Can I ask why?” said the teen, showing caring and compassion, even moving a hand over the shoulder of the short man.

 

The king sighed, lowering his head.

 

“I did something to protect my daughter that my queen didn't approved” started to said the monarch, showing some vulnerability talking about that to someone that wanted to hear. “Not because she doesn't love our babygirl, of course, but she saw my decision as cowardice and now... Well, after one hundred years of tension in my house, she decided to split, to leave. Who am I kidding? She wasn't that much at home at late and she was taking my daughter all the time... now it's just more permanent.”

 

He shook his head and drank some of the coffee.

 

“We even fought, more than words and... She doesn't love that I'm stronger than her when she is... well, her” he sighed again. “And ok, if is ending, is ending but... I seeing my daughter so little, I miss her... I was so glad when your mama invoked me. Some days out of Hell is something I needed, my palace feels... so cold, so empty.”

 

Alastor felt something... something coiling around his heart, like he could percieve the suffering of his king like it was his own, like a claw pressing his chest. Lucifer lost a couple more tears and the teenager, without stop to think about it, moving his other hand to clean them, so soft and tender.

 

“Don't cry, my king, please” asked the young man. “You have a good heart, the purest of all, you deserve your happiness. Things will change, you'll see... my mother always say 'Things happen for a reason', even these circunstances we are in. Maybe I'll lost my life maybe not but that horrible experience with my fa... that man made me save my mother from a lifetime of abuse and let me know you and I'm grateful for that, your highness.”

 

Lucifer sighed and smiled back to the kid.

 

“You're such a good lad” Alastor beamed with the praise. “Don't worry, young man, I'll save you. I'll use all my knowledge and even my power to save your life.”

 

The king took another sip of the coffee.

 

“Can I trouble you for more sugar? I like it with three cubes and a sprinkle of cream” said the Devil.

 

Alastor nodded and went out of the door, closing it but he didn't move immediactly to the kitchen. Still in his hand, between his fingers, there was one of the Devil's tears. He didn't know what moved him to do it but he moved the finger to his mouth and tasted the liquid, sighing and leaning against the nearby wall, blushing vividly.

 

“Even your pain is sweet, my darling king” he whispered, with a soft smile.

 

***

 

The song surrounding Alastor changed, from a swing to a slow sad song, a blues, from the same period of time. That one was called 'Wasting my love on you'.

 

I'm in love with someone who doesn't love me

an' that's why I'm bluer than blue

Wasting my time, wasting my love on you

Just you

 

“There was a time that I could give anything to eradicate your sadness like it was a cancerous tumour” said the demon and the Devil didn't saw any type of mocking tone or deception.

 

Lucifer knew that statement was truthful.

 

“Your sadness for me was like an insult, someone with such a heart didn't deserve even a tear down their face” said the deer.

 

“And that changed I take it” said tacitly the Devil.

 

“Sometimes we find ourselves walking through life blindfolded, and we try to deny that we're the ones who securely tied the knot” recited the demon. “Ah, but the marvels of truth... and the pains of knowing giants with feet of clay.”

 

He laughed slowly.

 

“Now I know better, all the legends have an origin in truth” he moved his head to look to Lucifer. “And we both know you aren't that good, so kind...”

 

The king decided he hear enough from the Radio Demon and his ramblings and clicked his tongue to turn over his heels to leave the kitchen.

 

“Nevertheless” added the radio host before the king could abandon the place. “I'll bring you a cup of one of my infusions to your room before you go to bed. Even the wicked deserve a night of sound sleep.”

 

Lucifer sighed and moved his hand in a diminishing way.

 

“Whatever...” and he went out, leaving Alastor with the blues and a smile that could scare the Devil himself.

Notes:

Next chapter is gonna be an interesting one, specially for the flashback ;)

Chapter 10: Dream a little dream of me

Summary:

Alastor had decide to do nice for the King of Hell and he prepared for him a herbal tea to help him sleep.

Before going to his room to deliver it, he has a little conversation with Charlie, confessing from where the deer demon knew her father before.

Notes:

Now that I finished for now my other series, the archives, I'll try to upload to this fanfic more regularly ^^

Note: Also, I updated the tags.

“It was sad music. But it waved its sadness like a battle flag. It said the Universe had done all it could, but you were still alive.”

~Terry Pratchett, Soul Music

 

The young Alastor and Lucifer were playing chess while waiting for their turn in front of the judge. It was a good idea that the Devil decided to take the chessboard with him because they had been waiting for hours.

 

“You had such a talent, lad” said the man with a soft smile.

 

He was doning his human disguise and he wasn't much different from his regular form but there were some changes. For example, his ears were normal and not pointy, his teeth were regular and his eyes were beautiful in blue. Also his skin had a more natural color, both for his alabaster part as for the charred ones in his arms and legs.

 

He was dressed in a three piece suit in white and, now resting over the table, his hat was a fedora type, elegant but not ostentatious.

 

His voice also sounded human and normal, not with the reverberation that made it powerful and inhuman at the same time.

 

“Thank you, sir” said the young man.

 

“No need, lad, you're a smart cookie, I saw you're able to prevent my movements with accuracy, at least the ones I'm allowing you to see” he winked at the young man, making him smile. “Want another advice about chess, Alastor?”

 

The teenager nodded, the attention of the Devil was making his day, even when they had to be at the Courthouse at that moment.

 

“Yes, sir, of course” said the kid.

 

Lucifer pointed to the middle of the board with his finger.

 

“I told you that a chessboard was a battlefield, right?” Alastor nodded. “This four squares in the middle are 'no man's land' and they are very important. If you dominate the center of the board, you dominate the game. From here it's easier to launch a strategy and you'll make your opponent's game difficult for their own movements. Eighty per cent of the games are decided the moment one of the players control the center.”

 

He moved his white knight and Alastor was seeing now how all the pieces were converging into the middle, into dominate that part of the board. Until that moment, the young man never matched the Devil... of course, he was a novice, the king of Hell was an expert but he knew before the entity confirmed it, that he was letting things sly so Alastor could play like he was playing in front of a regular opponent.

 

That made him smile, the attention of the Fallen Angel was everything to him.

 

“And that is a strategy you could also extrapolate to your regular life: if you manage to dominate the element in where you move, the terrain, you'll have always a winning hand” adviced the man before some knocks at the door interrupted him.

 

“Mr. L.C. Fell?” asked a man, young, black hair, reading a paper in his hand. “The judge will see you and your client now, after going to the central corridor, second door to the left.”

 

The Devil smiled to the man while beginning to take the pieces from the board to collapse it and put it away in his suitcase.

 

“Thank you, young man” said Lucifer finishing with the board while the door closed again. “Remember the phrases and gestures we practiced?”

 

He asked the young man.

 

“Of course, sir” responded Alastor, adjusting this green and white sweater and the little bowtie he had in the square shirt he was wearing under it.

 

“Perfect, now... remember, somber face but turn up the charm” he opened the door to wait for Alastor.

 

***

 

Dominate the middle of the board, dominate the terrain...

 

That was thinking the Radio Demon while he was brewing his herbal tea in the kitchen, mixing the components with extreme precision.

 

Valerian and lavender, some fresh squished lemon and some acacia honey, brewing the liquid a regular and low temperature for slowly releasing the properties of the herbs.

 

“Hi, Al, whatcha doing?” asked Charlie, coming near the overlord and observing his method of brew, like he was almost making a potion.

 

“Ah, Charlie... I'm making some infusion for your father” said the Radio Demon. “Apparently, his foul mood lately is because he isn't sleeping well, the poor little thing. So I made my business to brew for him one of my dear mother's remedies.”

 

Charlie broaded her smile and hugged the red demon.

 

“Oh, Al, thank you!!” she said.

 

“No need, darling, it's for my own good, really” said the overlord. “His highness has a fixation against me and if it's still a little banter here and there, even I can enjoy it but at late is more... focused and petty and sadly, if he decides to go farther than that... Well, with luck I could dodge using shadows.”

 

The woman denied.

 

“Al, dad isn't gonna attack you or anyone, maybe he's moody... er, but my dad is a very calm person” she said, pointing to the brewing. “But I'm pretty sure this helps... and maybe you can start to understand each other, maybe, in a future, become friends.”

 

Alastor laughed with his usual funny disposition with the young woman.

 

“Oh, darling, I won't get my hopes high... besides, better safe than sorry, we won't want a rampaging and unstoppable king” said the demon, making a little wodden box appear and leaving it to a side. “And sure, maybe, and just maybe, I could handle a couple of punches from his highness but I doubt our regular patrons are so lucky.”

 

Said the demon, returning his attention to his concoction, taking a little cup and taste it. Charlie, side by side with the Radio Demon, denied with her head.

 

“Trust me, dad is hotheaded at times but he isn't aggressive, he'll never hurt a fly” said the princess. “Can I taste it?”

 

She asked, Alastor nodded.

 

“In fact, I was about to ask you” said the demon. “You and your father have similar sweet teeth, so you can tell me if is just right for him.”

 

He took the teacup and he submerged it in the searing liquid, blowing softly the heat before tending it to the princess. It was not that Charlie could be hurt by fire, as a hellborn, specially being Lucifer's daughter, she was immune to fire but the gesture of the Radio Demon was so fatherly and cute that she let him do it, tasting then the infusion.

 

“Ohhh... This is delicious, Alastor!” she exclaimed. “It doesn't taste like a regular infusion and the sweetness is just right. Do you really think this could help him sleep?”

 

She asked and the demon shook his head after thinking for a couple of seconds.

 

“I'm not sure but there is no fault in trying” said the demon. “And if this doesn't work, maybe my gesture will reduce his enmity against me. Since he learned we knew from before, he's even more hurtful with me.”

 

Said the demon, moving his eyes to a side like that... really hurt him in more ways than the obvious.

 

“He knew you from before?” asked the woman.

 

Alastor nodded.

 

“I was an innocent child, once...” said the demon, making appear an ornamental porcelain white teapot with blue swans but with golden filled cracks in the style of japanese kintsugi. It has also a teacup in the same style but without the golden repair and a plate in the same fashion. “A scared little kid that had to kill his monstruos father because he was abusing his mama and him. In fact that day he wanted to go farther than that to show me I was something I wasn't.”

 

And Charlie wasn't stupid. She was innocent, she was bubbly and she was positive but she wasn't stupid for any extend and she knew exactly what Alastor was implying, specially after knowing his secret thanks to his father indiscretion.

 

“My mother knew, being creole, that I wasn't going to have a fair trial and we were too poor to have a good lawyer” the demon took teacup in the stove to filter the liquid into the porcelain teacup slowly. “But my mother was a witch, from a long line tradition and, desperate as she was, she summoned your father to ask for his boon. She was ready to bring forth her services or even her soul for me but your father...”

 

The smile from Alastor softened.

 

“He asked just for bed and food in exchange and he was with us a week until he resolved that in our favor” said the deer demon, taking a silver plater to present the teapot, cup and plate in it. “He made a great impression in me and I learned much from him in those days. Sadly, for him was a speck of dust... And me being, well, me, I'm no longer his cup of tea, if you catch my drift.”

 

He laughed softly, making a gesture like that wasn't important at all. But Charlie knew better, even when Alastor was always smiling, she knew when he was annoyed or even holding his anger, when he was suspicious or playful. That was the first time she saw him... serious and sad. The problem it was that Alastor was Alastor and maybe a hug was out of order, or so she thought initially but then, against her better judgement, she hugged the demon, surprising him.

 

Alastor went stiff as a wood plank but then he sighed and returned the hug, at least for a couple of seconds before removing from the arms of the young woman.

 

“No need to worry for me, darling” he said, taking the platter in his hands after making his microphone dissapear. “Maybe this will be a good peace offering and your charming father will forgive me at last for being a dissapointment for him.”

 

Charlie smiled softly.

 

“You're not a dissapointment, Alastor... I know that you, behind all your reputation and intentional creepiness, have a heart” she said. “And something tells me you really worry about dad... and me. And I'm thankful for it.”

 

She then pointed to the little wodden box that the demon placed in the platter with the rest.

 

“What's that?” she asked.

 

Alastor, taking the tray with just one hand, moved the other to open the lid of the box, revealing what looked like a small honeycomb but with the form of a small bowl, with a silky white liquid inside.

 

“This is royal jelly” said the demon. “I paid a fortune to an incubus to get me this from the Living World for your father. If he manages to sleep well with my herbal tea, a small spoon of this in the morning will give him all the energy he'll need to help in the hotel and go around the day with better disposition. Also, it's a delicatessen worthy of royalty.”

 

Charlie smiled, delighted by the dedication that Alastor was showing her dad. She just hoped her father could be more... sweet with him. After knowing the past they shared, maybe a chat could be in order but first, she needed her father to rest properly and be in high spirits, specially if she was about to blame him... or, better said, strongly side with the idea that he was the one acting like a jerk with the Radio Demon.

 

“Well, off I go to the den of the beast...” said cheery the demon. “Wish me luck, my dear.”

 

“Good luck, Alastor, and... good night!” she said, with Alastor going out of the kitchen and Vaggie going in. “Vaggie, holy shit! You need to hear what I learned about Alastor.”

 

***

 

Alastor teleported through shadows to the door of Lucifer's room, in the same corridor than his, and knocked twice.

 

The king moved to the door with a tired smile, thinking that was his daughter at the door, not remembering the conversation with the Radio Demon that morning. And when he saw who he was, the smile died in his face and a growl was present almost immediactly.

 

“Good evening, your majesty” he said.

 

“What the fuck you want, bellhop?” asked the king, moving inside his chambers.

 

He wasn't in the mood to deal with the Radio Demon. He recently took a bath to relax himself but ended up with a headache, he was tired and only wanted to sleep and the little, minimal, atomic size patience he had for the deer was already drained since lunch hour.

 

“Did your majesty forget what I said in the kitchen?” said the demon, not moving from the door. “I told you about bring you an herbal remedy. Can I come in?”

 

The Devil was really tempted to say 'no' and close the door in that smiling face but he didn't, he just sighed and made him a gesture after sitting in one of the armchairs he had in the room.

 

“Thank you, your highness” he said, entering in the room while looking around, catching in the tacky circus decor, the apple and snake designs and the rubber ducks near the workbench with tools.

 

He moved near the monarch, to a low table and left the silver tray there, taking the teapot and starting to serve the tea in the cup.

 

“I hope the remedy helps you, your majesty” said the Radio Demon. “And I hope is of your taste, young Charlotte gave her approval.”

 

At the mention of his daughter, another growl escape his throat. He made a gesture, almost dismissing the demon.

 

“Ok, you can go now” he said.

 

Alastor was ready to go but he stopped.

 

“There are at least two cups more inside the teacup” said the red demon. “And be careful with my tea set, it was a present from a friend. Also, I brought you something specially but just if you sleep well. Inside that little box there is royal jelly, in the morning will energize you but don't eat more than a small spoon.”

 

He made his cane appear and rested his hands over it.

 

“Now, if you really want me gone, I'll be on my way” he said, bowing a little and turning around over his heels.

 

“Why wouldn't I want you out of my room?” asked the Devil, to then frustrated because he was tired, feeling bad and didn't understand that man at all, added: “And why the fuck are you doing this for me?”

 

He asked. Yes, he talked about the promise he made to him when he was a young lad but... He was a boy! Kids that age doesn't have the mind to hold to a promise and besides, the demon already told him that he changed his impression of him. For his way of speaking, he thought the worst from him, that he was evil, that the legends were in part true about him, that he was a brute and even as cruel as him.

 

Why then? Not understanding that stupid sinner was making him mad.

 

“First” said the demon, in complete calm and control. “Some people sleep better with company and I wouldn't mind to offer my services in that regard. I could read a book and guard his majesty's rest, I don't need to sleep that much.”

 

“Yeah, like I'll feel sooo secure with a demon like you near me when I'm sleeping” said the monarch.

 

The demon was unfazed by the interruption and didn't dignify the distrust with a reply to it.

 

“Second, I want to repay you” the Radio Demon was looking directly to the man. “Even when I think you are not the man I thought you were in my youth, I still got so many things to repay you.”

 

And the king knew he was saying the truth but at the same time his intuition was making all the hair in his nape to stand on point.

 

“Besides, young Charlotte wants an end of the hostilities between us and I'm amicable to the idea” said the deer demon.

 

The monarch thought in that for a moment and he knew his babygirl wanted them to be more friendly, less tense but old habits die hard and that freak had the uncanny ability to get under his skin with ease and now that he knew his secret... Well, he knew that sooner or later, he'll end up using it against him, angering his daughter.

 

He didn't care for the sinner, he didn't like the sinner but there was also with him... maybe his memories of him when he was a boy or something else, he couldn't point it out. Anyway, he sighed, trying to think with a better disposition.

 

“Ok, I could do that... if you behave” and he thought in another thing for a moment, raising his brow. “I hope this isn't a crafty attemp to make a deal with me kissing my ass and using my daughter. I advise you that a deal with me isn't a regular deal between sinners.”

 

Alastor's smile was going nowhere, always in his face but his eyes made his face look serious.

 

“I know it, your highness”

 

***

 

“How the fuck this happened?!” was screaming Lucifer near the door of the bathroom while Milady was in her nightgown, kneeling in front of the toilet vomiting a horrible mix of blood and food. “You're a sinner! You can't get pregnant!”

 

The woman vomited another time and got up, going to the faucet to drink some water, cleaning her mouth with it to then spit it, drinking some more.

 

“I don't know either, less than you, I take” she said, still feeling her stomach turning.

 

“What do you mean?” he said, taking her strongly by the arm.

 

“You're hurting me, my king” she said, standing still not trying to liberate herself or move, she knew better by now how to deal with him.

 

He removed his hand.

 

“You're already a father” she said, moving to the bed, sitting in the edge. “And I don't know how much different is Queen Lilith from a regular sinner but...”

 

Lucifer's eyes flashed in red.

 

“Don't mention my ex-wife...” he warned her. “And even with that, we tried actively to be parents from almost the beginning, how this...?”

 

He growled, pacing like a caged beast. Finally he turned near her.

 

“Are you sure is mine?” was a knee-jerk reaction of a question, he showed contrition as soon as he said it.

 

Milady felt... hurt. She knew he didn't mean it, she knew he wasn't really insulting her faithfulness but she felt insulted and hurt nonetheless.

 

“Taking you forbade me from abandoning the manor and you dismissed all the service since the first month we started to live together, I'm pretty sure, my liege” he started pacing again, he didn't apologized, he never did.

 

He stopped, passing his hands over his face.

 

“You're an overlord” he said, turning slightly his head, looking her over his shoulder. “Is this a way to gain power? A trick to have the King of Hell wrap around your finger?”

 

Again accusations. She tried to understand him, to think the better of him like in other occasions. Being a father again, when wasn't planned, sure wasn't easy and being king, he had to be extra careful to not let oportunists demons take advantage from him but... Did she deserved a little confidence? Did she prove herself already? Give him already... give him enough?

 

Milady had her face low and her hands went by instint around her three months belly.

 

“I'm an overlord, yes, never hide it” she said, moving out of the bed to go with him, to place softly her hands over him. “But this?”

 

She said, touching her own stomach.

 

“I couldn't do it without you, without your grace” she said. “I want to think that in one of those moments we were together you thought about this and made it happen. And I swear, over my life, that I'm not trying anything. I don't care if you are the king, I don't care for your power... I care for you, Lucifer, I love you.”

 

He stood there, with her soft hands over his shoulders, feeling her even with the clothes in between. Lucifer loved her voice and she seem so sincere... He moved, making her release contact.

 

“Your life worths nothing” he said, cold as ice. “But... You can prove it to me, giving me something from you that have value.”

 

The monarch turned around and his smile was wicked, to the point of making the woman shiver and make one step back.

 

“Your soul” he said, extending his hand towards her. “Give me your soul, with it give me the promise, binding promise that you'll never attempt anything to my real heir, my daughter Charlie. You'll never try to hurt her or replace her with your spawn.”

 

Milady was shocked, scared and... sad, even when that last sentimient wasn't showing in her face yet but she felt it, she felt how her heart was starting to break. Not only he asked from her that cruelty, he wasn't even refering to their unborn child in a caring way... like her baby will never be as imporant for him like his princess.

 

Lucifer took her silence for doubt and added.

 

“If you don't, this will end here” he said.

 

And that was the breach in her chest, a pain like no other she ever experienced in a very hard life. She wasn't anything for him, her baby either. He was so ready to finish them both that tears started to appear in her face.

 

If that was only her... In that moment, in that singular moment with her heart broken, she could let him has her, rendering her life to him because living with that pain forever was maybe the most cruel torture she could imagine. But she wasn't she anymore, she was an 'us' and she had to think about her baby and only her baby.

 

Crying but resolute, Milady extended her hand, like she was presenting it for a kiss and took the one of the king. The magicks of both surrounded them, the golden and the green were dancing but soon the golden ate the green like a ravenous beast and front the neck of the woman, the heavy collar and chain started to extend, going around her arm like a snake and ending in the hand of the king.

 

He was smiling, like he made a triumph, like that was something good and sane and not the death of their love or... at least of her heart.

 

The proof of slavement dissapeared and the king moved towards the woman, holding her face softly with delicate hands, cleaning her tears with the thumbs.

 

“Don't cry, my pet” he said, sounding almost conforting. “I'll take care of your soul like my most important treasure and together will raise this baby as our beautiful secret. She or he will never want for anything.”

 

He kissed her, chaste kiss and she didn't respond, she was just there, like a doll waiting for her strings to pull her movements and reactions for the royal audience. She felt empty and only wanted to cry but the king wasn't having anything of that.

 

“Come, let's cook something together and we could start to talk about names” he said, happy and taking the broken woman from her hand to the kitchen.

 

***

 

Alastor sighed.

 

“Well, if your highness doesn't need me anymore, I'll go” said the Radio Demon, bowing. “Bonne nuit, fais de beaux rêves.”

 

He said, before entering in a shadow, leaving the king alone.

 

Still he didn't know what to think about the man, he didn't trust him for sure but... he was so strange. And... even that sensation from the first day, the thought that he knew him from some place was still there. Sure, when he was a kid and then he said something about an overlord reunion? But something was telling him that wasn't.

 

Lucifer took the cup of tea and tasted it.

 

“Mmm... this is delicious” he said to himself.

 

Maybe it wasn't that bad an idea to be friendly with the creepy face, specially for his cooking and things like that delicious herbal tea.

 

***

 

Alastor reached his room and removed his coat without care, droping it as he was walking inside his bayou. He needed his peace, he needed to go inside now... He was so tense, so assaulted for emotions that he could destroy his room and part of the hotel if he didn't calm himself.

Notes:

I know that specially the flashbacks are hard but hold with me through the story. Remember, things needs to get worse to get better ;)

Chapter 11: Tending to a flower waiting to be plucked

Summary:

Alastor continues trying to ease the king of Hell and be friendly with him, making breakfast sure is a way to gain the monarch.

Some memories come back to the Radio Demon and a new emotion returns to torment him.

Notes:

Like I said, the uploads will be more frequently now. I won't promise a once per day schedule but... you know.

“Words. Borne on the ever sweelling current of hatred, like flowers opening in the current, petals peeling back, then falling apart.”

~Anne Rice, The Vampire Lestat

 

Alastor woke up in his bayou and after attending some things inside, he went out, took a good hot searing shower and dressed, going out of his room to the kitchen.

 

He overslept, that wasn't his regular hour to wake up, he always was like he was in a competition with the sun about whom go out first but it wasn't that late either, in fact, most of the hotel was still sleeping, including, and he knew it, the resident Fallen Angel and monarch.

 

The overlord left his cane to a side, removed his gloves and rolled his sleeves to take a bowl.

 

When Lucifer, entered the kitchen, with last night's silver tray in hand with Alastor tea set over it and yawning, he could see the overlord listening to a jazz song called Finger snappin', very uplifting, moving his head with the music and mixing something while a pan was heating over the stove with a little nip of butter.

 

“Good morning, your highness” said the man with his transatlantic flair and a huge smile. “Could your majesty catch some winks last night?”

 

Lucifer felt... invigorated, alert, happy and he even felt his muscles relaxing, a sensation he didn't have since... well, years. In fact he was in such a good mood that he even smiled to the sinner with sincerity while leaving the tray over the counter.

 

“Good morning, Alastor” he didn't even insult the overlord, that was a first. “And yes, your tea worked like a charm. First time in a lot of time since I slept so well. What was in that tea?”

 

The red demon scooped a part of the mix over the pan, looked like he was making pancakes. And as soon as the mix touched the metal, he moved to add a spoonful of another thing from a smaller bowl, adding more mix over it.

 

“It's a family recipe, I don't know if you remember but my sweet mother used to prepare her brews, here and there” said the demon. “Valerian and lavender but other things too, the honey was also very specific.”

 

The king moved to the sink and started to wash the teapot, the cup and the saucer with care under the glare of the Radio Demon, who was attending to the breakfast but also to the movements of the king with his tea set.

 

“Ah, yes, I remember, she used to brew something for you, right? Saw her more than once giving you a cup almost daily” said the monarch. “Misses Aloÿia was such a sweet lady and a very attentive mother.”

 

Alastor sighed softly with the commentary of the king. There was a really easy way to appease or please the Radio Demon and it was talking good things about his mother. He loved her so much that any good word about her was always directly to his heart.

 

“Yes, she was...” he commented, almost without radio filter. “And that concoction was a suppressor, to... help me avoid the worst parts of becoming an adult, the pains of maturity with a cursed body. Not all, herbal knowledge and magicks can only go so far but it helped, nevertheless.”

 

He flipped the pancake, taking a plate ready for when it was cooked.

 

Lucifer thought for a moment.

 

“Yes, she was a really good mother” said the Devil. “And...”

 

He wanted to add something more but it was difficult to him, not because the thing he wanted to say was difficult, no, not in the slightless but his pride, that always was a very bad adviser for him, was telling him to shut up and no lower himself to that sinner but...

 

“And thank you for the tea, it really helped” said the monarch. “The royal jelly too. It was delicious and I feel full of energy. I kept the rest for a rainy day, I hope is ok.”

 

Alastor smiled in his direction while preparing other pancake.

 

“Of course, your majesty” said the Radio Demon. “I bought it just for you, so it's yours.”

 

The Devil didn't know what to say about that so he decided to not say a thing, finishing with the cleaning of the tea set and drying it with a dish towel.

 

“Well, there you have your tea set in perfect condition, except for the damage it already had” said the monarch, passing his finger through one of the fixed cracks. “Did you get it like this?”

 

Alastor shook his head.

 

“No” said the demon. “In fact, I was the one who broke it, by an accident. It was my friend Rosie's favorite set and I felt awful, so I paid it in full, bought her a new one and took the cups, saucers and the broken pieces. Niffty, after seeing it, told me about Kintsugi or the japanese art of fixing broken things with gold to make them beautiful. It took me two months and using some contracts to learn but then I was able to do it.”

 

The Radio Demon took the teapot in his hand, with pride and a soft smile, gazing to his own handywork.

 

“I returned it to her but she insisted of gifting it to me” said the red demon. “She said... well, something rather private but I had to accept.”

 

With a gesture of his hands, he made the set dissapear and resumed his cooking, with the king observing the deer demon with new eyes. He didn't know if it was because he wasn't tired, because depression didn't show its face that morning (yet) or because the overlord was behaving different that he was starting to see a new side of the Radio Demon.

 

He looked... soft, caring, friendly even... Seeing that man talking in that way about his friend and that tea set, talking about learning a new craft just to repair said set or seeing him cooking, that for the monarch was like his sadistic, vicious and cunning side was completely suppressed. Well, that responded to his doubt about how a serial killer of overlords with a sadistic and dangerous reputation managed to charm his daughter in the way he did, with Charlie even caring for the well-being of that demon.

 

Lucifer moved to a chair to observe him with more distance and because he didn't want the man to know he was staring and analizing him but before he could really accommodate to the chair, the deer moved to present the king with a plate of three pancakes and a cup of hot coffee.

 

“Oh, I almost forgot...” he took an apple and a knife and started to peel it near the king. “You said you prefered the things with apples and I think a couple of slices could go well with these pancakes.”

 

The king raised a brow, that was almost surreal. The Radio Demon was behaving more like a... well, a wife, a perfect attentive traditional wife more than the deer that tried to raise his blood pressure the first time they meet... and the rest of the months after that.

 

“Why are you so indulging with me, all of the sudden?” asked the Devil, mistrusting the demon and his intentions.

 

“I told you” said Alastor while peeling the apple. “Your daughter wants us to be friends and even when I think that is something maybe for a long distance in the future, tho not impossible, an end of the hostilities between us I guess is something we can achieve. And I'm not a petty child to start a 'you first' staring contest so I decided to walk the walk, so to speak. I'm ready to bury the hatchet.”

 

He left the perfect peeled skin of the apple over the table to cut some slices from it to place them over the pancakes.

 

Lucifer presented a half smile, that phrase was so well placed, so delivered in a platter, he couldn't help himself.

 

“Yeah, but my guess was that you wanted to bury the hatchet in my skull” he said, smirking.

 

Alastor laughed, softly.

 

“Even if I wanted that type of hostility, why I'll do something that ineffective?” said the demon, moving the knife near his mouth, thinking. “I bet you're fast enough to catch it, even if it's an angelic blade. Though if you highness want to become my beautiful assistant I could try to practice...”

 

The king looked at him curiously and in alert, not knowing if that was a jaw or not.

 

“Practice?” he asked the demon.

 

“Well, yes, your majesty” said the man with a huge smile and his radio host flair.

 

He twisted around fast and throw the knife, nailing it to the wooden cutting board that was near the sink hangling in the kitchen.

 

“When I was really small, I wanted to enter in the circus to be a knife thrower” said the red demon, going to retrieve the knife. “Then I hear a radio show for the first time and I knew that was my calling. But, with years, I became very good with anything with a blade in it.”

 

The Radio Demon smiled, his smile was a little wicked but Lucifer for the first time saw it for what it was: a playful wickedness.

 

“Your daughter wants to talk to you about a talent show in the hotel, she thinks it could be good publicity” said the red demon.

 

Lucifer took knife and fork and stated to cut into the pancakes.

 

“And you want to throw knives at me” he said, raising a brow.

 

“Well, I was thinking in singing and play the piano but you talked about throwing weapons and I became sentimental” he said, cleaning the knife to then store it.

 

The king cut into the pancakes and emited a surprised sound.

 

“Is... this caramel inside?” he asked, with a smile that was growing by the minute in his face.

 

Alastor denied.

 

“Dulce de leche” he corrected. “I thought, taking your rotten sweet tooth, you could like that particular variant. I didn't add sugar, syrup, cream or butter over them just for it... and the apple will go rather nice with it.”

 

The king laughed, with a mix of sentimental and also sad. He left for a moment the silverware in the plate and, like a tic, with one hand he started to rub and twist his wedding band.

 

“I.. I don't eat pancakes like these since... a lot of years” he said, he looked like he was almost to the point of tears. “Mmm... I always confuse dulce de leche with caramel. It's... well, thank you, Alastor.”

 

He cleared his throad, passed a fast hand over his eyes and resume with the eating, making a delight moan when he tasted the first bite.

 

“Oh, they are incredible!” he said, almost blushing a little.

 

“Well, thank you, sire” he said, returning to the stove to cook some more for the rest of the hotel, coming near that moment or minutes later.

 

After finishing with everyone, the man prepared two more pancakes, a cup of coffee and was ready to go to his room.

 

“Hey, Alastor” called him the king. “Why don't you eat here? With us?”

 

The Radio demon widened his smile.

 

“I'm more comfortable eating in private, but thanks for the lovely thought” he said.

 

Vaggie was in the fridge, with her head almost completelly inside.

 

“Where the fuck?” she turned around. “Ok, pendejos, who the fuck ate my heartshaped sweet?”

 

Alastor stopped with a hand over the door of the kitchen.

 

“Did you lost something, Vagatha dear?” asked the overlord.

 

The ex-exorcist growled and pointed to the fridge.

 

“I bought a heartshaped sweet for Charlie yesterday, I was going to give it to her and is missing” she closed the fridge strongly. “You fucks don't respect a thing. Not the first time some food of mine gone missing!!”

 

Niffty gulped the pancake she was chewing to talk.

 

“Maybe the bugs are becoming more aggressive!!” she said it like she was hoping for that. “Maybe they want to end with our food resources!!”

 

She started to laugh maniacally, holding her own cheeks in the process.

 

“Or maybe the hotel is haunted” joked Angel, making a gesture with the fingers and imitating the moan of a spirit. “In fact, now that I think o' it, maybe. I saw a shadow creeping after me a week ago.”

 

Alastor sighed.

 

“That's more likely my shadow, going to procure a service for me or other” said the Radio Demon, his smile was playful. “There's no such thing as ghosts, Angel, not in Hell, at least. But you should be more respectful of other's properties, being in the fridge doesn't always mean is for everyone. Maybe next time you should mind it and not eat it... instant of using ghouls and misdirection...”

 

“Hey, freaky face, I ain't eating nothin'!” said the spider, annoyed by the accusation but the deer demon was already entering into a shadow to go to his room.

 

When the Radio Demon was alone in his room, he left the tray over his desk and relaxed his smile. He felt, his chest, aching.

 

Milady was the one that made those pancakes for the king and his fucking first thought was for the Queen, touching that disgusting wedding band. Sure, he was with eons with Lilith but that woman more likely never knew where the kitchen was, less step into it to use it.

 

Fantastic! He thought. Not only his broken heart was reminding him those days of his love, his body remembering his touch, now jealousy was joing the chorus inside of the demon of conflictive voice, every one of them asking for something diferent.

 

'Go to him, confess'

 

'Ask for forgiveness, he loved you once'

 

'He hurt you, he rob you'

 

'Remember his touch, remember his fire, his voice saying pure heat in your ears'

 

'He broke you, he almost...'

 

That was enough. He moved to the nearest tree in his bayou and his claw launched to the trunk, leaving a long and deep gash and panting after doing it. He had to center himself, he thought. That man never loved him, never... he fancied a false person, someone that never existed and he killed that person and he even didn't had the balls to do it himself. Milady wasn't important enough for him to try to kill her himself.

 

And even then...

 

***

 

Alastor mind was to when they were still in the honeymoon phase, when everything was perfect, almost two months into the relationship.

 

Milady woke up and her king was still sleeping with that mark on his neck that made her smile wide and mischeviously. They had a lot of passion last night, the king didn't have enough from her in any moment and the morning catched the lovers with the woman riding the Devil until both reached their climax and fall sleep, tired and satisfied.

 

She took a robe to cover her nightgown and went to the bathroom and after cleaning herself, she moved to the kitchen. It was strange but she didn't bump into any of the service that morning, like the manor was suddenly empty. It wasn't so early and in that hour the servants should be cleaning and preparing for the morning.

 

The kitchen was also empty, so the demoness moved to the counter and started to prepare the coffee.

 

When was almost ready, the voice of Lucifer catched her attention.

 

“Like a flower bending in the breeze, bend with me, sway with me” he was singing, in good spirits.

 

He lend his hand to the damsel and they started to dance, with the short man kissing her between her breasts, making her laugh, moving her hands to pass them from the golden locks of her lover's head.

 

“Someone is in a good mood” said the woman, looking directly to the eyes of the king.

 

“Well, my love, I am” he said, taking her hand and kissing it. “I have a beautiful witty woman I'm crazy about living with me, it's been years since I feel so alive or happy... And last night, My Lady, I didn't know you could do such things.”

 

The sinner laughed, kissing the man.

 

“Well, my love, maybe the Devil took my purity but I'm a fast learner... eager to learn” they both laughed. “By the way, I didn't saw any of the service.”

 

She said, going to serve the coffee.

 

“Yeah, I dismissed them” said the king, taking the mug with both hands. “I want this to be just you and I. And you're an amazing cook, I can help you clean... The only service I kept are the guards outside of the manor. We don't want intruders.”

 

The woman took a sip of the coffee.

 

“Like something is so crazy to invade the... mmm...” she said, moving her hand to take Lucifer's one, softly. “You removed your ring?”

 

She asked, incredulous.

 

“Yes!” he said not without pride. “The Queen and I aren't together really for... since my daughter was born. One hundred years of fighting and one hundred years of not living together. We only catch in events or so. The ring wasn't even for her anymore, not for hope and I grew tired of saving appareances for a woman that despise me. No, no, no, no, no... no.”

 

He kissed the hand of the woman again.

 

“I want... you, to be, with me, completelly and I want this to grow and go more... You make me happy, Milady, I love you” he said, with his cheeks blushing, looking adorable for her.

 

“And I love you, my king” they kissed. “This is all I wanted.”

 

And they kissed again and, between each other arms, the king bit his lip mischeviously.

 

“You know one of the good things of not having service in the manor?” he said. “We can go around the place with not so much... covering...”

 

He lost the knot from the woman's robe.

 

“And we can do it in any place” he licked his lip.

 

Milady rose a brow.

 

“My, my, after last night I thought you'll be calmer today... What I'm gonna do with you” she said, moving the table while losing her robe, leaning with her arms over the wood and moving slightly her tail under the nightgown.

 

“I'm becoming an addict of your body, you can't blame me” he said playfully, going to her and raising her gown to see the perky tail moving. “Every part of your body... is just perfection, Milady.”

 

And she felt so good with those words, with a man that loved every part of her like it was special, from her antlers to her tail, from every scar to her hair. That man loved every part of her and she never felt so happy in her life.

 

***

 

Another claw mark in the tree.

 

Alastor needed to relax himself, he needed to fucking focus himself.

 

He took the plate with the pancakes and went to the inner sanctum of his bayou, returning almost one hour later, the plate empty, going to the kitchen to clean it.

 

And while he was going in that direction, he was witness to a scene between the Devil and Greco, the new resident.

 

“I'm sorry, your majesty, it was just a compliment” excused the sinner.

 

“I don't appreciate such direct words thrown at my way” said the shorter man, exasperated. “So maybe you should remember who I'm instead of talking to me like I'm a common whore.”

 

“Sorry again” said the sinner, smiling with security and bowing, before taking the stairs near the elevator.

 

Alastor went near the king.

 

“What happened, your majesty?” asked the overlord, with a worried expression.

 

“Like you care!” said Lucifer, moving to go when he stopped, passing his hand down his face and trying to calm himself. “Sorry, sorry...”

 

He turned around.

 

“That sinner, he... I was reading something that Charlie gave me, an article about a talent show from months ago and... That sinner had the gall to say... some very crude and distasteful comments about my appareance. I don't appreciate such a crass behaviour.”

 

Alastor nodded and made a gesture to the man so he could accompany him to the kitchen while talking.

 

“So what I told you have become a reality, the sinner has his eye on you” said the Radio Demon, going to the sink to wash the plate.

 

“Yeah and it's not reciprocal!” said the king, annoyed. “I don't have a problem with people throwing themselves at me, I have a problem with people so direct and brute.”

 

“And being a man sure doesn't help” commented the radio host, drying the plate to store it.

 

“No, no... If that man was a woman, I would feel exactly the same” said the king, defensively. “I'm not like that, ok? Angel Dust flirts with me all the time and I never felt... grossed like with this guy.”

 

Alastor thought for a second.

 

“Well, Angel flirts with anything he thinks have a male part” said the Radio Demon. “It's part of his charm, I guess.”

 

Alastor laughed wickedly.

 

“If my inclinations were different, the idea of saying 'yes' to his advances could be a lot of fun for me, with him trying to find something that isn't there” he laughed again.

 

Lucifer went less stressed, more calm and laughed too.

 

“So you only like women?” asked the king.

 

“What a question, your highness! Looks like we are really sailing the waters of friendship” said the Radio Demon, with canned laughs. “Well, if you need to know, I don't care. I found women beautiful, I found some men handsome, some other demons catched my eye but it's short lived. I don't feel arousal, so to speak. I simply don't care for sex.”

 

The king raised a brow.

 

“So you are...” he didn't finished the phrase.

 

“A virgin? No... There is an exception for me and it's connection, emotional one” said the demon, leaning to the counter top while talking with the king. “I had only two lovers in my life and only one that... Well, you understand.”

 

Lucifer was curious. First, the demon, that even his daughter said it was very mysterious with his life, past and affairs was acting very open with him but also he looked so relaxed, like they were really friends.

 

Maybe, thought the king, that could work.

 

“And where are them?” asked to the demon.

 

“One of my lovers you know him, he has a picture box for head” said the deer demon, with a little growl he couldn't hide.

 

“Oh, that fucker... Vox is your ex?” Lucifer also growled. “I hate that guy. You know, you're the second person I know that had something to do with that bitch.”

 

Alastor laughed.

 

“You're right in that, he's a bitch... But it's not so rare, he had a lot of lovers in the past” said the Radio Demon. “He's always trying to... use his little pendrive in any port available.”

 

The Devil stated to laugh hard, almost bending over and holding his stomach.

 

“Oh, fuck, that's a sick burn... and very modern lingo you got there” he said, cleaning some tears from his eyes.

 

“Well, thank you, your highness. I took the oportunity I had in my sabbatical to learn something about modern technologies. I won't use them, I don't see the need but having the correct slang to annoy Voxxy is magnificent” he laughed. “He loses his temper so easy and his face starts to glitch, it's so funny.”

 

Lucifer thought for a moment.

 

“Oh, I remember, you have a lichtenberg figure in your side too” said the monarch. “Saw it when I was healing you. The other person I knew had them too, she said he loved to gave those.”

 

The king looked annoyed and Alastor was curious but he wasn't about to raise the suspicious of the king when he himself was giving him an alibi of sorts.

 

“Yeah, he does, in my case because I didn't let him go to the end” said the Radio Demon.

 

“I see... so... your other lover was the one?” Alastor nodded. “So where is he or she?”

 

The red demon took some air, releasing it slowly.

 

“You know those tales of beast that transforms into a Prince Charming?” said the demon. “The other way around... If I have an oportunity, I'll kill him.”

 

He said, with a cheery disposition, like he was talking about cooking or dancing.

 

“Wow, that's... hard” the monarch clicked his tongue. “But I understand and if you want some help, I'll help you. I have zero tolerance for abusers...”

 

The king sighed and then shook his head, smiling.

 

“Oh, don't worry, I think I could manage and if our friendship grows... Why not? There is nothing more fun that a good carnage with friends” he said, laughing and going to the door of the kitchen.

 

Oh, he was about to help him with his vengeance but not in the way the hypocrite was thinking.

Chapter 12: Trust exercises

Summary:

Lucifer wanting help to sleep accepts a radio from Alastor but isn't enough, so he accepts the help previously offered by the Radio Demon.

In the mists of problems again with the new resident of the hotel, Alastor has a chat with him and then a very open and heartfel chat with Charlie.

Notes:

First a little flashback...

“Hope is the denial of Reality. It is the carrot dangled before the draft horse to keep him prodding along in a vain attempt to reach it.”

~Raistlin Majere, Dragons of Autumn Twilight

 

“Sometimes, lad, you need to let things come to you” said Lucifer with a soft smile in his human face.

 

They had a very hard session in court, with a very aggressive prosecutor that the Devil knew smelled like racist from a mile. It was bad, but normal, they were in the middle of the Segregation Era and some terms were common and considered normal in the mouths of white men and women.

 

And they tried to pressure Alastor for a confession that wasn't going to happen. They had no real proof and the boy had a soft alibi the police were trying desperately to nullify... Thing is, the same they were relying in eye witnesses for cementing their accusation, they also had to deal with eye witnesses of the whereabouts of the young man that day and Lucifer already worked his charm with those.

 

Nevertheless, even when the case was having the support from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and the Creole Movement, Alastor was having to face with the worst of the worst in the front. For that, the Devil decided for a moment of relaxation with the young man.

 

He bought some ice cream and they relaxed in the park, walking and now, giving some corn to ducks. Lucifer was almost beaming with the little birds.

 

“Extend the hand and relax yourself. Beautiful creatures, ducks... One of my proudest creations” he said, with some of them eaing from his palm.

 

“You created ducks, your majesty?” asked the young man, whispering.

 

Lucifer nodded.

 

“Ducks, goats, swans, lambs and snakes” he said, with a huge smile. “They were the only thing my siblings let me create... well, that's a lie, I created them in the down-low. It was my first rebellion but rebellion is like eating ice cream: you can't go with just one spoonful.”

 

He laughed, almost hissing. Finally some ducks came to the hand of the young boy and started to eat from it, making him smile broadly.

 

“See? Easy, you let them come to you... If they feel you're anxious, they'll feel you want to jump at them or hunt them” said the Devil, adding more corn.

 

“Go to the water, mulatto, and clean the shit from your skin!” was the voice of a child, around the same age as Alastor and it didn't came alone.

 

With the voice and laughs from a group of four young boys, it came a ball trying to impact directly in the back of the young man's head, without a doubt trying make him fall into the pond. And trying was the operative word, because Lucifer moved his hand and stopped it an inch from his guard's head.

 

Alastor could hear the little growl from Lucifer's throat when the king rose from the edge of the pond to go to the kids, with the ball in one hand moving it up and down under their gazes. There was something about that short man that was telling, almost scream, to their instints that maybe, maybe, run was a good fucking idea. They weren't intelligent enough to listen to common sense.

 

“Young people like yourselves shouldn't be spreading so much hate” said the Devil with the ball in his hand. “Didn't you go to Sunday School? Didn't you learn your scriptures? 'He told them, “Consider carefully what you do, because you are not judging for mere mortals but for the Lord, who is with you whenever you give a verdict”, that's Chronicles 19:6, lads... Or your Sunday School didn't teach that lesson?”

 

They looked between themselves and then to the short man, placing a mocking expression in their faces, secure of themselves... or at least trying to project that.

 

“Who the fuck are you? A fuckin' Bible-belt?” asked the one that looked like the leader or at least the spoke person of the group of racist bullies.

 

“Me? No... that verse talks about the Lord always watching but never says what lord is really” he made a little pressure with his hand and the ball exploded, leaving just a mistreated piece of leather in his hand. “The Devil is always around trying to find mortals mistreating each other, new meat for his Realm... So, maybe, you should be mending your life...”

 

He got nearer them to give them the piece of leather and whisper, while changing his eyes to a blood red sclera and leaving his biforked tongue leaving his mouth.

 

“...before I take what's mine” he said and the four kids screamed and run with fear as a motivator.

 

Lucifer adjusted his clothes and returned to the young man.

 

“I hate when these things happen, I hate my fucking body” he said, he didn't show emotion with the bullies but now that were only he and his king, the pain was evident, almost ready to cry.

 

“It's not easy, lad, sadly mortals descend from Adam and... Well, let me tell you, your progenitor is like milk in the sun in summer for two months: can't go worse” he smiled softly, taking the young man from his shoulders and moving Alastor towards him. “When I find good people, like your mama and you, I like to think you inhereted more from Eve than him. Things will change, lad, it's the nature of mortals... And I heard some rumours about change. I'll wish that happens in your time.”

 

The Devil took the rest of the corn and throwed it into the pond to then clean his hands.

 

“Let's not think more about this unsavory day... What do you say if we return home and we jam a little? Your piano, my violin, some jazz... The best you can do when you are sad is leave it to music. If you express it, is no longer inside you. Or you can let to music to bring you another emotion... Music is in the souls of all mortals, ingraved since the times we angels used to sing to you.”

 

Alastor smiled softly, that man, mere words and he was blushing slightly and feeling a lot better.

 

“I still didn't hear you sing, sir” said the young boy.

 

“Well, good thing I can be persude to sing, very easy” he winked. “See, lad? Things come to you if you just wait.”

 

And like all the lessons from the Devil, Alastor took that to heart.

 

***

 

Alastor was amicable with Lucifer but didn't offered his tea again. You have to let them come to you and knowing that man wasn't sleeping, he know what will happened sooner or later.

 

And there it was, the third day, at night, when everyone was already in their rooms or soundly sleeping, the Radio Demon heard two knocks at the door.

 

He was in his wine color pajamas and with a crimson robe over them, giving almost the impression of a nobleman in his bed chambers, elegant and refine. He was reading and didn't move from his armchair near the hearth.

 

“It's opened” he said and continued reading.

 

The door made a sound that could make a haunted house feel certain jealousy and behind the door was Lucifer, with tired semblance in his blue pajamas with clear blue ducks, feeling ashamed. Surely that took a lot from the small Devil.

 

“Good evening, your majesty” Alastor adjusted his monocle and moved his eyes from the pages to the face of the king.

 

“Mmmmm... Sorry to bother you, Alastor but... I was thinking... You know what? I really don't want to bother you with...” Alastor cut his rambling.

 

“Use your words, your highness” said the Radio Demon, returning to his reading. “If you don't tell me what you want from me, I can't possible know and the worst thing that could happen is me telling you 'no'.”

 

He rose his gaze again and with the book over his thighs, he graciously waited.

 

“Ehm... yes, I guess you are right” he cleared his throat while smiling nerviously. “I was wondering if you have more tea.”

 

Alastor widened his smile.

 

“Problems to sleep still, your majesty?” asked the demon.

 

Lucifer moved near the demon and ended up sitting in the other armchair in front of the green flame of the hearth, passing his hand over his forehead like he was taking out sweat that wasn't there.

 

“Yeah, it's fucking strange, I always had problems with sleep” he started to babble. “Or I slept a lot or none at all and the nightmares... the fucking nightmares. But since I came to live here, there is not a single night that I can sleep well, except the one thanks to your tea. Or my nightmares fucked me over or I feel like there is something in the room and I wake up in the middle of the night , with nothing there, like a fucking paranoid.”

 

Alastor nodded.

 

“I understand, your highness, I too suffer from nightmares, terrible ones and sometimes they cut my sleeping schedule in the middle” said the red demon. “But sadly, my herbal remedy must be brew near its use, it requieres almost an hour and a half of slow cooking to extract all the properties and it's only effective for around six hours. I can brew you some, if you like...”

 

The Devil thought for a moment, taking air and releasing it slowly.

 

“Too much work and it's too late, I can't ask you something like that at this hour... Sorry to bother you, Al” he was about to go when the deer demon took him from the arm softly.

 

“Maybe I can suggest another remedy that I can do now” said the Radio Demon.

 

Lucifer look to the face of the demon and saw a soft concern there, so he was ready to hear him.

 

“Ok, what's the remedy?” asked the king.

 

Alastor rose from his chair, book in hand and went to the door, opening it and making a gesture for the king, almost like a slight bow, so he could understand he wanted to be followed.

 

With the deer demon at front, both went to Lucifer's room or at least to the door.

 

The Radio Demon waited for the king to open and even when he did, he didn't intrude in his chambers, waiting outside for an invitation.

 

“Well, what we are doing here?” asked the king.

 

“Remember my suggestion when I brought you the herbal tea?” said the demon.

 

Lucifer had to think for a second.

 

“The thing about you, here... while I... Oh, no, we can't do that... I mean, no offense but while I'm trying to get ok with you, my head is of another opinion, if you know what I mean.” said the Devil, sighing.

 

Well, there was another night without sleeping.

 

“I have a last suggestion and I'll take my leave” he made a gesture in his free hand and a vintage cathedral radio with the desing of antlers in the speaker appeared in his hand. The piece was smaller than the rest around the hotel but it was unmistakably his. “This is one of my enchanted radios.”

 

He said, offering the object to the monarch.

 

“They can play any music you can think off, doesn't matter the year, and you can find any frequency from Hell” said the demon. “If you don't know a piece or don't want one in specific, you can think in a type of music or a genre and the radio will act with that information, song after song until is turn off. And also it can produce white noise.”

 

Lucifer took the radio in his hand and started to look it around, moving it, admiring the craftmanship and the little details in it. Even the magicks he felt pulsating in the object.

 

“I don't know if this will help” confessed the king.

 

“My advice? Use it with relaxing music in mind, low volume and try to sleep” said the red demon. “I hope it helps you, your majesty. And next time, if you want one of my concoctions, ask me with time. I'm powerful, for a sinner, of course, but I don't read minds, my liege.”

 

The king looked to the radio and then to the Radio Demon once more and nodded, with a soft smile.

 

“Ok, I'll try, thank you, Al” said the monarch. “And... sorry for bothering you.”

 

The demon shook his head.

 

“Don't worry, my king, just try to sleep” said the demon. “Good night.”

 

He said, entering into a shadow to return to his room, leaving the book over the bedside table and laying on the bed, over his back, just looking at the ceiling and thinking... His shadow moved near him, placing both hands over the edge of the bed, looking directly to his master.

 

“You don't have to go this night” said the demon.

 

The shadow moved his head to a side, Alastor used his elbows to raise his torso.

 

“I said no, we don't need to keep him awake” said the Radio Demon, the shadow bared his teeth. “No, you don't need to 'guard him' either, for fucks sake.”

 

His shadowy counterpart showed his antlers and bared his teeth to then move, annoyed to the inner sanctum of his bayou.

 

His magic familiar, that shadow, was an independent creature, but at the same time was a extension from his being, part of him and at late, he was acting like caring for the king, wanting to be near him and that was good with the mission of keeping him awake at night, disrupting his sleep, but if the shadow continued to go for more, maybe he could be caugh by the monarch. He can't have that, not in that crucial moment of his plan. And the doubt was there: those were just the desires of his shadow as an independent creature or it was his heart having doubts?

 

He shook his head, he needed to focus in the task at hand, he couldn't have doubts.

 

The Radio Demon centered his mind on the radio in Lucifer's room, seeing the monarch in his bed from it. He followed his advice and selected relaxing music and he was almost asleep in that moment.

 

Perfect.

 

Well, Alastor should sleep too, he needed his mind to be as clear as possible, specially for the next days.

 

He was ready to sleep in his bed but in the last moment he decided that it could be good for him to sleep another night inside his bayou. That wasn't something he should do as something regular but for a couple of nights it was of no consequences.

 

The Radio Demon took the book and his steps lead him inside.

 

In the next morning after an extremelly good night of rest, the deer demon took a shower, dressed and went to make his breakfast. This time he made only for himself, returned to his bayou and then he went out, to take care of his regular duties as hotelier.

 

He wanted to know how the night went for Lucifer but, again, following a page from his book, he wasn't about to show interest, he'll need the Devil to come to him.

 

But when he first found the king, he was neck deep in another discussion with the new resident and this time, he has an audience.

 

“Stop with the remarks and the inappropriate words, sinner” hissed the king, pushing Greco far from him and taking a grunt from the man.

 

“Dad!” Charlie called him, holding to him in case the king wanted to go for more than a push. “What happened?”

 

Lucifer took a deep sigh and tried to smile to his daughter.

 

“Sorry, applepie, but this sinner... it's very gross in my presence” said the shorter man, disgusted. “He needs to learn his place near his king.”

 

Not the best way to explain it, specially for the face that the princess made in response.

 

“Dad, there is no need to use violence, ok?” she said, softly. “I don't know what he said but there is no need. I'll talk to him and...”

 

“Don't worry, darling” said Alastor, coming out from a shadow near them. “I'll talk with our new resident and explain to him some boundries.”

 

Charlie smiled softly to the Radio Demon.

 

“Thank you, Alastor” said the woman. “Can you talk to me later? I want to know how the conversation went... and... you know, don't scare him?”

 

She asked because, knowing the deer demon, that was a real posibility and they have so little patrons at it was, she didn't want to lose one of the willing ones.

 

“Of course, darling!” he said, with his cheery inflexion. “I was planning to talk to you either way. C'mon, please, follow me.”

 

He said to the sinner, he still had a smug expression in his face and didn't look ready to leave, in fact, he was still seeing in the direction of the king, with a smirk in his face.

 

“Maybe the 'please' made it sound like a request” said the Radio Demon, blocking his vision and giving him a taste of his demon form in his radio dial eyes. “It wasn't.”

 

Greco gulped hard and moved to the stairs with the red demon, taking a turn to the corridor of the first floor far from the elevator.

 

“Sorry again, Charlie” said the devil, looking how Alastor was no longer in sight with the other sinner. “I'm not used to be around sinners and less someone so... gross as that man.”

 

Charlie sighed. She knew her father was kind of a hermit for the last part of eight years, he barely left Magne Manor and he only called her a couple of times every two weeks or every month. And he delegated in her some of his royal duties just to not go out... She knew all that but if her father really had a change of heart about sinners and really wanted to help with the hotel, he had to learn to socialize and resolve things talking, not with fists.

 

“I know, dad” she said, hugging the shorter man. “And I don't know what he said to trigger you in that way...”

 

“I prefer not to repeat it” he said.

 

“It's ok, but you need to learn... If we are here to help them, we need to be sympathetic, understanding that a life of sin and continuing doing in Hell can't change in a day. We need to change their behaviour with kindness or this will never work” she sighed. “Dad, you're here as staff, like me, like Alastor, like Vaggie... You're not here as the King of Hell. Just remember that, ok?”

 

She kissed the man over his blond hair, making him sigh. His daugther was such good, such kindness, that his heart always jumped for it. He loved his babygirl and he treasure any moments he could have with her.

 

“Ok, ok... I'll do... I'll learn to do it” he said, with a smile. “I'm here to help, not to be a problem, so don't worry, sweetheart, I'll manage, you'll see.”

 

***

 

An hour later, Alastor was going down the stairs to the lobby and Lucifer was going up, with a couple of documents at hand he recieved in the hotel to sign them.

 

“How it went with the sinner?” asked Lucifer, making a stop.

 

“Good, your highness, though... I couldn't intimidate him into compliance because Charlie asked me not to and I don't know if my chat is that effective without a good veiled threat here and there” said the demon, humming and looking to his microphone. “Anyway, we'll see. Sinners are animals ruled by habit and sometimes is hard to break that into submission without good old fear. Anyway, I'll should be going to informe Charlotte.”

 

Lucifer nodded and was ready to go when Alastor casually turned around in the last step.

 

“Oh, I almost forget, your highness” he said, when Lucifer turned around to look at him. “Did my radio helped with your insomnia?”

 

The king sighed.

 

“A little... I sleep well but the nightmares still woke me up, so less affective than your tea, some help eitherway” said the man. “Thanks, by the way.”

 

Alastor made a gesture with the hand, like downplaying the importance.

 

“No need, your highness” said the Radio Demon. “We still need to try the method I suggested.”

 

The Devil grunted a little.

 

“Why are you so adamant in that method?” the king was exasperated.

 

“No need to show me that temper, your highness” he said, in the same tone a mother will use with a child. “In any case, it's because I have a theory that I want to put to the test. I don't have any desire to enter your chambers but I want to know if I'm right.”

 

Lucifer thought about for a moment. He didn't want to have the Radio Demon near him when he was as weak as sleeping and sure his mind won't let him catch a wink because of that but... Thinking about it with a cold head, the demon couldn't do a thing to hurt him, he didn't have any interest in sex and it was true his other two methods helped him. And, besides, maybe from that interaction that starting friendship could flourish... Not like he wanted to be friends with him but that could make Charlie so happy and after his fumble with that sinner, he really wanted to make her happy with him there.

 

“You know what? Ok, we'll try that method tonight” concede the king. “Ten sharp sounds good to you?”

 

Alastor, without showing any new emotion in his face, just nodded.

 

“It's perfect, your majesty” he said, to then continue to the parlor, looking for the princess knowing perfectly she was there.

 

“Oh, Al!!” Charlie called for him, she was still researching about that talent show she wanted to place into motion. “How it went? Did you learn what he said to dad that twisted him like that?”

 

Alastor sighed and hummed, going to sit.

 

“Well, yes... And, let me tell you, didn't look like much?” he made a gesture. “Greco told me he only complimented your father's figure. I think the poor thing just has a taste for refine things and your father is refined as it gets.”

 

She was confused.

 

“I don't think dad will react that way just for a compliment” she said.

 

Vaggie nodded in agreement with her girlfriend.

 

“Yeah, Lucifer was flustered, like he was told a... a very nasty thing” said the ex-exorcist.

 

“Well, I didn't hear it directly, so I won't judge, I only have the information I could take from the sinner without using intimidation” the Radio Demon hummed again. “I'm more effective if I can use all my talents. But in any case, I told to Greco and he promised not to bother our darling king again. We'll see if the man can achieve that.”

 

Charlie sighed and nodded.

 

“Let's hope so, thanks again, Alastor, I don't know what I do without you” she said, sweetly, making the demon place a sweet smile in return in his face.

 

“Oh, darling...” he rose. “I'm here to help you, you know... Maybe now that I can talk with Lucifer a couple of sentences without him trying to chop my head, maybe I can talk to him too. I dont't trust that Greco but I think this was also blowed up of proportion for your own father... let's call them bias.”

 

The princess didn't let the commentary pass by her, in fact, even when Alastor was ready to end the chat there and go, she asked.

 

“What bias are you talking about?” she asked.

 

The Radio Demon, already at the opened door of the parlor, sighed and clicked his tongue, turning around while closing the door.

 

“I don't want to cause you distress, dear” he said. “And I don't want to say something that will looks like I'm trying to sew some chaos between you two... I know my reputation doesn't help me in this case but it is what it is. So let's just say maybe your father takes things... worst than they are... in certain cases... because of some bias.”

 

He rested his hands over his microphone and waited. Charlie mulled over the response for a moment to then make a gesture to the man.

 

“Ok, I'm not a child, you know something and if it serves me to help my father to acclimatize to the hotel, the better” she made a gesture tapping the nearby chair. “So sit and treat me like an adult. What do you know about my dad? Because I'm not stupid and I know why dad was so cutthroat with you, but you were too... So, explain.”

 

Vaggie nodded.

 

“It has to do with that story about your mother summoning him, right?” asked the fallen angel.

 

“Vaggie!!” Charlie scolded the woman.

 

Alastor made a gesture with the hand while sitting.

 

“Don't fret, darling” said the Radio Demon. “That was not a secret for any extend, I didn't told you about that in whispers. And I know you will discuse anything with your paramour, as is logic. You have a strong relationship, you communicate, it will be terrible if not. And to Vaggie's question, no. That's something I learned here in Hell, in an overlord party, around... fourty years ago.”

 

Vaggie crossed her arms.

 

“And what is it?” she asked, with not patience at all to beat around the bushes.

 

“Well, again... it's bad but I don't want to create a breach between you and your father” he said. “But I didn't know at a time but other overlords like Zestial Morde did. Long story short, let's just say the king, being the King of Hell, is not as open minded as one could hope for the Devil himself.”

 

For Charlie, Alastor was trying to say something terrible about her father but was avoiding the topic to not hurt her or to spare her... or even to not be the crow of bad news. And she was glad, but she really needed to know.

 

“Ok, just say it” she asked, softly.

 

“Your father has a problem with same sex attention” he said, looking to his mic. “I think it has to be just with him and not a general distaste... I mean, he seems ok with you two, it's not like he could swallow his bias just to have a relationship again with his daughter, he surely approves... I want to think is just something for him.”

 

Charlie was... horrified and Vaggie, well, she was in a mix of not believing and believing and being sad and angry about it.

 

“My father isn't homophobic, it can't be” she said, denying with her head. “He'll never...”

 

“I agree” said Alastor fast. “I think is has to be just with his preferences. He just delines any male attention to him, it's not like he reacted badly in other ways. I mean, with me was bumpy but it was not like he insisted I was something I'm not.”

 

The problem, thought the princess, is that her father totally did, trying to mislabel Alastor and insisting he was a woman. She didn't want to think badly of her own father, she always thought he was distant but lovely, a good man, a funny corky man that couldn't harm a fly. Sure, he approved the exterminations but he also defended her and reconstructed the hotel. Even now he and Alastor were at last starting to become friends, for her, just for her.

 

But maybe... she also thought, maybe just for her he accepted Vaggie, maybe just for having again a relationship, to be near her. It was an effort but it sounded so sad and bad eitherway.

 

“I can't...” she thought for a moment, looking to Alastor before talking again. “Ok, how you got that information? A party you said, right? What happened in that party?”

 

Alastor took some air.

 

“Ok, it's something rather personal for me, damaging even so... Can I ask for this not to leave this room?” said the Radio Demon and waited.

 

Both women look to each other.

 

“No problem, Alastor” said the princess. “And if it's too much for you...”

 

Alastor nodded.

 

“It is but I just want to let some things about me far from Lucifer's ears, far as possible” he say.

 

“Sure, not a word, we promise” said Charlie, worried all of the sudden.

 

“Yeah” simply added Vaggie, that didn't have a huge sympathy for the demon but was eager to learn more secrets from the elussive Radio Demon.

 

“Ok... Around fourty years ago, Queen Lilith decided to celebrate an overlord reunion/party and invited us all. I was about to decline, I assist overlord reunions now and then if it's suits me but I'm not much for parties, specially the Queen's” he said, showing some... disdain for the consort of the king. “Sorry to say this about your dear mother but she loves the sound of her own voice too much and basks very easy in adoration, so that party was more a royal sponsored asskissing than a party.”

 

He laughed for a second but he was so dry doing it. Charlie could catch that Alastor wasn't a fan of her mother.

 

“But I learned the king was about to assist too” he said, sighing. “I told you about my teen years, how my mother invoked him and he helped us and I made a promise to him about serving him here, at any cost, making him happy because I saw he wasn't. But was... more than that...”

 

The deer demon moved his face to a side.

 

“I never... felt attraction, my body was always dead, even when I was alive” he started to tell, really uncomfortable, so much that Charlie moved her hand to place it over the hand of the overlord. “I thought it was just another thing making me strange, different from the rest, a monster... In any case, the moment I made that promise... I felt alive. I felt my body alive and it was the only thing I could think about.”

 

“You... felt in love with him?” asked Charlie, word by word almost whispered and uttered like she selected them carefully.

 

“You could say, yes... I was... he was really good to me those seven days and I saw a caring, sweet man so sad...” he shook his head. “And he said I would never grace his kingdom with my presence because I was a good lad and the idea of not seeing him again was... so painful. That... That is what made me took the path I walked. I became a serial killer.”

 

Vaggie clicked her tongue, she was surprise for the information. Just the idea of the Radio Demon having some semblance of feelings that weren't related with bloodlust or hunger for power was enough but the rest...

 

“You killed innocent people to go near your flame... bravo” she didn't approved.

 

“I never killed an innocent” he said, drilling the woman with his eyes, like he was insulted. “I wanted to asure my place here but I still wanted to do some good, to be good in a way for him. So I targetted scum: abusers, rapists, racists, violent killers... I was precise, strategic, never killed one without confirming what they were and always made them confess, one way or another, before the kill. I paved my way to Hell and the person I cared the most besides my mother with that. I'm not denying what I am so don't try to pile more sins that the ones I own.”

 

He sighed, again turning his face away from both women.

 

“Emm... sorry” said Vaggie, just that.

 

“Please, continue, Alastor” asked Charlie.

 

“I was nobody in Hell when I arrived so I couldn't possible access the king in any way so I tried to catch his eye, in a way” he sighed. “I didn't know he was so disconnected from his subjects but... In any case, I wasn't sure what to do when a path was opened for me. In his time in Hell since he died, my father became an overlord and he learned I was here too, wanted to punish me for killing him, make an example... I wasn't going to let him do it. I knew I have power, I had it in the Living World and Hell just amplified it. I fought, he lost and I learned back then I have another type of power... I could manipulate souls in a way no other overlord could. I can make deals just with a shake of hands and that isn't common but also I can trap them.... and consume them.”

 

Both Vaggie and Charlie had their mouths opened, the deals was rather exceptional though the princess knew high ranking demons, the sins, her father could to it. And she knew some overlords like Zestial could... Not such a rare ability, but notable. But manipulating human souls in that way, trap them, consume them... It was horrible but also potent.

 

“So you did that to the overlords you toppled, right?” asked Vaggie.

 

“My father went first and... I'm an animal of habit myself so I thought: Let's continue with the job” he said with a wicked smile. “I selected the worst, the abusive overlords, mostly allies to my monstruos father, the ones mistreating their contracts, with constant fights for territory... I met Rosie in those times and we became friends just like that, such a remarkable woman and leader. Zestial isn't exactly a friend but he and I respect each other since then. Then I used the Radio as theatrics, my conduit to present myself properly to Hell as the Radio Demon.”

 

He sighed.

 

“Of course, not a single notice from the king so not knowing what more I could do, I decide to go with the motions” he said. “I met Vox a couple of years later, there was no Vees, no Valentino and he wasn't an overlord, just a regular sinner. He was a fan of my radio show when we were both alive, he was a child listening to my broadcasts every day and he was head over heels when he learned I was here in Hell too. He was... refreshing...”

 

“I thought you hated the bastard” said Vaggie.

 

“Oh, darling, that came later” said the Radio Demon, making a gesture with the hand. “In that time, he was something new. When I was feared by any demon in Pride, he approched me like I was a regular man, not fear or trying to gain some favor... He was just that. Good conversation, he was witty and had values. We started to live together, we were together and he made me happy, for a time. I was completelly sincere with him, I wasn't in love though he was but I valued his company, his caring. He accepted me exactly as I was... And, it came the invitation and the party...”

 

***

 

“How do I look?” asked Alastor in front of the mirror, adjusting his red coat.

 

“Amazing, like always, honey” Vox came from behind him, holding him from the waist but trying not to touch too much, Alastor was ironing those clothes for hours. “You're perfection as always.”

 

Alastor wasn't so sure but that had to do. He turned around to see Vox, with his old TV head and with a three piece suit in place of his regular brown turtleneck sweater and casual pants that he liked to wear.

 

“You look good yourself” said the demon with a broad smile. “And I see you're using the bowtie I purchased for you.”

 

The red demon fixed the bowtie in place and Vox was almost beaming for the approval.

 

“Yeah, of course, baby, I'm the plus one of the Radio Demon, I have to look the part” he said, finding the lips of the Radio Demon almost immediactly.

 

Alastor wasn't passional and he wasn't so fond of shows of affection but sometimes, like in that moment, he let him. Maybe it was a good way for him to calm his nerves because the tv demon knew exactly why he was like that.

 

“Ok, no more fumbling around, let's go” the Radio Demon offered his arm to the tv demon and both were engulfed by Alastor's shadows.

 

They both appeared in the ostentations Mansion Morde, the residence of Zestial, where the party was been carried out. Alastor was being received with the usual respect and greetings, like a mafia don that everyone wanted to please because no one wanted to be a guest in his broadcasts.

 

Vox knew he was just arm candy for the overlord but he was enjoying that a lot, that respect, asking his name those that didn't know him, talking to him. They mingled in the party to then going to present their respects to the monarchs.

 

Alastor bowed before Lilith and tended his hand to the Queen. She was smiling broadly, more when the demon kissed her hand like a gentleman.

 

“It's a pleasure to see you at least in person, my queen” said the demon, with elegance. “Your last letter was such a joy for me. It's always appreciated when someone values your work.”

 

Lilith drank from her tall glass, smiling, delighted for the present of the man and the attention.

 

“Your work is magnificent, Alastor, you curled so good the bad seeds in Pride... We can't prosper with such overlords doing whatever they want with the cities, specially the capital” she touched the arm of the overlord, almost like she was flirting. “And your taste in music... Oh, delightful, you really know your stuff and I felt honored when you played my songs.”

 

The Radio Demon broaded his smile.

 

“Of course, my queen, your music is modern but has the quality of classics and the motivation in the lyrics is something this city desperately needs” he took the hand over his arm and kissed. “It was a pleasure, my queen, and I'm just eager for more from you.”

 

Lucifer was far from them but the Radio Demon heard the growl of annoyance from the ruler.

 

“Oh, my... I hope I didn't displeased your gracious husband” said the demon, with his perpetual smile.

 

“Ex husband” she said. “We didn't announced officialy but it's maybe the worst kept secret in Pride. Don't worry, he's all bark and no bite... Say... Maybe we could arrange for a visit to my recording studio, a birdie told me you sing rather well and play various instruments. Maybe we could... work together in something.”

 

The demon smirked.

 

“With pleasure, quite pleasure, my queen” he bowed again. “Though I'm not on the level of talent of her majesty, I'll try my best... Like in everything I do.”

 

“Oh, you're a menace” she said, almost seductively. “Well, we'll talk more, now I need to be in the dreadful task of mingling and not all the overlords are as interesting as you, I'm afraid. Noblesse oblige and all that jazz.”

 

The demon nodded and when the queen moved to greet and talk with the other overlords, Vox returned to the side of Alastor.

 

“Well, you can say a lot of things about the Queen of Hell, but she has good taste” the red demon just raised a brow. “She wants to get comfy inside your pants.”

 

Alastor growled, moving to the counter manned by a sinner to ask for a whiskey neat.

 

“Don't be gross, Vox” said the demon. “The Queen was flirtatious but she doesn't really want a thing from me that isn't attention. It's normal for a little flirt here and there between powerful people.”

 

Vox asked for a vodka.

 

“For you, maybe” he said. “You're like walking sex, everyone wants a bite from you and not in the way you usually like. Some people will kill their mothers to be close as I am to you. You have raw sex-appeal, baby, and the queen wants a taste... The fan letters she sent? I wasn't sure until now but they are drench in her perfume.”

 

Alastor rolled his eyes and took a sip from his drink.

 

“First, you are exaggerating” said the overlord. “Second, I can't be less interested in sex and I doubt that, with my reputation, is what comes to the minds of people about me and third, the queen is not the royal I'm interested in.”

 

He said, looking to the king, with a drink in hand and very far from the rest of the party.

 

“So... you're gonna try to do it?” asked Vox, concerned about him.

 

“Yes... this is a golden oportunity, maybe I don't have another” said the Radio Demon, downing completelly his drink to ask for a refill.

 

Vox sighed.

 

“Honey, you know I support everything you want to do, I know why you want to do it and all, I understand but...” the gaze the Radio Demon gave him was clear 'Be careful with what you are about to say' and the TV Demon read that without problem. “But that man has a reputation. He's easy to bore, prone to burst of fury and he's egotistical to no end, he's the fucking Sin of Pride, love. Your heart is in the right place but... Besides, according to gossip, he only had mistresses, not man. So...”

 

Alastor took another sip from his drink to sigh then.

 

“That man you described isn't the man I know and isn't so far fetch that, surrounded by sinners and oportunistic individuals, that he presents a front, not reality. Besides, I won't hear simple gossip and be discouraged by it” he started to move. “I need to do this.”

 

Vox took him from the arm and he knew it was an error as soon as he saw the radio dials in his lover's eyes. He released the arm immediactly.

 

“And what about us?” asked the demon. “If he refuses you and you return to me, I will always think I'm just a consolation prize for you and if he not...”

 

Alastor came closer the other demon, taking him from the bowtie he bought for him.

 

“You knew this from the beginning, I never lied to you” said the demon. “And if this is so important to you even then, I won't return to you if he refuses me... So then you can't feel like a second option.”

 

“Baby, I didn't...” Alastor was already closing distances with Lucifer. “Fuck...”

 

“Greetings, your majesty” said the Radio Demon with his usual flair and cheery disposition. “Maybe I be wrong but I believe this is the first reunion your highness graces with your presence.”

 

Lucifer, who wasn't in a good mood, gulped a little from his own whiskey.

 

“Yeah, first in a long time” he said, coldly. “But I'm not in a social mood, sinner, you can continue... wooing my wife, for all I care.”

 

Alastor moved his head to a side, his smile faltered a little but he returned his eyes to the king.

 

“Oh, your majesty, I will never do such a thing” said the demon. “I was just being a gentleman with the gracious queen. In fact, my interest isn't in her.”

 

Lucifer, with a smirk, placed an elbow on the table to support his weight.

 

“And what's your interest, sinner?” asked the monarch. “Me, perhaps? The real power in the throne? Your despicable kin always does the same, always playing your little powerplays like that power you possess actual means anything. It's almost cute... I must be like a candy for a sinner like yourself.”

 

Alastor didn't know what to say, he tried.

 

“That's not...”

 

“You know what?” the king interrupted him. “Let me clear things for you before you waste my time and yours. I'm the King of Hell, you are beneath me... And even if, by any miracle or curse, I was ready to fuck anything with a hole, you'll be my last option. Now get out of my sight, sinner, before I remind you your place.”

 

The king showed his eyes changing to the crimson red and Alastor, like a mistreated mascot, decided to walk a couple of steps back, to then turn arround over his heels. He wasn't scared, he was annoyed and hurt and he crushed the glass in his hand while walking, making all the lights in the party to flicker while he was growling. Those who catched he was the origin of that, were scared. The least they want was an angry Radio Demon near them.

 

Vox moved near Alastor.

 

“Told you, babe” said the TV demon, trying to calm the overlord. “That little piece of shit must be homophobic as shit... Forget about him, baby, let's finish with the party, return to home and I'll....”

 

The look he got from Alastor made his tv face to go from technicolor to black and white.

 

“You have a day to take your things out of my territory, if I return to my mansion and you're there, your voice will be in my next broadcast, did I made myself clear?”

 

Vox was shocked by the fury of his lover, more than afraid really.

 

“Love, can we talk this, please? I didn't mean... I didn't want...” Alastor antlers grew a little, taking the words from his mouth.

 

“One day” he said, fusing with shadows and going out the party.

 

***

 

“After that party Vox and I were in sour terms but... we tried frienship and didn't work because he still wanted to fix things with me” the Radio Demon shrugged. “I didn't want to stay again with someone that I didn't love just for the company and here we are.”

 

Charlie and Vaggie were enthralled by Alastor's story. First, that was something very personal and open and they didn't know that man was capable of 'personal and open' in any form. Also, it was a window to Charlie's parents.

 

“So... My mother was interested in you?” asked Charlie, saying the words slowly.

 

Alastor raised a brow.

 

“That's all you took from my tale, Charlotte?” asked the Radio Demon.

 

“No, no, but... is... surprising... slightly gross... not for you, Alastor” she added quickly. “But she's my mother and even when I know they aren't together, and...”

 

Vaggie cut in her train of thought.

 

“Maybe we should be focus on the matter at hand, in your father, sweetie?” said the fallen angel.

 

“Yeah, yeah, right, sorry” said the princess. “I don't know, Alastor, that doesn't seem like proof. I mean, yeah, he was an asshole with you but... maybe he was previously annoyed and he wasn't refering to you as a man but you as a sinner or overlord and ok, that doesn't sound better either but I don't want to accuse dad of...”

 

Alastor moved his hand to stop her ramblings.

 

“That isn't my intention either” said the Radio Demon. “Until is confirmed is just a rumour but maybe that rumour is there for a reason. I don't see your father as hateful but maybe his very strong preference mixed with his mental status aren't good for the hotel... Of course, your relationship with him is important and I won't suggest to ban him from the hotel but maybe some watchful eye is necessary, for the good of our patrons.”

 

The princess thought for a moment and then nodded.

 

“Yeah, I agree” said the woman. “I want dad here and it took us so much time to fix our relationship that I don't want to lose him.”

 

The Radio Demon moved his hand over the shoulder of Charlie, smiling to her softly.

 

“Don't worry, darling” said the demon. “I understand and I'll do my part. I'll try to help him sleep and stabilize his mood. That's first... There will be time to have a serious chat with him but for now I think that's the best course of action.”

 

“Thank you, Al” said th woman. “And thanks for trust us with part of your story.”

 

And she moved to hug the demon and he reacted like always: first tense like a piano string, then he returned the sentiment.

 

“So you're in love with my dad?” she asked.

 

“I was... maybe I still am” he denied. “I know it's one sided and he'll never respond to it but I made my peace with that time ago. Now I just want to fulfill my promise.”

 

Charlie thought for a moment.

 

“And you are happy with just that?” she asked.

 

Alastor smiled softier.

 

“Haha, no, darling” he said, with a cheery disposition that sounds almost terribly sad. “I'm not happy since... well, years. Happiness is inconsequential to me, I made a friend of my misery, I lived all my life with the superior knowledge that I wasn't born to find happiness but I learned fast to stop trying and accept my life and afterlife for what it is and not what will never be. I won't become a phony archeologist trying to find Atlantis... Taking happiness out of the equation is what left me be free in the end, to focus my talents where I want to.”

 

She looked so sad with his commentary.

 

“That's really sad, Al” said the princess. “Everyone deserves to be happy.”

 

“Agree to disagree, darling” said the Radio Demon, breaking the hug from the woman and adjusting his clothes. “Not everyone deserves happiness, certainly nor I. But don't sour your day in my account, Charlie... Maybe my life started with the curse of my body and having the father I had but the rest, all that happened to me, were my decisions. Every single one of them, from making a promise to the Devil that charmed my heart in my teens to the point I saw you on the picture box of a store and decided to help you.”

 

Alastor took her face with the hand from her chin.

 

“My life is a tragedy in the eyes of some but I smile to that, I'll laugh to that...” he said. “So don't worry for me, deary. We have a hotel to run, with real patrons that have a real shot at salvation and that happiness so important to you, so let's focus in that, shall we?”

 

She wasn't agree with the Radio Demon. She really thought he deserved some happiness too, something good happening in his life. He fell in love young, made his life mission finding a way to Hell just to end here and not being love in return... It was really a tragedy, as he said. And of course, she couldn't tell a thing to her dad.

 

Charlie didn't thought Lucifer was homophobic, in fact he always gave her bisexual or pansexual vibes but... who knows? And of course, she couldn't force guilt in him just to not take notice of Alastor or love him... The princess hated when everything was so complicated.

 

“Yeah, I guess is the best...” she said, again, not convinced.

 

“Perfect! Now, darling, if you don't need more from me, I'll be on my way” said the demon. “I have to do so many things...”

 

He said, always cheery, always smiling... But now that she knew part of his story, she couldn't help but see some cracks in that perfect facade Alastor always showed them.

Notes:

Next one is gonna be interesting, we are going near some conflict and more extreme angst... maybe not next chapter but soon so brace yourselves for impact!

Chapter 13: Guardian Demon

Summary:

One of the things you could say about Lucifer is that his mouth was faster than his brain. Sometimes that could spawn something hilarious and sometimes things Charlie didn't like.

Alastor appears on the dot in Lucifer's room to help him sleep and both men start with some conversation and reminiscences of past lessons.

Notes:

This is a short one, I know it :P

"Handle them carefully, for words have more power than atom bombs."

~Pearl Strachan Hurd

 

 

When Lucifer returned from his room, near the hour for dinner, he saw Alastor talking with Petunia, the woman that came to the hotel with Greco and was friend of that man. He had the impression the Radio Demon didn't like those sinners but he was very relaxed talking to the woman.

 

Anyway, maybe he could ask him later.

 

The king noticed his daughter was eluding him. Sure, she didn't look angry at him or even dissapointed but he tried to approach his applepie several times and she dodge with excuses that he could smell from a mile. He didn't like that, he wanted to apologize, he wanted to reassure his daughter he was ready to do whatever it takes to be by her side and help her but that will has to be other day.

 

Alastor decided to cook again, making a delicious lamb casserole that was producing an aroma that was turning the Devil into a salivating mess.

 

“That smells delicious” he said, when the Radio Demon was serving him his plate.

 

“Well thank you, your highness” said the red demon with a broad smile and his showmanship. “I thought something to raise spirits was in order. So I purchased some last minute lamb and I made this. It has couscous and cauliflower florets too, a very hearty homemade meal.”

 

The oven made a sound and the demon took from there a tray presenting to everyone with a little sourdough bread, freshly baked. The smell from the bread was mixing with the smell from the plate and the shorter man felt like he was in Heaven.

 

“Thank you, Alastor” said Charlie, taking the first bite with a delighted expression, taking then the pipping hot bread to scoop some of the sauce. “Incredible!”

 

“Enjoy, my darlings” he said, preparing for him a plate, again, with a huge amount and two bread pieces, ready to go to his room to eat.

 

Lucifer was enjoying the food. Lamb was his favorite, didn't matter in what way it was cooked, and that was just the thing his chest was asking, making him feel really good. For that he noticed the demon was about to go out of the kitchen when he was almost at the door.

 

“Really, Alastor, for once you could eat with us” said the king, looking directly to the demon.

 

“Sorry, your highness, but I have to decline” said the taller man. “But I'm a really messy eater so I prefer to eat alone... enjoy your food.”

 

He then looked back to the king.

 

“10 sharp, I won't forget” he said, before going out of the kitchen with his bounty of food.

 

Charlie sighed deeply.

 

“I hate the low consideration he has for himself” said the princess. “I felt he thinks he doesn't belong for being different and that's so sad.”

 

Lucifer looked back to his child and could help himself but scoff.

 

“Applepie, sure you aren't sorry for the Radio Demon of all people, right?” said the king, almost with a mocking tone, returning his attention to enjoy the food.

 

The princess looked back at her dad and she was... annoyed for the commentary.

 

“Alastor is more than he shows, dad” she said.

 

“Yeah, he's also a serial killer, a cannibal and a sadist” said the king, almost joking. “He doesn't deserve your pity, sweetheart. He's helping, that's amazing, but who knows why but you can't think in him like your friend or something.”

 

Charlie drank the water from her glass and she slammed it in the table, it was a miracle it didn't broke.

 

“I'll eat in my room too!” she announced, taking her plate, cutlery and bread and going out the kitchen.

 

Vaggie moved her hand to stop her but couldn't and she turned to Lucifer to say something to him but she decided not to and went after the princess with her own food in hand.

 

Magnificent, thought with sarcasm the Devil, now his own daughter was pissed off at him for saying something that was true. One thing was to give sinners a second chance, give them redemption as a possibility and all that jazz but Alastor? Sure, he showed some... qualities here and there, but that man was for his own gain, c'mon! The last thing he needed was to walk on egg shells around the fucking Radio Demon of all demons in Hell.

 

He finished with his meal and teleported to his room, not acknowledging the other people in the kitchen.

 

***

 

When the circus elephant clock he had in the wall pointed to ten, two knocks were heared at his door. He was still a little pissy for the last interaction with his daughter so the first thing Alastor saw was a very angry devil.

 

“Good? Evening, your highness” he said, waiting to be granted permission to enter.

 

“Yeah, yeah, fuck you” he said, biting the words, returning to the interior of his room while taking from his workbench a glass of brandy to drink a little from it.

 

He sat at the bed and looked back to the door.

 

“Are you gonna stay there all night or are you coming in, sinner?” he almost growled the words.

 

Alastor just raised a brow and entered the room, with a book in his hand, giving first a round check of the room before returning his crimson eyes to Hell's ruler.

 

“Hours ago I was 'Al' and 'Alastor' and now I'm been downgraded to 'sinner' again?” he asked. “Can I ask why the hostility towards me, my king, or we are playing another game of 'blame Alastor for something he didn't do'?”

 

Said the sinner, going to one of the armchairs in the room and sitting in it, waiting for the monarch to drink and speak not showing a little bit of extra emotions to his raising fury. Alastor was relaxed and almost neutral, not confrontational or sacastic.

 

“My daughter is mad at me and it's your fault” accussed the Devil.

 

“Aahh... Blaming game, it is” he sighed. “Tell me, your majesty, what I did to provoke such development? My food had too many spices, my bread wasn't fluffy enough... Did I breathe too hard when I was taking my leave from the kitchen?”

 

Lucifer growled but... hearing Alastor he knew he was right and he hated the demon was right. He wanted to blame him! To move the guilt from him to the radio host but... Alastor didn't do a thing, right? He was just there, being himself and he even was there to help him... He growled, again, it was too proud to back down completelly so he just moved forward.

 

“She made a commentary about you, I made another and she took offense to mine...” he gulped the glass of brandy and left it in his bedside table. “She... she doesn't like you being a loner and I said she shouldn't worry for you.”

 

“How right you are, sire” said the demon. “I don't need people to worry about me and less sweet Charlotte. The delicate thing doesn't approve of my life philosophy, today we talked about that, I guess the conversation is still fresh for her.”

 

Lucifer moved to sit with his legs crossed in the middle of the bed, looking attentively to the Radio Demon, with curiosity washing out a little his self impossed anger.

 

“What philosophy? What conversation?” asked the Devil.

 

The demon sighed, opening his book and starting to read. The king took a good look to the cover, trying to read the name: Stardust. Lucifer knew that book, it was a funny story of a love and courage, a modern fairytale with witches, evil and a living star in the form of a woman.

 

Alastor was reading that? Ok, the woodcarving manual he had in his room was already strange but that was borderlining the bizarre for the shorter man. It was so out of character for him that... he didn't know what to think or say about it.

 

“I had a chat with young Charlotte about why I ended in Hell in the first place” said the demon, resuming his lecture taking what it looked like a tarot card as a bookmark. “She asked me if I was happy with my choices and I told her the truth. A truth she didn't like.”

 

“What truth?” asked Lucifer, still mulling over that book, thinking about the author, he thought that maybe Coraline could be a better literary option for the sinner.

 

“I said I'm not happy, in fact, in my life, rarely I'm been happy” said the man, like nothing. “Pearls, here and there, but I told her I'm not happy for years now and she was sad about that fact, even when I myself am not sad about it. I embraced my misery and I don't deluding myself, I know I was born to suffer and die, I was reborn in here to continue with my suffering and to give it to others and I know if or when I find my final end, not a single tear will be lost on me.”

 

He pass a page and continue reading, with Lucifer with his mouth opened looking to that man, that talked like nothing about being perpetually alone in a state of misery.

 

“For me, being alone is almost the worst” said the Devil, slowly and low. “And not being happy like I was in the past is... hard. How a person can live with that idea in their mind?”

 

The Radio Demon moved his eyes from the book to the monarch.

 

“Please, don't tell me you're about to share naive views with your daughter” he continued to read. “I don't know if I could keep out with two bubbly princesses of Hell.”

 

Lucifer moved, almost crawling, to the foot of the bed to be nearer the Radio Demon.

 

“Not like that but... Don't you really want to be happy? You don't want to find happiness?” asked the man, now with huge curiosity and another feeling that was raising from his heart and he was trying with all his being to push down hard.

 

Alastor adjusted his monocle.

 

“Why in the Hells I would want to find happiness?” asked the demon. “For me is a mirage, your majesty, a chimera. I don't have family, nor I would have it, I only loved once in all my life and was completelly one sided and painful, people don't usually want to give you company if you don't want to bed them so a partner is more than out of the equation, half of Pride Ring wants me gone, the other half want to learn if they can use me first and I have only two friends and one of them is more an acquaintance that keeps our friendship alive because I'm useful to her, than a real friend... and it's not like I can make more.”

 

He said, with a smirk and moving a hand, like that was so obvious.

 

“And that's that? You give up on happiness so easy?” asked the Devil.

 

“Easy?” he looked confused. “Who said it was easy? No, no, your majesty, getting in touch with reality is maybe the hardest thing a person could do. I'm not weak for accepting my Fate, on the contrarie, there resides my strength: I won't focus in banalities or a concept that is completelly out of my league, so I can focus in the here and now.”

 

Lucifer sighed. A part of him understood the Radio Demon, so many times he wanted to give up on everything, to be left alone and just be.. or dissapear even. But he had Charlie, he had friends like the Sins... some of the Sins at least. He had a chance at happiness, he just needed to get his shit together and finish fixing things with his daughter.

 

And his unfortunate commentaries and bias weren't helping with that.

 

“And how are you so sure you can't make friends?” asked the king. “My Charlie consider herself your friend.”

 

Alastor hummed but continue with the reading.

 

“Charlie will make friends with rocks if she manages to learn how to communicate” said the Radio Demon. “The princess is a good soul and she means well, but I'll be sorry for her if she someday considers herself my friend. In fact, I don't believe I'll let her get that close.”

 

The monarch was confused.

 

“Why the fuck no?” he asked.

 

“Because she will try to change me and will end up frustrated because she can't” he started to explain. “Then she will feel upset with all the things I did and I'll continue doing and, last, if I find my final end, I don't want Charlotte to cry over my corpse... I'll want to pass my last seconds in reflexion and solitude, not reminding someone to smile.”

 

That response left the Devil without words. Hey, it wasn't an easy feat but there it was, Lucifer, the boastful Sin of Pride with his mouth slightly opened and without a single idea of what to say. That statement sounded sad, also sweet. It showed some worry about Charlotte so maybe, despise his words, he really considered his daughter as a friend... even when the demon was saying he didn't want that.

 

Alastor raised his eyes again, drilling the Devil with them.

 

“You, your majesty, should be trying to sleep” said the Radio Demon. “Remember we aren't here to socialize but to tackle your sleeping problems.”

 

He said and Lucifer nodded, moving to go under the covers, laying to a side and eyeing the red demon from his new position.

 

“Amm... about the friendship shit...” started to talk again after mulling for minutes. “Do you think you and I could end up being friends?”

 

Asked the Devil.

 

“No” was the only response from Alastor.

 

“Why the fuck no?” Lucifer moved a little to see him better.

 

“Because a friend accepts the other as they are, even when they know everything in your life” he started to say. “Share some tastes or traits and they are there, always, even when you don't want them. My only real friend is Rosie, I'll kill for her, I'll die for her and I'll do it even if she asks me or not. I know the same goes for her, she'll face even you, knowing her death was guaranteed, if it was to protect me. Doesn't matter what will happen, you'll never made my causes, yours.”

 

Lucifer scoffed.

 

“You are phrasing it like I'm the one that... ha ha, fall short in that” said the king. “Like you could possible take my interests as your own.”

 

Alastor was impassive, continuing with his reading and without catching the eyes of the Devil.

 

“I already did” said the Radio Demon. “Do you really believe you will be here now, fixing things with Charlie, if it wasn't for me?”

 

“Fuck you!” said the king. “You aren't gonna take that as a personal triumph. I fixed the things with my babygirl, you tried to... dad-blocked me.”

 

The deer demon moved an ear, raised his eyes.

 

“Sure... Charlie called you as a last resource meassure, she didn't want to” said the demon, making the shorter man growl. “You came and started beating the bushes, trying to offer her... how it was... ah, yes... champagne fountains, caviar mountains...”

 

He sang the last part, making a gesture with his hand like he was conjuring something in a very exaggerating way.

 

“But not what Charlie really needed and wanted” continued to explain the demon. “I added pressure, a feeling that if you didn't step up, you were about to be replace. Did you really thought I was seeing Charlie as a daughter? Me? I have zero fatherly instints, I'll eat a child before fathering one. I even defended the hotel so Charlie could get on your case and stop your incessant bitching... I played you both like a fiddle.”

 

Said the demon with a smirk in his face.

 

“You didn't even notice that when you started to talk to her, communicating and fixing things, I stepped aside and remained silent?” he denied. “Your observation skills are extremelly subpar, my good man. It's a tragedy for the Prince of Darkness.”

 

“Fuck you” said the Devil, but he was starting to see... truth in that. And it was that type of truth you don't want to hear or see, the ones you chose to ignore if you can.

 

“And it wasn't the first time” added the Radio Demon. “Why do you think I finished with some overlords?”

 

Lucifer raised a brow.

 

“Power, souls, becoming an overlord and being the worst most feared thing in this side of Pentagram?” he responded sarcastically.

 

“Like I cared for power or being an overlord” he said, dismissing the idea. “Except my wretched father, who was my first victim here in Hell too, the rest of the overlords were a cancer over Pride Ring. Abusing deals, sacrificing hellborns in petty squabbles for a couple of inches of territory... Maybe you was absent as a king, but I wanted to make this place better.”

 

The king sat in the bed again, moving his hand over his chin.

 

“So you're telling me that you off'd the motherfuckers because you cared for the little guys?” he laughed slowly. “It's hard to believe, Alastor.”

 

The demon closed for a momento his book but not completelly, living the page marked by his own fingers inside.

 

“Do you remember what you taught me about people of fairer means?”

 

***

 

“The poor woman” was saying Aloÿia while serving coffee to both Lucifer and her son. “She lost almost everything. The security on those factories is horrible and these tragedies are too often to taste.”

 

She sighed.

 

“Losing her husband so young and having three children, it's really tough” said the Devil. “And you say they doesn't have a single penny saved?”

 

Aloÿia nodded, she felt terrible for the woman, specially because, for good or bad, she was already working when they have to... remove her late husband but that young woman, just twenty years old, three children, no job, no savings, just the house and they could lose it, in any second. They lived just two house from her and in the funeral the poor woman was wailing her heart out.

 

“Not a single one” she sighed. “Ah, my king, they say 'It's always darkest before the dawn' but sometimes it looks like is always dark for the same people.”

 

“It's a pity, really” the Devil thought for a moment. “Maybe I could do something. I have several well positioned witches here in New Orleans, some could give her a job.”

 

The woman smiled in a way that almost illuminated the room.

 

“Oh, your highness, that could be so good for the poor woman” she said. “Maybe I can make some gumbo for her and the kids and we could drop it in her house with a couple of directions for that job. It's a tradition here to gift cooked meals in hard times or times of grief.”

 

Alastor sighed.

 

“Mama, we need to take care of ourselves too” said the young man. “After fathe.. after that man's death, we aren't swimming in dough, you have to work so hard. We have a mortgage to pay, food to buy and you don't want me to work, thing I'm perfectly capable of... In fact, I saw a job offering as painter and plasterers, thirty cents an hour. They'll pay me a little less for being mixed but I could...”

 

“I said 'no', Alastor” said the woman, positive in what she was saying. “You need to finish your studies and find a good, real good job. I can manage until that moment and, darling, when misery strikes one of us, strikes all of us. We are a community, today we'll help, tomorrow maybe we'll need help. We can manage, love, don't worry.”

 

But he was worry. Of course he wanted to help but they were poor, her mother had to take a second job just to keep the house and keep food on the table and black workers never have the same salaries as white folk, so it was just a step extra harder.

 

“Your mother is right, Alastor” said the Devil. “If all mortals help each other more often, my kingdom wouldn't have the overpopulation problem it has.”

 

The kid sighed.

 

“I want to help but... We aren't in the best situation to do it” said the young man.

 

“Ah, but help should come from a place of 'want' and not from a place of 'could'” said the short man. “And the end of the day, the only thing that is important is helping those weaker than you, poorer than you, even if is just in the slightless. People of fairer means, I call them. People than can't defend themselves... You don't need to actually care for them, have an attachment... just help and let them stand on their feet after that.”

 

The teenager nodded. He understand what that man was saying, it was the same for them. Lucifer was helping because they were those of fairer means to him... Everyone was.

 

“Ok, I'll cut the ingredients, mama” offered the boy.

 

“And I'll provide those ingredients” Lucifer snapped his fingers and a bounty of food appeared like nothing over the table. There was not only food to make the gumbo, that will last them at least a week even after that.

 

“But... your highness...” the boy was surprised. “If I knew you were about to do this...”

 

Lucifer laughed, taking the boy from his shoulders, moving him nearer.

 

“Ah, lad, that's the thing!” said the blond man. “You have to help without knowing if it's gonna be easy or hard. Or you'll only help when it's convenient to you and what type of help is that? The help of cowards. No, no, no... When there is a will, there is a way. Now, let me jump real quickly to my contacts to see who can offer the poor woman some semblance of a job. Go prepare the gumbo in the meanwhile, I'll be back before you know it and we can go together to give some happiness today.”

 

And with a vivacious smile, the Devil teleported in a glitter of red.

 

People of fairer means... those weaker than me... was thinking Alastor while he was carrying the things to the kitchen with the help of his mother.

 

***

 

“If you really remember that and had that let's call it philosophy” started to aske the Devil “the people you killed in the Living World..?”

 

“Scum, the worst of the worst” said the Radio Demon, opening his book again. “The same as the overlords and those others I dispatched here in Hell. If I kill someone permanently, you can bet your throne that cumstain deserved it.”

 

He said, returning to his reading.

 

“Now, your majesty” he snapped and the lights were off. “Sleep well.”

 

The king wanted to say something after that but he really could think about it. Alastor and his layers were food for thought, indeed. And it wasn't like he trusted the fucker, he didn't, not yet, not without something solid.

 

Mulling over that, with the sound of the pages from Alastor's book... little by little, the short man fell deeply sleep, under those crimson eyes that had their own light in the middle of darkness. Eyes talking about hate and yearning.

 

And Lucifer woke up, suddenly, in the morning. He slept all night, not a single nightmare, not a single dream even, just... relaxed sleep, even with someone like Alastor in the...

 

He moved his eyes after cleaning some of the sand from his eyes in the direction of the armchair, now empty. He didn't know if the demon went out immediactly after he fell sleep or with the beginning of the morning. Lucifer was ready to went out of the bed and touch the chair to feel if it was warm, when something catched his eyes.

 

Near the bed there was Alastor's living shadow, observing him, tilting his head to a side.

 

“Ehmm... hello?” said the monarch.

 

The shadow moved nearer the king and moved his hand near his forehead and made like a military salute but different, more rigid. Then the shadow made a gesture touching his chin to then follow with placing his arm horizontal and moving the other hand over it. Then the shadow made a gesture like moving the hand from the shoulder to the stomach in a diagonal pattern.

 

“That... that is sign language, yes?” the shadow nodded. “Sorry, but I speak all languages but only to talk, I can't write or read or... you know, signing.”

 

Alastor's shadow scratched his head and made a gesture of stop with both hands to the king, to then move and palm the mattress.

 

“Do you want me to wait here?” he asked.

 

The shadow nodded twice.

 

The king didn't know why and was about to ask when Alastor teleported from shadows to the room, carrying a tray in his hands.

 

“Ah, your majesty” he said, with a cheery disposition. “I thought I'll have time to prepare this and return to the room before you wake up. Did you sleep well?”

 

Lucifer looked back to the shadow, then to the Radio Demon and then to the red tray he was carrying, with a plate with... he stood on his tiptoes to have a gander. There was a plate with sausages, sunnyside eggs and bacon perfectly cooked and a glass with orange juice.

 

“Did you make breakfast for me?” asked the monarch, sitting in his bed again.

 

“Yes, your highness, let's say is just part of the service and thanks to endulge my curiosity” said the demon, placing the tray over Lucifer's thighs.

 

“Your curiosity... so you that idea you had is right?” said the king.

 

“Yes, you only need company to sleep well” said the Radio Demon. “Even if the company is a bloodthirsty overlord you oh, so hate so much.”

 

The king didn't know what to say. It was true, as soon as he tried to fall sleep, he was. And not a single nightmare on sight, maybe he was right, even the company of someone as questionable as Alastor made a great good for him.

 

“Though thinking about it” said the demon, looking directly to the monarch. “You maybe trust me more than you think. Even if company is what you need to catch some winks, if you really mistrusted me, your subconscious would never let you sleep in my presence. Food for thought, right?”

 

Lucifer didn't say a word about it, nor Alastor left him time to do it, disolving in shadows with a little laugh just right after talking.

 

“Your master is creepy” said the king to the shadow near him.

 

The entity nodded to then take the shadows like his master, going out of the room.

Notes:

Yes, Alastor's shadow talks in ASL. I understand a little of Spain's sign languages (tho the version of my islands, that is almost the same but changes in some things), so I had to find the ASL equivalent and it's a detail that will eventually be relevant in the story, you'll see ;)

Next one will be... fun, so brace yourselves ^^

Chapter 14: Sacrificing pawns

Summary:

The king get used to a dynamic with the Radio Demon and after a hiccup he sees that dynamic interrupted and grows fearing the demon won't help him to sleep again.

Alastor plan cames to fruition. It's time to sacrify some pawns and make his play.

Notes:

I know, I know... as soon as I say I'll upload sooner, as soon something happens. Yes, I focused in the Radioapple week but I'm back to business, so to speak.

This chapter is heavy and is the beginning of the meaty part. Hope you like it ^^

“The greatest manipulation is to convince others they are in control, when in fact, you are the puppet master pulling the strings.”

~Robert Greene, The 48 Laws of Power

 

A next unaventful day came and went and it was night again in the Hazbin Hotel and Lucifer was tossing and turning in the bed due to his own stupid pride.

 

He knew Alastor was right, he knew the demon hit the nail of his problem, how he slept better with someone near him. Also, and that was the worst part for him, he had to agree too that if he distrusted the sinner as much as he wanted himself to believe, he would never sleep near him, lowering his defenses.

 

Yes, he knew all that but he wasn't ready to give the deer the satisfaction of asking or, worse, begging for his company in his room.

 

For a moment he even thought in the posibility of having a sex worker demon, at least for a couple of nights, more ready to pay for company and sex as to give Alastor some ammunition he could use against him but... He took a look at his ring. No, not paying, not flirting, not asking. He made a promise to himself and he wasn't going to break a solemn vow just for a night of sleep and not bruising his ego in the process.

 

It was around two when he decided to swallow his pride, open the door and walk through the corridor to Alastor's door, knocking twice after a pause.

 

Fuck it, he thought.

 

Alastor opened the door, he was in his pajamas and with a peignoir in wine color over them.

 

“Your majesty? To what do I owe the honor of your visit at...” he moved to see the grandfather clock he had near his hearth. “Two in the morning?”

 

“Can I come in?” asked the king, looking around.

 

Sure, in that floor there were only Charlie and Vaggie's room, his and Alastor's but he didn't want rumours if someone, even his daughter, saw him going in the middle of the night, after passing the witching hour, to the Radio Demon's bedroom.

 

Alastor thought and nodded, stepping aside so the monarch could access his chambers.

 

The demon moved to his desk and his shadow closed the door when the king was already inside.

 

“Again, your majesty, not that I don't appreciate your ill-timed visit but what do you want?” asked the red demon, returning to what he was doing when the king interrupted him.

 

Lucifer saw him pick up that wood piece and knife and moved nearer to observe.

 

“Are you carving... a doll?” asked the king.

 

Alastor nodded.

 

“Yes, your highness” said the demon. “It's the next exercise in this book I was reading about woodcarving.”

 

It was still incomplete, but the demon had in his hand a wooden doll, no bigger than a hand. Still was lacking a lot of details but it had long curly hair, a sun dress with no sleeves and no shoes, making Alastor with a lot of detail, two small feet.

 

“It's curious to see you do something like this, not your style by any extend” said the king, smiling and almost laughing.

 

Alastor just sighed.

 

“Your majesty talks like you know exactly what it's my style and what I like or dislike to do” said the Radio Demon. “Let me tell you, sire, you're misleading yourself. I love to learn new abilities and you can only get perfection if you practice.”

 

The deer demon nailed the knife to the table and look back to the man.

 

“Did you came to laugh at my hobbies or there is a real reason for your presence here?” he said, giving him his full attention.

 

The king moved his hand to his neck and started to caress it nerviously.

 

“Well, you see... I was thinking...” fuck it, he thought. “Maybe... you could help me sleep tonight too? I was so rested today, all day, I could love to catch some Zs if you know what I mean.”

 

Alastor smiled softly.

 

“There is nothing I could love more than to help you, your majesty, but not tonight” he said, returning to the doll. “Last night I wanted to catch up on my reading but tonight I need to sleep, so unless your majesty is offering billet in exchange for my company, I'll have to pass.”

 

“That could be arranged” he hastily said, before even thinking.

 

Alastor rose a brow looking back to the shorter man.

 

“Beg your pardon?”

 

“Look, my bed is really big, bigger than what I really need” said the king. “We could sleep in my bed and not even touch, not being really near.”

 

The Radio Demon left the unfinished doll again in the desk, his expression was one that Lucifer was already waiting in him: the unmistakable expression of someone that wanted to hear the words 'You were right'.

 

And if his sleep wasn't on the line, he would never say it to that obnoxious, pompous radio freak but...

 

“Look, you were right” said the king, fast enough, like taking a band-aid. “Maybe I trust you and I wouldn't be bothering you if it wasn't... important. I... I'm ready to help my daughter when I sleep at night, I'm more alert, I can have conversations with her and pay her the attention she deserves without me, spacing out. I even more ready to be in good spirits around you sinners so...”

 

He waited.

 

Alastor crossed one leg, resting with his full back in the chair and crossing his hands over his thighs, like he was waiting for something else. Lucifer wasn't stupid.

 

“Please, Alastor” said the devil, almost biting the words.

 

The red demon smiled so broadly that stitches were visible in the edges of his mouth.

 

“In that case, I'll be delighted to” said the radio host, moving from the chair with the sound of some swing music, very far or very low.

 

He went to the door and made a gesture with a semi-bow.

 

“After you, sire” he said, with the usual flair and that smile.

 

Lucifer growled a moment and moved, going back to his room with the Radio Demon in high spirits just behind him.

 

“Why are you so fucking happy all of the sudden?” asked the monarch.

 

Alastor tilted his head while the king opened his room's door.

 

“Little things, your majesty” said the deer. “Knowing I'm right is always a high point in my day... Though I'm very used to be right.”

 

He said, showing his ego in his words.

 

“Also, I guess having my sunny disposition to help you will return to me in some way” said the demon. “My beloved mama always said 'Today we'll help, tomorrow we'll need help', so I hope for a small favor or two from his gracious majesty if I really need it.”

 

The king denied with the head.

 

“Of course, you won't do a thing for me from the kindness of a heart that doesn't exist” said the devil, with sharp words and a vile smile.

 

Alastor just nodded.

 

“Right you are, sire” said the demon. “My heart no longer exists, was broken into pieces and the pieces the wind didn't scatter, were thrown into a fire. But don't confuse me wanting common decency back with opportunism. If I wanted a royal favor, set in stone, I'll be using a deal to get it... And seeing how desperate you are for sound rest, enough to even invite a man to your bed, I could get you to accept. So...”

 

The demon waited in the door, like always until the man made a gesture to let him in.

 

Lucifer thought about his words. He will never admit it but he was right, he was desperate for sleep, specially now that he was to be there for Charlie in all the ways possible. He wanted to repair all the damage Lilith did to his relationship with his daughter and he wanted to give 100%. Maybe not a deal, deal, but he could be persuade to accept some terms and favors to the Radio Demon if he wanted them for his help.

 

“Well, if you need my help with something you can't manage... of course, not to the hurt other demons or help you gain power” he sighed. “So... thank you, Alastor.”

 

“No need, your highness” he said, with a bow.

 

The demon then moved near the bed and started to remove his peignoir, folding it neatly to left it into one of the armchairs of the monarch and he went to the bed like that was a regular occasion and something they did in daily basis and not the bizarre need of an insomniac desperate for any semblance of sleeping.

 

Alastor went to his side, because apparently he had a side, thought Lucifer, and he rested over the covers, turning his back to the other side of the bed. Lucifer sighed and moved to the bed, entering under the covers and turning his back to Alastor too.

 

“You don't want to use the sheets?” asked the monarch.

 

“No, your highness” said the demon.

 

“Why not?” asked the devil.

 

“That will suggest a familiarity we don't have, sire” said the demon, without moving. “I'm not ignorant to the fact this took much from you and I won't push further. Good night, sire.”

 

Lucifer thought for a moment, to then sigh.

 

“Good night, Alastor.”

 

***

 

That was the first night, but there came others. The second night, the next day, Lucifer went to the room of the radio host and knocked around the witching hour. The door opened and the shadow of the Radio Demon let him in.

 

Alastor was working in his wooden doll, now having more details. The demon didn't say a word and the devil went nearer to see the wooden piece.

 

“What happened to her neck?” asked the monarch.

 

The doll had a line from side to side in her neck.

 

“A miscalculation with the blade” said the demon, centered into making two small doe like ears over the top of the head.

 

“Are you making a 'you' version of a doll?” mocked Lucifer, point out not only the doe ears but the little tail now he saw it.

 

The demon just nodded.

 

“It's better to work with familiar subjects, according to the book” said the red demon, taking the knife from the blade to make the small details with steadier hand.

 

Even with the eternal smile in his face, the devil realised the deer was not only concentrated but also serious. Maybe, thought the monarch, it was better not to shame his hobbies if he wanted his help again.

 

He sighed, waiting for him to finish, looking around... when his gaze catched a pair of red eyes deep inside the bayou, red eyes that dissapear as soon as he saw them.

 

“There is something in you swamp” said the king, pointing in the direction.

 

“Yes, I know” said the demon. “I got aligators, doe, deer, some birds, insects and fireflies.”

 

Lucifer thought for a moment.

 

“Illusions?” he asked.

 

“Real, I paid handsomely to some succubi to bring me animals from the Living World, from my birth place Louisiana, to have some proper ambience and if I'm hungry, I hunt some deer now and then” said the red demon, leaving his knife and doll over the table. “I guess you are here again for your sleep.”

 

The king was looking back to the bayou, trying to catch the eyes of the animal again but without luck.

 

“Fascinating” he said.

 

“Well, thank you, still my bayou is off limits” he said.

 

“Yeah, yeah, of course... Mmm.. yeah, I'm here for, you know, help” he said, with a nervious laugh.

 

Alastor rose and went to the door without a single complain or sass, waiting for the king to lead the travel back to his room.

 

Again they were inside the room of the monarch, again Alastor went to the same side from the last night and laid there, over the covers.

 

“Alastor?” asked the king when he was already in bed.

 

“Yes, your highness?” responded the demon.

 

“I was thinking... you said last night your heart was broken and burned and what not... You really meant it?” he asked.

 

“Rather personal question for a simple bedwarmer sinner like myself” he said, Lucifer was ready to say something but the demon continued. “But taking it was my turn of phrase, so to speak, I'll entertain the question. Yes, sire, I had a heart, once... I loved, once. And I won't do it again. I'll stab my chest with one of my tendrils before allowing myself to fall into such weakness.”

 

The Devil thought for a moment.

 

“For you love it's weakness?” he asked, turning slightly to see the back of the Radio Demon.

 

“Loving the wrong person is weakness” he replied. “And you'll never know who is the right one until a pivotal time. And with all the cards on the table, you can't decide simply to retrieve your heart and go into your merry way. When you already love, you're trapped... and it's not the same being trapped with a person, even one imperfect, than with a monster. The monster will eat all your parts, he will feed on you, claim you, torn you apart and sew you together so he can do it again and again...”

 

Lucifer sighed.

 

“It's a... sad way to see love but I guess you talk from experience” said the monarch.

 

“Yes... I had the fortitude to escape, even leaving my parts behind” said the Radio Demon. “Not everyone trapped with a monster is so lucky.”

 

In fact, thought Lucifer, it was hard to see someone as powerful as Alastor being in an abusive relationship. Of course, he will never admit the sinner was powerful, he has already an ego big enough to be another independent entity like his shadow, but he was... Or he loved his lover so much that he let him do whatever with him until it was too late or his lover was far stronger than him.

 

In that case, maybe his lover was a goetia. There were some of them living in Pride, so it was a posibility and even when he was curious, he wasn't going to ask. Not that night.

 

“Well, sorry for asking something so personal, Alastor, I guess we aren't already there” he said.

 

“Maybe we are... or near. I didn't mind, your highness” said the demon. “I trust my weakness will remain in this room.”

 

“Yes, of course... Good night, Alastor” said the monarch.

 

“Good night, my king” said the demon.

 

***

 

The third and fourth night were almost the same. A little conversation, nothing really important or mentionable and in the fifth night, the Radio Demon decided to use the covers.

 

And besides that, didn't happened a thing.

 

The sixth... Well, it didn't happened in the night, but in the morning.

 

Lucifer woke up with a warm sensation over his body, with a coziness he didn't felt in years. He was... warm, secure... He opened his eyes and the first thing he saw made him block his mouth with a hand to not scream.

 

He was in the side of the Radio Demon, Alastor turned to his side while sleeping and they were... hugging. He was in the embrace of the deer demon and he was still sleeping with his smile soft and his factions relaxed.

 

He was pretty that way... and was a thought that produced an internal scream inside his head. What the fuck he was thinking? No, no, no,... that was bad, that was really bad. Not just for the demon, the thought, the pretty face... what pretty face, not Alastor's no, no... but because if the demon woke up in that moment, with him in his arms, in his side, fucking with his boundries...

 

Oh, fuck, oh, fuck, oh fuck... He tried to move but the only thing he managed was to start to awake the Radio Demon. He was so concerned about what was about to happen that he didn't even think in shapeshift or teleport to escape his arms.

 

Oh, fuck... Alastor opened his eyes and yawned, full sharped teeth, looking down to the face of the monarch almost burried on his chest.

 

“Good morning, your highness” said the demon like nothing.

 

“Ehm... morning? I... I'm... Look, Alastor, I'm so, but so sorry... I...” Alastor, yawning again, placed to fingers over Lucifer's lips, making him stop blabbing.

 

“It's too early for your mumble” he said, smiling softly. “Don't worry, I saw you turning around and embracing me last night.”

 

He didn't know what to say.

 

“And why you... why?” he tried to ask.

 

“I have an excelent alert sense, so I woke up and saw you... but I don't mind, so I returned the... sentiment? And continue sleeping” said the demon, moving to sit in the bed to stretch his arms.

 

Lucifer moved, kneeling over the bed seeing the back of the demon.

 

“And you aren't mad? I went to your side and...” he was interrupted.

 

“You still conserve your arms, there you have your answer” said Alastor, raising from the bed to take his peignoir and dressing it. “Now, if you say 'please' like a good little sovereign, I can be persuade to make you some sweet crêpes and coffee and bring them here.”

 

The king didn't know what to say... at least about last night, the hug? Going to his side while sleeping? He barely moved while sleeping, normally... he...

 

“Ehm... Please?” he said, with a smile.

 

Ok, better to ban certain thoughts from his mind to center himself in the here and now.

 

Alastor nodded while his shadow pointed to Alastor and him and made a gesture with the index finger, moving it out of him and then moving it near his chest.

 

“What he's saying?” asked the monarch.

 

“He's saying 'be right back'” said the deer. “I thought you spoke all the languages.”

 

“As I told your shadow when he tried to talk to me, I can only speak and understand speaking languages... so no whistled ones, not sign language, I can't read them either unless is one of the ones I studied” said the monarch. “It's interesting your shadow talks like that.”

 

Alastor nodded.

 

“I understand his shadow talk anyway but I used him in the past to communicate orders, most of my employees know ASL” said the demon.

 

“ASL?” asked the devil.

 

“American sign language” said the deer.

 

“There is one per country?” asked Lucifer, ignorant to that fact as he thought maybe there was a universal one.

 

“Yes... It's a fascinating subject but I had a lot of things to do” he said, before entering into a shadow.

 

***

 

Lucifer that day was happy, helping Charlie with some therapy sessions, helping her even with the yoga classes. He cooked for lunch... The princess was over the moon with her dad, talking both vividly, joking with Vaggie.

 

At night he didn't wait and went to Alastor's room at ten o'clock, whistling, skipping steps... he knocked and Alastor, fully dress regular red drip Alastor opened the door.

 

“Oh, good evening, your majesty” said the demon. “You catched me just for minutes, can I help you with something?”

 

He asked, adjusting his bowtie.

 

“Are you... going out?” asked the king.

 

“Yes! Dear Rosie is preparing a soiree in Cannibal Town and she invited me” said the Radio Demon. “It's being ages since the last party, so I'll check the wards of the hotel and go on my merry way.”

 

He said, going out of his door, closing it behind him and Lucifer felt the magic on it, like a creeping green light around the borders.

 

The demon closed his eyes and started to concentrate in the wards he placed around the hotel.

 

“And... are you gonna be late?” asked the monarch.

 

“If it's like the last Rosie's party I attended, I'll be early... to pick up the milk, haha!” he laughed.

 

“So... You can't sleep with me this night?” asked the devil.

 

“My, my, so forward, your highness” joked the demon. “What will the papers say if you claim to the winds you want me in your arms so soon?”

 

A mix of golden and rose colors mixed in Lucifer cheeks, he tried to place an angry face but it was a mix of shame and annoyance.

 

“Stupid, don't say it in that way... It was... just a one time thing” said the king, showing his red eyes trying to be more... menacing, less embarrassed?

 

Alastor hummed.

 

“A pity, I slept really well... anyway, I'm sorry my social life is the way of your sleeping schedule” said the demon. “Best of lucks with that, sire.”

 

He said, before fusing with shadows.

 

***

 

“I said I'm sorry” said the king, trying to talk to Alastor while both were coming out of the elevator.

 

For the last three days, the Radio Demon was refusing the petitions from the monarch to sleep by his side, every time with an impecable excuse. Lucifer just assumed the demon didn't want the incident with sleep to repeat again so he tried to excuse himself time and time again.

 

“Already told you, your highness” said the demon, making a little pause. “That wasn't a problem for me, at all. I was busy past nights... Sorry I can't be at your beg and call, sire, but I have duties even outside of the hotel.”

 

Lucifer growled and step in front of Alastor when he tried to walk again going down the stairs.

 

“Are you sure you aren't punishing me for...?” the sharp feedback from Alastor cut his phrase.

 

“Sire, my punishments tent to be cruel, clever and excessive, trust me, the day I'll punish your highness for some unsuitable behaviour, you won't have any doubt” said the Radio Demon, placing both hands over his cane. “Now, sire, if you let me pass, I have to attent to the reforms your daughter wants in the gardens.”

 

The king, still thinking he was in the right... or almost in the right or almost touching the right, moved aside with a growl.

 

He was... irritable that day, extremelly. After so many nights sleeping really well, feeling rested and happy and that night... He couldn't take the heat from Alastor from his mind even using all his force of will. He felt secure in his arms, he felt cozy and... it was absurd, he knew it was it but... he even felt loved.

 

Lucifer didn't felt that way in years, it was like... that body heat was... something he knew, something he yearned. He was tired and angry, more to himself that anything thinking maybe that action... he moved to one of the couches from the lobby and sat to think, with his elbows over his knees and his face between both hands.

 

“Oh, your highness, you look so low” he knew the voice, he hated the voice.

 

“Leave me alone, sinner” said the monarch, almost biting the words and not looking to Greco while he was moving nearer him, sitting by his side.

 

“I couldn't help but hear about your conversation with the radio bitch” he said... and that insult made the monarch to turn his head and growl.

 

Greco wasn't afraid in the slightless.

 

“I didn't know your highness had a taste for tall, dark and creepy” he moved, nearer the monarch even when Lucifer was drilling with his eyes. “Don't worry your pretty little head about that piece of tacky deer, sire, a birdie told me there is nothing downstairs those cheap pants... Can you imagine? Acting like is a gentleman when in reality he's nothing but a broad, with a cunt asking for some seed.”

 

He laughed, he was so near the king he was feeling the heat from his breath, he was smeling the aroma of brandy so early in the morning.

 

“I'm warning you, sinner, just because you're a guest in my daughter's hotel” said the monarch, showing his devil attributes. “Stop talking... even more, stop even thinking about Alastor or me. The Radio Demon is off limits from your mind, the same as me and if I catch you again talking about him, you'll dissapear without a trace.”

 

The man moved, Lucifer was perplexed when Greco placed one hand over his shoulder, the other over his thigh. He wasn't afraid, it was like he thought he was immune to consecuences or he was untouchable. Maybe it was the booze, taking how bad his breath was.

 

“Oh, the little king has a flame... Don't worry” he said, getting near to whisper. “I got a very good, very real cock for you... When I finish with you, you'll be calling my name and my name only, and you will forget about that bitch trying to pass as a man. Maybe I'll make her my bitch too, after you”

 

It was fast, all happened almost in a flash.

 

Lucifer moved his claws and both arms of the sinner were torn from his body like a pair of twigs, tossing to the side, he then landed a fiery punch to his face, tossing him for the potency to the stairs near the reception counter, breaking the railing completelly... the king moved, with the same speed as the light that was meaning of his name and he was over the sinner, discharging two more hits to his chest, breaking it.

 

And to see all the spectacle, in that moment, the Radio Demon and the princess were coming from the gardens, talking about her proyect for a vegetable patch for the residents.

 

“DAD!!” she screamed, running fast near the sinner.

 

“Greco!!” screamed Petunia, that was coming from the elevator in that moment.

 

Lucifer moved or better said, Charlie moved him from over the bloody mass that was the sinner in that moment. He was still breathing, almost like a miracle but he was hanging by a thread.

 

“Dad, what did you do?” asked the princess, tears in her eyes, trying to see a way to help the man.

 

The king was in shock, all the fury washing out now, looking around.

 

“I'm... I didn't want to... I...” he didn't know what to say.

 

The short man was trying to find a way out, a way to help, to correct the mistake, a way to apologize to his daughter... He looked around and saw Charlie trying to determine the damage, Petunia crying, his clothes full of blood... he wanted to explain himself, he wanted...

 

He looked to the door of the hotel, Alastor there, his hands nonchalantly over his cane and that smile in his face... He knew that smile was permanet but now, right now, looked like a very satisfied smile to him.

Notes:

Well, shit hit the fan... I'll try for this cliffhanger to be short lived, I'm so ready for next part I can't contain myself!

Chapter 15: Check

Summary:

The plan of Alastor cames to fruition, the pawn is sacrified and the white king took the bait, leaving himself expose for the black queen to take him.

The truths lied bare, not exactly how Alastor hoped for but his mission is sacred.

Notes:

I told you I'll upload sooner... Enjoy the show ;)

“Be careful, love is a weapon, deary. The most dangerous weapon of all, which means the pain you should worry about isn't the kind inflicted by a broken sword but the kind that comes from a broken heart.”

~Rumplestiltskin, Once upon a time

 

There was blood, in Lucifer's clothes, over the broken chest and face of Greco, on the stairs, on the destroyed wood from the railing around the broken sinner, in Charlie's hands when she tried to do something.

 

“I'm sorry, I didn't want to...” was the only thing Lucifer said before his eyes catching on Alastor, by the door, waiting.

 

He was in shock, confused, still the fury was lingering inside him... And the sadness, he didn't want to dissapoint his daughter but.. That smile from the overlord, those eyes, something in his expression was telling him this was the punishment, this was something he did.

 

“You!” he launched towards the deer demon.

 

“Dad!! What the fuck..?” yelled Charlie, making that Vaggie, who was over the bar, to run towards the voice of her beloved.

 

Alastor dodged the king, because he was waiting for that reaction, entering into a shadow, reappearing near the princess while making his tendrils to rose from his back, going to Lucifer just to hold him in place.

 

“Your majesty, please, try to calm yourself” he asked, with a tone of voice lacking his usual flair, more of a concerning tone so rare heared in Alastor.

 

“You did this, you piece of shit!!” growled the monarch, breaking the tentacles that tried to retain him, with his mind submerged in the idea of attacking the Radio Demon. “This was your plan, all alone? To make me look bad in front of my daughter? You brought that sinner to provoke me, to make me attack him!”

 

Charlie moved in front of the deer demon, protecting him with her body.

 

“Dad, stop!!” she said, Vaggie moved near her don't knowing what happened or what to do.

 

“Qué puto carajo? What happened here?” asked the ex-exorcist.

 

“That monster...” said Lucifer, pointing to the Radio Demon, all his devil attributes making him look more intimidating.

 

“Dad, fucking stop!” said the princess, showing her demon horns too. “What the fuck is happening to you? Are you listening to yourself? Alastor didn't brought Petunia and Greco to the hotel, they came themselves and he even warned me about them. Alastor did nothing but help, even you, acting like you acted with him.”

 

“Tell me then how the fuck that bitch knew that Alastor is a woman if he didn't tell him!!” and he noticed too late what he was saying.

 

Charlie was beyond furious with him, the deer demon moved his face to a side... he could almost see the betrayal, the...

 

“I told him!” said Petunia, entering into that discussion while nursing Greco, holding his head, he still laying over the stairs. “Mr. Alastor lend me his ear with a physical problem and he... he confided in me and... I shouldn't tell him, I'm sorry, Mr. Alastor.”

The Radio Demon denied.

 

“I also warned your father about Greco, about what I was seeing in him” said the demon, lacking not only his usual flair, but also any modicum of humor. “But... with your father it's never enough.”

 

Lucifer... was still pissed, still wanted to blame Alastor, he was pretty sure he saw... he was becoming deflated by the moment.

 

“And I know, Lucifer, my word means nothing to you, but I swear, over the tomb of my dear mother, that I don't have any ploy or complot with this sinner” he said, pointing with his hand to the battered Greco. “I only wanted to help, it's the only thing I wanted and... Charlie, dear, he's your father, he did something... appalling but he's your blood. And my presence here isn't helping.”

 

He came from behind the protection of the princess.

 

“I'll help Greco” said the demon. “He's a sinner and can regenerate, even recompose but your father is the Devil and I don't know if his fists are as lethal as angelic weapons. I know a witch doctor in Cannibal Town, I'll get him healed and... when I'm back, I think is time I take my business elsewhere.”

 

Charlie started to cry.

 

“No, no, Alastor, please” she took him from the arms. “Please, you're my friend, my business partner, I don't want to lose you, please...”

 

And her sadness turned to fury. The apple didn't fall far from the tree indeed.

 

“You did this!!” said the princess, turning around to face her father. “You ignored me for almost all my life and you entered in again to ruin it. You're not helping me! Alastor is my friend, he was here with the best intentions, he really helped me when you thought my aspirations were absurd... Mom told me and I didn't want to believe her, she told me how you ridiculed me in private. And now...”

 

She was angry, she was crying and Lucifer felt like his heart was breaking, piece by piece. He felt like a monster for making his daughter, the person he loved more in the world, to suffer like that.

 

“I didn't... I promise you, Charlie, I didn't” he tried to say. “Your mother, she's vile and...”

 

“Don't talk about mom like that!!” she said, with her closed fists filling with fire. “That's what you're used to? Blaming others for the things you did? Alastor was trying to be your friend,... he... He's in love with you since he was a child and all he did was for you!! Even ending up here in Hell!!”

 

She screamed almost to the top of her lungs.

 

“He told us, how you treated him in that overlord reunion forty years ago, I saw how you treated him here...” she denied. “You are... not what I thought you were... And I don't want to see you any more.”

 

The devil tried to take his daughter's hand, he tried to reason with her.

 

“Charlie, sweetheart, please, I...” she moved the hand out of reach.

 

“Alastor, please, help Greco and... can we talk when you come back?” she asked, tears run down her face. “Please, I don't want to lose you too.”

 

The Radio Demon sighed and then nodded.

 

“We can talk later, yes” and he moved near the king. “You don't have any necessity to believe me but I don't want you to lose your daughter.”

 

“Alastor...” tried to said Charlie and the demon made a gesture to her, asking silently to let him speak.

 

“What Charlie said... about me... It's... true” he said, like that was some huge truth he wasn't ready to be outed in that way. “And I know by now my limits, I learned them. I really wanted to help you and wanted your friendship. You are not ok but I think we can fix this... Please, let me fix this, let me help you.”

 

Lucifer didn't know what to think. He felt before he was being tossed in the middle of a trap, he felt like the Radio Demon moved all the threads and strings to make this thing happened but... What Charlie said... Alastor told him he had a chat with his daughter and she didn't approve his view of life, that idea that he not only wasn't happy, he could never be. Was he refering to him? Did he really fell in love with him being a teenager? All his life, the despicable things Lucifer always chastise the demon for were attemps to get near him?

 

Did he really started to help his daughter as a way to make him happy? Did he really reunited them? If he did, now he was throwing all over the board, he even called Alastor woman, again.

 

No, he wasn't well, he knew it... He was irritable, he was sleeping horrible except when he helped him. And now this...

 

And of course, he knew Alastor will never swear a lie over the tomb of his mother.

 

He was making a friend of him, maybe gaining the demon something near that impossible happiness he refuse to persue time ago with that friendship and...

 

“I... I want to fix this, I don't want to lose Charlie... or you” he said, tears running down his face, his heart breaking into pieces and all by his own making.

 

“Then, let me help the sinner, then talk to Charlie... wait for me in your manor” asked the demon, softly. “It's better if you aren't here for the moment. We'll talk, we'll tackle this. Ok, Lucifer?”

 

The Devil just nodded.

 

“Thank you, Alastor” said the short man. “I'll wait for you. I... Charlie, I...”

 

The princess moved her head, she didn't want to see her father in the face and after seconds, she ended up in the arms of Vaggie, crying. Lucifer teleported to his manor.

 

“Charlie, I'll be back, don't worry... Maybe I was hasty with my words” he moved his hand, passing it of her blonde hair. “Smile, my dear. I'll try to see what's wrong with your father and you won't lose any of us.”

 

“Thank you, Alastor” she said, softly, without releasing Vaggie.

 

“Maybe a camomile tea is in order” he suggested to the fallen angel. “C'mon, Greco... I'll take you to get fix.”

 

The sinner was conscious and every bone in his body screamed when he was moved to the arms of the Radio Demon. Who knows how many broken bones he had right now... sure the ribs were a distant memory, also part of his face was destroyed.

 

“I want to go too” said the woman.

 

“Ok, darling, take my arm” and when she did, the shadows surrounded the three sinners, transporting them far from there.

 

The only thing that was behind in the hotel was Charlie, losing all the strength from her legs to go down, on her knees, crying... One of her guests was hurt badly, she couldn't stop it and the one doing it was her father... And she felt like she was losing him and maybe Alastor too. And with Alastor also Niffty, Husk... her blood family was broken beyond repair and now her found family was breaking too.

 

***

 

Petunia, Greco and Alastor appeared in the town square of Cannibal Town, the man couldn't barely move at all.

 

“Where is that doctor?” he asked, with his mouth full with blood, the words almost unintelligible from the broken bones on his face.

 

The Radio Demon let the man in the hands of the woman and moved in front of him, making a theatrical bow.

 

“I am the witch doctor of Cannibal Town” he said, making a gesture with his right hand.

 

An angelic knife appeared in it in the same time the people of the town moved near them, like they were wainting just for this. A simple gesture, a quick strike and the throat of the man was perfectly cut, drowning in his own blood in the arms of Petunia and under the supervision of Alastor, smiling the Radio Demon broadly, enjoying the show.

 

“As I promised, my good people from Cannibal Town” said the demon, turning around. “Fresh sinner meat on the menu, with my best regards” he said, moving behind the man.

 

He was dead, already, and the deer demon had no problem on tossing him to the mass of people in the square, with Petunia running to his arms.

 

“Oh, thank you, thank you, Alastor” she said.

 

The demon received her in his arms with ease.

 

“Don't worry, darling, you did well and you are finally free” said the demon, moving his hand to made her raise her face by the chin. “Did he tried to abuse you on the hotel, mon cher?”

 

The woman denied.

 

“No, in the hotel he didn't try” she said. “He insulted me, sometimes but he didn't try a thing, specially when Husk told him you had eyes and ears in all the place. I... directed his impulses to the king, like you asked and I dosed the love potion with his drinks as you instructed. And he was thinking in the king all the time so he didn't try...”

 

Alastor nodded.

 

“You did well, mon cher” said the demon. “I don't have to protect you from him any more but allow me to protect you even further.”

 

He made a gesture and a business card appared in his hand.

 

“This is one of my employees, in Imp City” said the Radio Demon. “She will take care of you, find you a job and security. Not a single abuser will touch you again.”

 

She hugged him after taking the card.

 

“Thank you, sir” said the woman. “And anything you want from me, you know where to find me.”

 

The demon nodded, they said their good byes just when Rosie was coming near the Radio Demon, in the middle of that feast on Cannibal Town.

 

“Well, one abuser gone...” said the woman.

 

“One to go...” said the deer demon. “If everything goes according to plan, tonight I'll be achieving both freedom, security and vengeance and tomorrow I'll be the right hand of the new Queen of Hell.”

 

He said, with a wicked smile.

 

Rosie took her silver flask from her dress and offered to her friend opened.

 

“Long live the Queen” said the cannibal overlord.

 

“Long live the Queen” said the demon, showing his blacken gums with a semi-growl to then gulp a good sip from his friend flask.

 

***

 

Alastor returned to the hotel hours later and Charlie was sitting in the stairs waiting for him.

 

Niffty already cleaned the place but the railing was still broken.

 

“Alastor!!” said Charlie, going to him and hugging him.

 

The demon was covered in dried blood.

 

“Where are Greco and Petunia?” asked the woman, looking around.

 

Alastor sighed, taking the hands from the young woman, taking her to one of the couches of the lobby.

 

“Darling, sit, please” he asked. “Greco didn't make it. His body couldn't stand the wounds and broken bones and... I don't know if he will regenerate or not, I'm not sure about the extend of your father's powers. And if he reconstitudes, I don't know if he will return here.”

 

Charlie cried, feeling it was her fault for letting her father in her life again... But she wanted, so much, having him that even when Alastor warned her about the dangers of his wrath, she didn't listen.

 

“And Petunia?” she asked.

 

“She was afraid, she didn't want to return here” said the demon. “We even bumped into Rosie and she tried to ease her mind but was impossible. I don't know where she is now, I was... confiding with Rosie, asking for her advice, for myself and... That was I was doing these past hours.”

 

Charlie moved, hugging Alastor and he let her, returning the sentiment.

 

“Now I should be going to Magne Manor... as soon as I clean up a little” said the demon.

 

“Alastor” she said, retaining his hand when he was about to move. “You don't have to do this, I'm not even... I'm not sure if it's a good idea. He... looked deranged, I never saw him so angry, so... It's my father, I love him but now I don't know if this is safe for you.”

 

The Radio Demon sighed with his soft smile in the face.

 

“Don't worry for me, darling” said the demon. “This is... a misunderstanding due to nerves and his bad sleeping habits. I'll try to fix this, for you, dear. I hope your father is in a better mental state.”

 

He sighed again and denied, he placed both hands over the shoulders of the princess.

 

“I'll clean up and go” he said, pointing to her mouth. “And smile, my dear. Just wish me luck with this endeavour.”

 

He said, entering into a shadow and going to his room.

 

First, he used his magic to clean his clothes and moved to his desk. There was the wooden doll already finished, of a small girl with deer ears, in a summer dress, long curly hair, barefooted and two circles, one per cheek. He kissed the doll and moved to his bayou.

 

After a moment, with his resolve tempered, he entered into shadows to travel to a place of nightmares, to the cementery of his heart and the prison of his soul.

 

He was again in Magne Manor.

 

Lucifer didn't have even guards, like the last time. The king decided to protect the place with magic sigils and now those sigils were counting him as an inviting party, making him smile while he was walking inside the den of the beast.

 

The place didn't change after all these years, the only thing he noticed was the spell for the place to stay perfectly clean, with not a spec of dust.

 

All that place, empty, immaculate, with the sound of his shoes as the only sound... at least until he reach the room. That room he promised himself he will never enter again when he escaped, that room that was a pleasure chamber and the scene of some nightmares. Now with the only sound of a crying king inside, over the bed, covered by his wings.

 

“Can I come in, sire?” said Alastor softly.

 

The sobs stopped for a moment.

 

“Yes, please” he said, low.

 

He tried to compose himself, he didn't want to be seem like this.

 

And Alastor, seeing him, was divided. For one side he was elated, at last that monster was suffering a portion, a little part of what he suffered. For the other... he suffered with him, his broken heart still ached for him and wanted to see him happy and not like this.

 

He sighed and entered the space, going directly to the huge bed of the monarch and sitting by his side.

 

“Are you feeling better, sire?” asked the Radio Demon.

 

“No... I fucked all up, like I always do” he started to cry again, trying to cover his mouth so the sobs didn't go out of it. “Charlie hates me, I treated you horrible... Why? Why you still try to do good for me when I was so mean to you, so cruel?”

 

He asked.

 

“Because I love you” it wasn't a lie. “Always did. One sided and all, I can't change my heart... and trust me, I tried.”

 

He took some air and released it slowing, moving an arm to place it over the shoulders of the shorter man.

 

“But that doesn't matter, I don't matter, never did, not to you at least” said the demon. “And don't try to say now sweet things that doesn't mean anything... I'm here to fix this, to help you so you don't lose your daughter. You don't want to lose her, right?”

 

Asked the demon, Lucifer just nodded, with a expression of pure pain.

 

“I was right about the sleeping problem, you need company... and I'm sure your rage problems have a base too” said the deer. “I think there is something eating you inside, something you did wrong, maybe you don't know how wrong it was, how much you hurt someone but your mind does... Maybe, if you confess, your heart will felt lighter and you could control your emotions better.”

 

He said, making then a gesture over his own thighs.

 

“Rest here, beloved” he said, with his voice almost without the radio filter, soft, caring. “Trust in me like you did with your sleep and open your heart.”

 

The king thought for a moment, he didn't know what to do. He was tembling, still aprehensive, his wings trying to form a protector shell around himself. Little by little, the man moved, resting his head over the thighs of the Radio Demon. His hand moving the ring in his hand in a very nervious pattern.

 

“I did... I did something” he said. “When I had bad dreams, I always dream about the same.”

 

Alastor started to move his clawed fingers over the golden locks of the monarch, slowly, relaxing him.

 

As he did with every single one of the wretched vermin he killed in the Living World, he wanted the Devil to spit his sins, to tell the truth so he could die with the knowledge of what he did to him. What were his crimes.

 

“Taking how you touch your ring, is about your wife?” asked the demon, he needed a point to start, then he could move the conversation even if the Devil didn't remember him.

 

“No... this ring... isn't hers” said the king, surprising Alastor who thought he just started to wear that awful reminder again to save face with his daughter. “I took that ring out of my finger years ago and I did this one years ago too. Lilith was.. cruel and... She turned Charlie against me because of the exterminations, she thought that deal with Heaven was a betray to her and her cause. She tried to punish me by force, physically but I was stronger and she said I'll regret it and... she took Charlie and...”

 

He denied.

 

“That's not it... Eight years ago, I met a woman, an incredible woman, almost ethereal” he started to remember while he was talking with Alastor. “She catched my eyes at first glance and... The first months were perfect, so good that looked almost impossible. She made me happy but... I used to talk with my service, my guards... and even with Lilith to fake... well, for Charlie. And everyone was telling me the same about my new paramour, telling me she was using me.”

 

Lucifer moved, resisting the urge from his wings to cover himself.

 

“She was a sinner and an overlord, an ambitious woman” he continued. “It was the obvious to think she... All started after a day, she used to visit a friend in Cannibal Town, I never met her but... I usually sent a guard to watch over her, to protect her if that was needed. She returned and she had a nasty cut in her arm, like from claws. I asked and she tried to brush it aside like nothing... I asked the guard and he told me she was flirting with another demon, that stupid tv box head, Vox. I... didn't trust her, I screamed at her, I felt betrayed, used... I... I always was a doormat for Lilith, always, I didn't want another... relationship feeling emasculated and mistreated and... I did bad, I did terrible, now that it's too late, I know it.”

 

Alastor was analizing what Lucifer was saying. He didn't have a reason to lie, he didn't know Milady and he were the same person and, or he was the best actor in the universe, or he was really sad, really remorseful.

 

“What happened with the woman?” asked the demon.

 

“I... I locked her in this manor, to had her just for myself” said the devil. “I wasn't thinking. I... it was the jealousy and Lilith's words calling me weak, easy to fool, hard to love and... I wanted to show to myself I was man enough and... she paid for my stupidity. I made her life a biblical Hell, I had someone that loved me and I made her fear me. And the worst...”

 

“Worst?” asked Alastor.

 

Behind the Radio Demon in pure silence, his tentacles were raising from his back and in one of them it was the sword.

 

“She was pregnant, Alastor” he started to cry. “I was about to be a father again, to have a little one but... I didn't want to be manipulated, to be used and discarted, I wanted to believe she loved me but I let the words of others to direct my actions... No, those were my actions, actions for pride and fear and don't wanting to be alone again. And... She... I made her, Alastor, I shouldn't have but... I asked for her soul as a safe keeping, so she couldn't leave and take my new baby with her but... She was... She was so sad, it was like I killed her spirit. She barely talked, she only ate when I forced her or reminded her of the baby and...”

 

“You broke her heart” said the Radio Demon. “She was giving you love and you didn't trust her, she was giving you a child and you asked for her soul. You, with your actions, killed her love.”

 

Lucifer started to sob again.

 

“Yes, I did, I did... She...” he was shivering. “She tried to escape, once and I sealed her powers within the manor so she couldn't use them again to run but she found another way... I... I was furious and I didn't want to go myself, I never hit her, never hurt her like that and I knew, I knew if I was after her in that state, I'll... I sent my guards to retrieve her and... none of them came back. I went to find her, I... I found my men dead, torned apart and her blood, so much blood... That day was an extermination day and I think... she and my baby...”

 

He sent them to maim her, to made her abort, to cut her belly, maybe kill her but he said he just wanted to bring her back. Again that wasn't... he wasn't lying, he knew that, he wasn't lying. Then why? What the fuck happened?

 

Alastor felt... disgruntled. There were things that... maybe changed things, maybe... No, no, no, no. Fuck! No, that man was a monster, doesn't matter if in that moment was crying. Even if it was true that he didn't sent his guards to hurt her and her baby, he was the one that terrorized Milady, he was the one that sealed her powers.

 

It was, still was, his fault. But maybe... there were other actors in the backstage of his tragedy he needed to find and destroy with the same cruelty he was about to use with the monarch.

 

“She died with her baby?” asked the demon.

 

“Yes... I think, it was too much blood and... I tried to find her, I tried Cannibal Town, I tried for almost three years all Pentagram, all Pride Ring and nothing” he removed the ring and inside the ring the golden led place to the red, red gold with an inscription: Je t'aime, Milady. “I made this ring, with her blood, as I made a promise: Never again. I failed at love, I failed her and failed my unborn child... Never again. And I'm here, failing Charlie, the only one that I have left.”

 

The ring and the inscription almost, almost, made Alastor abandon all his plans, drop on his knees, confess and ask for mercy and love and... But he was broken. He didn't have his heart any more, his soul, his happiness... just a part of him, a little part of him. A little part Lucifer could always destroy if he was left alive.

 

“Your guards... they weren't trying to find Milady to return her to you” said the demon. “They had orders to kill her or at least make sure she lost her baby. She fought valiantly, to protect not herself but her belly but your guards were armed with angelic steel, your own angelic steel from your own weapons collection and one of them managed to cut her belly...”

 

Lucifer, even in his own world of pain, moved slightly his face to look up at the Radio Demon's and Alastor had the most serious and cruel semblance someone with a permanent smile could have.

 

“How you...?” he asked.

 

“You said you'll never forget my eyes” said the demon. “That you'll love and care for me for eternity... I only needed to love you, like I already did... You destroyed my hope, you shattered my heart, you killed our love, you robbed me my soul and you, in the end, killed our child, you almost killed me...”

 

Alastor removed completelly not only his radio filter, but also the little trick he has to make his voice more masculine. Milady's voice came from his throat.

 

“Now, you'll die, beloved, after presenting all your sins lying bare and knowing your daughter ended up hating you too” he moved fast, holding Lucifer by his throat using the element of shock and surprise.

 

He holded him into the bed with one hand while the other took fast the sword from his tendril.

 

“This sword almost killed me” he growled. “And produced a silence in my life that I couldn't never fill... and now, beloved, you'll die by it!!”

 

And taking the sword like a knife with inverse grip, he descended the blade directly to Lucifer's heart.

Notes:

cliffhanger, I know, I know... trust me, will be short lived. These next chapters are gonna be a rush to write.

Chapter 16: Dead man walking

Summary:

All that Alastor wanted was in his hand but he couldn't take it, his heart and previsions betrays him.

He knows he's a dead man walking and he tries to prepare for the innevitable. Lucifer, on the other hand, wants to talk... and he discover a secret in a place he shouldn't be stepping in.

Notes:

Tags updated, mind the tags! And I know, this is a short one but more to come.

“THERE'S NO JUSTICE, THERE'S JUST ME.”

~ Death, Mort.

 

Lucifer was in shock, that voice, her voice, her eyes... he promised not to forget her eyes and he did. Just seven years and he did. And... what she said.

 

He found himself launched to the bed, a hand around his neck strong enough to hold him in place, tentacles holding arms and legs, Alastor/Milady over him, with a fury he never thought it was possible in a mortal soul, lying his sins bare, his errors and misdeeds, judging him for them and ultimatelly condemn him to the gallows by the same weapon he/she said took their future, their union, their baby.

 

That was wrong, he never ordered something like that, he never wanted something like that. He should be screaming that, he should be freeing himself and demand more information, demand to know the full truth... His sin, his Pride was screaming inside his brain no move, to overpower the sinner, to... but his heart... was aching, he knew it was his fault, he knew what he did wrong, he knew the damage he caused, his mind accosted him with it over seven years. And there it was, the person he thought he will never see again, hating him, with all her/his soul, a soul that was still in his possession, that was still his because he rob her/him.

 

“Milady...” he simply said.

 

And the blade descended, fast, furiously and with all the potency the body of the sinner could muster but only dented his skin, didn't went through.

 

“Why?!!” Alastor released the hand holding the Devil and moved to make pressure over the handle of the sword, pushing with all his strength with zero results, the blade has its tip over Lucifer's heart but wasn't going inside.

 

He saw it then, moving his eyes up, his shadow holding the sword in place, both hands in the blade itself under the guard, keeping it in place.

 

“Why? Goddamit!! We have to kill him!!” screamed Alastor with his natural voice. “He took everything from us, he deserves it!! Why aren't you letting me kill him?!”

 

Tears of frustration and something more started to show up in his face, his permanent smile never faltered so much, still hold in place but his face was trying to make it dissapear. He was in pain, excruciating pain.

 

He knew why the shadow was doing this, stopping his vengeance, he knew. The shadow was an independent entity but linked to him, it was a expression of his power... and of his heart. In the crucial moment, in the pivotal act, he was being betrayed by his broken heart, that kaleidoscopic fused pieces that were still aching for the Fallen Angel.

 

“We need to kill him, please... He will... We'll lost the last of us if we don't” he was begging to his shadow, the entity with a pained expression on his semblance. “You're condemning us...”

 

He was crying, tears droping over the chest of Lucifer, around the tip of the blade treating with entering his heart.

 

The Devil reacted at last, he made a gesture and Milady collar and chain appeared, he didn't yanked it, he just hold him/her in place.

 

“It's true, it's you... I thought I lost you” he said.

 

“You did...” his voice changed, Alastor's voice dominating his throat once more. “I created Milady for you, to make you happy, forever, and you abused her in horrible ways. And she died in that alley, seven years ago... As my name sake, I'm just an Avenger of a poor mistreated woman who's only sin was to love the Devil.”

 

Lucifer moved his other hand, the one that wasn't holding the chain, to the blade, closing it over, his hand bleeding.

 

“You deserve to kill me, but you can't” and he used his inhuman strength to surpass the one of Alastor's shadow and stabbed himself with the blade, directly to his heart.

 

For the impression and surprise of the act, the Radio Demon took his hands from the sword, looking to the impalled Devil.

 

“I tried myself when I lost you” he said. “I had nothing. Lilith hated me, Charlie didn't need me... she was better without me, and now I know, I'm certain of it... and I lost you and our baby. No friends, my family in Heaven hating my guts, I wasn't even a good ruler, a good king... I lost you and I tried to end myself. Blades, guns... I'm too powerful for angelic weapons. And I'm more powerful with every soul that enters my realm...”

 

And he didn't look happy about it.

 

“You can make me bleed, Milady, but you can't kill me” he said, making the chain dissapear.

 

“Milady is dead...” said Alastor.

 

He was in shock, the revelation of his heart still loving the man, the futility of his intents, was starting to be overwhelming to him.

 

“Alastor, then...”

 

How naive was the overlord, now he was seeing it. He wanted to kill the Devil himself taking him like he was a mere sinner or an angel. Oh, he was so elated when he learned angels could be killed with their own steel, it wasn't only for the extermination and protecting the hotel. He moved the strings to get the weapon, he made possible for a far location in the manor, him vulnerable and trusting enough to do the deed.

 

He would return, triumphant to the hotel, playing the sad witness of a suicide. He would comfort Charlie, crown her and guide her so Hell could have a proper ruler. All his plans laying in front of him, in pieces... because he miscalculated how powerful the Devil was.

 

And now, that man, that Devil... will take his vengeance. He will... And he will lose. He always lost, always. He was destined to lose... to suffer. To be nothing, to have nothing. Despair was his constant companion and now, with this in shambles he wasn't only condemning himself, he was forsaking the last part of him too.

 

A wail representative of the pain of a suffering life of one hundred years escaped from Alastor's throat. His own tears were washing his face... He was desperated, afraid, broken... and lying raw for the king to enjoy.

 

He wailed again, holding his head, he screamed all his lungs could let him and he turned to shadows in a violent way, dispersing like dark waves around the monarch, like an ocean breaking in the shore.

 

“Alastor...” said the king, moving his hand, still pinned to the mattress by the sword.

 

He took out the blade and sat in the bed, the wound closing in a second like it was never there except for the line of golden blood over his own chest. Lucifer took a look to the sword and yes, that one was from his private collection, a sword that was a present from Lilith with his coat of arms. The king never noticed it was missing.

 

In the blade compossed by angelic steel welded together in a pattern like shattered crystal, there was his golden blood... and a crimson one, dried permanently added to the blade. When he moved his hand to touch it, the ring in his hand reacted. That was Mila... Alastor's blood indeed.

 

He focused his mind using his power to see to the past attached to that sword, to see the point of contact between steel and blood.

 

Alastor, fighting, shadows tearing apart the hellborn working for him.

 

“You know the orders, cut the cunt's belly!” yelled one.

 

“I will tear you all apart before you could!” Alastor's voice, full with his radio static.

 

He was seven months pregnant in that moment, holding his stomach with one hand and commanding his shadow with the other. He wasn't as agile as he was use to, he couldn't use his deer strong legs to jump. And being that stationary was a question of when not how.

 

Dodging a blade to his head, one cut through her belly.

 

“NO!!” screeched the demon, invoking with the fury more power that he intended to.

 

Shadows around him came to live and devoured the last two hellborns, spiting then just bones and viscera. Alastor was in his knees, holding his opened belly.

 

“No, no, no...” the extermination sirens started, he was desperated.

 

He fused with the shadows going... Who knows where.

 

Lucifer let go the sword like it was on fire, breaking the silence of his manor with the clicking sound of metal over marble.

 

He... He knew what he did, but he needed to find Alastor. He needed to find him now.

 

***

 

Alastor appeared in the middle of Rosie's Emporium, still his face was full of tears, fear was dancing in his eyes, his tentacles raising from his back and his form was almost asking to elongate and that was palpable in his aura.

 

The cannibals' eyes were on him, Rosie's eyes were on him.

 

The woman moved.

 

“Ok, let's go, the Emporium is closed for today, come tomorrow” she said, going to the overlord. “Did I stutter? Scramp! You can buy your vices tomorrow!”

 

The cannibal clientele started to move out of the place and Rosie made a gesture to her employees to close the place.

 

“Come with me, honey” she said, taking the man with a firm hand over his back, another in his arm, moving him to her suite above the shop. “Alastor, darling, you're safe here...”

 

“I'm not safe anywhere.” he muttered.

 

“What happened, darling? Did you manage...?” she asked, making him sit in a chair and taking a handkerchief to clean his face.

 

“I couldn't” said the demon. “My shadow protected him.”

 

“Your shadow?” she asked, looking to said shadow with pained expression, near her friend. “That mean your heart...”

 

He started to cry again.

 

“I knew it, these days it was only in what I could think, the good moments, the bad moments and my heart was presenting me with doubts, so many times... and my body, aching for his touch. I... knew it and still... it doesn't matter, at all.”

 

The cannibal overlord moved to hug her friend's head, passing her soft fingers through his hair.

 

“Oh, baby, my poor baby...”

 

“Doesn't matter because he can't be kill with angelic steel” said the overlord. “I miscalculated terrible, Rosie. I was always an ant, trying to kill a god. So stupid I was and now... I could lose the only thing that matters to me, the only thing he didn't destroy yet.”

 

She let him cry, the woman just held there, caressing his head, feeling for his best friend, all his pain, desperation and having her own frustration because she couldn't do a thing. If angelic steel can't be used to kill the Devil, nothing will except for God and they weren't so lucky to count with Their Grace.

 

The woman stood there, Alastor calming himself little by little.

 

After almost an hour, he changed his disposition completelly, gaining the resolute conviction of a man sentenced to the gallows. Gaining the clarity of a dead man walking because he knew, sooner or later, the Devil will try to get his due.

 

“I want to leave my affairs in order, Rosie” he said, asking for paper and something to write with.

 

“Are you sure he...?” and she was interrupted.

 

“He isn't the forgiven kind, Rosie” said Alastor, taking the notepad from the hands of the woman and the plume. “I played with him and tried to kill him. But worst, I manipulated Charlie to mistrust him and toss him out of the hotel and her life and when he had time to think in that, his horrible temper will take the reins. I don't know when it will happen, I only know it will.”

 

The woman overlord sat in front of her friend while he was writing, her heart heavy with the idea of losing her friend and aching seeing him so... lost of hope.

 

“First, and more important than anything” said the red demon. “My bayou without my energy to feed it, will exist for three days after my death. Only three... I need you to go to the hotel, enter my bayou, take my treasure and go. Say to Charlie I left there something for you, go alone... you know how important this is, you know it. I'm counting on you, Rosalyn.”

 

She took a huge gulp of air and denied.

 

“I could prefer to help you, hide you.. There must be a place where you...” Alastor raised a hand.

 

“I can only hide in Pride Ring and he can find me” he said. “I could use my contacts to go to the Living World but he can find me there too. The only real secure place is Heaven and you know that I closed that door and spat in their faces decades ago.”

 

The woman hit the table with her fist.

 

“Then a disguise, like with Milady, we'll create a new persona, lying low for a time and...”Alastor denied.

 

“No... I'm tired of pretend something that I'm not” said the demon, resolute. “I lost myself once for love, I won't be doing it again. If I can't control my life, I'll die in my own terms. I'll die like Alastor, the Radio Demon.”

 

Tears appared in Rosie's black eyes.

 

“But think! Who will care for your last part? You need to live for...” so many years eluding names, for protection, walls could have more than eyes in Hell.

 

“You, that will be your job” said softly the demon. “And this letter have instructions and... more... Also, unless he takes them for himself and I'm counting he will be mad enough to me to not doing it, all my deals will be broken at my death. I'll give you the list of the most vulnerable ones, the ones I dealed for their protection. I'll be glad if you take care of them for me... specially Niffty and Husk. You know how is she, what she needs... and he won't have it but have an eye on Husk too, he will be gambling his soul again, the stupid mutt, and I won't be there to collect.”

 

He wrote the list of names and then another letter.

 

“This one... You'll give to Vox” said Alastor. “We went really south, to even try to kill each other but... I recognize what I did to him and I think he deserves to celebrate my demise properly.”

 

The Radio Demon started to write again and when he finished, he rose from the seat.

 

“And this one I should deliver it myself” he said.

 

Rosie move and both hugged each other. That felt like a goodbye and she didn't want to, she didn't.

 

“You were my best friend, Rosalyn” said the demon, caressing her face with using the back of his clawed fingers. “Know that you let me have happy moments here in Cannibal Town. There is not a person in this wretched cursed realm that deserves happiness and love more than you. And I hope you found it... And please, please, remember what I told you. Three days... I'm trusting you with the only future I have now.”

 

They embraced, the woman was crying but the overlord didn't have more tears to shed. He was expend, now he had a mission of setting things right before Lucifer could find him.

 

He was tired of running, he was tired of suffering... He just wanted all to end and he was starting to think what a beautiful death will be at the hands of the Devil he loved.

 

***

 

Alastor returned to the hotel when the morning of the next day was starting and not only him didn't sleep last night but also Charlie or Vaggie.

 

Both were in the lobby, tired and waiting and both moved near him when he teleported inside.

 

“Alastor, what...?” the somber semblance from the overlord, even with his faltering smile, gave them both pause. “What happened?”

 

The Radio Demon sighed.

 

“I miscalculated, Charlie” said the red demon. “I understimate your father and I don't know when, but he will coming here to finish me.”

 

The princess showed a horrored expression in her face.

 

“The fuck you did?” asked Vaggie.

 

Alastor looked at her.

 

“Trying to bring justice to a god forgetting we are only their playthings” he denied. “None important. Charlie, I wrote you this letter. Read it when I'm gone. It has my story and why I did the things I did. You'll lose any attachment to me, you maybe hate me but... I guess that's better. I don't want you to cry for me, I want you to smile. Even with the things I did, in the end, I care for you and I'm remorseful of using you to my ends.”

 

Charlie didn't know what to say, she just took the closed letter in her hands, tembling. Why her father was about to kill him? Why he was so relaxed to that idea? What he was saying about using her?

 

***

 

While that exchange was happening, Lucifer was dressed in his ringleader attire and teleporting to the room of the Radio Demon.

 

He wanted to speak to Alastor, he wanted to... fix things? Could things be fixed? He didn't know but he needed to do something. There was more that he thought in his own transgression, there was more in the background and he needed to know and he needed to make amends.

 

He looked around and Alastor wasn't there and for a moment, he looked back to the bayou.

 

Well, they said if the Devil doesn't raise to Earth, you need to go to Hell to find him so... Sure Alastor, if he valued so much his bayou, has some security meassures for intrussions and maybe in a place that was his turf in a sense, the demon were more open to dialogue.

 

So there he was, Lucifer entering in the sancta sanctorum of the Radio Demon, that swamp was beautiful in a sense, in perpetual night, with fireflies and bioluminecent fungus as light source.

 

He walked for a moment to then found a cottage between the trees.

 

It has a rustic flair but very well kept and clean. It had a wooden table outside near a small bonfire with a camping pod over it, now empty. Some benches as seats.

 

Over the table there were... toys. Some were bought in Pentagram, some... He took the wooden doll in his hand. Some were made by hand, he recognize the doll but there was also some other dolls made with wool or fabrics, sewn together with care.

 

The Devil moved to enter the cottage itself and found a small kitchen to the left and a hearth and bed to the right, with a middle staircase to the attic. The bed was small and had a duvet with designs of flowers and does in pastel tones, something that screamed to be the opposite of what he expected from the Radio Demon. But Alastor told him, he didn't know him that good... even now, that he knew they lived together for more than a year.

 

And... as soon as he entered the space, the king felt observed. He tried to determine the source but there was no one there... the hearth have still fire, making the cottage very cozy and while he was getting near the bed to observe some stuff animals near the pillow, he felt it again, eyes. He looked by the corner of his eyes and catched it, red eyes, near the door of the kitchen, observing, curious, afraid...

 

When he turned around, they weren't there.

 

He went to the kitchen and centered his mind, something was creeping in the shadows, something was moving using them.

 

He snapped and what was silence, became little fast steps, going to the direction of the bed.

 

Lucifer moved fast and he saw her... her, a girl.

 

Afraid for her power to be interrupted like that, a girl of around seven years old, with a dress with huge sunflowers, bare feet with hoofs of red. Her skin was pale, not like himself, more like Alastor.

 

Long curly blond hair, almost in the length near her lower back, with two deer ears coming from the curls on the top of her head. She had a deer tail, moving nerviously now, small claws and her eyes red sclera, redish pink eyes. Her mouth full of pointy teeth with the two superior frontal ones slightly bigger, like a cannibal rabbit. Over her throat a huge scar, like the “error” in Alastor's wooden doll, from side to side in a line that almost looking like a radio wave. And the thing that attracted the eyes of the king more to the girl was her cheeks, those perfectly round, perfectly pink circles in her cheeks.

 

The girl was afraid but also she tried to show anger.

 

“I won't hurt you” said Lucifer softly.

 

She was... she was... tears were fighting to show in his eyes.

 

The girl pointed at him with her hand, then she made a gesture like a mocking but aggressive? Taking her thumbs to her temples and moving like she was making the gesture of quotation marks with both index and middle finger. She made the gesture twice and then she moved her left hand to her right shoulder to move it down to the other side of her belly, like she was mentioning a satchel's strap or something. That was ASL, and Alastor's shadow used that gesture before... something to name him? Something about him? He didn't understand the other signs.

 

Lucifer took a look again to the girl's neck: His daughter, because he knew she was, couldn't talk?

Notes:

I know, I'm going from cliffhanger to cliffhanger like a tv series fighting to not be cancelled but these little places to stop present themselves and I can't help it!! Stay tuned ;)

Chapter 17: My last part

Summary:

All is revealed when Lucifer finds the daughter of Alastor, his daughter, alive in the Radio Demon's bayou.

A fight ensues and then a conversation and all the truth about Alastor's situation with Lucifer is laid bare in the eyes of Charlie and her friends.

Notes:

Told you my cliffhangers are short live, I'm a woman of my word. And, as treat, this one doesn't finish in a cliffhanger, so enjoy.

Ps: Did I tell you how much I love to create fan-childs? It's my vice since I was really young :P

“The names are the first things to go, after the breath has gone, and the beating of the heart. We keep our memories longer than our names.”

~Neil Gaiman, Coraline

 

Lucifer tried to get near the girl but she entered into a shadow and moved outside the cottage, near the table.

 

“Sorry, I don't want to frighten you, I'm not going to hurt you” he said, trying his most calm voice, a relaxed tone even when he was feeling a lot of emotions inside.

 

His daughter was alive! That made him happy but Alastor kept her from him, that made him angry. But he also mistreated Alastor, he was horrible as a partner and he ran from him for a reason. He almost lost the baby, he almost die in an alley and Lucifer still didn't know about that, he never ordered that.

 

But he was here, with his seven years old baby, afraid of him... and angry to him, apparently, because she bared her teeth more than once.

 

She made another sign, two signs, one was placing her thumb on under her chin and move it out and the other was with the two hands, like holding a rope? In front of her belly, then she pointed at him. Sure, she was telling him something, about him again.

 

***

 

Charlie was confused by Alastor's words. Still she didn't know what was happening there, why her father could want to kill the demon, why he said she will hate him for knowing his story and for using her?

 

She was about to ask or at least say to the demon he was safe in the hotel, that she could protect him from her father but... The eyes of the Radio Demon transformed into dials, his expression was a mix of anger and terror.

 

“No, no, no, no... NO!!” he entered into a shadow.

 

And he reappeared in his room, running inside his bayou with all the speed his legs could muster. Lucifer bypassed going after him, he didn't know how the king learned about his baby but he was completelly sure he was about to punish him in the worst way possible: destroying her, his last part.

 

He was seeing the cottage, with his girl, still alive!! keeping a distance with the monarch.

 

Alastor changed to his endritch form, the trees tumbling and breaking to his wake and pass, launching himself over Lucifer without thinking it twice. It doesn't matter what will happen to him, he accepted death... But his girl would live, would escape that monster.

 

The Radio Demon pinned the king under his claw and turned his head to his child.

 

“Anka, run!!” he ordered the girl. “Find the princess, she will protect you! Tell her she owe me your protection, run!!”

 

The girl made some rapid gestures, pointing to her, crossing her arms with her fists crossed and then pointing to the deer demon.

 

“You won't!” said Alastor, almost desperated. “Ankareeda, go to the princess, this is my fight, not yours!”

 

The girl was frustrated, her eyes were looking to the Devil with a mix of hate and fear and after the words of her father, she bashed her fist in the wooden table and turned over her heels, going out of the bayou.

 

“Why you told me my daughter was dead?!” said Lucifer, tears in his eyes, his eyes washed in crimson but not trying to escape the claw yet.

 

“Because she is” said the demon, with fury, his mouth dripping black saliva. “Milady and her unborn child died under your fucking orders. I, on the other hand, escaped from the exorcist angels in the nick of time with my belly split in two.”

 

He launched a tentacle to pierce the Fallen Angel but Lucifer transformed into a serpent to escape.

 

“I didn't order that!! I just wanted you back!” he screamed from the air.

 

“Back to your golden cage? Back to serve you and fuck you at your pleasure?” he was trying to pin the Devil again but he was using his shapeshifting to escape both his claws and tendrils. “To fear for my child every day and dread the day you decide to carry your abuse even further? Hitting me... or my daughter??!!”

 

He growled, frustrated.

 

“I would never hurt you” said Lucifer, trying to speak a reason he didn't believe himself.

 

“You already did, hypocritical piece of garbage!!” yelled Alastor. “How many times you yelled at me? How many times you reminded me I was just a lowly sinner grateful to be in your presence? You constrained me between your walls, I wasn't free even to see my friend!! You used my body even in the days I didn't want to!”

 

Lucifer was receiving all the truths in his face, Alastor couldn't touch him with claw and tendril but he surely could hurt him in another ways. And he deserved it, he did those things, those were the things he couldn't denied.

 

“I know and I know it won't mean anything now but I'm sorry, Alastor” said the king, still escaping with his transformations. “I was afraid to lose you or to be again in a relationship where I didn't matter at all. I did bad, I know I did bad... I'm being torturing myself with all the errors I commited, all the awful things I did to you.”

 

Alastor grunted, bashing varios trees with his tentacles trying to hit the angel with the trunks.

 

“Oh, poor thing, you suffered!!” spitted the demon. “You tortured yourself with all the terrible diabolical things you did to me!! TO ME!! I gave everything to you, my identity, my body, my love and it wasn't enough!! Never was!! I suffered, seeing the reality of the man I loved turning into my jailer and my abuser! And you want pity from me??!!”

 

He attacked with such devastated fury, so reckless abandon, that he managed to hit the king and made him fly several meters, impacting in varios trees in the process, to then go to the ground hardly.

 

“I'm out of shits to give for you” said the demon. “Specially since you tried to punish my assassination atempt trying to kill my daughter... AGAIN!!”

 

“I wasn't trying!!”

 

***

 

Ignorant of the fight that was happening in Alastor's bayou, Charlie was in the lobby with Vaggie, Husk and Niffty.

 

She had still the closed letter in her hand and she didn't know to where he was and what was happening, so she called the barterder and small sinner to asked them, taking they were... friends? Servants? Of the Radio Demon.

 

“Alastor is always scheming, every day and every hour” said the cat demon. “It's like asking if the water is wet. I'm being taking calls with messages for him and all but he uses codes and what not with his owned souls, after a time I just write what they tell me and that's that. I don't try to make sense of any shit.”

 

Said the man. If he knew more, he wasn't saying, being for fear of Alastor or for some strange sense of loyalty.

 

“Alastor is Alastor... I saw him moodier and happier than ever these months” said Niffty, eyeing a roach and trying to stab it.

 

“Why don't you read the letter, Charlie?” suggested Vaggie. “If the stupid shitlord made something horrible better to know it sooner than later and if he's in trouble with your father, maybe with that information you can protect him better.”

 

The princess has her doubts. She still trusted Alastor... the feelings she was sensing from him she knew they were real. He was sad, he was afraid even when he didn't admit it. She opened the letter, ready to read it when the sound of fast steps running catched everyone's ears.

 

Soon a little kid appeared from the corridor, going down the stairs to then stop and look around. She was small, pale grey skin, red sclera eyes with pink irises and that cute sunflower dress.

 

The girl looked eyes with Charlie and the princess was... shocked. That little girl, with those eyes and ears looked like Alastor but her hair was more.. like hers but curly and she had her rosie cheeks, like her and her father.

 

The kid ran towards her and made some gestures.

 

“Who are you?” she asked.

 

“That's Alastor's baby” said Niffty, stopping with the murder of the bug population to go in front of the girl, saying hi with the hand.

 

“Alastor's what?” it was evident that were news to Husk.

 

“She's Alastor's baby, I met her months ago going in secret in shadow out of his room” said the sinner maid. “She can't talk, but she can write, she told me it was our secret.”

 

Said the woman.

 

“She's using ASL” said the bartender. “She's saying... 'Dad sent me to find the princess, dad is fighting the... evil king?'”

 

The girl nodded looking to Husk, then she signed again.

 

“Ok, ok, slow down, I'm rusty” asked the cat demon. “She says 'Dad said you could protect me but I want to save my dad.' It's that it?”

 

The kid nodded.

 

“And who's the evil king?” asked Vaggie.

 

“My dad, are you saying they are fighting?” asked Charlie.

 

The girl nodded to sign again.

 

“She says 'The evil king hurt my dad years ago, he's trying to hurt me and they are fighting in my house'” translated Husk. “Where is this house?”

 

He asked and the girl pointed to the stairs.

 

“In his room” Vaggie understand. “In his swamp...”

 

Charlie moved. Her protective instints were always in the surface of her character and she didn't need much more explanations. That girl was Alastor's daughter, she was afraid for her father and her own father Lucifer was fighting with the Radio Demon now... She needed to stop this and figure the bigger picture here.

 

She had the letter, sure but the priority was to stop that fight before her friend and that little girl's... with rosie cheeks... father were badly hurt. She wasn't worry about Lucifer, not because she didn't love him, because she knew how strong he was.

 

Anka started to run while Angel Dust was coming from the elevator.

 

“What the fuck's happenin'?” he asked. “Where's the fucking fire?”

 

He returned to the elevator when everyone was riding it too, going to Alastor's room and opening the door.

 

“The fuck are we doin' in Freaky face's room?” asked the arachnic demon.

 

“Apparently, saving his ass” said Husk, running after the girl to the inner most part of the bayou.

 

When they reached the Radio Demon and the King of Hell, they were separated by several meters, the demon still in his eldritch form, he was hurt but those were superficial cuts, nothing important. The Devil was in his higher form, his horns and tail out of his body and full display.

 

“What are you doing here?” asked the Radio Demon. “Take my daughter and go.”

 

“No! I won't stay in the side seeing you kill each other” said the princess. “We need to talk, now, and you two are gonna do it, like it or no.”

 

And she showed also her higher demon form, with the tail trashing behind her like a whip.

 

Anka moved in front of Alastor, both arms opened and looking to the Devil. The girl was decided to stay there... she was small, she was afraid, she was shaking but she stood her ground, raising from her back four shadow tendrils like Alastor's and from her forehead two small red horns, too small, just an inch or two. Her eyes changed too, only the iris, going from redish pink to a vivid golden color with her pupil also going into a fine line, like a snake.

 

Alastor looked down his daughter and then to the Devil. Until that point, Lucifer was holding back but he knew, painfully, he couldn't win a direct fight with the monarch... and of course, his daughter was his absolute priority.

 

The Radio Demon returned to his regular form, his mind was running with scenarios, ideas... He turned to Charlie.

 

“Dear, remember that deal we made?” said the demon. “I'm cashing it now. Your part of the bargain is to protect my daughter, specially from your father, even if you had to risk your life, place your life to protect my daughter, you'll do it.”

 

“What?” the king also returned to his regular form but his eyes were still overcome by fury, he flew near the deer demon. “Our deal...”

 

“The deal YOU forced upon me forbid me from hurting your daughter or trying to usurp her place as heir with my spawn” said the red demon. “If she is hurt or dead, will be by your hand, trying to kill my daughter.”

 

Charlie didn't know what to say, she didn't know what was happening there.

 

“Al... I.. I will protect your daughter, deal or no deal but I want to know what the fuck is happening” she said. “It's obvious this is rooted farther from what I know and this little girl...”

 

Who was still controling Lucifer and his movements and was looking at him with a mix of fear and hate.

 

“Her name is Ankareeda and she's my daughter” said the Radio Demon. “And this is the second time your father try to hurt her.”

 

The demon opened his coat, raised his shirt and, after unbuckling his belt, show the princess the scar he had, from side to side, just under his bellybuttom.

 

“The first time to deny her the possibility to exist” he said, fixing his clothes again.

 

“What?” she looked back to Lucifer... the king tried to deny but the eyes of one of his daughters with doubts and the other with fear and hate were making him stand still, not knowing what to do. “Ok, I want to hear this story, I want all the information.”

 

Alastor nodded.

 

“Very well.. but my daughter doesn't know the whole story, she only knows Lucifer hurt me and he wants to hurt her, so I want...” Lucifer interrumped him.

 

“You told her that? You poisoned her against me...” this time the interruption came from Alastor.

 

“The truth is poison now, Lucifer?” said the demon, with fury. “You have some balls, after what you put me through, to ask me to paint a beautiful picture about yourself to my daughter.”

 

The little girl growled to the king or at least she bared her teeth at him.

 

The deer demon knelt near her.

 

“Anka, my love, papa is gonna be ok” he told her, with a soft smile. “You are going with Niffty, she's a friend of papa, and with papa's shadow to the kitchen to eat something.”

 

The girl denied with her head and made two gestures: one with thumb, index and middle fingers closing them fast as a pinch, the second was like marking her exophagus.

 

“Don't tell me you aren't hungry, you are” he kissed her head. “Go, the bad king can't hurt me with the good princess with me, ok? She will protect me.”

 

The shadow of Alastor moved and Niffty too, with the small sinner giving a hand to the girl and the shadow using sign language, telling her someting, smiling.

 

When she was out of the view, the demon moved, using his tentacles to repositioning the wooden table and the benchs and made a gesture to the spider demon, the cat demon, the ex-exorcist and the princess to sit. He didn't care what Lucifer wanted to do or not.

 

“I guess you didn't read my letter yet” said the demon, Charlie shook her head. “Ok, I'll guess I'll start at the beginning. You already know about my mother invoking Lucifer to save me in the trial for the death of my father and you know I fell in love with him at that age.”

 

“You what?” asked Angel but Husk made a gesture to ask him to be silent.

 

“From that moment, my objective was to return to him, to help him, make him happy... I wasn't going with a romantic future in mind or whatever, I just wanted... to be by his side” started to say the demon.

 

Lucifer finally moved to sit, in front of the rest, listening because even being part protagonist in that story, he wasn't privy to too much from the very same.

 

“I became a serial killer to assure my place in Hell” he started to say. “I killed only bad people and I made sure they were, I made them confess before the act too. And I ended up here, dying at 33 years old and my first impulse was to find my king and place myself to his service. And of course, I couldn't... I tried to make myself an overlord, going just after the ones that were despicable, abusing their contracts. And he turned me down in that party I told you about.”

 

The king tried to make memory, fixing his eyes in Alastor, Forty years ago... It was hard but he remembered. He was flirting with Lilith, he felt jealousy and he turned down the sinner as soon as he was near him, like he was a vermin.

 

“I didn't want to forsake my idea, the fuel I had all my life, the only thing that mattered to me and eight years, almost nine soon, ago your mother made a party, a fastuous masquerade ball for her accomplishments helping demon kind” he sighed. “It was just an ass kissing party for your mother to wash in adoration... Sorry, but I didnt like your mother so much. In any case... it was my last oportunity or so I saw it that way. Your father was...”

 

Their eyes met for a second.

 

Lucifer showed remorse, Alastor showed sadness. Their eyes parted again.

 

“He was rarely in public, that was a golden oportunity so I decided to take it” he took air. “I decided to use what the Heavens cursed me to be to at last be near your father. I... renegate of my identity as Alastor and became a woman. I killed my identity and my pride for him.”

 

Angel was about to ask but Husk whispered something in his ear that made the spider demon look to Alastor with renovated interest and very sincere sympathy.

 

“I didn't know who to call this creation that wasn't me so I used the name Milady, like Milady of Winter from the Three Musketeers: a perfect seductive woman at the service of nobility and power... at his service” he scoffed. “That was my naive idea at least. So I put on a show to pick his interest and we... ended up together after that night. He invited me the next morning to stay and I couldn't be happier.”

 

Alastor made a pause, Charlie moved a hand to his back, softly. She didn't want to interrupt him, seeing how difficult that was for him. She had questions but she prefered to wait for all the information.

 

“The first months were... happy, for the first time I was happy” said the Radio Demon. “It wasn't love, but... yeah, I thought I wouldn't never get love from him, I knew it in my heart but a part of me dreamed with an impossible. That wasn't but was enough. He was possessive, passional and I enjoyed it but his possessive nature turned sour... Going to see Rosie, to share how my marvelous days were going and how happy I was, Vox recognized me in the street. He was...”

 

Alastor sighed.

 

“Out of himself, he said that was betraying myself, lowering myself to be just a concubine for the king... We were together and he knew my past, myself, he knew my heart and to where it was pointing but he hated it, he hated Lucifer with all his being” the king growled but said nothing, lowering his head. “And that day, seeing me with femenine clothes, acting like a woman, he was out of himself. He even hurt me before I put him in his place and... unknown to me, your father was sending his guards after me every time I went out of the manor and when I returned it was the first time I saw the Devil behind the mask of the Angel.”

 

Said the demon with sadness.

 

“He yelled at me, he accused me of betraying him and... when I begged, he order me to no go out of the manor again and taking he dismissed his service months ago, that meant I was alone, with him, without my freedom and without a single person to talk to” Charlie was horrified, looking to Alastor to then look to her father asking without asking for explanations.

 

“The guard told me she.. he was flirting with Vox” said the Devil.

 

“If pushing him, throwing him with my tendrils and broke his arm was flirting, that's the first news to me” said the deer demon.

 

Lucifer hit the table with both hands while raising from his seat.

 

“I don't have a reason to lie, Alastor, dammit!!” he grunted.

 

“Placing yourself in a better light before your daughter comes to mind” said the deer demon.

 

“I told you last night at the palace too, my daughter wasn't there, I'm telling the truth!” said the devil, looking to Charlie.

 

The princess denied.

 

“Even if he was flirting, what the fuck, dad? You made a prisoner of him just because you were jealous? What kind of behaviour is that?” she said. “You were the one that told me Seviathan wasn't good for me when he asked me to cut contact with all my friends to 'center ourselves in us' as he put it and you did that and worst? Fuck...”

 

She denied with the head and turned to Alastor, still her hand over his back, as a way of showing support.

 

“Continue, please, what happened later?” asked this time Vaggie, who was enthralled by the story and was starting to look at Lucifer with a not good gaze.

 

“I.. this is hard for me to talk but... I don't deal good with sex, I never had a drive before” said the Radio Demon. “Women, men, I could find them enticing but nothing more. With him it was different but... sometimes, not even with him. And... I tried to talk to him about it, he showed some understanding, he said he didn't want to force me to anything but... Some days he respected me but others... I didn't want to be touched and he tried to convince me, to talk me into it and sometimes he just... did... and I let him, I let him because I wanted him happy and...”

 

Lucifer sighed.

 

“You could tell me, plain and simple, I thought it was a game, a...” Alastor looked at him, dissapointment in his sight.

 

“You didn't catch of the signs? Me, barely moving, letting you go on your leisure? You didn't catch on the contrast with the times I wanted you?” he sighed. “I was tense as a stone slab... But in anycase that was just one more thing... He had some... rage burst, now and then, screaming and being very cutthroat with his words. If something was out of his comfort zone, is something wasn't perfect, he bursted. Everytime he has a reunion with Lilith, those were the worst moments... I ended simultaneously afraid of him and learning how to navigate those moments.”

 

Vaggie was furious, her fist clutched over the table and her eyes drilling the shorter man.

 

“Did he hit you?” she asked.

 

“No, never... he never did” confessed the red demon. “I was afraid of his fury and he destroyed and reconstructed almost every room of the manor but he never... But... it came the day that a miracle happened, nor him or me knew how but... after feeling like shit and vomiting my guts for days, he brought me a test and.. I was pregnant and he was furious.”

 

“Why?!” asked Charlie. “You always told me that you wanted more kids but it was difficult, that you tried for eons before me. How much time passed?”

 

Asked the princess.

 

“Six months, almost seven” said, this time, Lucifer. “And don't misunderstand me, I wasn't furious, I was afraid. Even under a... let's call it disguise, I knew he was an overlord, I felt all the deals he had under control in the first days. I was fearing this to be a plot, a trap. I'm the king and I didn't want to be used or to have my children used.”

 

He said, lowering his head.

 

“But I... reacted horrible, first I didn't trust him and then... I wanted a policy, to no be left behind, to not lose my child the same way Lilith took you from me” he denied. “I asked him his soul.”

 

“He demanded it” corrected the deer demon. “He said that if I didn't do it, he will finish my pregnancy.”

 

“I didn't...”

 

“You did!” growled the demon. “And I wasn't about to let you finish with the life that was growing in me, the only good thing this wretched cursed body could bring me. My heart was broken that day, the man I loved... I love, asking me for my very soul, threatening my unborn baby, a symbol of my devotion and love for him. I accepted it like a sentence and it broke me.”

 

A tear, one, single tear moved from the eye of the deer demon down his cheek and he left it, he didn't tried to clean it, he just let it as a form of small release.

 

Lucifer felt a weight in his stomach seeing it, he felt his heart like it was constricted and pressed. He did that, right? He did that, fear or not, there was not justification for what he did.

 

Charlie was crying too but also she was looking at his father with a mix of disgust and sadness. How a man she knew had a good heart could do so much vile things and to a person that was just loving him, caring for him. It was horrible and, worst, in that moment started to affect to that little life growing on Alastor, that little girl they already met.

 

Anka, her sister.

 

“And I was broken for a time... Until I took a determination” said the demon. “His rage didn't stop to show, it was like Doctor Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. We talking about names for our baby, he caressing my belly... to then two hours later screaming at me because I prepared the bath slightly more hot that Belphegor's recommendation.”

 

The sin wasn't only the first farma power of all of Hell with her mutltitud of clinics on Sloth and all her medicine selling in all the rings but she also was the physician for the Morningstar family and she was Lilith's gynecologist too... it was reasonable that Lucifer enlisted the sin for this pregnancy too, maybe coercing her to secrecy about it.

 

“I tried to escape but he catched me and placed a curse over me” said the demon. “I couldn't use my powers in the manor, so I had to find another method and... when I found it, I ran... with all the speed my legs and a seven months belly let me. I ran and his guards were after me before I was far enough. They carried angelic steel and they were screaming they had orders to cut me... to... slash my belly and spill my blood.”

 

Charlie, showing her horns, turned to her father.

 

“Did you really..?” Lucifer interrupted.

 

“I didn't!! I told Alastor already, that wasn't my order... they weren't carrying any angelic steel when I ordered them to bring him back!” said the king. “I swear it, I know, right now, with all my errors and sins bare, you can't trust me easily but I swear that wasn't my order and I didn't arm them. I.... I was furious, I knew I could hurt him if I was after him so I used the guards... I don't know who gave that order, who armed them with my private collection but I didn't! I love her... him!! I... maybe I wasn't showing it but I loved him. Creation forgive me, I still do...”

 

He moved his hands up and down his face, he had a hurt expression and he was nervious.

 

“This is nothing to present a better light or anything” said the man. “It's the truth, just the truth. I won't say I didn't anything bad, because that isn't truth, I did, I was awful, worse... and I'm ready to do whatever it takes to try to mend it or at least to earn... less hate if not forgiveness. But I swear I didn't want to hurt my daughter or Alastor.”

 

The Radio Demon said nothing about that. Yes, his treacherous heart jumped when he said he loved him and still do but there was too much pain to relish in that solace. He still loved the king but he was still afraid of his reactions, afraid not for him, for his daughter.

 

“The guards... got to you?” asked Angel.

 

“Yes... I killed them, I killed them all but they wounded me and, it was extermination day and I had time, barely, just to escape to Rosie's” said the demon. “She helped me. The blade penetrated me to my womb, broke my amniotic sac and almost beheaded my daughter.”

 

Lucifer... well, all in the table opened their eyes, looking at the demon.

 

“That is why she...” started to say the king but the fury in Alastor's face made him shut up.

 

“I wasn't about to let my daughter die on the orders of her own father” the king wanted to protest again but he stayed silent. “Rosie helped me, I used my shadow magic, moving my shadows inside of me, creating a new sac with them, using my tendrils to sew her wound, to save her, giving her a place to heal before she could face this cursed plane. I held my power there, days, nights, without sleeping or eating, with a pain I never experienced before, with my stomach opened raw before my eyes so I could make sure the last part of me could survive. I didn't matter, she did... I didn't have my heart or soul, my will and love were broken, I just barely escape with my freedom but with the knowledge it could be short live... only my daughter was important and she showed me how a real survivor was, she showed me her will to live... I held two weeks, until it was safe for her and I delivered my girl to this world taking her out with my own hands.”

 

The table felt silent.

 

Only the sounds of the bayou were in the middle of that. Lucifer had his eyes in Alastor, wide opened and the pain he was showing was genuine.

 

Charlie was shocked, tears going down her face and Vaggie was also too upset to clean those tears, like she normally would do.

 

Angel Dust was crying, one hand was covering his mouth and after a moment, the only one that could talk was Husk, who just said:

 

“Fuck...” almost biting the word.

 

Alastor had his head low, tears and an expression of rage was in his face.

 

“My shadows torned my insides, even if a miracle could happen again, my insides are useless now” he continued to say. “And my girl... I knew it when she tried to cry when she was born. Silence, just silence... Her vocal cords were cut with an angelic blade and she could never regrow them. She can try to talk but her voice is minuscule and hurts her to try so... First I tried to keep her safe, I knew... I felt that she wasn't secure, that Lucifer could try to kill us again.”

 

The king was crying, he didn't protest, he just lowered his face with the shame of all the pain his actions brought. He didn't give the order, but his mistreatment of Alastor was what led to that.

 

“So we hide with Rosie, seven years...” he looked back to Husk. “Husker learned ASL in Las Vegas when he was alive and years before I asked him to teach me, I was thinking back them in using it to communicate with my employees, using my shadow but I teached my girl, so she could have a voice of her own and... I started to plan my revenge and a way to kill Lucifer.”

 

“Understandable” said Angel, with the most newyorker mafia accent he could muster. “Sorry, shortstaff, but you're a piece of shit.”

 

“I know” said the king, just that.

 

“And one of those steps was using you, Charlie” said the demon. “First, living in your hotel, recreating my bayou, that was in that moment in secrecy in Cannibal Town, I could hide my girl there, here... I thought it was the perfect place to do it. And... well, you asking for Lucifer here, fixing things with him, just made it easy so I manipulated you both to make amends, to have him around.”

 

He sighed.

 

“The plan was simple” said the deer. “Made him trust me, fucking his sleep so I could fix it and then placing him in a vulnerable position... and I moved to do everything when he healed my wound from Adam and one of my employees found the same blade that almost killed my daughter.”

 

He said, making a gesture and moving the shadows to create the scene, him consoling Lucifer in his manor, his tentacles raising from his back with one of them carrying the sword and the attempt to kill the king with it.

 

“Apparently people took the weapons to sell them, my contact found it in a black market auction... Selling property from the Morningstar is a very dangerous business” he sighed. “But first my shadow stopped me, betraying me and then... Your father is inmune to angelic steel. So I'm here, not deserving anything from you, asking for a deal I shouldn't ask but I did as a contingency fearing something like this... For my daughter and only for her. I don't care if your father kills me or punish me. My pain means nothing to me but I want my child safe, I want for her an oportunity to live and be happy.”

 

He was almost begging, looking directly to the princess and taking her hands in his own.

 

“I don't think less of you, Alastor” she said. “You suffered enough, you didn't deserve all the shit you got and doing all this? For your baby, for my sister? Oh, Alastor.”

 

She hugged the overlord and he didn't know what to say. He wasn't expenting that for sure, that vote of confidence, that show of friendship. Sure, he didn't want to hurt the woman, she was innocent in all of that and the same he wasn't his father, Charlie wasn't Lucifer by any extend. And she shared blood with his daughter and that was important to him in a fashion.

 

“I...” Lucifer wanted to talk but he could felt the hostility in that table... earned, for sure. “I want to say that I don't want to hurt my daughter.”

 

“She isn't yours” snarled the Radio Demon. “Donating semen doesn't make you a father.”

 

“I know, I know... I... Alastor, I know I hurt you, badly, and words won't fix a damn thing” said the devil. “But I want to make amends, I want to be part of Anka's live in a good way. And... you're right, there is something bad with me that I need to fix, but also there is more in here. People working for me were lying to me and people working for me were trying to hurt you, kill you and kill our... kill Anka. I want to tackle all of that. I can't ask you for a future, together... but...”

 

He moved his ring nerviously, to finally remove it from his finger, placing it before the deer demon.

 

“But I want to make things right” he finally said. “Take the ring, that ring it's my heart. I vowed to you when I thought I lost you forever. You can return it to me when you think I... at least I'm trustworthy.”

 

“You can start with releasing his soul, shortcake” said the spider demon. “As someone that was also cheated out of his soul by a lover, that's the most fuck up thing you could do and the easy to make amends about. It won't solve shit but fucking do it.”

 

Lucifer nodded and made a gesture, the chain and the collar appeared, with that vivid golden color and after a moment, the king made a gesture over the chain, like his hand was a knife cutting it and from that point, the magic metal was dissolved and Alastor took a huge gulp of air, like all this time he was underwater and now he could breathe again.

 

He was panting, the king tried to smile softly but Charlie cut him mid through.

 

“Now... You know I'm all for second chances and I want to believe you that there were some bad actors around you two but your actions are your own” said the princess, seriously. “If you have some problem, we are gonna tackle it and I don't want excuses. I'll place the rules and you will follow them, to the letter, if you want a relationship with me and maybe, in the future, one with my sister.”

 

She looked back to Alastor, like trying to find his approval with what she was saying and her way of managing that situation.

 

The Radio Demon nodded once, he was still affected after his deal was broken, feeling again his soul in him and the titillation of his powers returning to full potency, being slightly deminished by his lack of soul.

 

He... had to admit to himself, he wanted to know the truth, if besides Lucifer's actions, there were others trying to sabotage them. And... his heart wanted that man near, wanted that man being a father for his daughter, he wanted his love if possible.

 

Alastor took the ring to observe it nearer, catching on the details in the internal part of the band, feeling his blood transformed in metal by Lucifer's magic. He moved the ring and placed it in his own hand, fitting perfectly, a little bit of magic for that.

 

Charlie continued.

 

“First, you won't touch Alastor, won't say a bad word to him, I don't want a single new fight between you two” said the woman. “Second, you two are going to therapy, like it or not. Alastor needs to heal and you needs to check your mental health... You'll also ask Belphegor for psychiatric help, what you did with Alastor is not normal. And third, Anka is off limits from you until we know is secure... You won't be alone with her and I guess she doesn't know you're her father and we are gonna keep it that way for the moment to elude some questions.”

 

Vaggie nodded, approving tha approach the woman commanded of the situation.

 

“Do you agree to all of this, Alastor?” asked the princess. “It's your life and it's your daughter, I don't want to impose, I just want to fix this and get to the bottom.”

 

The Radio Demon thought for a moment and he finally nodded.

 

“I... I just want my daughter safe” he made a gesture and his hand and Charlie were covered in his veve symbols, the marks of his magic. They didn't have a soulbinding contract but a normal deal so there was no chain or collar but the princess felt the magic fading, the obligation lifting. “I didn't want to use you, dear. And I trust you to protect my girl.”

 

The demon moved his hand over the woman's shoulder.

 

“I know you're powerful, I know it, you just need to believe it yourself too” he said. “I agree to all of this. I won't promise I will forget Lucifer any time soon, it was... too much. But I want to get to the bottom of this too and if there is someone that made my debacle worst...”

 

“I'll burn them until not even their memory remains, I swear this to you, Alastor” said the king. “I'll atone for my sins towards you and Anka, I'll be a man you could see around you again... and I'll find the truth, for you and I.”

 

Alastor went near him, his hand holding the face of the monarch in place... that touch almost felt electric to Lucifer, he just sighed under his touch.

 

“Show me your word is as golden as the collar you placed around my neck” he said, releasing his face to move out of the bayou, with all the intention to go to the kitchen and hug his daughter, like he always did, everytime, he felt overwhelmed.

 

“Just one more thing, Alastor” asked the king. “What her name means? Ankareeda?”

 

Alastor thought for a moment, he finally said:

 

“Dark star.”

Notes:

Well, next part is more... relaxed, navigating this situation and starting with another mystery. There is a black hand here, but to whom it belongs?

Chapter 18: Making efforts

Summary:

Lucifer was a man in a mission. He had to mend himself, he had to be the Devil he wanted to be and face the past to fix present and possible future.

Meanwhile, Ankareeda was starting her steps in a new world, with more people, showing her personality for all to witness.

Notes:

Well, well... a little breather with some important tipbits in this one, some sweet respite of family life so enjoy ^^

“Sometines the past is something you can't let go of. And sometimes the past is something we'll do anything to forget.”

~Artemis Fowl

 

Alastor went to the kitchen with his daughter and the rest of the group followed to meet properly the girl.

 

Lucifer was the last one, placing a hand over the door and taking a big sigh to then push it and entering.

 

Charlie was with the girl, making some multicolored cotton candy to appear, with the young Anka opening her eyes widely. She made a sign, touching her chin to then move the hand from it.

 

“What does this means?” asked the king, repeating the gesture and approaching Alastor, who was sitting in one of the chairs, smiling while observing his daughter interacting with her big sister.

 

“It means 'thank you'” responded the Radio Demon.

 

The devil sat by his side in another chair, repeating the sign like he wanted to practice and learn.

 

Anka was happy, taking the cotton candy in hand and picking a little with the other, tasting it to smile even more, really happy for the sweet treat.

 

“I'm glad you like it!” said Charlie, also with a huge smile.

 

“She loves sweet treats... That reminds me, young lady, you should apologize with Vaggie” said the overlord, pointing to the ex-exorcist.

 

“With me?” asked the fallen angel.

 

“She is the one that took your heartshaped tart” Anka had in that moment a soft smile of a little shame, like she was caught. “Even when she had instructions to not leave the bayou.”

 

The girl moved her closed fist to her chest and made a circular motion.

 

“Ah, ah, not to me, to her” said the Radio Demon.

 

The girl moved near Vaggie and repeated the sign.

 

“That means 'I'm sorry'?” asked Lucifer, again, he repeated the sign while asking and Alastor nodded.

 

“Don't matter, don't worry about it” said the woman, with a soft smile in her face.

 

“It was a present for the princess” added the deer demon.

 

The girl opened her mouth and repeat the gesture adding some more.

 

“She's saying she didn't know, she was hungry” translated the red demon. “People are gonna think I starve you or something.”

 

The girl scoffed, releasing her tendrils from her back to take the cotton candy with one to then gesticulate with both hands and two of those tendrils.

 

“Ah, ah, ah... That sass, tune it down” said the demon, making a gesture. “And you have plenty of food and snacks in the cottage... Yes, yes, I know you get bored easy, I bought you books for that.”

 

The girl said something more and Alastor opened his mouth with surprise.

 

“Impossible!!” she signed a bit more and her actitud... yes, was sassy, like she was dissing the Radio Demon. “Oh...”

 

Alastor placed his hand with exageration in his chest while opening widely his mouth.

 

“That hurts me, young lady... saying those things to your own father” she laughed and continue eating the cotton candy.

 

Lucifer was seeing the scene with fascination, catching in the moves of the girl and the way she behaved. She looked... smart and funny and he really wanted to learn what she was saying.

 

“What did she tell you?” he asked.

 

“She complains that my snacks are boring and old, they are not sweets... she loves sweets... then she told me she was bored in the cottage and that she already read the three books I got for her” said the demon. “And not small kids books, precisely, the Lord of the Rings trilogy and when I said it was impossible, she told me that she doesn't read as slow as me... She called me old.”

 

Lucifer laughed, taking the atention of the girl, who was moving for the kitchen. When her eyes locked on the Devil, she holded the cotton candy nearer her.

 

“I won't take it!” said the king, moving both hands like he was talking to the police.

 

Anka made a gesture that she did when she met the monarch: both thumbs to her temples and moving the index and middle fingers like a mocking to then made a gesture like she was pointing to a bag's leash.

 

“She made that one when I met her, what those means?” asked Lucifer, repeating both gestures.

 

“Evil” Alastor made the first gesture, the one that looked like a mochery “king” he made the second.

 

Lucifer sighed deeply.

 

“Of course it is...” he looked to the girl. “I'm not an evil king, your... father and I had a... problem in the past that we are going to resolve it or I'll going to resolve it at least... We should introduce ourselves properly. Hi, I'm Lucifer Morningstar.”

 

He said, with a smile, the girl gesticulated with a smile that was almost wicked.

 

“She's saying she know who you are” translated Alastor. “That she read a lot about you.”

 

Lucifer smiled softly.

 

“You were curious?” asked the king.

 

She used index finger, middle and thumb like she was picking something in the air.

 

“That means 'no'” said the Radio Demon, with a proud smile when she started to sign again. “She's saying that you need information to vanquish an enemy.”

 

And she moved to sit at one of the tables with a smile and enjoying her cotton candy.

 

The king was surprised but then he smiled softly and looked to Alastor.

 

“She's… quick-witted, right?” he asked.

 

Alastor nodded, the pride he felt of his little girl was making him almost glowing.

 

“She has a brilliant mind” said the Radio Demon. “She learned to walk at nine months, she started to speak at ten months. She learned to read by two years old and she loves it. I tried to give her a rounded education so I had to give myself one. Not that I was uncultured but I was... old fashion. So I read topics, all kind of books from different themes. She talks ASL but she writes, reads and understand english and french, she's very knowledgeable about Hell, she's very good at math, better than me, she loves History and Art...”

 

Lucifer felt... something, in his chest. It was the guilt, eating him alive, almost calling tears to his eyes that he could repress with effort. If he had been different with Alastor, if he had been good with him, a good partner, his brilliant daughter wouldn't be mute, she ccould have stood out in school... At least she was happy and Alastor educated her well.

 

No, he had to make an effort. He screwed things up big time and he couldn't blame anything in external factors... He had to do better, for Alastor and for her.

 

“I see... and... she likes music?” asked the devil.

 

Alastor wasn't stupid, even when the king managed to refrain the tears, he knew perfectly what he was thinking. He still couldn't feel pity for that man (even when his heart was screaming at him) but he could continue being... none-hostile.

 

“Anka, darling... Want to show the king how you sing?” she made some signs, looking to the king and her father. “No, we aren't friends, per sé... But the king decided to change his ways and we talked about how this hotel was a place for second chances and about the princess' dream.”

 

Charlie, who was together with Angel, Vaggie, Niffty and Husk almost enthralled by the little girl, squeaked at that mention.

 

“You taught her about the hotel and the sinners?” she asked.

 

The Radio Demon nodded.

 

“Yes, I wanted my daughter to be equally cunning and cutthroat with enemies and sweet and compationate with friends and family” he said. “Even found family... I didn't want my sourness to traspass to her. And when you started with all of this, you were a perfect example.”

 

The princess was moved by Alastor's words. He took her in some high esteem as to use her as example for his daughter, teaching the kid something based on her. It was so sweet that she had tears in her eyes.

 

Anka looked to her father and then to the princess and the Devil. She sighed, cleaning her hands and made a gesture. In her hands golden flames appeared and left a violin, a simple one white and small, just for a kid her age.

 

She thought for a moment and started to play.

 

It was not a classic piece, it was not even a piece for violin either.

 

“That's... Respect by Aretha Franklin?” asked the Devil.

 

“Yes... I had seven years to learn a lot of things and modernize myself a little” said the demon. “I still have my preferences but I didn't want my daughter to be stuck on 1933 and I wanted to give her the posibility to have her own tastes. Don't mistake me, I started to like blues and rhythm and blues too... And when I taught her to play the violin she started to use it to sing.”

 

Lucifer covered his mouth, he was moved, he was again near to tears. His daughter played the violin like him and she found a way to sing.

 

And for a seven years old, she was good, really good.

 

“She also plays the piano, I have a small one for her in the attic of my cottage” said the demon.

 

Anka was moving in the kitchen, violin in hand, playing and dancing.

 

Maybe she was born from woe, she was mute and had to be hidden all her life but that girl, was a very happy one.

 

***

 

Lucifer was sitting in the waiting room near the office of Belphegor, in a chair too tall for him so his feet were dangling and he was moving them nerviously. Also his thumbs... It was the first time he did something like that.

 

Two days after knowing all the truth. Lucifer modified the hotel to created a room linked with Alastor's through a door so the little one could have her own bedroom and Charlie decorated it in no time, even going with Vaggie to the city to buy things for Anka's room.

 

She also called the Sin of Sloth to ask for this appointment and there he was, the King of Hell nervious and waiting.

 

The sin, a tall demoness with a white medical robe, appeared in the door to made a gesture to the king.

 

She was like a giant humanoid goat with horns like a bharal filled with candles with blue flame. The woman was wide and even when she was tall as Asmodeus, for her wideness she gave the impression of being short. Her face could only by described like a grandmother mixed with a serious goat that, some how, managed to get into medical school. She even was wearing a couple of oval glasses.

 

“Ok, Lulu, sit, get comfortable” said the Sin, going to the other part of the desk and sitting. “Charlie painted a wide picture about the problem here and before we have our first session, I'll explain what's going to happen here.”

 

Said the woman.

 

The Devil just nodded... Sure, they didn't see each other since she started to treat Mil... Alastor with the pregnancy but hey, how was he to ask for common manners? Hi, Belphy, Hi, Lulu, how are you? No, no, to business.

 

He sighed.

 

“First, we'll have a session once a week, if I see some improvement, we can re-schedule once a month” said the Sin. “Second, these sessions are, of course, confidential but Charlie said you won't oppose for her to monitor your progress. It's that correct?”

 

The king nodded.

 

“Yes, I... I want Charlie to be in the clear with me, knowing what's what” said the monarch. “I'm trying to make a real effort here so I can... have a life with my young daughter and maybe reconcile with my partner?”

 

The woman sighed to make a notation in her notebook.

 

“It's too soon for that, I think, we need to center in the here and now” she said, adjusting her glasses. “Also, we know I can't prescribe medicine to you for your metabolism, having your organs coated with hellfire it's a fucking problem so I can only prescribe exercises and tasks that you must carry to the letter. I'm using my very valuable time from my research for this sessions as a favour so I want commitment.”

 

Lucifer nodded twice.

 

“Yes, I told you, I want to go full with this one, all my will and effort” said the man.

 

The humanoid goat nodded too, change the page of her notebook and started to write in it.

 

“Let's begin” said the woman. “When you started to notice your rage outbursts? What was happening the first time?”

 

Lucifer thought for a moment.

 

“It was... with Lilith, I guess” he said. “Charlie was born and a week later Heaven was requesting a meeting, for the exterminations of sinners. Stupid morons were afraid because Lilith's songs were talking about rebellion and take back power, resist... You know, you heard her music. And they started to say we had a problem of overpopulation, funny thing because we could use more parts of Pride if we go outside of the nine circles or even expand Pentagram or the other cities but... Well, you know. And fuck, I was so afraid for Charlie.”

 

Belphegor was taking notes, Lucifer in that chair, tall like the ones outside the office of the woman, he felt small... smaller that he felt in all his very long life.

 

“Adam was very... crass and awful and almost he insinuated that my baby wasn't safe, he even said we were crazy to bring a baby to this madness and codemnation and... Instant of say 'no' and 'fuck you', how I was suppose to say and I wanted to say... I panicked and made the deal” said the devil. “I knew I fucked up, I saw Lilith's expression of pure dissapointment and shame and... fuck. When we were alone in the palace after that she... I tried to talk to her, tried to make her understand that our daughter, our week old daughter was in danger. Heaven wanted to... She wasn't having it.”

 

Just the memories were making him feel worked up. His daughter in the cradle crying and Lilith more centered in screaming at him that attent to her.

 

“It was... the first day was horrible, Charlie was crying, she was screaming at me, telling me how useless I was, how I always screwed things up” he said, the Devil was starting to pant.”She told me that I was weak and a pussy, that I bended over for Heaven when I was powerful to refuse them and... she told me that I was only good for the bedroom, like a whore.”

 

Belphegor anoted the last part.

 

“Breathe, Lucifer” she said, with a soft and understanding voice. “It's hard to remember bad stuff, done to us or done by us but it's necessary for the process. Ok, continue.”

 

The king tried to breathe, slowly, taking air and releasing it with his mouth.

 

“She... threw things at me and before storming out, she hit me” said the man, ashame.

 

He was ashamed of that moment. Not because the hit hurt for him, it was a slap, was almost like nothing but he felt it in a non physical way, like cold water over all his body.

 

“She left, leaving me alone with Charlie for two days” he lowered his head. “When she returned she was... cold. Barely speaking, sharp remarks, not aggresive but... I started to sleep in my workshop and she... Anyway, the mood of the palace changed. I started to feel isolated, the service... wasn't talking to me, just with her and... It was like I wasn't there at all. And... we still did things together, presenting a happy family for the public and our photos and... fuck, it wasn't.”

 

The woman made anotations and raised her eyes to look back to the king, making a gesture to make a glass of water appear, near him.

 

“Thank you” he drank part of it. “And when Charlie was around three, it was the first time.”

 

He drank water seconds ago and he was feeling his lips completelly dry.

 

“I wanted to play violin to Charlie, she was...” he smiled but was slightly sad. “So happy to do something with me but Lilith... she used a excuse, I don't even remember it. She ordered Charlie to go to her room, my applepie, being the good girl she was, she did and... She said she was the only one caring for Charlie, being a good parent. She called me useless and pathetic and she said she didn't want our daughter to catch on my weakness and... I felt it, the fire I carry inside, raising, like a torrent. Before I could think, I was in my full form, I took Lilith by her wrist, I don't know if she was about to hit me again or I just did. I don't know, don't remember.”

 

He rested his elbows over the desk and holded his face with both hands.

 

“I broke her wrist, I didn't want to... I... I... I normally control my strength well, I know how strong I am and how much damage I can do by brute force but I didn't want to, Belphy, I swear!” he had tears in his eyes. “She screamed, she moved away from me and... Since that day, the rage was constant. I never... I never touched her again until our fight but I started to respond to her aggression with mine, she said something hurtful, I retaliated with something even farther. We had the mind not to do anything in front of Charlie but... It went worst, I... I felt like I was sleeping in the same house as my enemy and I was hurt, because I loved her and she was acting like she never did.”

 

Belphegor made another annotation.

 

“So, you presented a facade to all Hell of the perfect royal family while in the palace it was this situation that you mentioned” she nodded, more to herself than anything. “Did you talk to someone about this, this situation at home? A friend or...”

 

Because she knew he didn't talked to her. All of this about them fighting, she heard rumours... In the upper echelon of Hell, around the nobles and sins, there was always the idea that Lilith was the one with the pants in the relationship and Lucifer just followed her like a doggy. Of course, not even drunk someone would say something in front of Lucifer, not even her, but that was the tea. Knowing that she was acting like that... It was rough.

 

“I... except for you, guys” he meant the sins. “I don't have friends. I... I'm not a social person, even when we were ok, Lilith was there always shining and taking care of everything and I was almost the arm candy and I didn't mind, I know my social skills are none.”

 

Even in Heaven, he was always very particular. He prefered to be just with Michael or alone, he could stay days centered into a task and he always let his twin brother to carry with the duties and talking to the other members of the family and Sera.

 

Lilith was in fact the first friend he made and he fell for her almost immediactly. And then, in Hell, he was friendly with the sins, they were born from him after the Fall but... he never made a friend or a confidant or something like that.

 

“And you said your service wasn't communicative with you also” Lucifer nodded. “Ok... I see. Well, I guess this will be all for today.”

 

“That's it?” he asked, he was still a little tense and feeling not so well. “And... what do you think?”

 

Belphegor sighed.

 

“Lucifer, it's just a session, I can't take conclussions with one session” she said. “Ok, according to Charlie your famous Milady is the Radio Demon, right?”

 

“Correct” he said, still that was something he was wrapping his head around.

 

“And you little one is seven and both are ready to try some level of coexistence with you, not in the capacity of father and husband but being there, correct?” Lucifer nodded. “Very well, first I want you prepare a proper apology, written. Just about your own actions... Use your memory, center yourself, alone and write. Apologize for your acts... it won't serve him, it will serve you, so you can make some... let's call it introspection. And then I want you to start to being social. Talk to the people in that hotel, talk to, well, the Radio Demon, talk to your daugher, her fiancée and your small daughter. And... do things with them, go outside or activities.”

 

She said, making last annotations and closing the notepad.

 

“We'll see in a week, to value progress and to continue digging” she said, raising from her seat to show the king out.

 

“Social... that's gonna be a mess” he said, shaking his head.

 

“You can't isolate yourself and pretent to know how to treat people” said the sin. “Specially people that aren't in your same or similar level of power and social status. Make a friend, Lulu, explore the life of a regular sinner or demon and know the real person behind the mask of Milady. Charlie told me you said you love him but... I'm feeling you don't know him at all.”

 

The king sighed.

 

“You're right... I... I'll do that, Belphy” said the man with a soft smile. “Thanks for this.”

 

“Anytime, Lulu” said the sin. “And remember your tasks are mandatory.”

 

***

 

Lucifer returned to the hotel via portal in the lobby and the first thing he did was to drop himself face down on the nearest couch.

 

Charlie was sitting with Anka, showing the princess her drawings and drawing a little with her sister. She moved when she saw the king dropping like a sack of potatoes.

 

“How it went, dad?” she asked.

 

“Bad” said the king. “I feel like shit...”

 

He moved to sit properly.

 

“She want me to do things and... one of them is being social and you know how bad I'm at socializing” he said, massaging his temple. “She wants me to make a friend. How the fuck I'm gonna do that?”

 

He asked, more to himself that for Charlie.

 

Anka, who was listening to them, thought for a moment to then raise from the floor and going to the couch, sitting, not very near Lucifer but at least in the same couch. She clapped twice, like someone preparing to do something and turned slightly to look at the monarch.

 

She moved her hands and with her expressive gaze, she was indicating to the king to pay attention.

 

She moved her index fingers together and rub them, to then made a sign with both open hands like she was hiding her face. Then she point to herself. The girl repeated the signs and waited, like she was expecting the king to catch out.

 

“I don't know what you are...” he said.

 

“An-ka” she said, her voice almost a whisper and she holded her throat as soon as those sounds left her mouth, showing discomfort.

 

“That's how you said your name?” asked Charlie.

 

The girl, smiling, nodded. Then she pointed to the king and slowly, she made a gesture one hand, like that word 'evil' he learned but just one hand and then she made another like... she was lighting a match in her hand, rubbing the fist closed for the palm of the other hand.

 

“And that's how you say Lucifer?” asked the king, understanding.

 

Anka nodded.

 

And she repeated her name, Lucifer's and then she made a new gesture, with the index fingers of both hands, she linked them. She pointed then to her and the monarch and made again the gesture with the fingers.

 

Lucifer repeated the signs, it was his way of learning, repetition.

 

“This... links...” he was catching that ASL was very intuitive if you placed time in correlating the signs with visual clues. “Links... like friends... Are you saying we can be friends?”

 

He asked, the girl nodded. Then she made a gesture to the man to wait and ran to were she was drawing with Charlie, taking one of the papers, turning it around and with a pink crayon she wrote something and gave it to the man.

 

Lucifer took it and read, fascinated by her very elegant handwriting.

 

“What does it say, dad?” asked Charlie.

 

“She says...” he had tears in his eyes. “Ehmmm... she says.. 'If you need a friend, to help you be better, I can be your friend, I can teach you to understand me'”

 

And he laughed, crying.

 

“She says she has a very charming personality” finished the king.

 

The little girl just nodded and snapped and with golden flames, she made a handkerchief appear in the hands of the man.

 

“Thank you, Anka” said the king, cleaning his tears. “I... I'm honored. We can be friends.”

 

The young demoness smiled broadly, nodding again.

 

Charlie and Lucifer were both very surprised but at the same time, very moved. That girl was raised in isolation, talking just to Alastor and Rosie, when the bayou was in Cannibal Town and even with that, she was charitable, social and empathetic and ready to help someone that she learned from infancy that was dangerous and an enemy and she didn't even flinched about it.

 

With that, Lucifer knew Alastor didn't poison the girl against, just warned her because he really thought he was a danger to her.

 

Oh, that man... Belphegor was right. Lucifer needed to know him, properly. He was too ready to say he still love him but he really didn't know the real Alastor.

 

First order of things, the letter and then he needed to really know the person he wanted to be his partner.

 

***

 

Lucifer was for a time with Anka and Charlie, the little girl taught him to say their names, Charlie's (he learned that not all names had a sign equivalent so he had to learn the letters with signs to say Charlie), friends, father, drawing... He learned too how to say Alastor (the same with Charlie, signing the letters) and how to say Radio Demon.

 

Alastor came after a fashion and the girl told him what she did and even when the demon couldn't hold a sigh, he smiled to his girl and told her she was good. Then he carried her to her room because she needed to study.

 

The king decided to move to his room, cleaned a little his workbench and decided to write the letter.

 

It took him hours... several drafts transformed into paper balls all around him... When he finished was around dinner hour and he went to the kitchen.

 

The Radio Demon was cooking and the little girl was helping him. Swing music was around them both and they were moving their heads, smiling with the sound of trumpets from a very old tune called King Porter Stomp, a song from around the times of Alastor.

 

The girl was cleaning vegetables and passing them to her father to cut them... apparently they were making some kind of soup. The king sat at one of the tables and he was moving his head too, tapping with his fingers over the wood with the music. The girl dried her hands on a kitchen rag when the song changed and she touched her father in the leg.

 

She signed something, Alastor smiling happy, he left the knife and took the hands of the girl and started to dance to the rhythm of Jack, you're dead by Louis Jordan. They were energetic, twisting and moving around, then the demon left Anka go and she started to dance alone, moving the arms and the head.

 

The demon laughed and continued cooking.

 

After a time, Alastor finished cooking and served the onion soup in delicate bowls with loafs of bread inside and cheese gratin over as a delicious lid. Ankareeda wasn't a picky eater by any extended and she devoured the soup with delight but also the demon made for her another dish, a frittata with spinach and she ate it with the same enthusiasm she used to eat the cotton candy.

 

“Those are very big dishes for a seven years old, I'm impressed” said the king.

 

“She deals with shadows since birth” said the demon. “In fact, for the nature of her birth, she has a good affinity with them and with shadow magic. And shadows feed on the energy of the caster. It could be easier if she consumed demon flesh but... I prefered to left the cannibalism as a choice for her when she's older and more mature.”

 

Angel Dust made a sound.

 

“I'll be damned, the Radio Demon is a more consequent parent than most” said the spider demon. “I was born and my ass was in a church three seconds later to clean my head with water.”

 

Husk raised a brow.

 

“Are you comparing cannibalism with the catholic religion?” asked the cat demon.

 

“Sure” said the pornstar. “It's imposing a believe in a kid. One to preach virtue that's hypocritical at most and the other the believe that eating other demons it's ok. Good job, Smiles!”

 

He said, raising his glass to the deer demon. Alastor laughed and did the same, raising his glass.

 

The dinner was enjoyable, with light conversation and, when all finished, the Radio Demon decided to clean the plates and Charlie offered herself to go to put Anka to bed. In the kitchen were alone Lucifer and Alastor and the Devil, after mulling it for a time, left the letter near him enough to see and don't get wet in the process.

 

“What's that?” he asked.

 

“This... is something Belphegor told me I should do” said the monarch. “It's a letter properly apologizing for... I did to you. I know it won't fix a thing, she said it was more for instrospection that real amends but there...”

 

Alastor took a gander to the letter again to then look back to the Devil.

 

“Ok, I'll read it” he said.

 

“Thanks....” he pointed then to the sink. “Do you want any help with that?”

 

The demon denied and continued to wash the dishes.

 

“You could use magic for that...” suggested the monarch.

 

“Manual labour keeps people honest” said the Radio Demon. “Never trust a person that never had to do any physical effort to achieve things, being big or small, I prefer to shake hands with a hand dirty from honest work than the hand of a pampered prince.”

 

Lucifer thought in those words for a moment.

 

“That's a philosophy you taught your daughter?” asked the monarch.

 

“Yes, you know I came from very humble origins and my daughter was born with great power” said the demon. “Greater than mine. I don't want that power going to her head, making her overconfident or moving her to treat poorly others thinking she's special. My daughter makes her bed, cleans her room, does her homework, bathe herself and helps me when I ask her. Her power is native to her but she knows perfectly she can't abuse it.”

 

Lucifer thought for a moment.

 

Except dressing himself (and not always) he did everything with his power since he was alone and before, he had servants to pamper him and do everything for him. He knew the basics but he wasn't a manual labour kind of guy.

 

He rolled his sleeves, making another sponge to appear and he started to clean the dishes with Alastor, in silence, without a single word between them.

 

 

They said good night and Alastor went first to the room of his sleeping daughter to kiss her hair and then he went to his room, closing the door. He changed to his pajamas and opened the letter to start to read.

 

“Alastor,

I won't say this letter is hard for me because what is hard is remembering all the things I did wrong and all the things I put you through.

I was a monster, there is no way to sugarcoated, there is no way to fool myself about it. I was abusive, violent and distrustful. I yelled at you, insulted you, abused my power with you and I never treated you with the respect you deserved.

I was there, with all the power of the universe at my fingers tips and I decided to be a monster with a person that showed me only love and care.

I trampled on your boundries time and time again and I never made the effort to learn more about those boundries, to learn more about you. In fact, Belphegor opened my eyes to that truth: I really don't know who you are. I knew Milady but for me, I had those misconceptions that was only a farse, that it was a play so my idea of her, of you isn't truth to the real experience and I know Alastor, the Radio Demon, by reputation only and the impression that I made in minutes after seeing you at the hotel. I don't know you, I filled my mouth with a word so big as 'I love you' but I don't know you. But I want to... And... I want to apologize for all those horrible things I put you through, for the yelling, the insults, the fear, for taking your freedom, your soul, your friends, your power and for breaking your heart. You didn't deserve it, you didn't deserve any of the bad things that happened to you in life or in death. You deserve happiness and I know it is too much to ask, but I want to procure it to you.

I want to see you happy, to see Ankareeda happy and growing with all the things she could possible need.

And I repeat myself but I'm sorry. Those things that I did were monstruosities and I'll do anything in my power to amend the past and never do something like that again in the future.

And I know I can't ask you for forgiveness or a future, but... Can we be friends? Know each other, the real us?

That's my hope for now.

With sincere sentiment and repentance,

always yours.

Lucifer”.

 

The demon had tears in his eyes, he was resting on the bed over his back, the letter in his chest, a hand over it.

 

The memories were flowing, good and bad, sad and terrible and some so good. Those first months before everything went to shit.

 

He didn't want to dream, time ago he embraced his misery and the only happiness he wanted to achieve, the only want he was pursuing was his daughter but maybe... maybe...

 

Alastor looked at the letter again, he read it, he smell the paper with the lingering aroma of ripe apple from Lucifer. He didn't want to wish... But the same his daughter wanted to help the monarch, maybe he could do it too.

 

The idea of Lucifer loving him, being himself, knowing him almost made him cry again.

 

Maybe, maybe not... maybe the king knowing the real Alastor could kill completelly their love more than that nightmare infused time they lived together. Maybe...

 

Maybe... He folded the letter, opened the drawer of his bedside table and saved it there.

 

Until two days ago his afterlife was filled with dread, with woe... fear for his daughter, hatred for the Fallen Angel mixed with all the feelings he still had for him... Now... maybe now, he could be free from all of that.

 

Sure, the Devil would have to make more than a simple letter but the Radio Demon had to recognize that the steps he was taking those days, were promising.

 

Alastor turned in bed to sleep with a song around him, from the musical Cabaret, with the sweet voice of Liza Minnelli lulling him to sleep.

 

Maybe this time, I'll be lucky

Maybe this time, he'll stay

Maybe this time, for the first time

Love won't hurry away

 

He will hold me fast

I'll be home at last

Not a loser, anymore

Like the last time

And the time before

Notes:

In the next one, we'll go to see Auntie Rosie.. bringing along some blond short king ;)

Chapter 19: Little outting with investigation on the side

Summary:

Alastor decides to pay a visit to his friend Rosie to assure the woman he was alive and well, going with his daughter now that she doesn't have to hide.

Lucifer ask to go with them. What could go wrong?

Notes:

Well, here we are, picking again the pace of the story with the beginning of a mistery

“A witch ought never to be frightened in the darkest forest, Granny Weatherwax had once told her, because she should be sure in her soul that the most terrifying thing in the forest was her.”

~Terry Pratchett, Wintersmith

 

The next day, after the breakfast, Lucifer found himself reading a book his daughter procured for him from the Living World (there weren't so many self-help books on Hell) about self-control and building friendships in stress ridden environment. Apparently Belphegor recommended something like this to her and Charlie even said she had another of those books the Sin recommended waiting for when he read this one.

 

Lucifer was never too good studing, in fact, he never really did. Some things about the Living World or Sinners he knew by osmosis, like languages or slang or even geography, thanks to being the Original Sin Giver. That act, that linked Eve and all her descents to him gave information and the rest he got only when it suited him.

 

Music, movies, literature... But he never studied something, he never had to center his mind into achieving a thing.

 

He had some ways, sure. With Anka and her sign language, he repeated the gestures a couple of times when learned them and when he was in private, he practiced them in front of the mirror. With this book he was making notes.

 

From the pages you could see multicolored strips with annotations coming out and inside the pages, there were sections highlighted with colorful markers.

 

And while making one of those annotations, he saw the Radio Demon and his little girl going to the door, turning Alastor around.

 

“No, no, no... go and put on some shoes” he said to the girl, who was wearing a beautiful lilac color dress, with a ribbon on her back and baggy sleeves.

 

Ankareeda signed something that looked like a protest.

 

“You can go on your hoofsies at the bayou and the hotel, not outside” said Alastor, firm, pointing with his cane to the elevator. “Off you go, missy.”

 

The girl bared her teeth and turned around, making gestures so hard that her hands were making noice when coming together.

 

“I heard that!” said Alastor with a huge smile.

 

Lucifer closed the book and made it dissapear together with the markers and post-it notes and moved near the Radio Demon.

 

“Are you going out with her?” asked the king.

 

“Yes” responded Alastor, adjusting his bowtie.

 

“And that's... safe?” he asked, raising a brow.

 

Alastor took a gander to the shorter man and sighed.

 

“This is Hell, darling, of course isn't safe” said the demon. “But I need to see Rosie and my daughter needs to go out and see other things that aren't my bayou or this hotel. She's being hidden all her life, she now can start to live properly.”

 

Lucifer clicked his tongue. Even when he was the possible peril Alastor feared and he wasn't now... there were a lot of bad things outside that door.

 

“I get that, truly, I do” he started to say. “But... What happens if someone attack her?”

 

Alastor looked again back to the man and raised a brow with impecable form.

 

“I'll pity them” said the Radio Demon with a wide smile and tilting his head.

 

“Yeah, I know you can...” Alastor interrupted him.

 

“My daughter can defend herself pretty well, dear” said the red demon.

 

Lucifer was the one that tilted his head this time, in a more natural angle that Alastor but still.

 

“She can fight?” he asked.

 

“Well, of course!” said cheerfully the demon. “I was training her to fight you, I bet she can manage with a regular sinner.”

 

Well, that was logical as Lucifer thought about it. He was “the enemy”, the danger for the girl, it was normal that Alastor prepared her to fight against giving the case, maybe not to win but to win enough time for him to act or, taking the girl knew about Charlie, to go with her.

 

But that raised a new doubt.

 

“And why she didn't attacked me in the bayou?” asked the monarch.

 

“Because you didn't attacked her first” said the demon. “She won't attack unprovoked and you weren't showing aggresion nor you were attacking her.”

 

“That makes sense” it made it. Alastor was educating the girl in good morals, maybe in his twisted code of honour even.

 

That made him sigh, both his apples were equally good.

 

Ankareeda returned with shoes in the same color as her dress and made some gestures.

 

“It's a necessity, darling” responded the demon. “And it shows decorum in a young lady such as yourself. Well, toodeloo!! We are going, we'll be back around lunch hour unless Rosie invites us for it.”

 

When he moved to the door, the king moved with him.

 

“I'll go with you two” he said, making Alastor frooze and turn around, with serious eyes.

 

“You won't do such a thing” said the Radio Demon.

 

“I'll do... I'm not... comfortable with Anka moving around Pentagram” the deer demon was about to say something but the king make a gesture asking him to let he continue. “And I know, I know, not my place but... Also this will help with my thing.”

 

He said, pointing the word because he didn't know how to define his therapy+self-help+knowing him+making amends for past sins, so it was 'his thing' and that was that.

 

“And...” he added. “I guess I need to thank Rosie for helping you in those trying times and apologize to her. I bet she was also scared with me.”

 

Alastor thought for a moment.

 

“She wasn't scared” said the Radio Demon. “She was pissed off. And I don't think is a good idea going on a stroll with the King of Hell by one of my sides and my daughter to the other. I'm pretty sure the majority of sinners and hellborn in this beautiful town are very bad at math but surely most of them know how to resolve 1+1.”

 

Because that girl was screaming her ascendency to the four winds and it could be fly over the heads of the majority for the absurdity of the Radio Demon warming the bed of Lucifer, but if they were seem together that absurdity will become certainty.

 

Lucifer understood that but he raised a finger.

 

“I can go incognito” he said with a huge smile.

 

“Are you gonna go dress with proper clothes?” asked the demon.

 

The monarch crossed his arms.

 

“What's wrong with my regular suit?” he asked.

 

“Nothing, darling” said the Radio Demon “but don't get mad when people try to determine where you have the clowns hidden.”

 

Lucifer scoffed.

 

“In any case, I was meaning like this” he transformed into his snake form and jumped over Anka's shoulders.

 

The girl was first surprised but then she laughed when she felt the biforked tongue near her cheek. She moved a hand to pet the head of the transformed king and with the other she signed.

 

 

“Yes, he can turn into a serpent” said the Radio Demon. “But that doesn't mean...”

 

Anka moved her hands and Lucifer emited a delighted sound, pointing with his tail to the girl's hands.

 

“Hey, I recognize that one, it means friends...”

 

“She's telling me that you can come, that you are friends and you need to socialize” Alastor sighed. “Very well, but behave, specially in front of Rosie.”

 

“Sure, I'll be a gentleman” said the white snake.

 

“You better” said the red demon.

 

Alastor opened the door of the hotel and let his daughter to pass, with her new pet around her shoulders, going through the gardens in front the hotel to the metal door that is the final barrier between Hazbin Hotel and the rest of Pentagram City.

 

***

 

V Territory, V Tower, Vox's sancta sanctorum...

 

Vox was sitting in his regular place, his chair in the middle of his kingdom like he loved to call it in his mind.

 

He was sipping coffee and using his phone to see the last numbers from one of his shell companies, the monitors around him were low but not silent, emiting the sounds of things so different as his channels, his security cameras but also every image caught by his Voxtek Voyer Scopes and the ones he sold, every image his sold V-Watch were getting and also everything that came to him from every television around Pride Ring.

 

All Hell, or at least the part of Hell that mattered to him, was at the reach of his fingertips. That's why he rarely left the tower, there was no need. Even if he needed something outside, he could manage to get it thanks to the vast multitude of employees he had on his different businesses.

 

Maybe that ex-angelic filth was the official king by name, but Vox held more control over Pride Ring that the Devil himself, at least that what he thought.

 

Thinking on Lucifer made him always mad... Never met the Fallen in person, though he was near the very same a bunch of times, but he hated him with passion. First, he didn't know what that petulant bitch had that he doesn't had double. He was small, misshapen, with those ridicule rosie cheeks and with no sense on fashion whatsover. It was a clown, that what he was... A powerful one, but a clown.

 

“Fuck, Alastor...” he hated the man just because of his old partner.

 

So enthralled the deer was with the king, for that memories he had from him for when he was young. Bullshit, bullshit, fuck... He ignored him for decades and then he spoke to him in a way in that party... That fucking Fallen shit even broke his relationship. They were... happy? No, ok, ok was the word, ok was perfect. They were ok and he made them broke.

 

Alastor asked him to move and he managed to talk him out of it but their thing was sour with no remedy after that. His reactions in that party, knowing like he knew that Lucifer was about to be a fucking cunt with the Radio Demon, he was trying to protect him, but those actions made the deer think he didn't support him.

 

They stopped sleeping in the same bed, Alastor was making excuses to not be much time with him and... Finally that fight that ended up with the Radio Demon's mansion, his radio tower and what today was Doomsday District transformed into a pile of shit.

 

Vox and Alastor screamed to each other, Vox ran his mouth, hurt as he was by the red demon and his partner's fury was something that caught the TV demon completelly by surprise. He touched, he knew it as soon as the words left his mouth, the two things he shouldn't touch: Alastor's mother and Lucifer.

 

The tech overlord never saw the real eldritch form of Alastor until that day, he never thought his powers were in that way at all but he had to fight a colossal Radio Demon in the middle of a frenzy, surrounded by shadow creatures ready to kill for him everything that was around the monstruos form and with that green hellfire that he was producing like nothing. Still Doomsday was burning, even when the green faded to regular orange and red colors.

 

That was also the first time Vox had a death in Hell. He never had to recompose his form before, he never became as damaged as in that fight... maybe because his other fights before that pivotal moment were with Alastor by his side.

 

He sighed.

 

At least he knew he was lucky, Alastor had the power to consume souls and he could do that to him. He didn't, the same as he didn't tried to reclaim or even reconstruct his old turf. It was like the Radio Demon, after that fight that was the end for them as a couple, didn't want a thing to do with that old life together.

 

And after that, there were more squabbles, Vox tried to maintain a friendship, he even fucking offered him a place on the Vees, nothing... And they fought again, that time with Valentino in his side and they fucking lost again.

 

And later... when he remembered the way he felt the day his cameras catched on him, in that dress, in that... His heart was sunk to the floor. Sure, he could use that to mock him, hurt him, but he could only thought in the only reason for him to do something like that and that reason, that fucking Fallen filth of a man, made him sick.

 

He was completelly sure that Alastor was forced to that, forced to be what he wasn't and he wanted to help him, he wanted to... He tried to told to him, he tried to offer his help just to receive the sharp words from the Radio Demon, his words aimed to hurt him in the worst places.

 

Vox moved to open a drawer under his desk and took a bottle of rum, mixing half a pint with his coffee.

 

Fucking Alastor and poor Alastor... then, seven years later, he appeared again, full aggression towards him and being the lap dog of Miss Rainbows, surely at the Fallen filth's order. At least he was Alastor again, at least from doors out... who knows if that fucking clown was still using him for his perverted dress up games and sexual needs.

 

He was distracted by his memories but something catched his ear, something from one of the monitors.

 

Vox moved the monitor in front of him, that was a sound of distortion and there it was, Alastor, strolling light like nothing through Bad Butcher's Street near Cannibal Town, to see Rosie, no doubt. But... what the fuck was that?

 

The overlord moved the image and tried to focus in the Radio Demon's companion, that small figure... It was slightly distorted by Alastor's own power but when she, because was a she, moved, the demon could see her clearly.

 

The ears were like Alastor, the same that her skin color. Small red claws and a tail, deer or doe tail. And those eyes... but those, recognizable features, weren't the ones that catched his eyes the most, it were the blond hair and the two rosie cheeks she had... The small girl, small to be around seven years old.

 

“Oh, fuck me three times!!” he exclaim, with his hypnotic eye going full motion, his temperature raising, getting pissed off by the moment. “That's what that monster did to you??”

 

Vox was royaly pissed.

 

The fucking Fallen filth used his Alastor to breed??! Motherfucker... first as a concubine, then like a fucking... and then he used him to bodyguard his other daughter. Enough was enough.

 

When he learned angels could get kill with angelic steel, after the last extermination he purchased a couple of angelic arms from Carmilla. The temptation of going after the fucking king was there but now... now? This is a necessity he would need to face.

 

***

 

Ankareeda was all the trip asking questions about what she was seeing, absorving information like a sponge and seeing all with the innocent eyes of a child, marveled at all the new things that she didn't know and what seeing in that moment.

 

And Lucifer was resolving some of her questions when the Radio Demon translated her signing but also he was asking for the signs themselves, trying to mimic them with his serpentine tail.

 

“Question, sire, why you repeat the signs to learn them?” asked the demon, curious for that.

 

“It's my way of learning” said the snake.

 

“Bad memory, I take” said the deer demon.

 

“Yeah, I told you, my memory ain't great or, better say, my memory is perfect” said the monarch.

 

“Come again?” responded Alastor.

 

“You see, my memory is perfect in the sense that I catch on everything around me in photographic perfection” started to explain the monarch “but I'm an ancient being, ten thousand years of memories could make everyone go mad so my brain tends to store what I don't focus and it's like forgetting. If someone remind me of a detail, I can bring the memory to full focus and I remember everything, smells, feelings, fluctuations of energy... But yeah, if I don't put on an effort to keep things in focus, I forget about them.”

 

Alastor thought about that while they were entering into Cannibal Town, maybe that explained why he didn't recognized him or he didn't remembered certain things until he told about them. His daughter called his attention and she signed.

 

“Yeah, I guess that's a way to put it” said the demon.

 

“What she said?” asked the king.

 

“That your memory is like having a bookshelf” explained Alastor while guiding them around the streets of Cannibal Town. “The bookshelf is there but maybe you don't remember what books you have or what's inside them until you open one.”

 

Lucifer thought about it.

 

“Yeah! Yeah, that's a way to put it!” he rubbed his snake's head over the cheek of the girl, like a pet. “You're very intelligent, Anka.”

 

“Yes, my baby is very intelligent” said the Radio Demon, while opening the door of the Emporium. “People will be very afraid of her for that.”

 

The bell at the door announced their arrival and the Emporium, like always, was full of cannibals, trying to get in the last trends of the town in clothes, the last cannibal delights and some favours from the vivacious owner of the establishment.

 

The girl ran as soon as she saw the cannibal overlord and jumped to her arms, very happy of seeing again that woman that, for her, was the most similar thing to a mother she had.

 

“Oh, my baby, my baby!!” and for the way the woman was reacting, she was of the same sentiment. “Look at you, so tall and gorgeous and the dress!! You liked the dresses I send you with papa?”

 

Rosie didn't want to release the girl, she keep her in a tight embrace near her, crunching the King of Hell without knowing it.

 

The girl signed and Rosie was delighted.

 

“Oh, love you liked them and that I nailed the sizing” she moved her eyes and catched on the overlord. “Alastor!!”

 

She ran to the overlord and hugged him strongly, catching then the cheeks of the man looking him directly in the eyes.

 

“You're fine, oh, stupid drama of a man!!” she said, giving him then a light punch in his wide chest. “You made me a fucking mess!! You know how much I cried?? How worried I was!! Mister, I'm waiting for an explanation and a fucking apology!!”

 

Alastor was just smiling softly to the woman. He adored that woman with all his being, she was like his mother but with a pinch of assertiveness and camaraderie mixed inside. Like a big sister.

 

“I'm fine, yes... Sorry for worrying you, dear, but I really thought those were my final hours on this delightful realm” apologized the demon.

 

“What happened? Why is Anka here?” she then placed a wicked smile in her face. “Did you find another way to dispose of that terrible man?”

 

Lucifer, thinking that was his cue, jumped from the little girl's shoulders to revert to his regular form in front of the Emporium, making the multitude in there to made a collective impresion of surprise. Smiling, he began to adjust his clothes and when he was adjusting his hat, he found himself in a pinch.

 

The handle of an umbrella was holding him from the nape and an angelic knife was right in his throat, making him open his eyes widely. Rosie was holding him there, with an expression that could only be describe as 'Chose your words carefully'.

 

“You swine!” said the woman, her clientele were almost holding their collective breaths. “You have some balls to show up on my establishment after all the things you did to my friend and my baby.”

 

For a moment the king didn't know how to act. He knew he couldn't be hurt, he knew it very well but fuck that woman was terrifying in that moment, he felt like he landed into a pit of snakes and a king cobra was ready to bite him.

 

“I'm sorry, I... if we can talk like civilized demons, maybe, madame, I can...” he said, then he felt the blade making contact with his skin and drawing droplets of golden blood.

 

“We can talk perfectly well like this” spat Rosie. “Trust me, asshole, I know I can't kill you with this but sure I can make a beautiful mess and hurt you a little, specially if I cut your dick and balls off.”

 

The king closed his thighs together in a reflex.

 

“Release him, Rosie” asked Alastor softly, placing a hand over her armed hand. “We are trying to fix things and Ankareeda is secured.”

 

The woman looked to her friend and then to the little girl that was nodding at her. She took a deep sigh and released the king. Both the parasol and the knife were gone to who knows where.

 

Lucifer adjusted his clothes again.

 

“Ehmmm.. I guess I could go with a proper introduction” said the king.

 

“Allow me” said the Radio Demon. “Sire, this is Rosie, Lady Major of Cannibal Town and the most dangerous overlord of this part of the Pentagram.”

 

“Yeah, I could see that” he said, taking with his fingers the drops of his blood from his healed throat.

 

“Rosie, this is Lucifer Morningstar, Sin of Pride, King of Hell and work in progress” said the Radio Demon.

 

“It's a pleasure, Miss Rosie” said the king, tipping his hat.

 

“I would really love to say the same” responded the woman. “Mila, please, some tea. And I'll need hot cocoa and some vanilla treats for my sweet baby.”

 

She said, taking the girl with an arm and moving her nearer. The employee of the woman nodded and Rosie made a gesture to guide the two men to her apartment over the emporium. It was a delicate place, beautifully decorated in the style of the lates 1800 with little strokes of things more modern like a very old black and white tv (though that could be ancient for some younger people).

 

There was a table with two chairs and the woman moved to get from one of the rooms conected to that place two more and placed them around the table.

 

“Ok, start talking, both of you” said the woman. “Because the last time I saw my friend, he was like a man walking to get a very tight noose and a short drop, if you catch my meaning, and now he looks ok with the... pardon my french... the small pile of shite that plagued his nightmares for years.”

 

Lucifer was about to say something but Alastor interruptec the man.

 

“Rosie, darling, can Ankareeda go to your room to see some of your movies there?” asked the Radio Demon. “Sure she missed them.”

 

The girl showed her annoyance and started to sign.

 

“These are adult themes, love” said the red demon to his daughter. “I know you're not stupid but all will be tell to you when you get to certain age but for now, at least as a deference to your own father, could you please go to play on Rosie's room? I'll bring you the cocoa and the cookies there.”

 

She sighed, she bared her teeth, she stomped her feet geting out of the chair, signed something and moved to the farther door, closing it when she was inside the room. Alastor made a gesture to his own shadow and he went with her, because knowing her, she could try to sneak listen to them.

 

“What she said when she was going?” asked Lucifer.

 

“That she expects payment for this unfair treatment” said Rosie.

 

“She want sweets” clarified the Radio Demon.

 

After a tense silence after that, they started to tell Rosie what happened, what they talked, what they agreed upon and what Lucifer was doing to mend his temper.

 

“Well, shit, this is a fucking mess” said the woman. “First...”

 

She turned to Lucifer and he, by instint, tried to hide behind the tea cup he had in his hand.

 

“It's good you are owning your mistakes but here we aren't talking about some stupid thing you said, even you yelling... What you did was very serious” said the woman. “When Alastor stopped coming to Cannibal Town, I tried to visit in your manor and I couldn't get in or get a word from you even.”

 

Lucifer thought for a moment.

 

“I... was never informed of any visits” said the monarch. “I know what I did was horrendous, I'm not trying to justify myself but in my mind, I was preventing any harm coming to him and... yes, I was jealous. In fact I never catched on tv again, in fact I tossed out all the tvs in the manor.... But, but... anyway, if my guards would have told me of your visit, I would have let you visit.”

 

In the state he was, completelly irrational, jealous and with fear of being abandon again, he never thought in telling him to call for his friend. That was another thing he will be thinking about, together with the rest of his mistakes.

 

“That's worrisome” said the woman. “It was more than once... and taking all you told me, that unfair play seems to be prevalent.”

 

Rosie took a sip from her cup.

 

“That doesn't mean you are in the clear, your highness” said the overlord. “I have a ton of bones to pick with you and trust me, in my town we know about picking bones.”

 

“I know, Miss Rosie and I'm sorry for all the things I did and all the things that also affected you” he said, looking to the woman. “I'm doing what I can to be better, specially for Anka... and I'll find out who made a bad situation worst and punish them accordently.”

 

The woman nodded, taking one of the pinky fingers from the table and eating it.

 

“You better...” said the woman. “You can't be kill with angelic steel but you feel pain?”

 

“A little” said Lucifer, nerviously. “It's like a pinch, a... discomfort, but not a huge pain per sé, not like I saw in other people when they are hurting.”

 

The cannibal overlord started to think for a moment.

 

“Well, I bet I can make a little discomfort be a lot of discomfort” said the woman “so you better take care of my friend and my little girl. I was in her birth, you know? I was the second person that took her in my arms. I bathed her, I clothed her, brushed her hair and read to her at night. I had not participation in the... creation process and I didn't birth her but she's as mine as Alastor's so tread carefully, your highness. Maybe I'm a lowly sinner but I'm a resourceful woman with free time, I can gossip with you, invite you to cookies and tea or I can make my hobby to turn your life into a Living Biblical Hell, so chose carefully what version of Rosie you prefer.”

 

Lucifer never had a mother. He popped out to existance the very same moment Creation wanted some company, followed by his brother Michael... and he was fully grown. So no mother but... Yeah, he felt like a child being scolded for something he definitely did and said mother was now treatening him with grounding with no videogames and phone. And maybe some spanking.

 

“I... I prefer the sweet Auntie Rosie, if possible” said the Devil.

 

“Good!” said the woman. “See, Alastor, darling? The good king, despite the expectations, has something between ear and ear. Very well, have a plan to learn more about what really happened in your manor, your highness?”

 

The monarch nodded.

 

“I contacted one of my service that was active in that time, from my old guard” said the short man. “He's trying to get one of the guards that was working the day that Alastor was hurt.”

 

He was about to say 'the day he escaped' but for his own mind he derived his words. Not because he was denying it but he didn't want to spiral into self-hate when he wanted his head clear.

 

“Not all guards were working, not all guards were after him” said the monarch. “So I'm waiting...”

 

His cellphone started to ring, he made a gesture to both overlords and started to talk.

 

“Yes? Ah, Belgord, talking about the... whatever, did you have any information?” asked the king through the phone. “Aha, I see... Well, thank you for trying.”

 

The king hanged the phone and took some air but soon his devil attributes were showing, with his mouth leaving out burst of fire when he talked.

 

“God fucking damnit all!!” he said, with his voice overtook by power.

 

Both sinners exchanged a look.

 

“Not good, I take it” said Alastor.

 

Lucifer started to breathe, trying to relax himself. He could feel the fire inside him wanting to raise, to consume, he was even shaking.

 

“No, not good” said the monarch. “Belgord was the hellborn I was telling you about, he was captain of the guard and he says he found the registry about the working schedule but couldn't find any of the guards.”

 

Both the Radio Demon and the cannibal overlord thought about it, with the man talking after a minute or so.

 

“That sounds sketchy, dear” said the deer demon. “I take not finding them easy, taking they are hellborn and they could be in any part of Hell, in any Ring. Even trying to find someone in Pride will be a monumental task, a days consumming one, specially if they don't want to be found but... When you asked this task from them? Three, two days ago?”

 

Asked the demon.

 

“One and a half, if we need to be accurate” said the king, catching on what Alastor was saying. “Do you think he's lying to me?”

 

Rosie, who was caressing her own chin, said:

 

“Think it in this way, your highness” the woman took one of the fingers in the table, moving it on her hand while talking. “If someone was in a perfect position to give extra orders, it wasn't a normal guard but a captain, on the other hand...”

 

Lucifer nodded, that was a sound thought.

 

“And now he knows I'm unto something... Fuck, I should interrogate him before he tries to dissapear” said the monarch. “If it was him, I doubt he did this for his own sake, nothing to gain... He could try to vanish or whoever made him do this will want him out of the picture.”

 

He jumped from his chair and took his cane resting near the table.

 

“I should be going then” said the devil.

 

“I'll go with you” said Alastor. “I could question the fella without killing him, I fear you could end up too worked up to ask the right inquiries.”

 

Lucifer thought for a moment and knew Alastor was right. He almost lost it seconds ago because of a bad news, he could burst worse if one of the demons working for him was plotting against him all this fucking time.

 

“Rosie, darling, can you take care of Anka for a moment?” asked the deer demon. “Couple of hours, I take, will suffice.”

 

The woman nodded.

 

“Sure, darling” said the overlord. “But I want the tea as soon as you two return.”

 

Both men nodded, Lucifer created a portal and both went through it.

 

***

 

According to Lucifer's data, Belgord, a hellhound that was his captain of the guard in the time Alastor lived with him, was living in a comfortable life, paid by the crown, on the Royal Circle.

 

The Royal Circle was one of the nine circles of Pride Ring, a place that was called like that because the royal palace Pandaemonium was in the middle surrounded exclusivelly by houses of servants to the Crown of Hell.

 

Current service and retired ones, guards, artisants, tailors, sculptors... Even demons in highers stations like the royal astrologist, Stolas, were living in the Royal Circle. And Lucifer transported Alastor and himself to one of the streets, near a two stories home, with walls of untreated stone and a very rustic wooden door.

 

Lucifer moved to said door and knocked in it with his cane and waited.

 

Alastor was looking around, it was not the first time for him in the Royal Circle but he only came before when he was trying to get near the king, as soon as he arrived to Hell. He was curious, but his curiosity was short lived when his nose catched on something.

 

“Your hellhound is running away” said the deer demon, releasing his tentacles and using them to elevate himself over the ground, moving to the top of the house to follow the running demon.

 

The king opened his wings and followed the deer demon flying.

 

“I can't believe he's stupid enough to think he can outrun the King of Hell” complained the monarch, showing his devil attributes for the annoyance.

 

“Some people do stupid things when they are afraid, sire” said Alastor, catching at last a view of the running mutt.

 

The Radio Demon launched two of his tendrils, not trying to pierce the demon but trying to impede his running, impacting hard in the ground around his feet. He jumped to dodge and Alastor used his magic, pointing with his cane to the alley, to move the shadows to throw things in his path, like trash cans, boxes. He was agile, that wasn't on doubt, because he was dodging everything and not reducing his speed even in the slightless.

 

“I'm tired of this!” said the Devil.

 

He moved so fast that he was light for a moment and he descended in front of the hellhound pointing at him with his cane. But Belgord wasn't stopping and tried to jump over the short man... Lucifer wasn't having it and raised a hand, holding to his shirt to then impact him over the concrete of the street.

 

It was a thing of beauty, seeing a man so short manhandling a two hundred pound seven feet hellhoud like it was an unrully poodle.

 

Alastor descended to street level hiding his tentacles as soon as he did, walking to the mistreated mutt and the monarch.

 

“Oh, your majesty, I didn't know it was you!” tried to said the hellhound, with Lucifer moving him again to force him to stand.

 

“Cut the bullshit” said the monarch. “You lied to me, I want to know why.”

 

The hellhound whimpered like a puppy, exchanged a frightened look between his king and the Radio Demon.

 

“Me? Of course no, your majesty” said the demon. “I'll never do something like that, his majesty is too powerful for a lowly demon like me to try to...”

 

Lucifer growled and interrupted.

 

“For all that it's unholy, use your tongue!!” the hellhound and Alastor looked at him with interrogative faces. “Sorry, I like a little bit of dirty talk when someone is trying so hard to suck my dick. Cut the crap, Belgord, I know you didn't even try to find the guards and that was you the one I wanted to find all this time.”

 

The hellhound whimpered again, tried to run again but Alastor reacted fast and held him in place using his tentacles.

 

“What our gracious monarch is saying is that we know you were receiving external orders on his manor” said the Radio Demon, resting his hands over the cane. “So start to talk, my mangy fella, because the king can kill you fast and without a second thought but I love to take my time when I talk to new friends. You know who I am or you wouldn't be shivering so hard looking at me so unless you want to be the new star of my broadcast, talk.”

 

The hellhound looked at both man, forced to be there, with his back against a wall, with the shadow tendrils making pressure over his limbs.

 

“Ok... I... I did, I had orders and I followed them!!” said the demon. “I didn't want to but I had no other choice.”

 

Lucifer growled.

 

“You had the chose to go to your king and spill the beans and I could take care of the problem” said the monarch.

 

“I couldn't!! Your majesty, you have to believe me!! I was... I couldn't... I can't!!” he said, desperated, afraid and with tears in his eyes.

 

“The name” said the monarch, cold as Siberia. “I want the fucking name or names. Now!”

 

The hellhound moved, tossing against the shadow tendrils, like he was feeling a high degree of pain. He opened his mouth and initially nothing came out of it.

 

Then, he talked.

 

“These secrets aren't mine, my lips are sealed” he started to convulse, his bones started to sound, breaking... soon the hellhound looked like a broken doll, bones protuding outside of his flesh and blacken blood running from his eyes, mouth, nose and now the wounds his bones made in him.

 

Alastor released his tentacles and the hellborn was dead before them.

 

“What the fuck?” exclaimed the king. “What the fuck happened?”

 

“Magick” said the demon, squatting near the corpse. “This is a safeguard, not the first time I see one but this one was brutal. In my time I saw demons affected trying to swallow their own tongue, trying to kill themselves but nothing like this.”

 

Lucifer went down to the same level as Alastor.

 

“And who could do something like that?” asked the devil.

 

“Anyone” said the demon. “With the proper knowledge of course. A sinner that was a witch or a warlock in the Living World before ending here or a demon learning to do this party trick. They don't need to be an overlord or something like that even... These types of guards can only be placed with the consent of the recipient though a brutal one like this I think requires a bit of power. I think I can master something like this... people like Zestial and Rosie could... and from that, up, the sky is the limit.”

 

The king made a clicking sound with his tongue.

 

“That doesn't round the suspects much” said Lucifer. “Overlords, arcs goetia... Even the sins, I'm not in good standing with all of them.”

 

“And we don't know if this was a targeted thing for you or for me” said Alastor.

 

The devil looked back at him.

 

“I never thought about that, could be a targeted thing against you too” he growled so strong, flames left the sides of his mouth. “If they fucking used me to hurt you... Fuck, Alastor, I never tortured a person, causing pain was never my vice but I swear to you, if that's the case, I want you to teach me. I want to earn my fucking reputation as the Devil with these fuckers, whoever they are.”

 

Alastor moved a hand and placed over the shoulder of the shorter man.

 

“Don't worry, darling, darkness will take them, we'll make sure of that” Lucifer smiled to the man and the Radio Demon nodded before raising up. “But here ends this first inquiry. I suggest we turn around and go to the house of this fine gentleman to try to find any clue.”

 

Lucifer rose too, cleaning adjusting his clothes.

 

“Agreed, let's see what we can find” said the monarch.

 

***

 

Back in the house of the hellhound, a very luxury infused house with very expensive furniture that catched the eyes from both men immediactly, the Radio Demon called his servant frineds and his shadow to help with the search.

 

They found a huge amount of cash hid in different part of the house, some papers of property ownership in Imp City for an attic and a storage unit, the keys from both places and a paper that catched Lucifer's eye.

 

“'The Radio is getting dangerously updated' it says... Why I have the feeling this talks about you?” said the king.

 

“Atrocious calligraphy but I agree” he took the paper, it was small like from a notepad, pink and had a letterhead in golden like mimicing embroidery. “The paper is of very good quality and smell like coffee and birds... also smells like gold.”

 

Said the demon.

 

“Wow, your nose is that good?” asked the monarch, surprised.

 

“Deers have better sense of smell than humans, at least one thousand times better” said the demon. “It's thanks to a gland they had just for that. I had it too... It felt like another curse with this form when I arrived to Hell, all the smells around me for a mile at the same time. But I learned to control it and use it.”

 

Lucifer took the paper again.

 

“I know this place” said the monarch. “This is from the Richest Cup, it's a café in Imp City, very preppy, snobbish, good coffee, tho... I remember because I asked for something to write last time I was there, a duck idea struck and... Well, whatever. We can investigate this place.”

 

The Radio Demon nodded.

 

“Good for me, dear, we have a couple of clues to go to, that place and the properties” said the demon. “I suggest we return to Cannibal Town, go home with Anka and tomorrow we can start digging. We can start for the café.”

 

The king nodded at the same time he was making a portal for both of them to cross.

 

“It's a date, then.”

Notes:

Did I mention that I love to write Rosie? Btw, the quote in this chapter is about her... I'm basing my Rosie with a mix of canon Rosie with some sprinkles of Granny Wheaterwax from Discworld and I'm taking the old backstory from her that she never die to go to Hell aka, a practicioner of magic that ended up there.

Chapter 20: Coffee, clues and a rabbit hole

Summary:

Rosie visits the hotel with presents for Alastor's daughter and the Radio Demon and the Devil go out, to investigate the clues they had.

Memories are a strange thing, can sew sour moments and also pure terror into reality.

Notes:

I'm loving this fanfiction and, at the same time, I'm preparing a draft for another idea for Radioapple I had, for an Au mixing one of my favorite fandoms. I wanted to finish this first but the other one is iching me a lot!!

“What is truth? The negation of lies? Or the statement of a fact? And if the fact is a lie, what then is the truth?”

~Yennefer of Vengerberg, Sword of Destiny

 

The next morning was shared by Vaggie, Charlie, Lucifer and Ankareeda, teaching the girl some fundamentals about sign languages and some more used words. And with every day that was passing, they were seeing the character and the behaviour of that little girl.

 

She was intelligent, a lot for a seven years old and her ways were a mix between Lucifer and Alastor. Anka could be correct, serious and even intimidating (or trying to, she was way too cute for that) and she was a regular goofball, very proud of herself and a complete addict to sweet treats.

 

And after morning and lunch, Alastor and Lucifer were ready to go to that rich café in Imp City and they receive a visit from Rosie at the same time.

 

“Hi, Rosie!” Charlie hugged the woman and she, after releasing a lot of boxes and packages to the floor, did the same. “I didn't know you will be coming to visit.”

 

Anka, who was coming to the lobby with her dad, ran to the woman to hugged her.

 

“Now that the cat is out of the bag, expect me here very often” said the cannibal overlord. “I'll be visiting you and my baby and I'm watching your father like a falcon.”

 

Said the woman and Charlie sighed to that. She wanted to believe that everything will be solved and everything between Alastor and him will be ok, that maybe all five, counting Vaggie, could be a big happy family... but she was also being cautious, not only to protect Alastor from more pain but also there was a little girl in the mix they have to prioritize at all cost.

 

“Yeah, I know” said the princess. “Dad told me you pulled a fast one on him, threating him with an angelic knife to the throat.”

 

Anka was looking through the packages and Rosie was helping her, showing her beautiful dresses, toys gallore and shoes... that made the girl frown for a moment.

 

“I wasn't threating his throat, dear” said the woman. “Taking he can't be kill, I was threating his manhood and balls... but one is a lady to move a knife to those places if there is no cutting involved.”

 

Alastor hugged the woman and started to see what she brought for his little one.

 

“You didn't need to, dear, this is way too much” said the demon.

 

“Like you have any leg in what I want to gift my baby or not” said the cannibal. “I also brought you some new books, Anka.”

 

The girl looked very excited for the books and started to search for them in the bags and boxes. Lucifer in that moment was coming to the lobby too and smiled, softly and nerviously to the overlord.

 

“Good afternoon, Miss Rosie” said the king, even removing his hat.

 

“Howdy, your highness” said the sinner.

 

“I see you brought some things for Anka” said the monarch.

 

“Clothes and what not” the girl raised the books to the air after finding them. “And books, of course. She needs food for thought.”

 

There were three books, two of a new print apparently and the third one very old, with pink and black covers of leather.

 

“That one was my mother's” said the woman. “It's a little spell book with some nice tricks to have, something you surely can master with your abitlities. There is one even to decorate that you can use to help the good princess here.”

 

Anka smiled broadly and said thank you with sign language.

 

“Are all the spells in there safe?” asked the monarch.

 

“Nop” responded the cannibal. “But this book is very educational.”

 

“What if she hurts herself?” asked the king.

 

“That will be a valueable lesson” the woman made a gesture. “I'm just teasing, your majesty. The worst that could happen is her having her hair blue for some days.”

 

Alastor looked back to the king.

 

“Rosie will never do a thing to endanger my daughter” said the Radio Demon.

 

“The other two books are one with egyptian myths and this one is a story of a young witch called Tiffany Aching” said the woman. “You'll love them.”

 

“Well, we should be going, darling” said the red demon to the monarch.

 

Lucifer nodded, placed his hat over his head again and after saying good bye to Anka and Charlie, he created a portal for him and the Radio Demon, crossing both men through it.

 

“I hope they can work together without incidents” said Charlie.

 

“Yesterday they worked together fine, according to Alastor” commented Rosie. “But that was an hour and a half or so, this I take will be more time.”

 

Anka looked to both women and started to sign.

 

“She says that all will be ok, that her... what?” the cannibal overlord was surprised.

 

“What she said?” asked Vaggie, with her and Charlie being equally curious.

 

“She said that her fathers will mend things up” said the cannibal overlord, looking back to the girl.

 

“Did you know...?” Charlie started and Anka was placing an expression that could be easily red as 'Really?'.

 

The girl started to sign and her signs and expressions were rather significant.

 

“She says that she isn't stupid” translated the overlord. “She knew before meeting the king, she saw the books and magazines about him and saw his face, his photos. She's sassing, you can talk without the sass, young lady, that she has mirrors at home. Even when the ears are Alastor's, she's saying she's identical to Lucifer and you.”

 

Charlie knelt near the girl, smiling.

 

“So you know I'm your sister?” asked the princess.

 

The girl nodded and started to sign again.

 

“She's saying that she knows but she also knows the king did bad things to her dad, that he needs to be better” continued to explain Rosie. “And she isn't taking him as a father until her father is secured with him, for that she said nothing. And she says that's why she offered to help, because she knows her father loves the king, very much so, and she want to fix them.”

 

The princess hugged her and kissed her head, that kid had a great heart and a clear head and loved Alastor a lot. Maybe, some day, she could love in equal messure her dad and herself.

 

“I understand what you want to do but I don't think that lying is good” said Charlie.

 

Ankareeda signed.

 

“She said they lied to her first” said Rosie, with a huge smile. “But she will tell them the truth but she doesn't know how. She wants to help Lucifer, she doesn't want to make Alastor sad.”

 

The princess thought about that for a moment and then she looked to Vaggie for guidance. She was emotional, she knew it and normally her emotions was the motor of her life but this was a life she wanted to protect, so she was cautious.

 

“We can help you with that” said the ex-exorcist. “Maybe if you talk with Lucifer and place the things over the table, he's even more motivated to get his shit together.”

 

Rosie nodded.

 

“Yes and we can reassure your father that he's your absolute priority” said the cannibal. “I think it will be very good that the king will know what he's dealing with. It's not the same risking a future relationship that knowing he's having one, in a way, right now and that he could really hurt you if he fuck things up.”

 

The girl nodded, with a smile, specially for Vaggie who was the first offering her to tackle the problem of reveling her knowledge of the situation.

 

“Anyway, let's go to your room, so you can show it to me and we can try in the dresses, darling” said the cannibal, with the girl raising for the ground and, in a whimp, hug Charlie, surprising her greatfully, making her cry a little, to then teach her the sign for 'sisters': both hand like they were making the 'guns' gesture coming one over the other.

 

Charlie repeated it and Ankareeda nodded, with a huge smile in her face.

 

***

 

Both appeared near the café and Alastor scoffed just looking to the front of the posh establishment, his lip even curled into a semi-snarl.

 

“I take you don't like it” said the king.

 

“It's absolutely revolting, specially their motto” said the Radio Demon, holding his cane by the shaft with two hands, tilting his neck to read said slogan. “But this is Hell, I guess. Not all can be debauchery, violence and greed, sure the worst sin of all had to have a place in this wretched place.”

 

Lucifer smiled wickedly.

 

“What's the worst sin of all?” asked the king.

 

“Systems of social stratification” said the deer demon. “Specially those tied to automatic released or obtained rights just for the fact of being born in a family or place. France gave us so many great things: some types of cheese, exquisite wine, delicious and elegante cuisine, the sewing machine, music like Debussy, Satie, Ravel... some blunders like the Lumière Brothers and their insufferable moving pictures... but the best invention, for me, was the absolute classes equilizer: the guillotine.”

 

He moved to the door of the café while he continued to speak, making Lucifer smile.

 

“There is nothing comparable to take back power and show the rulers what a people can do taking back their power, showing them how much they should fear their subjects” said the Radio Demon.

 

“I see... and as a monarch, should I be afraid?” asked the Devil.

 

“Taking I already tried to ram a sword through you, I think the most reasonable answer is yes” said the demon. “But we'll see in a future if you change my vision about social strata.”

 

The Radio Demon opened the door of the establishment and as soon as he did, one of the imps working the place was trying to barren his passing into the locale.

 

“Sorry, sir, but this is a very exclusive café for the upper echalon of demon society” said the imp with the tone of a servant trained all his life to be proud of being subservient to others. “We don't serve sinners, so maybe you could...”

 

Alastor, knowing perfectly what he should do, in place of what he wanted to do (there was a lot of blood and lessons involved on what he really wanted to do), moved aside and bowed, looking with delight over his periferal vision how the imp almost jumped out of his shoes when he saw the King of Hell stepping inside, holding his cane with his left hand and touching almost playfully the apple top with the finger of the right one. He was serious.

 

“Do we have a problem with my guest or myself?” asked the monarch.

 

The imp was shaking like a leaf and the other employees near him were in the same situation.

 

“Of course no, your highness!!” said the demon. “Right this way, gentlemen, please.”

 

The small demon leaded the way to one of the tables and presented a menu to each one of the men.

 

The place was small, elegant and minimalist, for the surprise of the Radio Demon that was waiting for some golden adorned monstruosity. Shades of pink, violet, blues and reds were the tones of the place. A counter in L with some pastries under a protective crystal and different types of teas and coffees presented in form of the grains and dried leaves in jars. Behind the counter a goat demon was preparing the concoctions and imps, those from very small stature, were serving the little patrons they had in that moment, just a couple of goetia demons in one table and a very elegant succubus with a fish looking demoness.

 

The imps were so small that they were serving directly over the tables.

 

Multiple eyes were on them, curiosity and surprise mixed in equal parts, but a single gaze from the Radio Demon and his darkened eyes with radio dial pupils was enough to assure them some privacy for a moment at least.

 

“Charming” said the deer demon, taking a look at the menu with disinterest. “I feel like I'm back in 1930 on Louisiana, first discriminated for being creole, now for being a sinner. Things never change.”

 

Lucifer clicked his tongue.

 

Alastor suffered the front assault of the racism in United States when he was a young boy, the segregation, the inequal treatment. Lucifer had to manuver that to saved him and luckily they didn't have to throw in the mix the nature of the young boy.

 

“I never asked you” said the monarch. “How you managed to be a radio host in the end? Because I take you were, right?”

 

The smile of Alastor, tense and annoyed, transformed into a soft one when the radio was mentioned.

 

“Yes, I did” said the Radio Demon. “Alastor Montesquieu, the voice of New Orleans. After all that debacle with my father, I started to use my mother's last name instead. Doing odd jobs to bring some money home I learned with a ventriloquist from a circus to change my voice registry and together with the midatlantic accent so predominant in radio those days, I was perfect for the job. But... even with that, my complexion was a problem, even for a job like radio.”

 

An imp was ready to take their orders so they decided to make good on that and Lucifer asked for an oolong tea and Alastor for a black coffee and when they had both things in the table, he continued to talk.

 

“When I started to work on clubs as a pianist or a security block for the girls in some others, my mother taught me how to apply makeup to myself” said the sinner. “I was very light for a mixed creole runt but not enough... so the same as my voice and accent, I changed it. Other men can claim they are self-made but I truly was. From my clothes to my hair, all that Alastor was, my creation. I knew well what was what in the clubs, I was the guy to talk to get booze in the middle of prohibition or the one who knew all the hot clubs and the even hotter girls. And with that influence, I started to work in one of the local stations, as a technician's assistant.”

 

He took a sip from his coffee. It was good coffee but the brewing process had no class and no art and the way he savored it, it said that much.

 

“After a time I was asked to present a new product for a commercial and... that was all she wrote” he said. “Some fanmail later and I was presenting some small segments, from the weather to the political news... I ended up with my own broadcast and making it statewise was a matter of a year. I ended up being famous, rich... and still... still...”

 

The Radio Demon growled a second and the lights blinked twice on the café.

 

“Sometimes I had to put some block in his place for a jab out of place about my origins” said the overlord. “And then I ended up here and I had to start all over again, clawing my place from the bottom of the barrel but... Here is even crueler.”

 

Lucifer took a sip from his tea, enthralled for the demon talking, giving him his all attention.

 

“How so?” asked the monarch.

 

“Here your blood is even more important than in the Living World” said the demon. “If a king or a tyrant is doing life impossible for those under it, they can be kill, people can form their own forms of goberment, select their leaders... for good or for bad. Here sinners we have a limit, a glass ceiling we'll never break. We can't be as powerful as a goetia or a sin or you... petty squabbles between overlords in the end mean nothing, zero real importance. What can an overlord change in Pride, for example, no matter how many souls they have? Specially when the exorcist angels can rob a demon everything in a single swing of a weapon. Let's not talk about those that are even worse that us sinners...”

 

Alastor took another sip and maintained the cup between both hands, in a very contemplative mood while looking his reflexion over the ripples of the coffee.

 

“And I never cared much about myself” said softly the demon, almost low. “I cared for myself the just amount to fullfit my objectives but I have a daughter, that I brought to this unjust world where she will never be valued for her merits, just her origins, where she will have to fight, tooth and nail, to get everything she deserves.”

 

Lucifer knew what the Radio Demon was saying, he was just thinking in her daughter as a sinner but she was much more, she was his too, she was a princess of Hell and that glass ceiling wouldn't be really affecting Anka but he understood. Right now he was just thinking in terms of discrimination and power dynamics and even being hellborn, she was born from a sinner and people will see her like that. Lilith was a sinner too, of course, but she was much more for the denizens of Hell just because she was there first.

 

That was not the moment to remind the Radio Demon that his precious daughter, was his too.

 

“Ankareeda is very wise for her age” started to say the monarch “and very intelligent. She's seven and she read complex books and I saw her talent for shadow magic. She will stand out, you'll see... and we'll help her to have the best life possible. You're not alone, Alastor. She's not alone... both of you have Charlie and Vaggie, Rosie of course and me. Your daughter won't suffer the same you did, I promise you that.”

 

The demon didn't look to the king, he was just looking to the coffee in his cup like he could see the future in it. He finally drank.

 

“Excuse me” said the demon. “Will you be so kind of handing me something to write? Thank you.”

 

He asked to one of the employees. Alastor didn't want to continue that conversation and Lucifer was ready to be pliant to his wishes. That man suffered enough and still he was conflicted about the future for his daughter and himself.

 

Lucifer sighed and the employee returned with a note pad and a pen.

 

The demon examined it meticulously, rubbing his fingers over the paper and observing the object with attention.

 

“Thoughts?” asked the king, observing the object from his position.

 

“The note had to be recent or the scents from it would be more faded” started to say the demon “but there is no impression over the prepared next page. Or the clientele here ask too often for something to write or our mystery contact came days before...”

 

He smelled the note pad.

 

“It's almost faded completelly, but the smell of gold persist” said the Radio Demon.

 

“And that's significative because...?” asked the king.

 

“Look around, there are birds, there is coffee and I thought the smell of gold was because the cups, saucers or cutlery had gold, a filigree or something” explained the deer.

 

Lucifer did look around and the place was extremelly elegant but not ostentatious and, forgetting about small imps on the tables, didn't have some of the more regular things about nobility. The pastries didn't even have gold flakes.

 

“So the gold came from our mysterious contact” the monarch thought for a second and then he made a gesture to Alastor. “Give it to me for a second.”

 

He asked and the demon passed the note pad. The Devil took it between both hands and closed his eyes, centering his mind in the sensations he could feel in the paper. Alastor felt his hair going on point around his body, he could feel the fluctuations from Lucifer's power and even if is was something as subtle as this, that felt like something not a regular sinner could do... and that send ripples across his body.

 

He even sighed.

 

“Oh, yes, they used this note pad, alright” said the king, still eyes closed. “And they are protected by magicks. But I can see the hands, dark green hands, femenine, manicured with gold specks both in the nail polish and the finger itself... I know those hands!”

 

The king said, opening his eyes.

 

“Who is her then?” asked the Radio Demon.

 

“I don't know exactly who but I know the family” said the monarch. “Von Eldritch. It's one of the women of that family the one that wrote the note for our hellhoud fella.”

 

“I know that family by name, sinners, ancient, they are considered nobility because they are from old stock, in fact people tend to forget they are just that, regular sinners” said the demon.

 

“Not so regular” responded the Devil. “They are from the first sinners that ended up here, from the time of the City of Nod and the Babyl Tower. They are practitioners of abyssal magic, a magic that takes power from Hell itself... they were part of that debacle about nephilims and what not that angered Heaven so much. Before that, demons could go to the Living World willy nilly, some got freaky with mortals, some nephilim, half human, half demon, were born, there was a war between them... That was one of the reasons for the Great Flood, my twin brother Michael, he isn't one for half messures. In any case, the Von Eldritch, that had a different name back then, were descendants from a nephilim and they survive like Noa, but using abyssal magic... some from there, some from before, some from after, they all ended up here. I was friends with Frederick, the head of the family but our relationship went south when Charlie broke her engagement with Seviathan... and thank fucking Hells.”

 

Alastor finished his coffee.

 

“I take you weren't happy with the engagement, sire” said the demon.

 

“You can bet... Frederick was funny, nice guy, we used to drink together and talk and what not, and Lilith was good friends with Bethesda, his wife” he clicked his tongue. “But that family always treated horrible Charlie for her ideas, for wanting to help the sinners or see them in a different light. You said most people don't see the Von Eldritch like regular sinners but they also don't see themselves in that light. And Seviathan was...”

 

He growled to then lower his head.

 

“Charlie compared me with Seviathan and she's right” said the monarch. “What I did to you it was the future for her, maybe even worse, taking how he was behaving with her just with an engagement at hand. And that knowledge? Make me hate myself even more, I never wanted to be like that prick, taking my babygirl like she was a commodity.”

 

He sighed and drank his tea completelly, to then snap his fingers calling on the attention of one of the waitress.

 

“Can I ask you a question?” said the monarch.

 

“Yes, your highness, of course” said the small imp, balancing over her head a teapod.

 

“In these past days, did you see a Von Eldritch family member here? A woman?” he asked.

 

The woman thought for a moment.

 

“No that I remember, your highness but can ask Muss, in the counter, if you wish, your majesty” suggested the imp. “He's here most of the time, he has the most punishing working hours. Maybe he knows?”

 

“Thank you” said the monarch, he looked back to Alastor. “Let's ask, then.”

 

They both went to the counter and the goat demon that was behind had a tag that said 'Executive brewer Muss'. The counter was too tall for Lucifer, so Alastor, with a half smile, used one of his tendrils to raised the monarch like a platform.

 

Lucifer was about to bite a jab to the Radio Demon but he decided to center himself in the task at hand.

 

“Excuse me, good sir, I have a question for you” said, very polite, the king.

 

“Of course, your majesty” said the man, nervious and cleaning his hands in a kitchen rag.

 

The king placed the note pad and the pen in the counter and moved them towards the demon.

 

“Days ago there was a woman from the Von Eldritch family here, did you saw her?” asked the devil.

 

The hellborn thought for a moment and finally smiled.

 

“Yeah, there was a woman from the Von Eldritch here” he said, happy to be able to respond to the king. “Don't know a name, but she was dressed in pink and green, makeup with gold, huge white and grey hair, partly covering one of her eyes... I remember her voice was very pitchy.”

 

“Nothing more?” asked Alastor.

 

The demon looked back to the Radio Demon, then to the king, he raised a finger.

 

“Oh, oh, she was wearing a necklace, with an H with diamonds on it” said the man, glad to help even when he didn't know the meaning of that.

 

“Thank you” said the king.

 

“Allow me to take care of the bill, darling” said Alastor, taking out his wallet from his coat and paying the bill with a good tip for both the waitress and the man.

 

Lucifer led him, it was a very Alastor way of dealing with the discrimination he suffered, showing he could pay the bill with extras and be an accomodating costumer at the same time. Both man strolled out of the café and the king snapped.

 

“Let see that apartment first” he suggested.

 

They crossed and the portal was right in front of the door. Out of possible ear reach, the Radio Demon asked:

 

“So you know the Von Eldritch woman, yes?”

 

“Yes, Helsa, sister of Seviathan and rival of Charlie” said the king, making the keys they found in Belgord's home appear and opening the door with them.

 

“Charlie has a rival?” that was surprising for the demon.

 

“She had” said the monarch. “Same highschool, she was the bane of the existence of my applepie. Charlie was too good to put her in her place and Helsa abused that to the max, becoming her school bully. One of the things I didn't understand is why Charlie continued with Seviathan... If he came to her defense or something but he laughed at the jabs and horrible words of his sister.”

 

Both men entered the place and switched the lights on. It was an elegant and modern apartment, again with furniture way to expensive for an ex-worker of the Crown.

 

“I see but... highschool, Von Eldritch are sinners” said Alastor.

 

“Yes but not their children” said the monarch. “They had a ritual they can use to become fertile for a time. It's not to be used lightly, it takes a part of their power to do it. And when Lilith became pregnant, they decided to be parents too since they weren't when alive. First they had Helsa, then they had Seviathan.”

 

Alastor raised a brow and his face showed his suspicious thoughts so clear that even Lucifer could see them.

 

“Something wrong?” said the king, starting to look around.

 

“Isn't it obvious, darling?” said the Radio Demon. “They wanted a leg in your family, they weren't having children, but heirs... marriageable heirs.”

 

Lucifer nodded.

 

“Yeah, I thought about that but Lilith liked the idea” he shrugged. “And it wasn't like my opinion mattered in my marriage... or lack there of. We were already on the rocks about that time and Charlie was living with Lilith. Me, happy because my baby left that presumptuous ass? Only angered her more.”

 

And that derive in a fight he didn't want to remember.

 

Alastor snapped and his shadow minions started to search the apartment too, coming half an hour later one of them with a piece of parchment, saying in a language only the demon comprehended, that he found it in one of the drawers from a cabinet in the bedroom.

 

“Parchment, really?” said Lucifer, looking at it too. “At least is in english but looks like a spell or a... prayer.”

 

“I know this one” said the Radio Demon to then start to read the text:

 

“Close my eyes to the Sun's light,

My Morning Star, my storm.

Close your gorgeous wings and abandon me,

Drink from my blessings in your wake.

We will never lie to ourselves again,

For my womb is Pestilence's garden,

My heart is ashes

My tears are blood.

Hunt well, my breath, and carry with you

the bones of our sons and daughters, covered in leaves.

Spread them on the horizon and hush their crying.

I'll open a tomb of deep waters

that will tear apart our enemies.

Go, my desert wind,

keep your sword on high, sharped with your tears.

I'll be the owl on the nocturnal wind,

the cat with the silenced claws.

And the serpent at the roots of the Tree.

I'll be the seed of tears

But my eyes will be sand and silence.

My heart desert and sea,

And my scream will be the hunting owl.

When the sun will go out from the sky

don't cry, my love,

but remember me in your far away hunting.

We'll be the thorn on Eden's side

Don't forget me

Sun from my moon

Scream from my silence.”

 

They didn't speak for a moment, with both men looking to each other.

 

“What the fuck is that?” asked the Devil to the deer demon.

 

“It's a prayer, about you, from 'The Revelations from the Dark Mother'” said the demon. “It's a book from the cult of your wife.”

 

“My wife has a cult?” he asked.

 

Alastor nodded.

 

“Both in the Living World and here but here is more a fanclub really” he sighed. “I'll have to consult the book to be sure, but this is a prayer about yourself pointing you as nothing more than an extension of her wrath, a hunter for her, so to speak.”

 

Lucifer growled and his eyes were overtook by red.

 

“She dares to consider me just one of her pawns?” he said. “I don't know why get piss if this isn't a surprise. She always, fucking always treat me like a fucking pet, basking in her glory.”

 

Alastor was trying to ignore the fury on the monarch and started to think.

 

“We have a Von Eldritch in a side and it looks like our deceased fella that was a devotee of your ex wife” said the deer. “That could be a coincidence or be relevant, too soon to say, but I think the Von Eldritch connection is the most promising.”

 

The king tried to calm himself and nodded.

 

“You right, this could be just a coin..” and he couldn't finish the phrase.

 

The door exploded, setting both men in alert and group of hellborn, around twenty, started to pile inside, attacking them with angelic steel and guns.

 

Alastor dodged behind a couch when the bullets started to fly at him and the king was near him behind a dropped table.

 

“Well, I can say that we are close, your highness” said the Radio Demon.

 

The king smiled to Alastor.

 

“Yeah, our quarry sent us entertainment so we don't get bored” said the monarch. “Remember to leave one alive and with a functioning pipehole, so we can interrogate them.”

 

Both went out of their covers and started to fight. Alastor released part of his demon form and his tentacles, going mostly for the more close combat enemies with the cheery savage nature he used with the loan sharks the day Lucifer went to the hotel for the first time.

 

The king, on the other hand, was parrying bullets with his cane, moving it with extreme precision and speed while walking towards the attackers, yawning and smiling. When he had one of them near him, he moved his claw, separating cleanly head from torso to then look towards the others.

 

“You didn't think this well, did you?” he said, transforming himself into a cobra snake, jumping to the throad of one of the attackers, a shark demon and strangle him while he was spitting golden venom to the eyes of another.

 

He jumped, transforming into a goat to ram one of the imps to a wall, to then transform to himself again to use his cane like it was a sword and stab the chest of the imp with such potency the cane came nailed to the wall.

 

The Devil turned around in the same gesture releasing the cane there to use both hands, his claws came into play, slicing the throats of two hellhounds like they were paper thin.

 

Alastor was over one of the enemies, another hellhound and he was toring his head apart from his body with a huge bite, gulping his head like nothing, when one lost bullet impacted in his arm, making him snarl and hiss.

 

Lucifer saw it... saw also the imp with a short sword going for the Radio Demon. Flashes, from that vision he had of Alastor's terrible night, the slice of his belly. The breathing from the the Devil became erratic, his eyes again covered with red, his fallen attributes showing all at once... and the fury overtaking his breathing, his troat... a prolonged diabolical growl that catched all the assailants' attention. Alastor's too.

 

“You won't touch him!” in a flash he was over the imp, tearing him apart with his claws, fire was coming out of his mouth. “Stupid pests!!”

 

When the imp was nothing but pulp, he went for the rest. There was nothing methodical in his movements, there were not boastful and cheery or playfull... The king was in the middle of a rage, overtook by his fire, almost in a frenzy.

 

“Did you really thought you have any oportunity against me, against the king?” he said, tearing into the numbers, dragging them near him when they tried to escape. “You are nothing, you hear me? Nothing!”

 

You're nothing.

 

Alastor lost his tranformation, he was in the ground, looking broadly to Lucifer, on all fours and he was starting to pant. Paralized by fear.

 

I'm your king, you're mine.

 

His voice, directly from his memory, was pounding at his head, pounding to his heart and making it beat faster. Lucifer was using tail, claws and fists to decimate the assailants like a rabid dog, with his hellfire escaping from his mouth and his eyes so overtook by his power they were shining in pure red.

 

Alastor was afraid, he was starting to have a panic attack, he had to go from there, he had to hide, to get away from Lucifer, he had... he used his shadows to enter in the bathroom of the apartment, he sat between the sink and the toilet, panting, holding his own legs near his chest and closing his eyes every time a gush sound or a hit were heard.

 

Milady...

 

The tears were coming down his eyes and he was biting his own lip so hard that blood was coming down his chin.

 

He was shaking, specially when the king after a while, when there was only silence, opened the door trying to find him.

 

“Alastor...” he said, softly, the sinner just stoke harder his cane and closed his eyes, like he was waiting in any second for a hit. “Sorry, I'm sorry...”

 

Lucifer lowered his voice, going near the overlord coming down his knees, checking on him.

 

“I'm sorry, I didn't want to scare you” said the monarch, seeing the evident signs of a panic attack and knowing what caused it. “Try to breathe, Alastor. I won't hurt you, never... never again. I promise... I saw you hurting and I... I wanted to protect you, I'm sorry.”

 

He moved his hands.

 

“Don't touch me!” said the demon.

 

Lucifer retired his hands.

 

“Of course” he said, sitting in front of him, without contact but near. “I'll never touch you if you don't want to. Just breathe, love, breathe...”

 

Alastor, breathing, scoffed for a second.

 

“Love... sounds almost like a joke” said the sinner, closing his eyes and trying to gulp his own saliva.

 

“It's the truth... I didn't want this, I didn't want it” said the monarch. “If I could, I could kiss you right now, show you what you mean to me.”

 

The deer demon opened his eyes and looked back to the king, so different from the beast he saw minutes ago.

 

“It's hard to believe, taking you don't like men” said the demon. “Or is because I'm...”

 

Lucifer denied.

 

“I... I like men too, Alastor, I...” he didn't want the deer to think he was still interesting in him because he saw him diffrent from what he was, that he wanted the disguise of Milady back or something like that.

 

“You never had a male lover” said the demon, his breathing, with the conversation, going to a normal pace little by little.

 

“I never... because of my pride” said the devil. “I have experience with women, even when Lilith invited someone to our bedroom when we were fine, it was always a woman. And... I didn't want to be... less? To be a learner and not a teacher, so to speak. So I never tried, even when I was interested.”

 

Silence went around them for a moment, with Alastor returning to normal and Lucifer staying there, observing him, catching on his reactions.

 

“Sorry for the panic attack, this behaviour is unbecoming from me” said the Radio Demon, raising from the floor.

 

“You don't have to apologize for that, Alastor, never” Lucifer led him space to move, trying to not touch him.

 

Both were covered in black blood and guts and Lucifer snapped to clean both, returning to a pristine condition, even erasing the dry trails of tears from Alastor's face.

 

“You were only trying to protect me” said the demon.

 

“Yeah, and I fanned the flames of memory in the process, I'm sorry, love” he denied. “Sorry, I shouldn't be calling you that.”

 

The Radio Demon hummed, contemplating the man, thinking.

 

“No, you shouldn't, not yet...” he said, coming out of the bathroom and seeing the carnage the Devil made of the assault team that jumped them. “We were suppose to leave one alive...”

 

Lucifer clicked his tongue.

 

“Again, sorry” he said, looking around too.

 

Alastor invoked his shadow minions again and those started to pick the parts of the demons.

 

“I'll send the rests to Cannibal Town, at least this will serve to feed your subjects, your highness” said the demon. “Also they will inspect the bodies for clues for us. We should be going back to the hotel.”

 

The king nodded and snapped, opening a portal for both to cross and return to the hotel.

 

When they arrived, Husk was coming out of the bar.

 

“Ah, boss!” he called for Alastor. “I have a message from our regular network but not for you, but for the king.”

 

The Radio Demon raised a brow.

 

“For me?” asked Lucifer. “From your contacts?”

 

That was... strange, to say the least.

 

Husk took a piece of paper and gave it to the monarch.

 

“It's from Vox” said the cat demon.

 

The eyes of the deer went to the note immediactly and Lucifer didn't have a problem to show it to him.

 

'I have interesting information for you, your majesty, but it's for your ears only.

Come to V-Tower tomorrow at six, alone.

~Vox'.

 

“The last thing I want it's to talk with this pissbucket” said Lucifer, grunting. “But this fucker is a tech overlord, right?”

 

He asked, Alastor nodded.

 

“Maybe he catched something in the great vine about our predicament and wants to make a deal with me” said the monarch.

 

Alastor growled.

 

“Or taking our rivalry, as he wants to call it, maybe he tries to warn you about how dangerous and untrustworthy I am” said the Radio Demon.

 

“Fucking late for that...” said Husk.

 

Lucifer nodded with a smile.

 

“Ok, I'll play, let's see what square face wants to say” said the king, showing the same amount of contempt Alastor had for the Tv Overlord or maybe even more.

Notes:

If you're curious, the text from Lilith's is called 'Lament of Lucifer' and it's from a book called Revelations of the Dark Mother, from that fandom I said I was cooking a new radioapple fanfiction... if you know, you know.

Also, also, yeah, taking the lore about the Von Eldritch we have is contradictory (in some part they say they are overlords, in other that they are hellborns), I decide what every sane fanfic writer will do and create my own lore ^^

Chapter 21: The nature of the Beast

Summary:

Vox wants to talk with Lucifer and he will commit a terrible error with severe consequences.

Alastor follows Lucifer to his meeting with Vox and is a witness of how everything unveils, seeing how the king takes a new resolution.

Notes:

Yeah, yeah, I know, it took me a lot of time to finish this chapter but I was very down these days, specially with the things I'm writing but I pushed through it. I hope I can upload sooner this next time.

“...You found that what you really wanted was power and there were much politer ways of getting it. And then you realized that power was a bauble. Any thug had power. The true prize was control. Lord Vetinari knew that. When heavy weights were balanced on the scales, the trick was to know where to place your thumb. And all control started with the self.”

~Terry Pratchett, The Fifth Elephant

 

After the investigation of the café and the apartment, they still needed to go to the storage unit in the same building, so in place of going themselves, the Radio Demon used the services of his employees (Lucifer learned that was the way Alastor called his contracted souls) to investigate de place the next day.

 

They sent a message very early in the morning the next day, with the little information they could muster that was aroung zero. The only remarkable thing they found was an old copy of the Revelations of the Dark Mother, that book from the Cult of Lilith.

 

The Cannibal Town people also sent information about the bodies Alastor sent their way and except for a note with the address of the apartment, there was nothing mention worthy in the bodies, giving the men zero new clues about their debacle.

 

Parking that, after lunch Anka asked her father something and the Radio Demon went to Lucifer before he could go to his chambers in the apple topped tower of the hotel.

 

“My daughter said she wants to talk to you” said the red demon.

 

“Me? Why?” asked the king.

 

“She wasn't saying” said the deer. “Apparently I'll be there just in a translation capacity. She's waiting at the bar.”

 

The demon made a gesture, indicating the man to follow him to that location. Alastor didn't know what his girl wanted, she was looking serious, profesional even, like she was about to have a chat to present a business yearly plan or convince some poor sob to give her their soul.

 

Lucifer nodded and followed the demon and both entered the bar where Ankareeda was waiting near a table, with Vaggie and Charlie already seated.

 

“This looks like an intervention” said the Devil. “What did I do wrong?”

 

Charlie denied while smiling.

 

“It's not an intervention, dad” said the princess. “Anka just wanted to tell you something that you'll need to hear and she didn't know how to present it and asked for our help.”

 

Vaggie nodded, supporting what her fiancée was saying.

 

“Yeah, it's something important that maybe you need to know” the ex-exorcist looked back to Alastor. “Also you, but it's nothing you should be worry about.”

 

Now Alastor was worried.

 

Ankareeda signed and the Radio Demon translated:

 

“She said we should sit” he did, the same as Lucifer and her daughter also sat, in front of them with Vaggie to a side and Charlie to the other, the girl started to communicate again. “She's saying this is something important for you to know. That even when we were deceitful with her first... we aren't deceitful, at least I'm not, Anka... ok, ok... even when we were deceitful with her, she doesn't want to lie to us.”

 

The girl made a pause to look back to Charlie and the woman gave her an encouraging nod.

 

“Anka says that she knows...” Alastor sighed. “She knows she's also your daughter.”

 

Lucifer, that was looking back to the deer demon while he was translating, moved fast his face to look to the little girl. The timid smile that showed the king was almost adorable for his older daughter.

 

“So you know...” he said.

 

“She's saying she isn't stupid” translated the Radio Demon. “I never took you for a fool, Anka, I just... didn't want you to be... sad.”

 

Said the demon. He didn't really want to hide her ascendency to his daughter, the thing he didn't want to is for her to know that the other part of her gens came from a man that was for Alastor a monster. A man that terrorized him and a man that he should be hating, but couldn't.

 

The girl, with a soft smile, signed for her father and Alastor took her hand for a moment, with a soft smile himself.

 

“What she said?” asked the monarch.

 

“That she isn't sad” replied the Radio Demon. “Now she's saying that, with that on the table, maybe you could know what you are dealing with and what you are risking.”

 

Lucifer looked back to the girl, his smile died in his face. He sighed, knowing what the girl wanted for him to understand.

 

“I see...” said the king.

 

Anka, with a serious face, started to sign again.

 

“She's saying that she wants you as her father but you didn't earn that yet” translated Alastor, feeling the weight of those words. “She says...”

 

The Radio Demon stopped, the girl signed again.

 

“What is she saying?” asked Charlie.

 

“She...” Alastor didn't want to translate that and that was more than obvious.

 

The girl gestured a lot more, impacient and trying to encourage her father to translate.

 

“She's saying that if I don't translate, she will start to write” he lowered his head. “She said that I have nightmares, frecuent nightmares about what you did to me. She doesn't want to know what those things were but she knows I'm sad and I was afraid.”

 

Alastor, with his microphone cane to a side, was rubbing his hands, he was uncomfortable, not with people knowing that, but with his daughter knowing. He wanted to think he shielded her from all that suffering but apparently his child was taking a close look to him, caring for him to know when he was sleeping well or not.

 

“I'm sorry, Ankareeda” said Lucifer, noticing how down of spirits was the Radio Demon in that moment. “I didn't want to make your father sad or... provoke nightmares. I... I was awful, yes. I did a lot of things bad or in a bad way and I didn't see them in that light in the past. For... for a time I thought I lost you both and I thought to past moments and saw how monstruos I was... and... I made a promise that I renewed to Alastor because I want you both in my life.”

 

Said the devil, looking to both his little girl and his ex-partner, his love.

 

She sighed and started to sign again, touching Alastor's hand so the demon could see her gestures, taking he had his head down.

 

“She says she knows... and now you know what you are risking” said the deer demon, translating. “If you don't do better, you'll lose her with her knowing all and you'll lose me too.”

 

Alastor sighed. His eternal smile was faltering.

 

Ankareeda sighed too. She didn't like to see her father so down but she thought that all was necessary. She wanted her father to be happy and she knew what he felt for the king, also she wanted to help Lucifer and maybe that was the ultimate motivator for him.

 

“She says that she, at this moment, only have one father, that I'm her biggest... her biggest priority” Alastor moved his hand to pass it softly for her cheek. “Darling, I'll should be the one taking care of you, not the other way around. She's saying she knows but she cares and she will only want you to be her father if you earn it, if you treat me well and fix yourself.”

 

Lucifer nodded.

 

“I know, I know... I'm working on in, Ankareeda, I promise” said the monarch. “I want to be your father, I want to be a good dad for Charlie and you and be better for Alastor, be a partner for him and fix... mend, all the harm I did. And yes, now that I know you know, I'll make an extra effort.”

 

The king smiled to the little girl.

 

“I don't know how, but I'll help Alastor to not have more nightmares, I promise” said the king.

 

Ankareeda nodded, with a smile and then signed again.

 

Alastor laughed.

 

“What she said?” asked Lucifer, smiling now that he saw the Radio Demon laughing with his daughter.

 

“She's saying that you better do good by me because she's a terrible enemy to have” the demon moved to raise his daughter from her seat, holding her in his arms and rubbing his nose by hers, making her laugh in that way she did, all gesture, no sound.

 

Lucifer smiled, resting his cheek over his hand while having his elbow on the table. He had to make his maximum effort, he had to. Not only he was risking dissapointing Charlie and losing Ankareeda and Alastor but also he was risking dissapointing Anka... It was not the same to lose the girl and have the solace of knowing she didn't know. She knew... and he couldn't fail her.

 

***

 

“Ok, I hope the stupid square box goes to the point” said the king, when Charlie asked him how much time he was about to be out. “So maybe minutes... I'll portal directly to his tower, I won't be giving him the publicity of having the King of Hell going to talk to him for all to see.”

 

Ankareeda was reading one of her new books and Alastor was reviewing her exercises from her last class. The Radio Demon had a very modern style to teach his daughter: they tackle a subject, like multiplication, for example and, if it was a topic for discussion, like history or nature, they talked about it, if not they made practice together and then the demon prepare some quiz for her.

 

Now Ankareeda was learning about the Sins and Alastor was grading the last two quizes, one about Lucifer himself and the other about Queen Bee.

 

“You know you didn't need to draw them, right?” said the deer demon.

 

Lucifer was placing his hat over his head when he heard the Radio Demon. He knew one of those two quizes was about him and he moved near to see.

 

“She drew me?” He asked.

 

Alastor moved the piece of paper and there were several drawings of him. From one almost serious in the margin of the sheet, full body in his ringleader attire, to one really funny, a caricature of the king with a speech balloon saying 'I talk to rubber ducks'. That drawing was conveniently near the interests section of the quiz.

 

Lucifer started to laugh.

 

“She's very good!!” said the monarch. “This one is very funny but this one... Oh, she's very talented.”

 

Alastor growled.

 

“Oh, yes, fill her head with more hot air” said the demon. “She knows better than this. I told you, you have to treat this quizes as something serious.”

 

Ankareeda looked back to her father and showed him her biforked black tongue.

 

Alastor sighed. He was weak to be serious with her for something like this.

 

“She knows me well” said the monarch after reading some of the answers. “Very well done, Anka. Maybe we can get for her a teacher, for painting... It could be a pity to waste this talent.”

 

The Radio Demon moved his head, his eyes capturing the eyes of the Devil.

 

“That's my decision” he said, serious, not angry, but extremelly serious. “Remember that having your oponion about my daughter is a privilege you didn't earn yet. And I don't have to explain myself but she needs to further her education before she could focus on more hobbies.”

 

Lucifer sighed and nodded.

 

“Yeah, I know, sorry” he said.

 

The king made a mental note to restrain himself in those matters. Now that Alastor knew Anka wasn't ignorant to the fact that Lucifer was also her father, he didn't want to impose a thing or make the demon feel bad about, like he was trying to take the reins about the girl or something like that.

 

The demon, on the other hand, saw the expression from the king and he softened his almost immediactly.

 

“I want for her to persue art” he said. “But, according to the books I read, she needs time to play and relax for a good development.”

 

“You read books about raising a child?” asked the Devil.

 

“My upbringing was anything but normal and it was too much time ago” said the deer demon. “I took from memory things from my mother, of course, but for the rest I had books. Rosie was never a mother and I didn't have any other person to ask, so I had to take what I could.”

 

Lucifer thought for a moment.

 

Alastor had Rosie for support for nothing more. No more friends, no family, being a single new parent, no experience... and of a little hellborn, no less. No one to ask, no one to help.

 

“You did amazing, Alastor” said the monarch, with a soft smile looking back to the little kid, sitting on the couch with her legs almost to her chest and her nose deep into that book. “She ended up amazing.”

 

Alastor sighed.

 

“The job it's not done” said the demon. “She's only seven. I'm glad she's happy, it's all I could say... Though I could like if she were a little more obedient.”

 

He didn't mean that.

 

“Well, it's expected for her to be a little bit rebellious” taking she was also his daughter and he invented the concept. “And, if I don't screw things up, you won't be alone for the rest of her upbringing. Trust me, you'll need all the help in Hell for her teen years.”

 

Charlie crossed her arms.

 

“Is that a jab at me?” she asked. “My teen years weren't so difficult.”

 

“For you” said Lucifer without thinking.

 

And as soon as he saw Charlie's horns showing, he snapped his fingers and a portal appear, for him to close it fast with a huge smile and holding to his hat.

 

Charlie rolled her eyes and Alastor... he observed for a time to where the portal was and finally he rose from his seat, making Ankareeda's tests to dissapear.

 

“Darling, can you take care of Anka for a time?” said the Radio Demon, making his cane appear. “I remembered I need to run some errants.”

 

“Sure, Alastor” said Charlie.

 

The deer demon kissed his girl over the head and entered into a shadow.

 

***

 

Lucifer's portal opened in the middle of V Tower and was almost immediactly contacted by Peppermint, Vox's assistant, like the Tv Overlord was waiting for the king to use that method to arrive, instead of entering through the door of the tower.

 

“Your majesty, Mr. Vox is waiting for you, please, follow me” said the nervious sinner, guiding the monarch to a wall, apparently with nothing but a poster of the TV Vee, but this one opened revealing an elevator.

 

The asistant waited for the king to enter and then he did it himself. The elevator took them to the inner sanctum of the TV Overlord.

 

“Mr. Vox, his majesty King Lucifer is here” said the man.

 

The overlord had his back turned, sitting in his desk with all those screens surrounding him.

 

“You can go now” he said to his assistant to then turn around. “Your majesty! It's a pleasure to have you on my tower, I believe we were never properly introduce: Vox, leader of the Vees, CEO of Voxtek.”

 

Lucifer stood there, with his cane in front of him and both his hands over the apple top of the very same. He had no intention of going near the overlord if it wasn't necessary, in fact, he wanted to go out of that place before his bad temper took the control of him, he hated that man with passion.

 

“Yeah, yeah, enough pleasantries” said the monarch. “I know exactly who you are, not impressed. You said you have information I could want, so start talking. I'm a very busy king to waste time with sinners.”

 

Vox led out a dry laugh.

 

“I see, your majesty only gives his time to very specific sinners” he said, tapping a button. From on top of his desk, a bigger monitor descended, showing the image of Alastor, affected for his power to nullify cams and clear as day, the image of Ankareeda near him, with Lucifer itself in snake form over her shoulders. “Care to explain, your majesty?”

 

The monarch raised a brow with impecable form, without moving from his place, with both hands resting over the apple top of his cane.

 

“Oh, I see...” he denied with his head. “This is the information you have? And, let me guess, you're now gonna tell me that you will keep my 'secret' if I give you... whatever fucking thing you have now on the top of your head, right?”

 

Lucifer sighed. He was not in the mood for that piece of shit he hated before hand to try to blackmail him or something.

 

“Oh, no, your majesty” said the Tv overlord. “I want from you is an explanation, for this and for this.”

 

And there it was another image, this one also distorted but you could almost made the figure of Milady, with a victorian dress in red, maybe from that day she was going to see Rosie on Cannibal Town and Vox got to her... him, to Alastor. Again, Lucifer looked back to the Tv face of the overlord, raising a brow.

 

“Go to the point, sinner” said the king, starting to feel his gut with that fire he knew very well it was his rage, raising little by little.

 

Vox raised from his chair, adjusting his cufflinks.

 

“Forty years ago you humilated Alastor in a party” started to say the tech overlord. “Eight, almost nine years ago, Alastor stopped his broadcasts and drop from the map and I found him months later, dressed like a fucking broad... And then, he dessapears again to reappear being the lap dog of your brat and with a little girl.”

 

Lucifer took some air to release it slowly.

 

“You know, when people say 'This could be an e-mail' this shit is what they had in mind” said the king, annoyed. “If all you wanted to do is telling me shit I already knew, next time use Lulu World website, I have my corporative e-mail there.”

 

The monarch was about to snap to create a portal when the Vee interrupted.

 

“So you don't deny it” he said.

 

“What? That Alastor decided to dress like a woman and that's his daughter?” said the monarch, becoming more annoyed by the second.

 

“Alastor's daughter?” said the overlord. “Are you trying to deny you forced him to give you a new daughter? That this kid isn't yours? That you learned Alastor's secret and exploited him?”

 

Lucifer raised a hand to massage his temple, that fucking picture box, like Alastor called him, was starting to creep on his nerves.

 

Alastor, in other order of things, managed to sneak into Vox's sanctum in the form of a shadow and was seeing all that exchange between the king and his ex.

 

“A person would need to be blind and have an aneurysm to not see the girl is mine” he sighed with a little growl trying to raise in his throat. “In any case, what happens between Alastor and me is for us to know and for us to discuss.”

 

“I think not...” said the overlord, pure fury and with his technological hypnotic eye going crazy. “You broke our relationship, you exploited his best intentions to have a pet to dress up and fuck and then you made him have a daughter... just to use him again to protect your older one. Maybe Alastor and I now have our differences but... He's still important to me! And I won't let this abuse to continue... to abuse his heart, his body and even his fucking identity.”

 

He snapped and from the sides, over platforms that usually have his team for podcasts, there were a series of sinners, imps and hellhounds, armed to the teeth with automatic carmine crafted rifles.

 

“Good bye, your majesty” he said and all men working for him and armed started to shoot.

 

Alastor was horrified and initially he had the instint to try to protect Lucifer... but if he went near him he knew he will die. Besides, he remembered the king was immune to angelic steel but maybe so much angelic steel was still too much for the monarch, maybe no to kill him but to seriously hurt.

 

The noise from the automatic rifles was loud, the sounds of impact in soft flesh was making Alastor grind his teeth, specially when he was beginning to receive the smell of Lucifer's honey blood.

 

It was prolongued, the team of the overlord discharged all their clips and they started to recharge. Lucifer was just there, head low, his hat fleed from his head when the shooting started and he was covered in golden blood but still standing.

 

Vox was smiling, sadistically, feeling the euphoric feeling of his victory, his vengeance filling him to the brim.

 

“That's what you get for toying with Alastor, you piece of fallen garbage” said the overlord, drunk in his victory.

 

Alastor didn't know what to do, Lucifer wasn't moving, his wounds were still dropping his blood over the floor... maybe he could engulfing him with shadows, go to the hotel, heal him. Maybe...

 

Lucifer laughed.

 

His body was shaking for it, moving with that laugh that was maybe the most sinister laugh Vox heard in his life or afterlife, a laugh that not even Alastor's could compare. He moved and every single bone in his body made a crunchy sound, realigning themselves while he was starting to stand more still.

 

His wounds stopped dripping and they started to close, expelling the bullets out with a tingling sound while they were dropping to the ground. He moved to a side to get his hat and place it over his head and all of that under the very scared gaze of Vox's team and the surprised and then scared face of the TV Overlord.

 

“First, I'm glad your information network is shitty and you didn't know angelic steel isn't a problem for me” he snapped his fingers and two clones of himself were on the top platforms, cutting through Vox's forces like a hot knife through butter. “Second, you are insulting Alastor trying to play saviour, specially for the wrong things... I won't say I don't deserve his wrath but we are working on it ourselves... And third...”

 

The monarch moved so fast that he looked like light for a moment, stopping just in front of Vox's desk... and said deks, just by the force of inertia, exploded like a piñata, leaving nothing between the TV overlord and the king.

 

“Thank you... I have a lot of pent up aggression that I'm going to therapy to try to control” started to said the king... Vox reacted at last, trying to become electricity to escape but as soon as he invoked his power, Lucifer was holding him from the clothes in his chest. “Just because I care a lot about Alastor and our little girl... Now, I'm going to fuck you up a couple of times before I'll kill you, to de-stress myself.”

 

And he started to hit the overlord, once, twice, three times.. with all the force he had in his tiny frame that was really a lot. Lucifer hit him and hit him and hit him... until the body of the overlord couldn't hold it more, dying in the hands of the monarch.

 

Lucifer was covered in a mix of golden blood and red blood, he was panting and baring his teeth. He released the fabric, cracked his neck and snapped... Again, with the sound of joints going to position, broken bones going together and grunts of pain and pure suffering, the overlord reconstituted himself, screaming with pain and panic when he was completed.

 

“That was first” said the king, with a cruelty that Vox never saw from the monarch... but Alastor had bitter memories of it. “Next one I'll going to do very slowly. I hated you from the very moment I learned about your existence and your relationship with Alastor.”

 

He slapped the overlord so hard that blood flee from his mouth.

 

“You had to pick a fight with me, mentioning a daughter I can't love openly because I'm trying to mend my fucking act just for them, for Alastor and her” another strong slap that sounded like the cracking of a screen. “When I'm trying to be better for them because I hurt them and not like you said I did... Fuck...”

 

He moved his left claw and started to press on Vox's chest, little by little making his flesh and bones to open and break to leave a way through his chest.

 

“You mentioned something that touch a very important, very private thing in my heart... Now I'm going to play with yours” he said, baring his teeth while smiling, pressing inside his chest with cruelty.

 

Alastor didn't know what to do, if intervene or not. In one hand, Vox earned this punishment, he decided to attack Lucifer, he decided to go like a knight in shining armor like he was somekind of damsel in distress that couldn't protect herself. He was not a fucking princess, he didn't need the fucking overlord... but... Fuck, the same he was still in love with Lucifer, he still have some type of feeling for Vox, he was his friend, he was his partner for a time, a partner that never asked a thing in return for his company.

 

Vox screamed in pure, exquisite pain and Alastor came out of his shadow near the monarch and the sinner.

 

“Stop, Lucifer” he said, resting with his hands over his cane. “You're in your right to kill this loser, your highness, but he can be useful for us.”

 

The king had almost completelly his hand inside the chest of the overlord and stood there, a growl escape from his throat.

 

“He...” tried to said, to be interrupted by Alastor.

 

“I know, darling, you're in your right to refuse my advice but he can be useful for our predicament” said the Radio Demon.

 

He wasn't about to show his real care for the overlord, he wasn't about to plead for him directly in his face. He didn't want him dead, but after all the fights they had, after Valentino trying to kill him with an angelic spear, he was ready to do this and only this. If the monarch didn't want to stay his hand, he'll mourn him but that's that, if not, he will frame it all in a beneficial transaction.

 

Alastor waited, leaning over his cane.

 

“I didn't know you'll be following me” said the king, removing his hand from Vox's chest cavity, making him grunt and almost scream again.

 

“Sorry, sire, but I was waiting for some sort of trap from this slime” said the deer demon.

 

Lucifer was about to apologize for so bloody of a spectacle in front of him, taking how bad he reacted in that apartment with the massacre he did with the assailants... but the red demon didn't look appalled for him torturing the TV overlord or for the slaughter his clones did with his particular firing squad. He decided not to, feeling Alastor didn't want to appear weak in front of the rival overlord.

 

The king looked back to the Radio Demon.

 

“How do you want to procede, dear? I'm amicable to follow your lead here, taking your history with his cumstain” said the monarch.

 

Alastor hummed and raised his hand over his chin to think.

 

“First, we are gonna make him do a deal” said the deer demon. “His soul for his life I think is appropiate and he will work for us. First order of business, I want all the footage he has about my time with you...”

 

He was refering to the Milady images.

 

“...And all the montage about our daughter deleted” said the radio overlord. “And he won't breathe a word about both with a single soul. And second, we'll use his vast influence and resources for our investigation.”

 

Lucifer clicked his tongue, he wasn't so kin in the idea of leaving him alive but he guessed Alastor was right, he could serve his uses.

 

“Agreed” said the monarch. “Do you want his soul or I took it for myself?”

 

Alastor denied. He wasn't about to get his ex-lover soul, the single idea disgusted him.

 

“Yours, darling, you will be a far crueler master that I could possible achieve” Vox was in a world full of pain, barely conscious and looking alternative between the Devil and the Radio Demon, without speaking. Alastor moved his cane and he placed the lower part of Vox's clawed chest. “Take this as the mercy it is. You attacked him and my king has decided in his infinite grace to let you live after that stunt and after using your vile mouth to speak about my daughter... our daughter. Take the mercy and bow your head before your king or lose it.”

 

He waited, really hoping Vox's fucking ego didn't took the best of him, waiting almost holding his breath for the TV overlord to do as said or refuse.... almost praying for the stupid man to be intelligent for once in his afterlife.

 

The overlord took a look to the deer demon and then to the Devil. He hated the little man, he hated with passion the idea that the clown had Alastor and he didn't, he hated the feeling of impotence, knowing that was his last card to hurt the little man... His king.

 

He grunted, trying to move more comfortable, sitting as he was with his back holding him towards his chair.

 

“I...” his voice was raspy and weak “accept, your highness.”

 

Lucifer moved, taking his hand from the ground because the overlord had not strength to raise it and he shake it, his golden energy surrounding them with power until the collar and the chain were fixed over Vox's neck. The Devil took the chain and moved it near himself, forcing the tech overlord to be nearer him.

 

“Thank Alastor for this mercy because I was in no mood to give you any” said the king. “From this day on your ass is mine and I'll have my fist so far up it that all your thoughts are gonna tiptoe around my bare knuckles. Now, I'll take those angelic weapons to have a chat with Carmilla, fix yourself...”

 

The king made a business card and he left it over the chair behind the TV overlord.

 

“And send me a message to add you to my contacts list when your fingers work again” said the king, ready to depart. “Ah, and not a single word about this stupid thing you did and the end result to your colleagues, unless you want us to make them our bitches too, you got me?”

 

Vox moved his head to nod, gruting with pain.

 

“Good boy” the two clones of Lucifer jumped from the platforms to be near them, carrying all the weapons they got from the corpses of the team. “Let's go, Alastor, Carmilla doesn't know it but she's up for a meeting with us. It took me too much time, but I need to add 'Get this fucking Hell in order' to my little chore list.”

 

“Yes, sire” said the overlord, giving a last gaze back to the TV demon before entering with Lucifer and his clones in a portal, leaving Vox behind.

 

He was breathing heavy, he had pain all over, specially in his chest, his screen was broken in several places, he could barely see and he can't move... But maybe, the thing that hurt him most of all, was seeing Alastor, acting like a servant for the fucking King of Hell, going with him and following him.

 

That was the worst... maybe, it was even worst than knowing his soul and all his afterlife, was now in that devil's hands.

 

He played, he lost, the story of his life.

 

***

 

Lucifer, his clones and Alastor appeared in Carmilla's office, surprising her, specially when she saw in the state that the king was.

 

“Sorry to bother you, Carmilla” said the monarch, adjusting his hat. “But I have a bone to pick with you.”

 

“You... Your majesty, I wasn't expecting... you” her gaze was pivoting from the clones carrying the weapons she recognize as her manufacture, the Radio Demon and the monarch. “There is something the matter?”

 

The Devil nodded.

 

“Oh, yes, something is” said Lucifer, pointing to the weapons. “When Vox purchased these weapons, did he say by chance he was about to use them with me?”

 

Carmilla was... horrified but also curious. Lucifer was drenched in golden blood but not a single wound visible, he also had red blood in him, maybe from the people the TV overlord contracted to kill him? Also his clones were covered in red and black blood in equal parts.

 

“No, of course not” said the woman. Was he blaming her for selling the weapons? “I'll never sell my weapons knowing they could target you, your majesty.”

 

The clones dropped the weapons in the ground and dissapear, Lucifer was showing his annoyance.

 

“Well, we'll gonna make sure this doesn't happen again, Carmilla” said the monarch. “Until this point I was very, very accomodating with you overlords and your little grabs of power and businesses... I'm taking the reins of my Ring and my Kingdom. From today on, you're gonna be more careful to whom you sell your weapons. I don't and won't care if overlords kill themselves, even if you sinners target nobility, I won't fucking move a finger. But... if someone again, tries to attack my daughters or myself, I won't only punish them with extreme cruelty like I did with that bitch Vox, I'll came here with my grievances and you, trust me, don't want that. Did I expresed myself clear, dear?”

 

Carmilla didn't know what to say.

 

Sure, she could take some control backgrounds to the people she sell weapons to, but it was hard to predict if someone was about to use those weapons on the royal family or not... but the threat was made and the king looked in a mix of serious and furious and she knew was nothing to gain trying to reason with the Devil.

 

Also, she was feeling for her daughters, she didn't want... wait a minute...

 

“You said daughters?” asked the weapons mogul.

 

“Yes, I have a little one, not a secret but not public and I want to be in that way for the moment” he said.

 

“Understood and yes, I'll try to the best of my ability to control better to whom I sell the angelic steel” said the woman, to then move her eyes to Alastor. “And what are you doing here?”

 

The Radio Demon broaded his smile.

 

“I was just seeing the show of Vox being mauled by our king... Quite a show it was!!” he said, with his showbusinness at full display, canned laughs and applause in full swing.

 

“Alastor is also my new adviser” said the king, surprising the Radio Demon.

 

“Adviser, him?” said the woman.

 

“Yes, him” repeated the king. “If I'm going to take the reins of my kingdom won't be with careful thoughts and prayers, I'll need to show this Ring and this Hell that I'm not to trifle with and I always admired Alastor's cleanup services to Hell back in his time... So I enlisted his services. You could wait for some changes around here.”

 

“I see, your majesty” said the woman.

 

“Good... remember my words, Carmilla” said the monarch. “I liked you when you arrived to Hell, asking me for help to locate your also deceased daughters and I helped because I'm a parent and I know what I could do for my little girls... Trust me, I won't derive any pleasure if I'm forced to correct your ways.”

 

“Claro como el agua, your highness” she said 'clear as water' in spanish and she bowed in front of the monarch.

 

“Excelente” he said in spanish. “Sorry for the impromptu intrussion but I needed to resolve this today. Have a good afternoon, Carmilla.”

 

“Likewise, your highness” she responded, moving his sight to catch on the Radio Demon, with his trademark impenetrable smile in his face.

 

Lucifer and Alastor entered into a portal and dissapared but the woman, sat again in her chair to think, both hands interlocked over her thighs.

 

She needed to contact Zestial and warn him, first of all. Alastor was moving and he hold a strong piece, the strongest to his side but not only that, he was making changes using the king, changes that were about to affect every single overlord in Pride in the way they conducted business. She also had to make a mental note about the thing that Lucifer apparently was immune to angelic steel, a thing that made him even more terrifying than before.

 

She picked up her phone.

 

Maybe she could contact Vaggie and ask her about this development, so she could get all the information she needed. Her neck was on the line and she wasn't about to lose it.

 

***

 

“DAD??!” said Charlie, when the monarch appeared with Alastor on the lobby of the hotel. “What happened? Are you hurt?”

 

Lucifer smiled softly, relaxing after being angry and tense all the time since he started to talk to Vox.

 

“Oh, no, applepie, I'm fine, not a single scratch” said the monarch.

 

“Fuck, you look like a hotdog with way too much ketchup and mustard” said Angel Dust, laughing.

 

Ankareeda, who was drawing with Charlie, was asking Alastor what happened.

 

“Vox, I told you about him, was being specially stupid today” said the Radio Demon.

 

“Vox attacked you?” asked Vaggie. “What the fuck? Why he did that?”

 

Lucifer sighed.

 

“Because he really thought he could succeed” said the Devil. “But he learned his lesson, I think... or he will when he could think straight again. Don't worry, don't worry... I'm beat. Why we don't do a thing?”

 

He started to suggest.

 

“Why we don't dress nicely and we go to the palace restaurant on Lulu World and we all dine there? My treat!” he offered.

 

Alastor sighed, he didn't want to but his little girl looked very happy with the idea and was saying yes, yes with sign in front of Lucifer, making him smile broadly.

 

“I won't say no to fancy expensive food” said Angel Dust. “I'll go doll up meself.”

 

He said.

 

“Ok, perfect!! Charlie, can you tell the others? I need a bath and a change of clothes” said the monarch. “We have time... so I'll take my time.”

 

“Sure, dad, I'll tell Cherry, Niff and Husk” she said, with a soft smile while her dad was moving, stretching himself until his bones made some sound to go to his room.

 

“Ok, darling, go dress in something nicely, I have a thing to do in the meanwhile” said the Radio Demon, entering into a shadow after his daughter nodded, running to her room. “And remember you have to wear shoes!!”

 

He said before being took by the shadows.

 

***

 

Lucifer stripped himself and entered into the filled bathtub, dropping a bubblebath bomb in the water and resting his head.

 

He felt how all the muscles of his body started to relax, how he was starting to fell calmer, closing his eyes and thinking in the thing that happened.

 

“Can we talk, your highness?” asked Alastor, showing from a shadow and surprising the monarch, making him jump in place.

 

“Fucking shit, Alastor!” he said, shaking his head. “Can't wait? I'm bathing.”

 

“I know” said the demon, going to the tub and sitting in the border. “I think it will be easier to talk in this way.”

 

The king raised a brow, he didn't know what he was refering, why this way was better but he sighed and nodded, waiting for the deer demon to start talking.

Notes:

Well, next one is the bathtub conversation and the dinner at Lulu World, a relaxed chapter with some dynamics.

Chapter 22: Bathtub and dinner

Summary:

Alastor have a conversation with Lucifer hoping the vulnerability of him naked in the water make things easier.

Late night all the hotel goes to Lulu World, to the magical palace restaurant to have a relaxed dinner... or that's the plan.

Notes:

Hey, this time I updated early! Tho next week is the early release of FFXIV new expansion Dawntrail and I'll be... busy, devouring the story like a crazy person, but I'll try to write in the middle, waiting for queues and what not XD

Aside from that, soon I'll have some fan-art to show... I made a commission to an amazing artist I know ^^

“Evil doesn't always look evil. Sometimes it's staring right at us and we don't even realize it.”

~Regina Mills, Once Upon a Time

 

“What do you mean this is easier?” said the monarch, with the tic of moving the foam more around himself trying to hide his noble parts.

 

Alastor raised a brow.

 

“Even when it was seven years ago, I already saw you naked, my dear” said the Radio Demon, with a sardonic smile. “And I think is better or easier because you're vulnerable and when you're, you are easy to read and talk.”

 

Lucifer sighed and stop trying to cover himself, taking the back scrubber to start to clean his own back, with energy.

 

“Ok, about what do you want to talk, Alastor?” asked the devil.

 

“First, your reaction against Vox” said the demon.

 

“I won't apologize for that” said the shorter man, adding more speed and strength to his scrubbing.

 

“And I'm not fishing for one, sire” said the demon, moving his right hand to his mouth to bite into his glove and remove it, holding it with the left hand, the same as his cane. “But you were ready to beat the crap out of him. I'm pretty sure that even without the stupid mistake of trying to kill you, you could beat him up either way.”

 

Lucifer growled, rolling his eyes.

 

“I'm not an aggressive man, Alastor!” said the monarch with annoyance, showing his red sclera eyes and his horns showing a little from his hairline.

 

“If I were you, I'd sue your face for slander, sire” said the Radio Demon, with his jagged smile. “Don't get me wrong, dearest, Vox deserved that. Maybe even worst, specially for going around like he cares for me when we both know is just infatuation because he can't have me. But... if it must be said...”

 

Alastor started to play using his ungloved hand, moving the foam around the king with his fingertips.

 

“Lately you have a very short fuse” said the Radio Demon. “And I'm under the impression this is a new development for you, deary.”

 

The king sighed again, was almost a growl but ended losing strength before abandoning his throat. He thought about it, biting his inferior lip and clicking his tongue.

 

“Maybe...” conceded the devil. “I was not like this before... I... Fuck, I don't know when this started, I just know it's something I'm working to control.”

 

The red demon took part of the foam to move it in his hand, in a contemplative mood.

 

“I can't answer that for you, dear but I think you're holding yourself badly”said the demon. “And it's true you have a lot of pent up aggression in your minuscule body.”

 

Lucifer didn't liked that mention to his body size and his eyes went fast to red with it but he closed them, he started to breathe and control that.

 

“Don't insult me... and yes, fuck, I'm angry, most of the time!!” he said, throwing the back scrubber and throwing it without care on the water. “My fucking wife became a denigratory bitch that tried to hurt me in all the ways possible, I wasn't in the most part of my daughter's life because she took her from me and I was a pussy to fight back... I hurt a person I loved trying to be a resolute and strong man when I'm just this pusillanimous little embarrassment that can't be assertive without being a bully and now... I have another child I can't be part of her life.”

 

He started to cry... Alastor felt like his heart went to his stomach, he felt horrible for making his love cry but he couldn't falter with Lucifer. He needed to learn, he needed to be better. He couldn't return to their time together, with the danger in the horizon and less with his daughter in the middle.

 

Ankareeda was his priority, his heart would have to wait.

 

“And this time... this time it's my fault” said Lucifer, trying to clean his own tears. “And I don't know when I will be the man you need me to be, or the father she needs and deserves... Maybe I'll be just in the side for the rest of her childhood and I can only be her father when she's an adult, a paltry consolation.”

 

Alastor sighed.

 

“You're taking a grain of sand, darling, and you're building a huge desert for you to traverse within... You're even providing with scorpions and all” said the demon, releasing the foam to the tub, blowing it. “You have only one visitation to Belphegor,... I'm not the most qualify demon to know a lot about psychiatric help but I take it's not like... paraphrasing you, sire, wap bap boom, alakazam and you're fixed.”

 

The Radio Demon was moving his fingers in the water, breaking the pressure of it.

 

“Also, Ankareeda is seven and you live in the same place as her” said the deer demon. “Maybe you have no vote to decide over her future and you won't get to show your affection openly but I take if she really needs something I can't provide or she needs protection, you will be there. Being a father in the critical moments of necessity is more important than the gratification from a kiss or a hug.”

 

Alastor raised his brow.

 

“Or you only want to do your part when there is gratification involved?” asked the demon.

 

“Of course not!” said the devil. “But... I would like to. I.. I want to feel something, Alastor, I want to feel someone loving me, caring for me!!”

 

The Radio Demon moved his hand to take the cheek from the monarch. Lucifer was his weakness, someone he wanted, since he was a teenager boy, to make happy, whatever the cost and if it was only him, now he will kiss him, console, telling him he loved him, he will love him and be by his side and...

 

“This is your penance, darling” said the demon. “You were horrible with me, monstruos even... You didn't respect my boundries, you treated me like your concubine and not your partner and you're still the protagonist of my nightmares... In the other hand, I think you have so much aggression in you because you want to be what you are not.”

 

“But, but...” Lucifer almost stuttered. “I'm not a bad person, Alastor!”

 

“No one is good in this hellhole, not even you, being a Fallen Angel” said the demon. “I myself am a monster. I don't have a problem with torture and inducing fear in others, I'm manipulative, cruel and vicious. I'm a sadist, enjoying the suffering of others, and I'm a cannibal and my appetite gets whet every single time someone disrespects me because I know I'm about to devour their plum flesh.”

 

He moved strongly the face of his king so he could look directly into his eyes while he was talking, like an affirmation of all the truths his mouth was liberating.

 

“Do you know what's the difference? I don't hide what I am, I don't lie to myself” said the demon. “I'm in Hell for a very good reason and I was the boogie man of this wretched and misguiden Ring for decades because I worked hard moving fear, shadows, cruelty and theatrics for that. Mothers in other rings told their hellborn children about me, thanking I couldn't go to them and for them to not coming here, to me.”

 

The demon retired his hand from the king's face... he had bruished the skin a little and some drops of golden blood were in his claws, he sucked them slowly.

 

“And... with all that, I'll never mistreat my daughter, I will love her with all my rotten heart and I'll protect her and raise her properly” said Alastor, looking more to his hand than to Lucifer. “The same I'll protect the hotel, those inside it and I'll never abuse the trust your daughter placed in me. I'm a monster, I have clear what I am... and with whom I am that. That's your problem... You want to show all of Hell this ruler that isn't in the shadow of his former wife, that dark monarch they certainly lack but you can't manage to accept being that and being the little funny, goofball guy all think you are with your family and friends.”

 

Said the man, under the gaze of the king who was starting to think about it.

 

“You want to be this type of king, get your house in order and find, at last, your monarchic pants? Perfect” said the demon. “But you'll need to learn to be just Lulu with your love ones and Lucifer Morningstar with the rest of Hell.”

 

“Are you saying I'm not good at compartmentalizing?” asked the Devil.

 

“Exactly” said Alastor, moving to take his other glove and Lucifer's ring and rest those and his cane over the sink. He rolled up his sleeves and took the shampoo, apple cider scent of course, and applied a little quantity in his hands, going without asking permission to the monarch's head and starting to rub the mix of shampoo and water on it. “You're holding, all the time, restraining yourself I want to think because you know what you did to me... But you can't hold all the time or you'll burst like a freaking mine. We can bicker, you can react to my banter... You won't frighten me unless you behave like you did in Magne Manor, and you'll not offend me unless you're offensive.”

 

Said the demon, scrubbing Lucifer's hair, more like trying to get something done than a caring gesture.

 

“You said to Vox that I don't need rescue but the same applies to you” continued to say the Radio Demon. “It's like you have this imagen of me, like I'm this... deer made of crystal that could be broken if the winds goes too strong around me. You don't need to tiptoe, deary.”

 

Lucifer took some air.

 

“You had a panic attack, I provoked it” said the monarch.

 

“Yes, you did” said the demon. “Because you are holding your temper all the time, it was not because you were making a massacre, I was making my own... It wasn't for your rage, it was the surprise, the memory of those moments with you when everything was perfect and then a monster with your face arrived... I don't need your calm all the time, I want the reassurance that even in your fury, that fury, will never come my way.”

 

The Devil started to think about that, about the idea of being a monarch more invested in his kingdom, specially in his Ring, erasing the fucking memory of Lilith and her ruling... and be different with his family and friends. According to Alastor he didn't need to be a saint, just be good by them.

 

He didn't know if he was capable, even if he was capable of... bickering and those things with Alastor. The shorter man knew he need to consult with Belphegor but still there were days before his next appointment.

 

“Ah, fuck, Alastor, you're such a brute!” he said, when the demon started to use the shower head to remove the shampoo.

 

“And you're such a brat” said the Radio Demon. “And you're taking way too long, marinating in hot water like a catfish from a bayou, you'll end up being red at this point.”

 

The growled, crossing his arms and letting the demon go on his own devises.

 

“By the way, sire, did you really mean what you said to Carmilla?” asked the Radio Demon.

 

“About her controlling better to whom she sells or about wanting to get my Ring in order? Yeah” said the monarch.

 

“No, about me, being your adviser” said the deer demon.

 

“Yeah, I guess I'll need your advice... you know the what's what of Pride better than me” sid the monarch. “Even with your seven years absent.”

 

Alastor raised a brow.

 

“I was with Rosie, I was still exquisitely well-informed” said the demon. “Taking my new role by your side, deary, some notations: First, you painted a target on my back.”

 

“What?” said the monarch.

 

“Oh, darling, please, you think the other overlords are gonna be happy knowing that I have your ear for my delight? Don't be absurd” said Alastor, leaving the shower head in its place. “They'll see me as a threat, more than before if that's possible. Also, your way of trying to get Carmilla into compliance wasn't the best.”

 

Lucifer scoffed.

 

“Ok, smart guy, enlight your king” said the devil, taking the sponge to clean his body.

 

“First, Carmilla can't control to what end the weapons she sells are used” said the demon. “She can control now to whom she sells but there are Carmine crafted weapons in the markets and some in the black markets like the sword I used with you. Your threat was misplaced with her, I know you were in the heat of the moment and angry but it's not good to try to dispense fear to a potencial ally, specially if that person can't hold a real control. It's intimidation for pleasure, more than for results.”

 

Said the demon, like he was giving a lecture to the monarch.

 

“And second, even being the king, even being all powerful, you'll need support from the really influential and potencially beneficial overlords on Pride” said the Radio Demon. “My recommendation is to keep close both Carmilla Carmine and Zestial Morde... They can't hurt you, your highness, that's the truth but they can make your reign really difficult. And...”

 

He clicked his tongue.

 

“What?”

 

“Carmilla is a mother, she'll fear for her children” said the deer. “And trust me, the most dangerous beast of all is a dragoness protecting her young. I don't need to remind you that she learned of angels' weakness to angelic steel when she attacked an exorcist not even knowing if she was gonna end up on top or not.”

 

Alastor learned thanks to Hank, the eggboy, about that knowledge of that weakness but he learned later about the details, about the woman protecting her daughters. Vaggie told the rest when she returned from Carmine's and the woman gained the respect from Alastor with that.

 

“So the first order of things is apologizing to the woman and reasuring her daughters are safe?” asked Lucifer.

 

“Of course not” said the demon, taking the towel to offer it to Lucifer when he was ready to went out of the bathtub. “Kings doesn't apologize after a threat, the threat is made and you'll look weak if you go now and say sorry, like you're your daughter. No... This is Texas hold'em and the cards are already on the table, you'll have to play with them.”

 

Lucifer took the towel and dried his hair and body a little to then envelop himself in it.

 

“So then what?” he asked.

 

Alastor dressed his gloves again and he placed again Lucifer's ring over his finger, taking his cane to go out of the bathroom.

 

“You'll have to play this like a chess master” said the Radio Demon. “You'll need to go to the next overlord reunions, to present your plan for Pride. First, don't threaten lightly the domain of other overlords, you can dispense some... warnings... don't threaten their position or they'll do something very stupid. Second, with Carmilla, be kind with her daughters, be a gentleman with the three women and... if the occasion raise just make the comment about how you'll never hurt a child, being a father and all...”

 

Alastor moved his hand to his chin.

 

“That... could be useful also for me” said the Radio Demon. “Even with Vox deleting his footage, people will learn I have a daughter, so maybe my little one can gain me some sympathies from the real important overlords. She will also be an explanation for our particular dynamic... The idea that I'm working for you since a decade ago, having together even a child... we can use that particular fever dream from Vox.”

 

Lucifer thought for a moment.

 

“Like... I have you in my payroll since eight years ago and you started with Charlie for my orders?” asked the monarch.

 

“Precisely” said the Radio Demon. “With that I'm less of an oportunist manipulating you and more the contrary, you saw my value and things happened. I'm still working for you since my child is more autonomous than before.”

 

The king nodded.

 

“That.. sounds good but...” there was something in Lucifer's head that he didn't want to say.

 

“Use your words, deary” said the Demon, leaning over his cane.

 

“Knowing we have a daughter doesn't expose your secret?” he asked, slowing every word, don't wanting to annoy the demon.

 

“Dearest, like I already said, they'll gonna know” started to explain the deer. “I won't have my daughter hidden any more and rumors are faster than light. I don't care if they know about my cursed body, if they try to treat me different, they are not you, I can react, I can hurt them and I will... I will tear their vocal cords and limbs with angelic steel to then devour them, so when they recompose they can't regrow them.”

 

He had his big antlers visible and his terrible radio dial eyes.

 

“Trust me, my dear, I'll pity them if they dare to make a mention, directly to my face or in secret...” he laughed. “I'm the master of shadows here and I have ears in every dark place. My secret will just provide me with delicious morsels, so don't fret, my darling.”

 

Lucifer knew Alastor was right. If some stupid demon, sinner or hellborn, decided to mention his problem, so to speak, that poor sob will know agony.

 

The Radio Demon moved to Lucifer's wardrobe and took from there a black three piece suit with a tailed coat and a top hat in black with a ribbon edge trim in white.

 

“Dress with this” he said, not like a suggestion, more like an order. “Your circus kink is all well and good but you'll need to start to present a different image sometimes, not because you can't impose in you ringleader attire, but we need something to signified your change of attitude. And I need to dress myself, too. I have a number I wanted to dress for a spin... Cmon, chop, chop, your highness.”

 

He said, clapping his hands.

 

“Going, going, unholy hells you're demanding” said the monarch, taking the clothes to place them over his bed to then go to pick some underwear.

 

“Of course I am, I'm a royal adviser and my king is useless without me” he said, laughing and melting into shadows.

 

“You motherfucker...” he breathed to then started to dress, thinking in his conversation with Alastor.

 

***

 

Even with the help from Alastor, Lucifer was the last one to reach the lobby of the hotel.

 

The three piece suit was new, he bought it on a whim and he never used it. Black, with a vest with six buttons in white, the tailed coat with a cut more refine that his regular attire and the top hat, now with his golden serpent halo with the apple rested around the ribbon edge trim. He used his magic to modify his apple cane, changing the apple for the head of a cobra, in silver, with its mouth open and biting a black apple.

 

Charlie was dressed with a cute model, pink, short her knees. The fabric imitated a floral embroidery pattern and she looked like the flowers were freely over her form, specially in her bust. She had her hair tied with a tall ponitail. Vaggie was dressed with a V neck, laced fabric for sleeves and part of her neck and was on the same cut as Charlie's except it was longer from behind that in the front.

 

Angel Dust was wearing a tight dress with no sleeves, with two round openings in his hips, tall boots and long gloves, all in black. He had a golden chain necklace, very thin and light and the same type of chain as a belt around his waist.

 

Cherri Bomb was wearing something in her style, a white dress with lacey skirt, short, but over the cute dress she was doning a bomber's leather jacket in black. The black platform shoes and the necklace, thick in silver, with the skull of a crow, finished her outfit.

 

Niffty was dressed with an elegant 50s dress, pale blue, crosspattern neck, sleeveless with the skirt at mid calf and wide, with a black line in both the waist and the brim of the skirt. She had a picture hat in the same colors.

 

The most surprising for the group was maybe Husk, with his old overlord outfit in dark blue and gold, feeling a little uncomfortable for the lack of practice doning something so elegant.

 

“You're like the cat's meow, Husk” said Angel, smiling and licking his lips.

 

“Don't get used to this, kid” said the barman. “Alastor don't usually let me doll up in this way, I was surprised when he suggested it.”

 

“Of course, Husker, my good friend!” said the Radio Demon.

 

Alastor was wearing a victorian suit in black, with black vest, a high collar red shirt and red gloves. He had a brooch holding a ribbon tie and in place of his regular monocle, he was wearing red tinted glasses, oval ones. He let his antlers to grow a little and all the ensemble was finished by his hair, tied into a ponitail and with two little braids going to the sides to said ponitail.

 

Lucifer, as soon as he saw him, felt his mouth was dry and, suddenly, Pride was too hot for the Devil himself.

 

“This is a very special dinner, we should all be on our best clothes” said the demon. “Right, Anka, darling?”

 

The little girl was in a beautiful red dress, vivid with a sequin tulle skirt very flowy, a waist with a spider lily adorment slightly to a side, sleeveless. The part of the chest had a pattern of musical notes with sequins and she had her beautiful golden curly hair tied with little braids to mid length to then go free from there, with a hairpin with another spider lily.

 

“Anka, you're beautiful!!” said Lucifer, going to see the kid, holding his desire to take her from the hand turn her around, like he did with Charlie when she was on that age.

 

She said 'thank you' signing.

 

The girl pointed to Lucifer and then moved two fingers around her face.

 

“What that means?” asked the king, repeating the sign.

 

“Handsome” said the demon, making the gesture himself, to then make another with the full opened hand. “And this is beautiful.”

 

The monarch repeated the gestures, with a serious expression, to then smile softly to the girl.

 

“Thanks” he said, making the girl smile.

 

“Well, before we go, I need to make sure my wards are in order” said the Radio Demon, concentrating in the veves that he had around the hotel, in the gardens and in every door of the building.

 

“I should place a protection spell, just in case” said the Devil, just snapping while Alastor was checking on his magicks.

 

“Everything in order... Open the portal, darling” he said to the king.

 

Lucifer nodded and snapped again, opening a portal directly to the castle of Lulu World, a beautiful fantasy palace recreation with apple motives. Middle of the night, the sounds of people enjoying the park late life and soon in the sky there were fireworks.

 

All made a stop to see them and Ankareeda, that never saw something like that before, had her mouth opened and she was saying they were beautiful.

 

“Yes, they are” said the king. “All the nights there is a firework show in the park and they change them, so if someone comes here often, they see something different every time.”

 

The girl started to sign.

 

“What's she saying?” asked the monarch.

 

“She's asking you if they use magic or black powder” translated Alastor.

 

“A little bit of both... mostly they are made in the traditional Living World way but some patterns can't be achieve without a little bit of pizzazz, so...” in fact one of the fireworks took the form of an apple with a snake coiling around it. “See? That one requires magic, just a little bit.”

 

They didn't watch completelly the show but most of it's part and then he entered into the restaurant.

 

The very same was called The Garden and was maybe the most expensive high end restaurant in Pride Ring. The decoration was like from a european palace, with golds, mirrors and art in every wall. The ambiance was tacky and even when there was coversational noise, it was very muffled.

 

“Your majesty!” said an imp, impecable dressed in white suit, bowing to the king. “We didn't know you were coming, your highness. Do you want a table to dine with your guests?”

 

Lucifer smiled.

 

“Yes, as soon as possible” said the monarch.

 

“Of course, your highness” responded the imp, moving to prepared said table with the rest of the waitresses and waiters, giving absolutely priority to the King of Hell.

 

Alastor was observing that and he made a disapproving sound with his mouth.

 

“What?” asked Lucifer, side by side with the demon.

 

The Radio Demon looked back to the monarch.

 

“You never thought in calling before hand?” asked the deer. “I know you're the king, deary, and all that jazz but blue blood doesn't pay manners. Your employees could have a bad night, not a single table in sight and then they would had to accomodate you.”

 

Lucifer raised a brow.

 

“Since when you care?” he asked.

 

“People of fairer means, remember?” said the demon, all this conversation in a low, confidential tone. “It's another thing you need to value and use if you are gonna take Pride by the horns: the people that can't defend themselves, the ones that only want to survive, deserve our respect. The least we can do is being an accomodating customer.”

 

The Devil thought in that for a moment and grunting he nodded.

 

“You're right, Alastor” he mumble the words.

 

“Of course I am, that won't make the papers, deary” said the demon, smiling not without certain satisfaction.

 

After some long minutes, the imp returned to the monarch, bowing.

 

“Your table is ready, your highness” said the small man.

 

Lucifer nodded and was going to walk when Alastor tapped him in the ass with the base of his cane. Annoyed, the monarch looked up to the man, seeing him raising a brow.

 

“Mmm... thank you” said the king to the imp and continued to move inside the restaurant with the rest of the gang behind him. “You didn't need to tap me.”

 

He said to Alastor, whispering while moving.

 

“If you're gonna act like a brat, I'll treat you like one” said the deer. “Spare the rod, spoil the child and all of that. Maybe some good spanking are in order.”

 

Lucifer laughed.

 

“Don't threaten me with a good time, Al” said the king.

 

While they were moving to their table, the dinner guests were whispering and talking about the particular group, specially about the monarch and the Radio Demon. Alastor heard his moniker in the lips of goetia and some incubi and succubi that were eating in the place.

 

The arrived to the table and Alastor moved a chair to help sit his daughter, sitting down next to her while some waiters placed bread and butter on the table and a menu for each one.

 

“This is a very ritzie place, shortstuff” said Angel.

 

“Yes, I agree” said the Radio Demon. “Not my usual type of establishment but we could manage.”

 

“Are the italian food any good?” said the spider demon to the monarch, pointing to that part of the menu, with the pasta.

 

Lucifer nodded.

 

“All the dishes are tasted by me” said the king, very proud. “And the pasta specially, is home made, ultra fresh. You'll love it, even your nonna would like it.”

 

The spider demon laughed.

 

“Ha! You didn't know my nonna, very hard to please in the kitchen” said the demon. “Or with anything, really. She was the only person my father feared.”

 

He looked back to the menu.

 

“I'll take first some beef carpaccio and then rigatoni all'Amatriciana” said the demon to the siren woman that was taking their orders.

 

“I'll want carpaccio too, venison carpaccio and the filet mignon with rosemary and garlic” said the Radio Demon.

 

“Very well, sir” said the woman. “How would you like your meat, sir?”

 

“Rare” said the red demon with delight. “I want to hear the cow while eating.”

 

He laughed to his own joke but the poor siren taking the orders didn't find it that funny, specially because she was nervious, not so much by the king, that was also a factor, but she knew Alastor, she knew the Radio Demon and that was obvious for the way she was trembling near him.

 

“And you, darling?” asked the deer demon to his daughter.

 

The girl signed and the woman started to take notes before Alastor could translate her.

 

“Do you understand her?” asked the demon.

 

“Yes, I have a deaf brother, so I learned sign language” said the woman. “Ok, so a caprese salad and a sirloin steak with baked potatoes and mushrooms. How would you like your meat, little one?”

 

Anka signed, delighted for another person to understand her without asking Alastor.

 

“Medium rare” said the siren.

 

The girl said thank you with signing and the woman turned to the rest.

 

“I'll get a caprese salad too” said the monarch. “And the beef teriyaki.”

 

Husk, Niffty, Cherri, Vaggie and Charlie made her orders too and they waited for the food, with Anka taking fast a very small round bread and the butter.

 

Alastor let her use the knife to open the bread and apply the butter, even when she was struggling and Lucifer was almost ready to intervene and help her, remaining in place just because he didn't want a discussion with the Radio Demon.

 

“Why you don't help her?” he murmured to the man.

 

“My daughter isn't a useless little thing, she has to learn and practice makes perfection” said the demon. “Sheltering a child only impedes progress, I thought you, having a daughter, should know by now that one of the things you are require to do is mute your parenting instints with them in certain situations to help them develop... When Ankareeda was learning to walk and she fell, my first instint was to raise her up and don't let her walk alone again. That's wrong... I let her raise by herself everytime.”

 

Lucifer mulled over that for a second.

 

“That sounds mean” said the monarch.

 

“It isn't. You ask them how they are and let them move on” said the deer. “In fact if children see you more worry that is really necessary, they'll worry themselves, even crying, where is no need. I bet your parenting method is suffocating with protection the little ones... It's a miracle that Charlie can dress herself.”

 

Or not so much, thought Alastor without saying it, because it was Lilith the one that raised the princess and not so much the monarch.

 

“So as a parent you aren't allowed to care for your children?” the king asked, annoyed.

 

“Of course, you can, in fact is recommended but not treating them like easy to break pretty teacups, always afraid of them being chipped” said the demon. “In my time children were free to roam and play and hurt themselves... And I'm talking about Louisiana, a place where you needed to learn a very special trick to know if there were gators around.”

 

The king raised a brow.

 

“What trick?”

 

“You go to a body of water and you place your hand on the surface... If that water is wet, there are gators there” he laughed and he made the king laugh too.

 

With that note, they started to dine, having a light conversation with Alastor or Husk translating Ankareeda when the girl started to talk. She was saying she wanted to see the park by day, a dreadful idea for Alastor that he was willing to endure for the sake of his little one and the king didn't lose a second to offer an experience, a direct tour by the hand of the King of Hell, Lulu, himself.

 

Charlie was also talking vividly about the talent show she wanted to create, maybe inviting people like Rosie that was now part of the group, maybe some agreeable people like Carmilla and her daughters. She even commented about having a new commercial for the show but she tried to discard the idea.

 

“Don't worry, Vox could do the commercial” said Lucifer.

 

“Are you sure?” asked Charlie.

 

“After having a fucking firing squad on me, he owe me” said the monarch, trying to frame that like asking a favor but the king was really thinking in just for the overlord... overlord he already saw that texted him as he asked him to do.

 

“I can't believe the fucking pendejo did that” said Vaggie. “What he wanted to accomplish?”

 

“Killing the King of Hell, of course” said Alastor while enjoying his very bloody meat. “When Vox and I started together he was obsessed with me and I wanted company, even when I'm ashame to admit it. Being at the top alone it's extra lonely and no other person on the Pentagram was stupid enough to try to get near me... I was the boogie man of the Ring. But even when we went sour, he's still obsessed... and being treated like a princess I could get it, but not like a damsel in distress.”

 

Husk scoffed, smirking.

 

“Well, the square head was never really bright” said the ex-overlord. “Even taking out the invulnerability of his majesty, surely he could easily overpower his ass. I bet he didn't even say a thing to the other two dumb-dumbs he has a partnetship with.”

 

“No, he didn't” said the monarch. “At least, we think he didn't. They weren't there. Maybe it was a heat of the the moment when he saw Ankareeda, a very unthought burst of jealousy.”

 

The continued talking, changing the topic, when something took their attention.

 

There was a stir near the entrance of the hall in the restaurant, like some celebrity that was famous enough to produce that effect even in noble demons, going some of them to the entrance, surprise in their faces, some very happy.

 

Alastor sniffed.

 

“It can't be...” he muttered.

 

The mob was moving near them and... like Botticelli's Venus, Lilith emerged from the sea of demons trying to get her attention, asking for the Queen and her past whereabouts, saying her welcome... The demoness was smiling, dressed in a very elegant and long black dress, perfectly marking his silhouette without leaving much to imagination. She was wearing a necklace with an amatist and she had long gloves.

 

Her horns were out and she had them covered in refine pearls with little chains in golden going between then.

 

“Charlie!!” she said, opening her arms.

 

“Mom!!” the princess jumped to the arms of her mother while Lucifer was almost growling. “I can't believe, you are back!! I missed you so much!!”

 

The woman smiled softly to her daughter, touching slightly her face with soft gloved hand.

 

“Now I'm here again, darling... Sorry I couldn't respond to your calls but I heard all your messages!! Oh, my darling.”

 

She hugged her again and the woman moved her gaze through the table, with her violet eyes making a stop when she catched on the Radio Demon.

 

“Alastor? Oh, my heavens, darling!!” she moved while the overlord rose tending her hand and him taking it for an elegant kiss. “I heard you were helping my baby, but I couldn't believe it. Oh, Alastor, dear, I owe you one... more than one. You have to tell me everything!! And who's this beautiful girl?”

 

She said, lowering herself a little to see Anka near, smiling softly to the little one that was serious and calculating about that woman... She was studing Hell, she was not ignorant on who that demoness was.

 

“Her name is Ankareeda, she's my daughter” said Alastor, placing a hand in the back of his little girl.

 

The girl signed.

 

“Oh, how polite!!” said Lilith, laughing almost musically. “Of course, being your daugher. It's a pleasure for me too.”

 

Lilith signed back.

 

“She can't talk but she can hear perfectly” commented Alastor.

 

The queen, laughed in that way that looked so sincere and cheerful, full of charm.

 

“It's a pleasure to meet you, Ankareeda” said the demoness. “I'm a friend of your father and Charlie's mom.”

 

Lucifer really hold the necessity to add 'and a manipulative bitch' to her presentation, he was so annoyed that he already bend the fork in his hand.

 

“I didn't know you knew sign language, mom” said Charlie, very curious.

 

“Of course, darling! A good monarch have always to strive to help their people and learning ways to communicate with them, all of them, is part of the basics” said the queen. “I could teach you, if you want to.”

 

“I'll love to! Mom, do you want to eat with us? We can talk and tell me where you were?” asked Charlie, with a vivid smile.

 

Lilith thought it for a moment.

 

“Normally I'll say no, I don't want to cramp in the middle of a dinner with your father and your friends but... It's so much time, that of course!” she said.

 

Alastor, like the gentleman he was, moved to separate the free chair from the table and help her sit.

 

“I love your old school charm, Alastor” she said, sitting right by the said of the Radio Demon.

 

That dinner was bound to be a disaster.

 

Lilith was flirting with Alastor, charming Ankareeda and Alastor knowing sign language, throwing Lucifer in an unfavourable light both as a parent and as a king... Alastor responding to the woman with his southern charms and manners. Lucifer was hating that, was hating the idea of holding himself for Charlie and Ankareeda....

 

That woman was a viper, an adder ready to bite his ankle, hidden in the tall grass of politeness. He couldn't help himself, baring his teeth... Even when the Radio Demon, touched his foot with his and gave him a significant gaze, a discreet and silent plea to behave himself in front of his ex-wife.

Notes:

Yeah, entering sweet Lilith, the First Woman, that Dark Mother... in all her charming self.

Oh, this is gonna be so fun to write!

Chapter 23: The Dark Mother

Summary:

Lilith returned!! More to the dismay of Lucifer than anything, seeing the monarch how his ex-wife was all her charm as a battleram to enter into the dynamics of the Hazbin group.

The woman also seems to have eyes only for Alastor, almost ignoring the king all the dinner.

A discussion between the deer and the king ensue and some truths are lying bare.

Notes:

I know, I know, another dramaticly long, very long quote but hear me out: Secret World is an amazing mmorpg, the setting is modern world with Cthulhu, vampires, werewolf, demons, angels and mages thrown in the mix. And Lilith is an amazing character with an amazing strong voice actress and this quote is a monologue she has during a very important scene, that I love so much, I memorized back in the day and the scene itself is also chef kiss.

Aside from that, I'll try to upload the next chapter before FFXIV Danwtrail drops on friday, because I will write little with a full expansion to play and I don't want to let this without some semblance of upload.

Ps: Mind the tags, the tags changed

“I promised you my name. There are so many names. Once upon a time, a prophet forced me to admit the seventeen names I used to sow mischief. Say my name. Abeko, Abito, Amizo. Say my name. Batna, Eilo, Ita, Izorpo, Kea! Kali! SAY-MY-NAME! Odam! Kokos! Partasah! Podo! Satrina! Talto! I did tell you lies, but I AM a mother. You've faced the descendants of some of my children. Every monstrous silhoutette that haunts every legend, every myth, every night terror- They all trail umbilically back to between this legs, and I dissolved entire civilizations in the sizzling afterbirth. My body is a temple that outlasted all temples. Gods have worshiped herre in blood and semen. Through me you enter the population of the loss. No things were before me not eternal: eternal I remain! Can you guess my final name? Lilith.”

~Ki-sikil-lil-la-ke (Lilith), The Secret World

 

Besides Lucifer thoughts about his ex-wife, the woman was acting very cheerful and polite, with her 'thank yous' and her 'pleases' for the waitresses and waiters of the palace's restaurant. And her smile and sunny disposition surely made her a very loved monarch, with sincere smiles towards her, so different for the tense ones they directed to the king himself.

 

Also the service was also asking if anything was to order, if anything was to her taste... They washed her in adoration and she loved that treatment.

 

“Everything here is so exquisite... Are you liking your food, Ankareeda?” she asked to the the girl.

 

The little one nodded and signed.

 

“Yes, the desserts are also very good” said the the queen. “If you want my recommendation, they made a chocolate mousse that is to die for, not too sweet.”

 

The girl signed again.

 

“Oh, you actually like sweets” she laughed. “I thought you were just like your daddy, if I remember correctly, Alastor, you weren't much of a sweet tooth yourself.”

 

The Radio Demon, that was drinking a bit of wine nodded.

 

“You're actually right, your grace, not a sweet tooth at all but Anka really like her sugary treats” said the deer with a smile to his daughter.

 

“Oh, in that case, the cheese cake with apple syrup” said the woman. “You'll love it... And now for remembering, we have to repeat a night like last time.”

 

Alastor laughed.

 

“Oh, your majesty remembers? I'm touched and honored, your highness” said the man. “It was a fun night, I have to admit and, of course, I could love to repeat... Now that you returned, maybe I could give you a private tour for my new radio tower and light dinner?”

 

Lilith was beaming with that invitation and couldn't help to move slightly, just in an indiscernible way, her eyes to Lucifer.

 

“That will be amazing, Alastor! It's a date, then!” she said.

 

“You seems to know Alastor quite well, mom” said Charlie, with a smile, still smitten for the return of her mother but starting to catch in other things.

 

“Oh, yes... I was a long time fan of Alastor, he targeted the worst overlords, abusive and... horrible, I was about to do something but he did it for me and better than I could possibly do, I'm not a violent person” said the demoness. “Though I can appreciate the use of it if is necessary. And started to write to him... Oh, now I'm so embarrassed.”

 

She said, with her cheeks with a delicate blush and holding her own cheeks with both gloved hands, Lilith was dialing the charming to eleven.

 

“I was like a fangirl but his taste in music is also so good, so elegant” she said. “And after meeting him in person in an overlord reunion, we had a collaboration in my studio. Do you remember that song of mine, 'Through wide the gates'? His lyrics and his piano! I know!! They are so good!”

 

Alastor laughed softly, closing his eyes... Lucifer recognized that laugh and all, that was Alastor feeling prideful as heck. The king had to hold a growl and he could felt his horns trying to pierce the skin near his hairline.

 

“I can't hardly take credit for that, your majesty” said the Radio Demon, surely taking credit in his mind. “I just made a couple of suggestions.”

 

“More than that... That's my biggest single” said the woman. “And we celebrated with dinner, he was so charming... A woman can't forget when a real gentleman comes around and treat you more than right. Ahh... it was a pity we had to call it quits, another overlord tried to take his territory that night. But it was magical!”

 

She said, almost like she was a little dame in love, like almost fantasy love or puppy love, to then made a gesture and continue eating.

 

“So... Where have you been, mom?” asked Charlie.

 

“I have so much to tell you” said the queen. “I managed to sneak up to Heaven!”

 

She said, cheerful and low, like she made a simple mischief.

 

“You what??!” asked Lucifer, showing his red sclera eyes.

 

“Yes, I found a way to go to Heaven” she said. “But is a little hush hush... But I was trying to find support in the high realms to nullify that deal your father so careless made with Adam and Sera for the exterminations.”

 

“I did that deal for Charlie's safety!” said the monarch, baring his teeth.

 

“They used your fear and manipulated you, Lulu” she said, showing a compassionate semblance. “It's no one's fault, really. I tried but between having to be hidden most of the time and the surprise of knowing the exterminations weren't known to the rest of Heaven... It was so difficult to achieve anything!! Frustrating, I'm telling you. And I was informed about you opening your hotel at last and the battle and Adam's death! I came down here immediactly! That's when I listened to your voice mails, sorry, sweetie but in Heaven I had no bars.”

 

Lucifer was still growling.

 

His food was almost untouched, now cold and he was fuming with anger, specially knowing how that woman really was. And seeing his daughter oozing happiness, everybody smiling to that woman, even Ankareeda... and Alastor, not only allowing the flirting but responding to it, learning they had a collaboration and a date? That was hard, that hurts.

 

When they finished with the food and started to ask for dessert, the king just moved his still full plate of food from him.

 

“I'm not hungry” he bit between his teeth.

 

“Mmm... I'll follow the recommendation of your highness and go for the dark chocolate mousse” said the Radio Demon.

 

Ankareeda made some signing.

 

“You won't regret it, dear” she said to the girl, when she asked for that cheesecake.

 

Light conversation and Charlie at the end of the dinner was offering her mother a stay at the hotel, even when she saw that Lucifer wasn't agreeable about that.

 

“I can't, not today at least” said the queen. “I still have to return to my state and I have a little bit of work in my hands. Being a monarch ain't easy, honey!”

 

She hugged the princess and kissed her over her hair.

 

“But I won't be a stranger, I'll go visit, I want to know everything about your venture and help you with all my abilities” she said, to then move and hug Vaggie as well. “And it's a pleasure to know you too! Take good care of my baby, Vaggie. She's the most important thing for me.”

 

“Sure, ma'am, I'll.... I'll do that” said the ex-exorcist with a nervious smile.

 

She moved near Alastor and this one too her hand, to kiss it.

 

“It was a pleasure to see you again, your highness” said the Radio Demon. “As the hotelier of the Hazbin Hotel, we'll await your visit with anticipation.”

 

She laughed, in a very flirty way.

 

“So charming, as always” said the woman. “Good night, Ankareeda, was a real pleasure to meet you.”

 

The girl, in one of his father's arms, smiled back to the woman and signed, saying it was a pleasure for her too, even adding that she was a very pretty queen.

 

“She's as charming as you!” she said, moving her hand like she was about to place it in Alastor's chest and he made a moved to change his daughter from one arm to another, dodging the hand. “Well, guys, it was a blast. Nighty night!”

 

She snapped and purple smoke surrounded her while she was winking to the deer demon, dissapearing from view.

 

“Open a portal, darling” asked the demon while the rest of the group were talking with Charlie about her mother and how awesome and beautiful she was.

 

Lucifer grunted and snapped his fingers hardly, letting everyone to pass to go in last, returning the gang to the lobby of the hotel.

 

“Well, it was a funny night... But Anka needs to go to sleep now” said Alastor. “Good night, chums!”

 

“Good night, Alastor, good night, Anka” said the princess.

 

The little girl made a gesture over her chin and then moving one hand over the other and they understand that was the good night of the girl. Lucifer was so annoyed, so angry, that he didn't repeat the gesture like he did with any new sign he learned.

 

In fact, the king just saw how the Radio Demon and his daughter fused with shadows while Charlie was trying to go near him.

 

“Dad, how are you?” she asked, now far from her mother, she was noticing the state in what her father was, so angry and... disappointed.

 

“Good... I'm tired, I'll go to sleep” he said. “Good night, kiddo.”

 

He faked a smile and teleported to his tower, tossing his hat to a side and removing his coat with hate.

 

“Fucking... bitch!!” his cane flied also from his hand, landing in one of the armchairs of his room. “Fucking beast of a woman, manipulative she-devil...”

 

That woman... and she even was... flirting with Alastor and he allowed it...

 

“Fucking Hells!!” he teleported to Alastor's room, appearing while the Radio Demon was coming from the door that separated his bed chambers from his daughter's. “You!!”

 

Alastor just raised a brow before the very angry short man.

 

“Care to explain why you were wooing with that fucking tramp?” he demanded.

 

The demon removed his coat and placed it neatly over one of the armchairs near his hearth, to then place the cane near it.

 

“I believe, sire, that it's my business, not yours” said the deer.

 

“Like fuck your business!” he had already his horns outside his forehead, his tail trashing behind him, his mouth exhaling fire. “You were flirting with her!! You were returning her poisoness attention... You are..”

 

“What?” interrupted the Radio Demon, showing also his demonic attributes. “Don't you dare finish that sentence! You had my soul for a time, but I'm not your fucking possession. Alastor is the only master Alastor will recognize and get that in that head of yours.”

 

He moved to the Devil, not a single sign of fear from him, complete security closing his distance with the monarch and forcing him to back down before the highly pressured pressence of the Radio Demon, with his big antlers in display, his elongated body and his dangerous gaze. His shadow was behind him, baring his teeth.

 

“If I want to take the queen, drop her in my bed and fuck her brains out, that's my prerogative” said the demon, his voice laced with static and distortion. “I am not yours, you lost me when you broke my heart in favor of that fucking easily breakable ego you have.”

 

Lucifer was angry, was fuming... All his instints screaming at him to take that man, with that vivid image of dropping on the bed and fucking the arrogance out of him... he closed his eyes, he was panting, growling with every breath that was escaping his mouth.

 

He felt Alastor's hand over his shoulder, he prepared for an attack, a hit, a punch... he was clunching his jaw so fiercely to not do something he could regret that a little drop of golden blood was abandoning his mouth.

 

And then he felt it, a tongue catching the drop and a kiss... it was... He opened his eyes, Alastor was in his normal form, he was kissing him, chaste, though he could feel his tongue near his lips. The Radio Demon broke the kiss.

 

“There... You did good” said the demon, softly.

 

“I... I don't understand” said the monarch, confused.

 

“That bitch worked you out just ignoring you” responded the deer. “You're a pathetic little thing and you need to learn.”

 

All the fury from the monarch vanished with Alastor's act and maybe that was the intent, he catched his breathing, relaxing little by little.

 

“Pathetic... Fuck, that bitch” said the king. “I thought...”

 

Alastor laughed, placing his hand over his chest.

 

“Oh, little old me is so good of an actor that I fooled you too?” said the demon. “When the fuck I showed any real interest in the queen?”

 

Lucifer was about to retort, then he thought for a second.

 

“But you had that date with her...” he said.

 

Alastor scoffed and moved while releasing his bowtie.

 

“I collaborated with her in a song and I took dinner with her... She's the fucking Queen of Hell” said the overlord. “Do you take me for someone so egotistical or stupid to refuse or anger that woman? It was strategy and when I saw she really wanted me to fuck her, I used a distraction and an excuse.”

 

Lucifer opened his arms, annoyed still and confused even more.

 

“I don't fucking get it” said the monarch. “You don't want a thing with her, now I can protect you and you still played at her tune.”

 

The deer demon sighed, like he was dealing with a specially dense person and not a man that he know it wasn't so obtuse.

 

“We have a mystery on our hands and even when we have more proof to investigate the Von Eldritch family, your harpy isn't in the clear” said the demon. “I don't believe in coincidences. We spotted the wasp hive, we are ready to poke it and the queen of the stingers shows up in all her glory all of the sudden? Think, fucking Hells, Lucifer, stop acting with your ego, stop acting with your temper and stop thinking with your prick. Fucking think!”

 

Said Alastor, sitting in his bed and poking his own temple with his claw.

 

“I told you about my impressive sense of smell, right?” Lucifer nodded. “It also goes for bullshit, not literally, of course. I'm a deal maker and I had to climb the ranks to the point I'm now... I read people, I catch in the mini expressions, the gestures, the voice specially... Soundwaves are part of my power. She was trying to provoke you and pick my interest. Congratulations, you made the woman extremely happy tonight.”

 

The king moved and sat next to the Radio Demon, his elbows over his knees and his face on his hands.

 

“I can't stand her, she pushes my buttons” said the devil.

 

“And you let her... Nobody can control your reactions but you” said the demon. “And if she was involved in what happened to me years ago, you almost come back to your old self. I saw it in your eyes, you held yourself barely.”

 

“I know, I know...” he hit his own knee with the fist. “Fucking Hells, I don't get why you followed her lead.”

 

“Because, if we want information, we need to access the well to extract it... you know, right? Keep your enemies close?” said the demon, sighing. “I'll play interested with her and try to learn more and you should try to get your head in order. Think that if you insult her in the open or hit her, Charlie is gonna take her side like a charm... and you'll never come back from that, specially if we learn she's in the clear, that it's a possibility.”

 

Lucifer took air and slowly he started to release it.

 

“I guess you are right... Fuck, I was so angry” he said. “Specially seeing her with Ankareeda, she...”

 

The door that separated the room of Alastor from his daughter's opened slowly and the girl, searched with her eyes until she found both men.

 

She was dressed with a cute pajama that had all the marks of being from Rosie's Emporium, with skulls way too cute with bows over them, in purple color and she had a doll in her hand, complete made from fabric, complete black with neon eyes formed by buttons and a smile embroidered in the same color, serrated and almost perverse. It was like that dolly was an imitation of Alastor's shadow but more like her? Lucifer didn't know, but looked like the girl wanted on a moment in time a shadow companion like her dad and he created that rag doll for her.

 

She signed.

 

“No, we are not fighting, we are talking” said the Radio Demon, she signed more. “Yes, I raised my voice, he did, sorry to wake you up, darling.”

 

Anka moved to the bed and signed some more.

 

“Yes, we are talking about the queen” the girl moved her mouth, almost disapproving. “Yes, I know you were acting.”

 

“Acting?” asked Lucifer.

 

“I know my daughter, I know when she doesn't like something and she fakes it” said the demon. Anka vigorously signed some more. “She says she doesn't trust her, that she was lying.”

 

Lucifer was now very curious and surprised.

 

“How you know it, Anka?” he asked her.

 

The girl signed and the king was starting to catch on her way of signing when she was being extremelly sassy.

 

“She says that she was smelling the lies, that her perfume was changing” translated Alastor. “She has the same type of sense of smell than me, she's a deer too, but is more... acute. She can smell easier than me pheromones and secretions and she knows how a person lying smells... the pulse goes faster, perspiration show up, some hormones are produce... specially if the person is trying to gain something from the lie, excitation is present. She practiced that a lot when we lived with Rosie.”

 

“Really? I thought you never let her go out of the swamp” said the monarch.

 

The girl signed and Alastor talked at the same time, the same words.

 

“It's a bayou, not a swamp” said the deer and his daughter. “And that's not true... at least the two last years. She was practicing her travel through shadows and Rosie used her for her more lucrative deals, Anka was hidden catching on the smells of the demon in question and saying later to Rosie if it was a good business or bullshit. She also learned to read people, to catch on movements and body language. My girl can't talk, but fuck, she's good... She's a living lying detector and she doesn't get easily sway because Rosie and I taught her, words are cheap, this is Hell and it's better to be surprised for a genuine person than to be catch off guard by a deceitful one.”

 

Anka nodded, like that was obvious, because she had her lessons internalized even when she was really little. The girl then signed.

 

“Also, she's saying that she was lying with learning sign language in the past” said the girl. “Or she learned and never used it or it's something new, because her gestures were stiff and she took seconds to translate, like she was thinking on it.”

 

The king nodded, feeling certain sense of validation... to then stop for a moment, smiling softly to the girl.

 

“You're a smart cookie, Anka” he said, proud of the girl. “But that stupid bitch...”

 

She moved her hand and took Lucifer by the cheek, surprising him. It was the first time the girl initiated any contact with him.

 

She signed.

 

“Yeah, I know she's Charlie's mom” said the king, she signed more but Lucifer didn't understand the rest.

 

“She's saying that if she's lying, she has bad intentions so you'll have to be smarter than her” translated the demon. “For that she smiled to her, for her she's a good girl.”

 

She smiled, vividly, to then return to serious in a second, like showing her acting skills.

 

“People trust good girls, then it comes the claw” and Ankareeda made a gesture with her little claws, like she was a cat.

 

“Ok, I get it, you're smart... but don't risk yourself, ok, she maybe is more than just a disgrunted woman” asked the devil, with a soft smile.

 

All his core was asking Lucifer to caress the cheek of that girl, kiss her head and hug her, but he holded himself.

 

Anka nodded, the monarch then pointed to the rag doll.

 

“What do you have there?” he asked.

 

The girl showed the dolly with a smile.

 

“It's my shadow, she says” translated Alastor while the girl was signing. “I have a shadow, she's like Oncle.”

 

“Who's Oncle?” understanding the devil the word in french for uncle.

 

Alastor's shadow moved to pick the girl, moving with her turning and hugging her and passing his nose for her nose, like Alastor liked to do with her.

 

“Oh, I see” said the monarch.

 

Alastor shrugged.

 

“I don't know the insistence in give my shadow a name but she named him” said the deer. “Anyway, we should sleep, we don't know what day will that woman chose to come to the hotel, maybe she's here tomorrow.”

 

That was an invitation to beat it if Lucifer saw one in his life.

 

He rose from the bed while Alastor gave her daughter a kiss.

 

“Carry her to sleep” the girl say good night to both men while Alastor's shadow was going with her to her bedroom.

 

“When do you have your next doctor's appointment?” asked the deer, taking out his gloves.

 

Lucifer thought for a moment.

 

“In two days...” he was mulling something. “Alastor... the... kiss?”

 

The deer demon rolled his eyes.

 

“It was a defusing mechanism” said the demon. “You were on edge, ready to pounce and holding by a thread, I needed to distract you, I still don't trust your self-control.”

 

Lucifer sighed.

 

“So it meant nothing” said the monarch, bumped for that fact.

 

“Exactly” said the demon. “Sire, what I said is still the truth. If for some miracle or curse I want to ravish someone in my bed, I don't need your permission. I'm my own master.”

 

He didn't want to discuss with the demon but he had to say it.

 

“But you said you still love me” said the king.

 

“Yes... that is what my heart wants, but I'm not in the market to hear it” said Alastor, taking out his monocle and placing it over his bedside table. “My priorities have changed, my promise is still important to me but my daughter, sorry, it's more important. Also, you don't get to hold ownership over someone you valued so little...”

 

Said the demon, going near the man and lowering his voice until it was more a whisper. It was tempting but also a truth that still stinged for him.

 

“Ok, I get it” he said, lowering his head.

 

“Good night, your majesty” said the demon, starting to unbutton his shirt, sitting in the bed and giving the monarch a look of his back.

 

Lucifer sighed, pure resignation.

 

“Good night, Alastor” said the king, going out of the door, taking the corridor to go to his own room.

 

When he heard the door closing behind him, the Radio Demon sighed to then look over his shoulder in the direction where Lucifer was seconds ago. He denied, moving his hand over his lips, touching with the fingertips the plump flesh, with still the taste of the Devil and his blood over his tongue, the sensation in his lips.

 

He closed his eyes, moving the fingers, trying to retain the feeling, the caress of those sweet lips, with no imperfection in them, the sensation of his skin, like porcelain but hot to the touch... He knew he shouldn't duel in the sensation, let himself be consumed by it. His heart wanted him near, his body was screaming at him... Every pore from his body was asking for his touch, for his heat, the feeling of his fingers traveling over his skin, talking him apart inch by inch... In the present his hands started to move.

 

Alastor forced himself to undress and change his clothes for his wine color satin pajamas, entering in his bed, covering himself with the sheets and the duvet. His hands were acting alone, the sudden rush of desire that he himself provoked by that kiss. He rarely touched himself, he rarely felt desire at all but that acursed man, the fucking Devil...

 

The memory of good times was strong, he still remembered Lucifer's smell when he was excited, that musk that was so potent for Alastor. He remembered his hands, over his breasts, his stomach... His hands now traveling those paths, going down to his boxers, introducing a hand and feeling the humidity, the desire dripping from him, dripping for that man.

 

He needed to think clear, he needed to hold himself or he could do something really stupid, stupidier than that kiss he tried to disguise as a tactic to distract the shorter man. Alastor wasn't use to touch himself, he normally... didn't felt... the need. He bit the sheets to silence his voice, his fingers moved with the memories of the things Lucifer did to him in the past, the things he really liked... The memory of fingers, of tongue and smell... It was too much and he came, panting, feeling betrayed by his own body, that accursed body that wanted nothing more than the sensation of Lucifer again, the heat from his body and his member between his folds.

 

Stupid, stupid mistake... He needed to cut any physical contact with that man or he knew, he painfully knew, he couldn't resist him.

 

***

 

The next two days moved rather fast.

 

Lilith didn't went to the hotel yet but she talked with Charlie via text messages and she even with that managed to get some jabs in the direction of Lucifer, with his daughter repeating with innocence some things back to him, like the woman saying she couldn't come to the hotel yet because the realm was topsy-turvy for the lack of a ruler and things like that, things that made the devil to clench his teeth and hold it in front of Charlie.

 

Alastor also gave him some looks that Lucifer catched, like asking him to act, like he did with that woman in the dinner. The thing, the short man was a very pational man, he was ruled by his ideas, his dreams and his emotions and being the most powerful being in Hell, he never needed to act, to fake, to present a face that wasn't his... He never acted coy, he never hide his ideas or emotions. Now, he needed to do it.

 

Like the Radio Demon said, even if the woman was innocent of what happened to them years ago, still she was trying to get a reaction from him, possible in from of Charlie, having him ban from the hotel and her life forever.

 

The king grunted in his mind. Two people he loved, both tried to get the same from him... Sure, Lilith tried to fight him face to face but the end result was the same as Alastor's. How his life was like this from the beginning? How the people he loved could treat him so bad? First his brothers and sisters, then Lilith... Alastor...

 

Lucifer was thinking in that when he went to the next apointment with Belphegor.

 

“Good morning, Lulu, how are you feeling?” asked the Sin.

 

“Like fucking shit, if I'm being honest” and the monarch started to spin the tale about the dinner, Lilith, the text messages with Charlie, the conversation with Alastor and the fucking kiss that was haunting him. “He said it didn't mean a thing but fuck, it was for me.”

 

Belphegor made some annotations on her notebook and raised her head at the same time she was moving her glasses to a better position.

 

“And what it meant to you, Lulu?” she asked.

 

“I don't know, I don't know how to explain it... It meant something! Like... He cares for me, he wants me but... he doesn't move on it” said the king. “He said that his priorities shifted, that he cares for Ankareeda but... maybe, I don't know, if he gives in, maybe we could be together now and maybe this could be easier.”

 

The sin took another note.

 

“Do you think you deserve that?” asked the demoness.

 

Lucifer thought for a moment.

 

A part of him was telling him he didn't deserve shit, that he screwed things up big time and he deserved to be alone right now, not being able to show his love, not to Alastor, not to his baby but another part of him, prideful and hurt, slightly egotistical, was telling him that he was making a fucking effort, that he had a lot in his plate since the beginning of fucking Hell and he deserved a breather.

 

“Well... Screw me, I think I deserved to be loved” he said, whizzing a little. “Fuck, Belphy, my life is a fucking shit show since Eden. King of Heaven, just in name, with my twin brother, that was created second, I'll add, was taking the reins and me in the fucking backseat in a baby's seat no less... I had to create things in secret!! Me!! And then fucking... I fell in love with Lilith, she convinced me to liberate Eve from Adam and I had happiness for the fucking smallest of time with both. Then it came my punishment, throwing me like I was nothing to the fucking cunt of Creation... and not with both!! Just Lilith! And then... Fuuuuck!!”

 

His devil attributes were showing, a note to his internal turmoil, of all the things he had locked in his chest and he rarely vented because normally he didn't have a person to do it except for Charlie and he wasn't ready to trauma-dump his child.

 

“One fucking decission, one... In ten thousand years, one... And she not only threw our love and lives to the garbage but she now has a vendetta against me!” he had his fists clenched. “She wants to take Alastor from me, I saw it! The same she took Charlie from me... And now I have this fucking fear of losing all again, losing Charlie, Alastor, Anka... just because of that vile woman. And Alastor... to fucking Hells with that man. He tempt me, he touches me, HE kissed ME! And then said it means nothing!”

 

Belphegor continued to take notes about what Lucifer was telling her. Sure, she had the impression, from eons ago, that Lucifer was still traumatized for Heaven's banishment, who couldn't not be that after being cast out for his own family? PTSD was something she thought the monarch could have but for her he was showing a very deep and rooted problem.

 

“So you're now afraid of being alone? Of being abandoned?” she asked.

 

“Yes!! Fuck, I don't have much people in my life, I can't lose the people I have” said the king, almost at the border of tears. “I could get it if it was just my fault, if I wasn't doing a thing but... I'm fucking trying!!”

 

He sobbed.

 

“I'm trying, Belphy, and it's hard” said the Devil. “I'm barely sleeping, the bed feels cold and I'm numb all the time when I'm awake. And that was before Lilith... Who knows if my effort is enough to counter her influence, her lies. She was always vindictive, always... And I'm not proud but I enjoyed in it the past. When someone was disrespectful with me she always prepared this exagerated vengeance plans, those complots... She made sure they pay for it and then some. Now... that I'm in her crosshairs... I'm afraid.”

 

The sin made some anotations and then rested the notebook over the desk, crossing her hands and looking directly to Lucifer.

 

“As you told me, Alastor already told you he's playing her, correct?” asked the woman, the king just nodded. “And Ankareeda catched her in a lie. Do you really think that after that there is a posibility they could take her side?”

 

Lucifer lowered his head.

 

“I don't... want to think that, I know is not logical but... My heart aches” he said. “I love them so much and I fear losing them to her manipulations.”

 

“Do you really love them, Lulu?” asked the woman.

 

He raised his head, surprise in his face with a mix, just a tad, of rage.

 

“What kind of question is that? Of course I do!” said the monarch, like that was obvious.

 

“Lulu, I need to be crystal clear with you” said the Sin. “The woman you met was a charade, a lie. Milady doesn't exist...”

 

“I know...” he was about to protest but the woman sighed and looked at him severely.

 

“You barely know Alastor as such” said Belphegor. “You don't know his life, his afterlife... His tastes, his complete boundries, his way of thinking. You have the impression you had from him when you didn't recognize him and your memories of a woman that doesn't exist. And you are claiming love and even ownership over a person you don't know and you're not making an effort to know him, a man very different from that false woman, that you say you love. And I don't know if it is because you are delusional just thinking you love him and that's that or because you're afraid of really know him and discover you don't love him.”

 

Lucifer deflated a little, feeling really small in his seat, pain riding his face, showing his internal turmoil.

 

“I... I don't know, Belphy” said the man, with a small voice.

 

“My advice, as exercise for this week, is that you learn more about the man” said the Sin. “Talk to him, ask questions, try to have conversations that doesn't revolve around your past time together, your current situation, Lilith or your investigation... and those chats can mention Anka but don't make her the topic. Try to find how true are your feelings, Lucifer.”

 

She said, sighing.

 

“If not and you just want to use him as an arm-flotty, trying to not drown yourself in sorrow and solitude, you'll end up hurting him because maybe his feelings are real” said the woman. “And taking that, I want to meet him, he and the little girl.”

 

“Why?” asked Lucifer.

 

“I want to talk to Alastor, see his perspective” said the Sin. “Also, I want to make a medical check to both. That birth was exceedingly cruel and brutal, he told you that his reproductive system was destroyed in the process and I want to see the magnitude of the damage and also the health of the girl. Her severed vocal cords could present another problems down the road or she could have some other imperceptible damage except for a trained eye.”

 

Lucifer wasn't very comfortable with that but it was not for him to decide.

 

“I can't order Alastor to come, I'll tell him” said the monarch.

 

He was mulling something, the woman catched him on that.

 

“What are you thinking, Lulu?” asked the Sin.

 

“Belphy... can I trust you?” asked suddenly, not looking back to the demoness. “I... maybe I'm paranoid now with Lilith but... Can I really trust you? You won't betray me, right?”

 

He looked at her like a helpless bunny... if he wasn't in extreme mental stress, that could be funny thiking he was maybe the strongest creature behind Creation themselves.

 

“Lucifer... We sins are loyal to you” said the woman. “We spawned from you, we are your sins, those you developed in your rebellion inside you and we have been here since the beginning. Maybe some of us are way too much... Like Satan and Mammon but, in the end of the day, we know where our loyalty resides... Don't worry for things you don't need to worry.”

 

She moved to the side to look better the screen of her computer, moving the mouse to open her schedule.

 

“Tomorrow I have time, around four, for a visitation... ask Alastor if he wants to come” said the woman. “And remember, exercises are mandatory.”

 

The king and the Sin said goodbye to each other and the monarch returned via teleport to this room at the hotel.

 

He had a lot of things to think about.

 

What were the things he knew about Alastor? He liked bitter food, spices, Louisiana cooking was his prefered but he liked italian and french, he spoke french, he liked jazz and swing... he still loved his mother, he managed to get his dream job before dying... his magicks gave him control of radio waves, sound waves and shadows... and... he was a good dad. Nothing more really and there were a lot of things, yes, but all felt suddenly very superficial for the monarch.

 

Know more about him.... Well, maybe the next day he could hear his broadcast, for starters. And now he felt even worse, taking his own pillow to scream in it. Not only he never listened to his broadcast before, he never knew at what hour he usually did them.

 

Well, he had a starting point at least.

 

Lucifer decided to go to Charlie, asking her if she needed something from him and then make a couple of questions about Alastor to her. Also, he needed to tell the deer about the doctor's apointment.

Notes:

Well, next one is knowing more from the deer, his visit to Belphegor's clinic and a little something in the end of the chapter, one of those cliffhangers I love so much but it gonna be so good XD

Chapter 24: To know a deer

Summary:

Lucifer is decided to follow Belphegor's advices and know better the man he said he was in love with.

Alastor has a very interesting broadcast and the visitation to the Sin of Sloth's clinic, who present an interesting proposition to him.

Notes:

You can't complain of how well behaved I am... Here you have a chapter to entertain yourselves while I'm tackling my favorite mmo's new expansion.

“I believe you find life such a problem because you think there are the good people and the bad people. You are wrong, of course. There are, always and only, the bad people, but some of them are on opposite sides.”

~Havelock Vetinari, Guards! Guards!

 

“An apointment with Belphegor?” asked the red demon, in the kitchen, redder than usual because he was cutting a whole lamb for dinner and he was getting... messy. “What for?”

 

The cleaver went down the neck of the lamb, separating the head and the rest of the body and Lucifer flinched by pure reflexes. Alastor was always smiling and, even when his eyes were always very expressive, the king sometimes didn't know how to read him. Was he mad for the apointment?

 

“Ehmm... Belphy wants to see you” said the monarch, rubbing his hands. “And Anka and... maybe make a checkup of both? She's worry about your health, both of yours and... well, that, she also wants to talk.”

 

The Radio Demon moved the cleaver near his mouth, tapping his chin with the back of it.

 

“Ok” said the demon, again a sonorous cut. “I'll go with Anka but you'll have to help me with going and returning. Even when my daughter is hellborn, I'm a sinner.”

 

“Yeah, I know, of course... I'll accompany you” he laughed. “I'll be your taxi cab!”

 

Alastor looked back at him and raised an eyebrow, raising the blade to down it again, strongly, cutting off half of the lamb. Blood splatted, showing how fresh was that meat and how forceful was that hit. Some pearls of blood were in Alastor's face.

 

“You're making a mess!” said the monarch, after having to step back to not get dirty himself.

 

“That's part of the fun!” said the demon, laughing and continuing with his chopping.

 

He loves bloody things, check, thought the king.

 

“By the way, Alastor” said Lucifer. “On what time is your broadcast tomorrow?”

 

The deer demon looked back to the monarch.

 

“Eight o'clock, like always except when I do a special, why?” asked Alastor with curiosity.

 

“Well, I was thinking I never hear one of your broadcasts before... First time for everything and all of that” he said, trying to downplay the importance.

 

“Oh, I'll end up collecting royal listeners” said the demon. “Can I ask why?”

 

Lucifer scoffed.

 

“Why what?” he knew perfectly the why and the what but he didn't want to explain himself to the Radio Demon.

 

“Why this desire to hear my broadcast when you never showed any interest whatsoever in it?” said the demon. “This is one of those exercises that the Sin of Sloth imposses over you as therapy?”

 

He was smart, he was smart as fuck or Lucifer was way too transparent.

 

“No, no” he said making a gesture, he then clicked his tongue. “Well, yes. She suggested that maybe it was all well and good to know you better, to know... what you like?”

 

Alastor started to clean his cleaver.

 

“Oh, I see....” he said, mysteriously, drying the heavy blade after rinseng it.

 

“Yeah... and... well, that... That annoys you?” asked the king, pondering on the deer's reactions.

 

“Belphegor telling you that maybe you didn't know me at all? No” he said. “I told you that before and you didn't listen.”

 

Lucifer opened his eyes with surprise.

 

“How you knew she told me that?” he asked.

 

“I didn't know, you told me” he said. “Let me venture more in that... She told you that you only knew Milady and not me, right?”

 

He nodded.

 

“If you want to feel better, I based a lot of things for her in myself because I was ready to live the rest of my afterlife as her” said the demon, taking a pot to start to cook the lamb with just water and salt to clean it well. “I prefer strong drinks over fruity cocktails, I like bitter over sweet, I prefer the music from my time, I understand modern technology but I don't like it, I like to cook, I like to dance, I like to sing...”

 

And those things Lucifer already knew them.

 

“Your favorite color is red?” he adventure with a secure smile.

 

“Purple or violet, in fact” responded the demon.

 

“Come again?”

 

“Violet and purple in general” after adding the meat, he snapped and all the blood he had over himself dissapeared. “I have a predilection for dark purple and neon violet but that's my favorite color.”

 

Lucifer used his finger to point Alastor, up and down.

 

“Why you dress all in red, then?” he asked.

 

“Because, according to Rosie, my color is red” explained Alastor. “Between my skin complexion and my hair color, red suits me better. Also, it hides well occasional blood splatter if I'm trying to get different victims one after the other.”

 

And he said that nonchalantly, losing the knot of his apron and taking it out to rest over a chair, sitting himself in another to continue the talk with the monarch.

 

Lucifer moved to sit in front of him.

 

“Okay, off with your questions” said the demon. “If this helps you in any way I don't mind but I reserve my right to refuse some.”

 

The Devil nodded with a smile.

 

“Ok, lightning round!” he said, happy, like it was a game. “Favorite food?”

 

“My mother's jambalaya” said the demon. “Not any jambalaya... I'm very critical with the dish, years ago I ate a demon, restaurant owner, that made the bold claim of having the best jambalaya in Pride Ring. I disagreed. Before dealing with you, not a single restaurant in Pride had the dish in their menus for fear of my input.”

 

He laughed. Lucifer made a mental notation about never trying to make that dish to the demon, even when it was his favorite.

 

“Favorite song?”

 

“You're never fully dressed without a smile” he said, tilting his head to a side.

 

“Musical lover, I see” said the devil.

 

“Yes, indeed” responded Alastor. “I love musicals. It's the only thing that can surpase my distaste for tv and cinema. Here in Hell are so little oportunities to enjoy good musicals in theaters that moving pictures is the only resource I got.”

 

“So you don't see movies unless they are musicals?” asked Lucifer.

 

“Exactly” responded Alastor. “The rest of cinema, specially modern one doesn't interest me.”

 

“And your favorite?” asked the devil.

 

“Annie” said Alastor.

 

“Annie... Little orphan Annie? That wholesome musical about the orphan girl adopted by a millionare?” the Radio Demon nodded twice under that description. “Color me impressed, I'll never should guess... Can... Can I ask why?”

 

“No, next question” he said, making a gesture to invoke a glass with whiskey neat.

 

“Dodgy... ok, I can work with that” the shorter man thought for a moment. “Mmm... you like books, right?”

 

Alastor nodded.

 

“What's your favorite book?” asked the king.

 

The demon took his time to thought for a moment, like the answer was not as easy as his favorite musical or song.

 

“I guess that thanks to open my knowledge to teach my daughter and use the right books with her, I read a lot in this past seven years and I expanded my taste” said the deer. “I really enjoyed The Lord of the Rings, Sherlock Holmes books are a must, Arsené Lupin also are really fun to read too... I read some Terry Pratchett, I read some Agatha Christie, the classics are important but I don't stand Shakespeare, is very boring for me, except Macbeth. I like Neil Gaiman a lot! Rosie made an inquiry to a new sinner a couple of years ago about books for children in fashion on the Living World and the sinner recommended Coraline... But thinking in that, maybe my favorite is Stardust. I read it three times already, it's... I don't know, comforting.”

 

Lucifer opened his eyes widely. Yeah, the first night he helped him to sleep staying in his room he was reading that book. And Lucifer knew it... Sure, most of his time he was creating new rubber ducks but when he hit a creator's block, he resorted to reading to fill the hours. He read that before... He even saw the movie!

 

“So... your favorite, comfort book is about a guy, faling in love with a literal star” asked the king, punctuating every word that was abandoning his mouth.

 

“Yes, but that's not how it begins...” the overlord sighed. “More questions?”

 

Ok, was obvious that Alastor wasn't ready to elaborate more about that so he didn't press him. More questions, more questions...

 

“How do you died?” asked the monarch.

 

“Next question” responded Alastor.

 

“Why?!” asked the king, he really wanted to know.

 

“Do I need to explain myself for refusing a question?” asked the demon.

 

“Noooo... but maybe... can't be that bad?” he said, not so sure.

 

The Radio Demon sighed.

 

“How many times you experienced death?” he moved his hand to stop him when the devil was about to respond. “None, that's your number, zero. It's not a gratifying experience, isn't fun to feel, isn't fun to remember... Specially because it was my fault for not having my feelings under control.”

 

He looked... annoyed, but now Lucifer wanted more than before to know exactly what happened.

 

“Your feelings?” he asked.

 

“Yes, your highness, my feelings!” Alastor was already showing the radio dial pupils in his eyes. “It was my fault! I was in distress, I made a stupid mistake! I wasn't ready at 33 to make good on my promise, I wanted to do more in the Living World... Fucking Hells!”

 

Alastor was almost angry and Lucifer didn't wanted that. The death of the deer looked like a sore point for him, so he didn't want to pressure in that, even with the huge curiosity he had about it.

 

“Sorry, sorry... I... I didn't want to bother you, Alastor” he moved his hand to take on the hand over the table that the demon had but Alastor moved it out of touch. “Sorry...”

 

The deer moved his hand to then denied with his head.

 

“Don't worry, deary” he said. “It's just... annoying.”

 

The king thought for a moment what more questions he could do in the spot and one came to mind, after that gesture he tried and the demon denied.

 

“How it works? Your... not liking touch thingy” he tried to explain himself, badly.

 

Alastor just sighed.

 

“My 'thingy' it's... very simple, really” he said. “I don't mind touch from some of the people I know. My daughter, of course, your daughter, Rosie, Mimzy, Niffty... Your touch, the same as Vox's, was the same until it wasn't. Now feels wrong, most of the time. Mmm... if I initiate touch, is because I'm in the mood for that. Also there are things I can't stand to touch, blood and similars are fine, oily substances, oily foods that requiere you to touch them to eat them... I can't. I love chicken cajun and jerk chicken but I can't stand to touch them directly with my hands. And there are days that I want to crawl out of my own skin, even my clothes feel wrong. In those days I can't stand touch even from the people I normally do.”

 

“It's that bad?” asked the monarch, remembering maybe those times that he impossed his touch to Alastor when they were living together.

 

“It's not... painful” said the demon. “It's more like... ants crawling in my skin or... salt in the wound, when you bruise your skin and it's expose and you touch it, that sensation, burning. Not painful, not pleasant.”

 

Lucifer sighed.

 

“Sorry, Alastor... I guess I impossed myself to you and I didn't meant to... I'm sorry” said the monarch.

 

The deer demon hummed and let a silence between them.

 

“Don't worry, darling” he finally said. “You're very... touch starved, very physical in your emotions and I never told you about my boundries because I didn't want to displease you. So... part of it it's my fault.”

 

“Yeah, well... You showed you disliking those moments, I took it as teasing... I should have asked questions and I didn't” the Devil jumped from his chair. “Thanks for indulging me, Alastor. Sorry if I made you uncomfortable with the questions.”

 

The Radio Demon entered into a shadow and moved near the pot, looking inside to see the meat cleaning for impurities.

 

“No need, deary” said the demon. “Ahh... and next time you're in the necessity to touch me, like holding my hand or placing a hand over me, let me see the movement. If I recoil, I don't want it, if not, I'm allowing you.”

 

The king nodded.

 

“I'll keep that in mind” said the man going to the parlor where Anka was teaching Vaggie and Charlie more signs and joined in.

 

***

 

“Good morning, my wayward sinners” the voice of Alastor came clear in the demon's radio Lucifer had in his room. “Today again, your sweet Radio Demon bringing you the best of the best of this wretched Ring of Hell.”

 

Lucifer was in the center of his bed, still in pajamas, legs crossed and with the radio in front of him, trying to imagine Alastor while he was speaking to the airwaves.

 

“For all of you that are long time listeners and the new ones that come into my frequency for the first time... Welcome, welcome” he continued with his cheery disposition. “We'll have a well rounded menu today. The Weather and News, of course... But also some gossip, my very popular opinion segment, the best music in between and... I even have some fresh screams today, recorded in one of my last outtings. Very entertaining!!”

 

Canned applause and laughs.

 

“But first, let's go with the weather...”

 

His voice was so good, Lucifer found himself enthralled by it after a while of hearing him speak. Alastor was in his element, his entonation was perfect... Lucifer took the radio and placed it on his pillow, resting by it.

 

Even with something so mundane as the weather, he was a delight to hear... Then he started talking about Pride's last news. His remarks for other overlords were extremelly funny, specially when he talked about Vox and the Vees.

 

“But don't you worry your pretty little heads with the Vees, my beautiful heathens... A little bird told me some interesting rumors about changes in Pride, about those on high taking a look down, for a chance” he laughed. “I can't say much, not yet... But continue to stay tune and maybe in the upcoming days, your Radio Demon will have more saucy things to tell you. Now, some music, one theme, not quite the type of music I use to play for you, not these days but it's something I used to play from time to time... One of the songs of our Queen Lilith.”

 

Lucifer growled with the mention of his ex-wife and that song of her. It was one of her oldest songs from her pop era, called Resist. A theme very Madonna-like.

 

He lowered the volume, because he didn't want to hear her but didn't want to turn off the radio either and waited for the voice of that woman to stop to ring in his ears.

 

“Beautiful, isn't it?” said the demon when the song finished. “A marvelous voice with an important message. We are sinners, we won't go quiet to the night at the point of heavenly blades wielded by hypocrites... Princess Charlie Morningstar presented a front, braved a resistance and it can be done. Even our marvelous King Lucifer Morningstar grew tired of Heaven's lies and joined the fray. Don't forget that, Pride Ring, my listeners, both sinners and hellborn, we are not the toys of Heaven and we won't bow down to them again.”

 

With his diabolical laughs, music started to sound, a very catchy and happy song, from one of those musicals that Alastor liked so much.

 

And it was... oddly fitting for what he was talking about, in a sarcastic way.

 

Forget your troubles, c'mon get happy

You better chase all your cares away

Shout 'Hallelujah', c'mon get happy

Get ready for the Judgement Day.

 

Lucifer had to grant something to the Radio Demon, he was a very good speaker, someone with the right amount of security in himself and flair to make people listen to what he was saying... Talking so freely about rebelling against Heaven.

 

“And now, my last segment” said the deer demon. “Let me tell you a story... Once upon a time there was a sweet Radio Demon, prancing without a care in the world around the piss stained streets of Pentagram City, with the beautiful sound of screams, pleasure moans and shootings giving this beautiful place its own soundtrack. And comes and enter Johnny TwoPumps, a chum, a lizard demon, a sinner, that decided that day to open his big, big mouth.”

 

Oh, oh... said the sound effect.

 

“Johnny TwoPumps liked to brag, Johnny TwoPumps opened his mouth, decided it was well and good, waiting at Evil Donuts, to regale his other chums with his fantasies” said the demon. “Johnny TwoPumps had a plan to enter the Hazbin Hotel, so many cunts there to defile, he said...”

 

Lucifer bared his teeth while listening.

 

“He talked about the princess, he talked about her paramour, he talked about our spanky bomber girl and he talked about the... what it was... little cyclops that killed Adam.” Alastor's voice went from cheery to fucking warning terrifying in a second. “I won't repeat what Johnny said, you know me, I'm a gentleman and I have way too much class for that. But if it isn't clear enough, Hazbin Hotel is under my protection, is my territory, my turf, like you young ones say, and everyone inside it is protected by me... Being inside of these walls or outside. Sure, anyone of these fine ladies can kick all your sorry asses without breaking a sweat... But I won't tolerate disrespect to them either. Or to any other under my care. So here is the moral of this little story...”

 

The screams started to sound, first with a sobbing, with a male voice asking for forgiveness from an assailant that wasn't in the market to give any... Alastor talked about those screams.

 

“If you don't want to end like Johnny TwoPumps, don't try to fuck with the Radio Demon, his employees or his protected souls” he said, the screams going up in intensity. “Not only the hotel and those inside it are off limits for your hellish entertainment but I won't tolerate a single misplaced word about them. You know?”

 

He laughed.

 

“Enjoy my work, my beautiful listeners, old and new... and remember, your sweet Radio Demon awaits you, same hour, at the 66,5 frequency, Lucifer's neighbor... Have a hellish day, my heathens!” And he finished his broadcast, leaving the screams at full volume of that man, with sounds... squishy, sounds and sounds of tearing apart.

 

Grotesque... and Lucifer was blushing, with his cheeks golden and red in a mix, sitting at the bed with the radio in his pillow. Surprised eyes, mouth slightly opened... His own arousal took him completelly by surprise.

 

The screams were for around ten more minutes and the transmission was cut with the final notes of Alastor, laughing after the screaming.

 

“Holy shit, that was hot” he murmured.

 

“You think?” said Alastor, by his side, surely raising just now from his shadow and catching the devil out guard.

 

“Fuckin' hells!” he said, jumping like a scary cat and dropping from the bed. “Don't fucking appear like that, damnit!”

 

The demon smiled while tilting his head into a position that made his neck crack, completelly anti-natural.

 

“You were saying something about me being hot, sire?” said the demon, with that smile full of teasing.

 

“You... you... egotistical piece of shit... “he sighed. “Fuck! That was... too much and... Yeah, fuck that guy to the max.”

 

Alastor hummed.

 

“So I take you liked my broadcast” he said, looking back at his radio over the pillow and then to Lucifer's groin. “Oh, more than like, apparently.”

 

Lucifer took one of his pillows and placed it over his thighs, feeling his face almost in flames.

 

“Well... mmm... I... I liked it, you have a decent taste in music, you're informative...” he tried to said, overcomed by shame.

 

“You love when I torture and kill people that deserved it” added Alastor.

 

“Yeah... hells! No! I mean... the guy deserved it but I'm not... I'm not a...” he wasn't finding the word.

 

Alastor laughed.

 

“Anyway, I'm preparing ratatouille today for lunch and Anka gets in a mood if she doesn't have a sugary infused dessert after vegetables” started to say the demon. “I was thinking you could maybe cook a dessert for her, if you know something sweet that aren't pancakes.”

 

Lucifer thought.

 

“I can cook a good vanilla puddin” he offered.

 

“Excelent!” and Alastor waited with both hands over his microphone.

 

“Ehmm... give me... half an hour?” said the king, fully embarrassed.

 

The Radio Demon tilted his head and licked his own lips. All Lucifer's body was screaming at him, praying at the same time. He wished Alastor offered his help with his problem... taking responsability for that erection that his melodic radio voice caused.

 

The demon widened his smile and turned around.

 

“I suggest a cold shower or a fast pumping” said the demon, laughing and dissapearing through shadows.

 

Lucifer raised his head, looking to the ceiling to then sigh. Yeah, his cock was completelly delusional thinking Alastor could offer help in that department... He moved out of the bed, going to the bathroom.

 

“Cold shower it is...”

 

***

 

They had lunch and in the agreed hour, Lucifer used a portal to transport the overlord and his daughter to Sloth Ring, to the private clinic of Belphegor.

 

“You must be Alastor and you Ankareeda” said the goat demon in front of the two.

 

The girl signed 'Nice to meet you'.

 

“Pleasure to be meeting you, quite a pleasure” said Alastor, raising from his seat in the waiting room, with his girl doing the same.

 

“Come with me... Don't worry, Lulu, we won't take much time” said the Sin to the monarch. “Pick a book from the bookshelf to get entertained.”

 

She suggested, having a small bookshelf in the waiting room with different books, some of the self-helping ones.

 

After the demon and the girl entered the office, the sin explained what she wanted to do, starting with a medical checkup. Alastor was apprehensive to get undress for the woman but he did and allowed the examination of his body and then the x-ray and then the ultrasound.

 

Then was the turn of the girl but she just limited herself to examine her scar, her throat and then she made an ultrasound too.

 

With all the data and a happy Ankareeda with a lollipop in hand, the woman started to explain things to Alastor.

 

“Ok, after my examination and all the tests, I'll say that your reproductive organs are very damaged” started to say the Sin.

 

“Yes, my friend Rosie is very knowledgeable in anatomy and she said as much” said the demon.

 

“Your daughter, on the other hand, was saved not only for your timely intervention but also for her fast regeneration, she has marks of damage in the inside of the trachea that could make her alimentation almost impossible but it was sealed very well” said the woman, revisiting the ultrasound. “She can be intervine to fix the damage in her vocal cords but there is no guarantee and with her regeneration could be even slightly dangerous.”

 

The girl signed 'I'm good like I'm now, I can talk'.

 

“I see that” said the sin, with a soft smile. “Still will be your decision, maybe in the future. And... Alastor. You know there are interventions to change one's morphology, right?”

 

The Radio Demon nodded.

 

“Yes, I know from other demons that ended up here after my time” said the deer. “Also I know that is almost impossible for us sinners, taking our innate regeneration.”

 

The smile of the woman was bright and very charming, giving people a sense of calm and security.

 

“Not for me, it isn't” said the Sin. “I never operated on a sinner, true, but I made almost a thousand of sex change operations to hellborn. The only difference is finding medical supplies made with angelic steel... according with my chats with Lucifer, I think that is a posibility you would like to think about, maybe?”

 

Alastor was... surprised, his smile tense in his face.

 

“I could have...” he wasn't sure to ask.

 

“It's a big step, most prefer not take it” said the woman. “And some only take the one they are comfortable with, normally top surgery is the case. I know is a hard decision, not one to take willy nilly but the offer is open. You had a very hard time with Lucifer and I'm somewhat like a sister to him, even when I was born from him, I want to help you at least with that. You'll think about it, I'll give you my personal business card and you can call me, any time... if you need to talk or accept my offer.”

 

The sin took some air and then she looked back to Anka.

 

“Darling, can you let your dad and I to talk in private? It's just a moment” the girl nodded and she went out, sitting next to Lucifer.

 

“Very well, that is the easy part, your body... now, I'll want to talk about what happened to you, what it made you felt and what placed you in that position” said the demoness. “Lucifer told me about the promise you made to him... how old were you then?”

 

Alastor wasn't kin on talking about his life, his mind but... he was still thinking in the offer made by the sin and... He had to admit that someone that was bound to secrecy by a code of ethics is what he needed to release at least a part of the pressure over his chest.

 

“Fourteen” said the demon.

 

“That's rather young” said the woman. “And you were so sure then, why is that?”

 

The demon thought for a moment.

 

“I... I was never treated well by other men” he started to confess. “I... I was ridicule or insulted, both for being a creole and for not... for this cursed body. And he came, with his treatment like I was another boy as soon as my mother explained to him. He protected me, he taught me... I remember every single word that he said to me during those seven days, every act he did, being small and large. He saved me and change my perception of myself completelly. I... before him, I only wanted to survive and after what happened with my father I... I thought I was not destined to survive for much because I have clear I could end myself if that happened to me again and in my head, it was a matter of time.”

 

He sighed, almost a sobbing, fighting tears in his eyes to maintain a semblance of composure.

 

“He told me I was valid the way I was, he told me that I was strong, good... All the things I didn't think I was. He was the type of man I wanted to be” said the Radio Demon. “And my promise gave me a purpose, both in the Living World and here.”

 

“And you were ready to sacrify everything you're for that promise” said the demoness, that wasn't a question. “For you maybe that was well and good but for me, it shows you still have a dose of self-loathing in yourself, a lack of self-preservation if it isn't to fulfit your objectives. That martyr complex can cost you terribly and now it can be detrimental for your own daughter.”

 

It wasn't news to Alastor that he hated himself. He didn't thought in that daily but he knew himself, he knew with what things his mind tortured him and even when he escaped from Magne Manor, almost ended dead and almost lost his baby, he still was the first months torturing himself with what he did to make Lucifer so mad at him, so changed from the first months. He blamed himself for some unnknown thing he did to change the sweet devil that was so loving to him in the first months to the monster he became months later.

 

“I don't want this to affect my daughter” said Alastor, lowering his head.

 

“Then you need to start to care about yourself” said the woman. “Only you can take care of your girl, even when she has more family, it's your responsability, so for her, you need to start loving yourself more. If you don't mind, I'll like to see you the same days I see Lucifer, so I can check in both your progresses. You need to talk about what happened to you, about your fears and insecurities and I know that being a feared overlord that wasn't in your schedule and you could even see it as a weakness but there are things we can't fix ourselves alone. Also, I'll give your a book recommendation.”

 

She took the business card from the pile she had in her desk and started to write something behind it.

 

“It's a book called 'Love your bits', is an autobiography book by Alexanda Spinalcord, a succubus from Lust that transitioned without interventions and tells her story and thoughts in the matter” said the sin. “Maybe it can be a huge help for you. And you know I present Lucifer with exercises, yes?”

 

Alastor nodded, taking the card.

 

“My exercise for you is you trying to communicate, not with Lucifer... you have a hotel full of people that apparently was ready to protect you against the king of Hell himself, right?” asked the woman.

 

“Yes...” said Alastor.

 

“Then talk to them, build a relationship with that people” advise the sin. “It will be good to have a net of support around you and it won't make you any less weak for it. Taking what Lucifer told me about you and what I learned by my hand, you're a very strong sinner, sure you can protect those close to you, yes?”

 

The Radio Demon was seeing all that from the other side, for the side of him having support and making him weak for it, making him soft but he didn't think in something he will need to protect the people he cared about, he'll need to be more in his toes than ever... In fact, taking what happened with that sinner in the donut shop, that angered him to no end, he was already doing that, right?

 

He cared for those miscreants even when he usually had them an arm's length.

 

He sighed.

 

“I'll try” said the demon.

 

“Perfect... Well, we'll see ourselves in the next visitation” said the woman.

 

When Alastor went outside of the office, Lucifer jamped from his seat.

 

“How it went? What she asked?” he asked, curious.

 

“Private questions, darling” said the demon, taking the hand of his child. “Now, return us to the hotel if you're so kind.”

 

Lucifer understood, he wasn't going to tell him... Curiosity was always a problem with Lucifer, is what led him to be entangled with Lilith in the Garden. Yeah, he hated not knowing but there was nothing to do there.

 

He snapped, creating a portal to the lobby of the hotel and when the three returned, the first thing they saw was Lilith... visiting at last.

 

Lucifer felt how the hellfire was raising his body temperature, looking at the woman with a long growl... then he looked back to Alastor and could almost read his mind.

 

Behave....

 

“Hi, Lilith” said the monarch, tense smile in his face. “You came to visit at last.”

 

He said, with that smile.

 

“And I didn't came alone... Look who I found near here wanting to visit too” she said, with Charlie coming out of the parlor with Vaggie, that has the face of someone wanting to take the spine of someone's else through their rectum and... a sinner, no, a hellborn.

 

A man that was green all over. Skin in light green, green pointy teeth, dark green hair in a style not to different from Lucifer's. Yellow-greenish tie and shirt in a pin stripped suit and all crowned by a top hat with adorned by eyes and teeth.

 

“Seviathan??” asked the monarch. “The fuck are he doing here?”

Notes:

Well, who had 'Seviathan in the mix' in their bingo cards? XD

Chapter 25: From the depths of the abyss, a siren song

Summary:

While Lucifer is almost fuming at the visit of both Lilith and Seviathan Von Eldritch to the hotel, Alastor tries to be the perfect hotelier... even when the Von Eldritch isn't making it any easier.

After a tour and some tea, some revelations come.

Notes:

Well, I'm back, babies! I still have a lot of shit to do in FFXIV Dawntrail expansion but the story is finished, so free from the yoke of possible spoilers, I'm writing again!

The quote again is long but necessary, you'll see why.

Btw, this song is perfect for certain moment ;)

“Spider venom comes in many forms. It can often take a long while to discover the full effects of the bite. Naturalists have pondered this for years: there are spiders whose bite can cause the place bitten to rot and to die, sometimes more than a year after it was bitten. As to why spiders do this, the answer is simple. It's because spiders think this is funny, and they don't want you ever to forget them.”

~Neil Gaiman, Anansi Boys

 

“Oh, Lucy!” said Seviathan, going to shake the hand of the monarch like it was the most normal thing between them, in fact, he lended the hand and everything.

 

Lucifer stood looking to said hand to then raise his gaze, tilting slightly his head to the side while also raising his eyebrow.

 

“I think the way to address me is 'Your majesty' or 'Your highness', not Lucifer and less Lucy, Seviathan” he said, he never moved a muscle to shake the hand of his babygirl's ex. “And I'll repeat my question: what are you doing here?”

 

The hellborn removed the hand with the same speed of someone fearing for the integrity of it to then smile, slightly more nervious than before.

 

“Oh, yes, sorry... I thought, after all this time, some familiarity...” he started to say.

 

“I never allowed it so no” Lucifer crossed his arms.

 

“Ahmmm...” he looked back to Lilith. “I'm sorry, your majesty, I got carried away... And well... I... encounter the queen and she told me about Charlie and her hotel and I wanted to see it by myself. I am... I'm so proud of Charlie.”

 

The princess was smiling vividly.

 

“Yeah, Seviathan had a change of heart, it seems” she said, pure energy. “From thinking it was a stupid idea, now he thinks its neat!”

 

The hellborn nodded.

 

“Yeah, yeah, I... In fact, I offered to help!” said the man. “My family has a lot of resources that we could love to put at Charlie's disposal.”

 

Lucifer again raised a brow, that motherfucker was placing him into a mood and not a good one.

 

“And your family knows that?” he asked.

 

“Not yet... bu-but they will, they will support Charlie in this endeavour, it's very important” he said.

 

Vaggie was near Alastor, arms crossed with an expression in his face that could sour wine into vinegar.

 

“Hijo de perra, malparido, coño su madre...” she was muttering insults in spanish like she wanted to make a list of the existing ones.

 

The Radio Demon talked to the woman in confidence.

 

“Let me guess, you don't like the old flame of your darling rainbow” said the overlord.

 

“You can fuckin' say that” said the ex-exorcist. “Charlie told me a lot of things about Seviathan.”

 

“Do tell, I love a good gossip” said, cheery, the red demon.

 

“That fucker made fun of Charlie and her dream, he told her in was a useless one” started to say the fallen angel. “His family also treated her poorly, they bullied her to no end and she fucking let them... And now in place of kicking him out as soon as she saw him, she's.. accomodating, just because her mom brought him here.”

 

Alastor understood perfectly the woman.

 

Not only she hated that Charlie had to live that, live with the ridicule all of Hell subjected to her but even with someone she loved and his family. Also, Vaggie was a very supportive person, specially with her partner. She was the type of fiancée you could say 'I need to bury a body' and she'll just grab a shovel, no questions asked. The knowledge of that man, being with Charlie in the past and not being equally supportive, was making her extremelly angry.

 

“Don't worry, Vaghata, dear” said the deer demon, placing a hand over the shoulder of the woman. “If he doesn't behave or try anything, you and I will have a wonderful bonding exercise...”

 

Vaggie looked back to the demon and smirked.

 

“I'll beat the crap out of him and you'll eat him” she wickedly asked.

 

“Precisely, dear” he said, moving near Lucifer, angrier by the minute, the queen, the princess and the fish. “Oh, you must be the infamous Seviathan Von Eldritch. Alastor, pleasure to be meeting you, quite a pleasure.”

 

The demeanor of the hellborn changed completelly when the sinner approached, from trying to be kind with Charlie, to being afraid of Lucifer and now it was... almost obvious contempt, like he was looking to something inferior to him.

 

“I don't need help from the service now, you may go” he said, with the gesture of the hand and all.

 

The Radio Demon felt his eye twitching and Lucifer growled and was ready to advance when the deer demon placed a hand over his shoulder, almost having to claw the skin to stop the monarch.

 

“Aha, no! I'm Charlie's business partner and hotelier” he said, like that didn't bother him at all.

 

“Also” Lilith intervened “it's a very powerful overlord, the Radio Demon, surely you heard about him, Seviathan.”

 

The hellborn thought for a moment and he had to reach to the station of memory in his mind because his face made a total change, from the face of a noble secure and haughty, to the face of someone that not only knew who Alastor was, but he was realising he insulted the man seconds ago.

 

“Ye... Yeah, I remember... Oh, I'm sorry, no hard feelings, right?” he said, extending his hand.

 

Alastor gave a look to the hand, not moving from his position placing his weight over his hands on his cane, jagging his smile and tilting his head to the side into a unnatural angle.

 

“Oh, don't worry, my good man!” said the demon with a tone that was cheery but with a undertone of danger. “You wouldn't be alive if I felt offended.”

 

Seviathan gulped his own saliva and Lilith made a little laugh, like she was trying to remove the importance of that... not so veiled threat.

 

“Oh, Alastor, always with a joke in your lips” said the queen.

 

The demon smiled to the woman with less sharper edges.

 

“You know me well, my queen” said the man. “Charlie, dear, did you give a tour to our gracious queen and our illustrious guest?”

 

With that, they made a tour for the instalations, with the Devil going behind his princess, queen and guest, together with Alastor and Vaggie. The king found kindship with the ex-exorcist for the way both were looking to the Von Eldritch, the woman was even starting to look to Lilith in the same way, noticing who the queen was trying to place Seviathan under a good light, almost helping him with praises over the hotel and so on.

 

After the tour, going to the parlor, the Radio Demon offered himself to prepare some tea and both Vaggie and Lucifer offered themselves to help and the three entered the kitchen.

 

“That motherfucker!” said both Lucifer and Vaggie.

 

“Language, darlings” said the red demon, going to prepare the tea.

 

Both looked back to the man and then the ex-exorcist looked to the king.

 

“I'm not going to talk bad about my suegra” she started to say.

 

“Oh, please, do...” he asked, with a complicit smile.

 

“But it looks like your wife”

 

“Ex-wife”

 

“It's trying to rekindle something between the fucking calamari and my girlfriend” said the fallen angel.

 

“Yeah, isn't that obvious?” said the king. “She always valued the Von Eldritchs and she really wanted that union. When Charlie left Seviathan and broke the engagement, Lilith was almost mad... of course, she never told her that, she only tried to discharge her frustration with me.”

 

Vaggie looked to the king feeling a little bit of pity for him... That woman looked fine and dandy when they met her at the restaurant but now she was starting to see the manipulation at hand. If she even has a darker version of herself from doors in, she was a piece of bad news indeed.

 

“You two need to learn to act, my dears” said the Radio Demon.

 

“It's difficult, Alastor, for fucks sake” said the king and Vaggie nodded. “You can act like everything is normal because you have zero skin in the game, I'm seeing my vindictive ex-wife manipulating again my kid and trying to break her current relationship.”

 

The Radio Demon took some air and turn around, his eyes were showing he was serious.

 

“I acted with you when I was trying to find a way to kill you” said the deer. “In that moment, I thought I had all my skin in the game plus my daughter's. Remember our investigation, Von Eldritchs and your wife and now we have a Von Eldritch and your wife at the parlor of the hotel. Think, Lucifer... still there is no proof against your wife but I'm stating to see a pattern we can't refuse to address.”

 

“What investigation? Over what happened to you two, years ago?” asked Vaggie. “So there was really someone moving strings?”

 

Lucifer recounted to Vaggie all they learned both from the house on the Royal Circle and the penthouse on Imp City and the woman twisted her mouth at the mention of Helsa Von Eldritch.

 

“Charlie told me about her... she was a fucking diva and a bully” said the woman. “Ok, the problem I see with your investigation is motive. Why the Von Eldritch as a whole or Helsa be interested in fucking around with you two and why Lilith could want that?”

 

The king sighed.

 

“Von Eldritch no idea but Lilith is vindictive, she love to punish grievances” started to explain the monarch. “Me, not subjugating to her and putting her in her place is motive enough. I saw her pursuing vengeance over less.”

 

Alastor was also thinking while preparing the tea and hearing both fallen angels talking about the investigation.

 

“I was thinking... May she thought I could succeed” he said. “She knew you were immune to angelic steel?”

 

Lucifer nodded.

 

“When we fought, she tried to use it against me but I didn't let her strike me, so it's possible” said the monarch.

 

“She actively tried to kill you?” asked the woman.

 

The devil nodded.

 

“Yes, when I said we had a fight, I'm not talking nice words, I'm talking full claw and power” said the shorter man. “I reduced her, desarmed her and threw her out of the palace, then she used a middle man to reach an arrangement: I had to pick a residence and she could pick another and we show ourselves amicable for Charlie's sake.”

 

“That's fucking messed up” said the ex-exorcist.

 

“Yeah, it's the soundtrack to my life, apparently” said the king.

 

“Anyway, the tea is ready, we can talk about this when the obnoxious visitation comes to an end” said the Radio Demon, placing in a platter the saucers, cups and the teapod, also a plate with some tea pastries. “And with Charlie presented.”

 

With elegance, he took the platter with one hand under it.

 

“And you think is prudent to reveal all of this to my daughter?” asked the monarch, don't wanting to involve his babygirl.

 

“The princess is an adult and this is not a novel, creating more drama and tension with poor communication skills” said the demon. “We'll update her so she can be on guard over the attemps of both your ex and the Von Eldritch, doesn't matter what they want from her.”

 

He went to the double door of the kitchen and open one of the sides.

 

“And now, try to behave” said Alastor. “Don't stop showing animosity, now that you started that mambo you'll have to dance it but try to hold back your tongues.”

 

They returned to the parlor and the deer demon placed the platter over the short table in the middle of the couches near the hearth.

 

“How you want your tea, your highness?” he asked, looking directly to Lilith.

 

“Two sugars, darling, thank you” she said, taking the teacup from Alastor's hands. “And you, my dear?”

 

He asked Seviathan.

 

“One sugar” the deer demon served the tea, placed the sugar and tended the cup. “Well, I never thought a bloodthirsty overlord could be such a good servant.”

 

Alastor, who was serving the tea for Lucifer too, without asking because he knew perfectly how he liked it, moved his head slowly until his eyes were locked into Seviathan. The black flew his eyes like spilled ink and the red radio dials glowed when they presented themselves. He was smiling, but that smile was helping little, if not, was making his gaze more menacing.

 

Lilith gave the Von Eldritch a look, almost fuming at him to then change her annoyed face for a huge smile.

 

“Oh, Alastor, dear, don't take his words into consideration” said the queen, with a vivid and charismatic smile. “He doesn't know how gracious you are helping my daughter with everything... and the fact that you can kill him with a flick of your wrist.”

 

Alastor tended the tea to Lucifer and then he prepared Charlie, he also knew how she took it.

 

“Thank you, Alastor, and my mom is right, Sevi” said the princess. “Alastor is very accomodating with me but you should show some respect. He has a tendency to eat disrespectful people.”

 

And she smiled softly to the hotelier, like that was equivalent to scolding or something.

 

“Charlie, darling, I won't eat one of your guests... without a very good reason” he said, with a laugh. “Besides, I don't want to spoil my appetite today, I was planning on cooking grillades and grits, like how my mother used to made them. So if he's disrespectful, again, I'll simply dismember him in the gardens, less to clean for dear Niffty.”

 

And he smiled, openly, almost closing his eyes... Could be adorable if it wasn't for the previous threat.

 

“Anyway” said Lilith, trying to change the subject while looking to the very threatened Seviathan. “Charlie told me about the talent show! I was thinking it could be a good way to announce my return and help my darling daughter with the publicity she needs. I have a new song, still no lyrics and I was thinking maybe Alastor can help me with that.”

 

The Radio Demon looked back to the woman, his smile was pure charm in that moment and his eyes were showing interest.

 

“Oh, my darling queen, you know I can't refuse you” said the demon. “Also, the idea of participating on the talent show is a great idea. You're very beloved for all of Hell.”

 

“I won't say all, but...” she had a soft blush over her cheeks. “Let me hum a little about the rhythm and tell me what you think.”

 

Alastor nodded and Lilith cleared her throat and started to hum the song and it was... evocative. A tune that could be easily the song from a mermaid or a siren, soft and also slightly sad. The old phrase that a siren cautivate sailors not with her voice but with her soul, could be very well place in the context.

 

It was charming... at least until he noticed Lucifer.

 

The king was annoyed with the presence of the queen and the Von Eldritch firstborn but now that she was singing or humming, better say, he looked... like the anger was building inside him. He also started to get ticks, like moving his head drastically to a side, like he was trying to scare away an annoying fly.

 

One of his eyes twitched too... and for a second, he moved his superior lip, like he was trying to bare his teeth. When Lilith finished with her humming, the king returned to his regular contempt. He made a mental note to ask Lucifer about that when they were alone again.

 

They talked about the talent show and the things Charlie wanted to do for it and about the hotel itself.

 

Lucifer was unusually silent, like he was lost in thought and Vaggie noticed it too because she gave the Radio Demon a significant look.

 

One hour of conversation later, the queen was saying she had to return to her state and Seviathan excused himself, saying he was helping his father with a very important business.

 

He moved to Charlie, taking her hand.

 

“I'll be around here, Char” said the hellborn. “Maybe, if you have me, I could be at the hotel for a time, helping you more... directly.”

 

He kissed her hand and she smiled.

 

“I'll love that, Sevi” said the woman with Vaggie moving to mark her territory taking the princess from her waist and forcing a smile.

 

“Love to have you here, see you soon” said the ex-exorcist.

 

As soon as they went out of the door of the lobby and Alastor noticed through his guard sigils they were completelly out of the hotel, he made a gesture to Vaggie.

 

“Panda malparidos comemierda...” she said, pure latin fury.

 

But her anger was interrupted by Lucifer... serious, deadly serious, looking to Alastor directly with a expression that made the deer and the two women shiver.

 

“We need to talk” said the king, severe. “Your bedroom, now.”

 

The Radio Demon was surprised and a little apprehensive but when the monarch snapped, creating a portal to his room, he followed him without saying a word.

 

“I thought the talk was meant to be with Vaggie and Charlie too” said the deer. “That's what we said.”

 

“Shut the fuck up!” said Lucifer, cutting with his tone, sharp and dark.

 

Alastor just looked at him.

 

“You think you're so clever that I don't know what you're trying to do?” he moved near Alastor, step by step, menacing, taking his devil attributes with every step. “Playing both sides, trying to get on the good graces of that bitch. That's your game? Faking you're helping me while becoming her perfect dog?”

 

The Radio Demon didn't want to show fear, but he was definitely feeling it. He moved backwards first a step, then two, trying to maintain the same distance between the king and himself.

 

“Lucifer, think hard in what you're doing” he said, trying to show some composure but he was really tempted on entering into a shadow and run from there.

 

“Think... Think?? You're daring me to think? Like you can tell me what I can and I can't do?” he said, laughing like that was both the most funny and offensive thing he heard in decades. “You don't tell me what I can do, I'm the King of Hell, don't forget your fucking place, sinner.”

 

He moved, taking Alastor not from his arm or even his clothes, but from his cane. A sharp static noice escape from the microphone, making the demon raise a brow for a second.

 

“Maybe the problem is this charade I'm been envolved” said the monarch. “Losing my time in this stupid hotel, losing my time talking with Belphegor when I could simply take what is mine instead of pining over you like a fucking teenager... Maybe I'm tired of my cold bed and not being able to hug my own fucking daughter. I should be taking you both and be done with it. And if Charlie can't cope, tough luck, at least I got a replacement.”

 

The cane continued to cast static sounds, Alastor was in the border a panic attack seeing Lucifer in all his malignant glory, saying those words, in a tone that was pure memories for him... the worst ones.

 

“Lucifer... I.. I love you” said the demon. “Let me show you that I love you, please.”

 

The king growled.

 

“Oh, now that you saw the horns of the Devil, you want to play the complacent pet?” he smiled wickedly. “I'll bite, get on your fours on the bed.”

 

Alastor bit his own lower lip, hard and denied with his head.

 

“No... please, if you love me, if you really really love me, let me do a thing” and he moved his hand, shaking like a leaf in the breeze, near the shorter man's face. “Please...”

 

He was holding still the cane with one hand and when he saw Alastor's going near him, he took him from the wrist.

 

“What the fuck are you doing? Do you think I trust you since your pathetic murder attempt on my manor?” he said, making pressure but still without enough force to break it.

 

“No, I know you don't trust me... the same that you don't love me if you don't let me do this” said the demon. “If you do what your instint is telling you to do, you'll kill this forever. Let me... help you, show you this... please, Lucifer, please.”

 

All Lucifer's body from mind to every one of his cells, was telling him to shush the insolent demon and take what was his. He suffered enough, he deserved respect and love and that fucking sinner on his knees, asking to be his bitch again.

 

But, also, a part of him, now small and secluded, was trying to scream him to stop, screaming that he could ruin everything forever. He clenched his teeth and release Alastor's hand.

 

The Radio Demon, slightly relieved, moved his hand near Lucifer's pointy ear... His hand became overrun by green energy and he emited a sharp radio effect sound, almost deafening, that made Lucifer close his eyes, close his fists and trying to get far from the sound, painful as it was for him.

 

He dropped to his knees holding both his ears, still affected for the sharp sound even when it stopped.

 

“What the fu...?” he said, opening just an eye to look to Alastor, know squatting near him and looking back at the king like he was trying to analize something.

 

“Are you feeling better?” asked the deer.

 

“Better than what? That fucking sound almost left me deaf, warn a man the next time... What...” he removed the hands from his ears and like something was coming to his mind, he was opening little by little his eyes. “Fuck!!”

 

He dropped to his ass and started to move backwards.

 

“What the fuck I... Sorry, sorry, Alastor” he moved again, on his knees, near the deer. “I'm sorry, I don't know what happened to me. I was... Fuck, Alastor. That woman manage to get me out of my seems, I almost... I almost...”

 

He started to cry and the Radio Demon moved, moving his arms around the man, hugging him, holding him near him.

 

“You did nothing, love” he said. “She did.”

 

Lucifer was sobbing, he barely registered what the demon said.

 

“I noticed the changes with you with her music, how you went inside your brain in a moment... She charmed you.”

 

“What?” said the king, cleaning his tears with the help of Alastor. “That's... impossible. I'm... I'm immune to charms and spells and that shit. Not the first time a sinner with that power, hellborn sirens, succubi... even fucking Leviathan tried that once and he's a master of that craft. I cannot be charmed, Alastor.”

 

The demon raised a brow.

 

“She found a way” he said.

 

“And... even if that's true, how do you stopped it?” he asked, he didn't want to say to the deer that his ex-wife was out of his league by a lot but the demon catched in it either way.

 

“Because this doesn't have to be with raw power” he said, slightly annoyed and trying not to show it. “My power are radio waves and soundwaves. I control them to any extend... I can amplify them or nullify them. Vox is lucky that I allow him to continue with his little businesses because I could cut him completely... everything in modern technology uses radio waves in a way. And they said radio was dead...”

 

Both were still in the ground, Alastor was still holding Lucifer in a tight embrace and the devil was shaking, maybe for what he was about to do and what it could cost him or maybe like a symptom of withdrawal, like his brain or body was feeling the need to have the song stuck again, like a drug.

 

“It's a dominium thing” said the devil. “She's more powerful but not in your area of expertise, where your powers reside. But again, how?”

 

Alastor thought for a moment.

 

“Maybe Heaven helped with that” said the demon. “She herself said she was there these past years... Maybe going with the truth upfront is better way to lie.”

 

“Impossible, she hates Heaven, more than me” said the king.

 

“She hates them... less or more than she now hates you?” asked the deer. “In any case, I didn't notice any sound power when she sang, so it must be something she had prepared before hand and she activates it with her voice. I don't even know if this effect now was on purpose or not...”

 

Lucifer looked back to Alastor's eyes.

 

“You really think this was accidental?” asked the monarch.

 

“It will be really stupid for her to do it now” said the Radio Demon. “If I wasn't present, maybe... I bet she knows the extent of my power, she followed my career closely. If I didn't have my suspicions, this could end up very differently.”

 

“I know...” he looked like he was about to cry again.

 

“Darling, look at me” he ordered, taking his king's chin with a firm hand. “Don't get sad, get angry. You were manipulated... to what end? I don't know. But she wanted a riff between us... Get angry, because I am. If our powers were equal, I'll be dragging her from her long badly styled hair all over Pentagram for daring to play with me and my love in that way.”

 

Lucifer sighed and smiled softly.

 

“Well, if I marry again, I'll let you know, so you can do that” said the king.

 

“Come again?” asked the demon.

 

“It was a joke, I'm not planning in finding another...”

 

“To the point, Lucifer!”

 

“Lilith is so powerful because she's my wife?” he said, very fast and very hastily.

 

“She derives power from your marriage?” asked the deer.

 

“Yeah... I mean, being married to me she can take power directly from Hell, like the Von Eldritch does but in a much bigger scale, my scale” said the devil. “But I'm the King and a former archangel, I got my angelic power and the power I get from Hell. I can't make void our marriage but if I take another queen, our marriage contract gets nullified and she loses the power-up.”

 

Alastor opened his mouth and then he facepalmed himself.

 

“And you didn't have the thought that maybe that was her motive??” he moved to raise. “You're a fucking moron!!”

 

Lucifer raised behind Alastor, he didn't know what to say but that didn't deter him to try.

 

“But... I mean, just for... it wasn't sure that...” he tried, he couldn't.

 

The deer turned around.

 

“Tell me, if the things with me worked out, if you never acted like a fucking monster with me and I was happy, making you happy, a father... Do you think you could ask me to marry you?” he asked, exasperated.

 

“Well.... yeah, I guess?” responded the devil, massaging his neck.

 

“You guess?!” Alastor grunted. “It wasn't a vendetta, it wasn't for messing with you and your happiness... maybe she never knew I was Milady. She was just protecting her fucking power.”

 

“You look very upset for that” said the monarch.

 

“Of course I am!” said the Radio Demon. “If I had that information before hand the necessity to found a motive would be fulfilled from the start. You know that isn't common knowledge in Hell, right? People think she's powerful because she's here with you from the beginning of time.”

 

“Well... it's not for that” said the devil. “But I guess... yeah, it's something we don't make public. At least we know now her reasons, right?”

 

Alastor rolled his eyes.

 

“I'm almost dissapointed that all of this is for the most vanilla of reasons” said the Radio Demon. “But still I don't know in what capacity the Von Eldritchs enter in all this debacle.”

 

And it was like Creation wanted to made clear the message of 'Ask and you shall receive' that Vaggie knocked at the door.

 

“Alastor, Lucifer, I need your help” she sounded... desperated and sad.

 

The deer demon's shadow moved to open the door and there was Vaggie, cleaning tears from her face and looking really hurt.

 

“What happened, dear?” asked the Radio Demon.

 

“Charlie... she said... she said we are finish, the we tried after my lie, about me being an exorcist angel and... she said” she started to sob.

 

The men exchanged a look.

 

“Where is she, Vaggie?” asked Lucifer.

 

“Our... her room...” Alastor moved, hugging the woman.

 

“There, there, darling, dry your tears, we'll talk to her” said the deer demon, breaking the hug to made a gesture indicating both fallen angels to follow him.

 

The penthouse suit was in the middle of the corridor, between Lucifer's and Alastor's and the three went to the door and the Radio Demon knocked using his cane.

 

“Charlie, darling, can we talk?” asked the deer.

 

The demoness opened the door with her usual smile but she lost it when she saw Vaggie.

 

“If you're gonna try to speak on her behalf, forget it” she said. “Today I realised I was living a lie. I didn't really forgive her, just trying to hold to this... But I don't have to.”

 

She was moving around the room, taking all the little trinkets and photos of them together. Alastor, Lucifer and Vaggie entered the room while the princess was doing that and rambling.

 

“Today I remember how good it was with Seviathan, how romantic he was...” she said, with a expression of love in her face. “And he can help with the hotel, we can make this really work...”

 

Alastor had enough.

 

“Charlie, my dear” he called for the girl.

 

“Yes, Alastor?” she said, stopping and smiling.

 

“I need you to do a thing, it's just me and my strange musings” he tended his microphone cane. “Can you please take my cane for a second?”

 

“Why?” she said, looking to said cane and then to the face of the Radio Demon.

 

“It's for checking, my darling” he said, moving a step nearer.

 

She had doubts but she trusted Alastor, so she placed her hand around the shaft of the cane. The mic made a sharp feedback sound, like it made with Lucifer.

 

“That...” started to say the king.

 

“A soundwave, incrusted inside, activated, more than recently delivered” said the demon. “It produce feedback in my microphone like static electricity in contant with sound instrumentation... Darling, you have something in your ear, let me get that for you.”

 

He moved his hand, a green hue was prominent in it when was near the ear of the woman and then the sharp bite of static, almost deafening. Like it happened with Lucifer, Charlie drop to her knees, holding her ears, disoriented and in pain.

 

Lucifer and Vaggie moved to her, checking in her status.

 

“What the f... my head, hurts...” she shook her head vigorously and opened her eyes, with some tears in them from the pain. “What happened?”

 

She took a look around and like with Lucifer, the information started to drop to her.

 

“Oh, what the fuck!! Why I... I didn't... Vaggie” she hugged her girlfriend. “What the fuck happened? Why I let fucking Seviathan to kiss my hand?”

 

Charlie placed a disgust expression in her face.

 

“We need to talk, but in my bayou, I got more defenses in there, just in case” said the demon.

 

He didn't know what was the real queen's game. Activating whatever she had on both morningstars at the same time it was a bad idea, specially with him present... Or the queen was underestimating his abitlities or the hotel's possibility for adding two and two or this was a mistake from her part and they could take advantage of it.

 

But first order of things was to learn more about Lilith's magic and its effects and then talk about plans and an approach to this debacle.

Notes:

Well, this is far from over, but we are getting near... Still some surprises on the horizon, don't worry ;)

Chapter 26: The things I do for the Devil

Summary:

Charlie, Vaggie, Lucifer and Alastor have a conversation to place all the information they had on the table and they agree on terms of a plan.

Alastor is called to an overlord meeting and he thinks is the perfect moment to gain sympathy presenting his daughter and for Lucifer to take a more direct control over his ring.

Also the radio overlord starts to make what he's best at.

Notes:

Not to long, not the short of a chapter, hope you like it ^^

“For Love is no part of the Dreamworld. Love belongs to Desire, and Desire is always cruel.”

~Neil Gaiman, The Sandman

 

Alastor fixed his bayou since the fight he had with Lucifer and was again a very pretty sight to behold. The small cottage, the wodden table and benches, the fireflies giving an eerie illumination and the sounds of nature, frogs, dripping of water... It was a magical place in perpetual twilight and last time his guests couldn't appreciated it truly, so the demon didn't mind how Charlie for a moment forgot about what just happened and started to move, to see the nearby pond and admiring the construction of his cottage.

 

“It's so beautiful, Al” she said, with bright eyes.

 

“Thank you, deary” said the demon, sitting at the table.

 

Lucifer looked around.

 

“Where is Anka?” he now notice the girl was missing since they returned from Belphegor's.

 

“She went to expend time with Husker” said the deer. “He promised to teach her some card tricks. In any case... We should center ourselves in what happened.”

 

“It's very clear what happened” said Vaggie, very angry. “That fucking witch charmed Charlie into liking Seviathan again!”

 

“She also charmed Lucifer into becoming abusive again” said with total calm the Radio Demon.

 

“What?” asked the fallen exterminator. “Are you ok, Alastor?”

 

“Peachy” said the overlord. “There is nothing that improves my mood as much as having a clear objective for my wrath. And even charmed Lucifer controlled himself rather nicely.”

 

Because he knew he could do worst, much worst... The king felt alone, frustrated, he wasn't sleeping well... taking all into consideration, he could be much more crass and brute and he wasn't. Words, only that. And even when he took him, he didn't touched him initialy, he went to grab his cane.

 

“I... I can believe my mother would do such a thing” said the princess. “I know she was really into my wedding with Seviathan but... I thought she valued my happiness over all.”

 

And that was sad, sad that her mother was so hellbent into marrying her to that family that she was ready to abuse her power with her own daughter, to manipulate her in that way, like she was a commodity to use or lend. Maybe she was naive to think that maybe her mother was ready to place her happiness in front of her ambitions.

 

“Sorry, applepie” said the king. “But knowing your mother, for me is less of a surprise.”

 

Charlie moved his head to see his father's face.

 

“Why I have the feeling I don't know her at all?” said the woman.

 

“Becuase that was her design, sorry, Charlie” said the king. “Your mother was... well, she was good and kind and... Sure, she was a firm queen, she loved to be respected tho she rarely acted unless I was disrespected. But... when she got pregnant, she changed. We... we never talked about this with you but... Your mother had a very hard time, not to get pregnant per sé, but for the pregnancy to be completed.”

 

“She...?” the princess didn't know how to ask the question, a question she was almost seeing the answer.

 

“Yes, normally was in the beginning, a couple of weeks and... It was like a torment for her, when happened” said the monarch.

 

“How many times?” Asked Alastor... he wasn't ready to have sympathy for the woman, a woman that provoke damage directly to him, maybe provoking that Lucifer... Maybe it was his heart trying to exculpate the devil, but after what he saw, maybe Lilith was a black hand using her power to make Lucifer dance like a puppet, an abusive puppet directed to him.

 

“A lot... everytime she was pregnant, I tried to maintain hope, she always was very afraid” he denied with his head. “She followed everything Belphegor told her, she did everything and everytime... But when she was pregnant of you, she knew. She was happy, secure... and she started to change then. She was more demanding with the service, she was more prone to ask for respect, to flaunt her position as queen. And her little vendettas...”

 

He had a pained expression in his face, like those vendettas were not always justify or maybe the punishment never beffited the crime.

 

“And when I signed the deal with Heaven, she... all her rage, vitriol, went all towards me” continued to explain the king. “We fight, her words were like knives and... she went to a point of no return, specially when she took you from me.”

 

“She told me you didn't want to see me...” said the woman.

 

“What? No, baby, no... I... tried, I tried but... I...” he wanted to explain but still there was his voice inside his head telling him he didn't need to involved his daughter, to hurt her with a truth that she didn't need to hear.

 

Alastor sighed.

 

“Your father was depressed” said the demon. “I noticed the symptoms when we lived together in Magne Manor. And I don't know if you know how a person under that is but... some days, with him, when we were still ok, more than ok, he had some days, hard to go out of the bed, crying without a reason, fearing I left him to the minimal provocation. He even told me once about you, how much he wanted to see you, darling, but he thought you were better without him, taking the state in what he was.”

 

“What?!” she said, moving near the king and hugging him, strong. “Dad, I never... You should told me. I get not telling me when I was a child but I'm an adult, dad, I could help you, be there for you. I really thought you didn't want to see me, mom told me that and I believed her. She even told me about the agreement with Heaven like you signed because you hated sinners and say 'Go ahead and kill everyone!'”

 

Lucifer opened his eyes, looking back to his girl.

 

“That's not what happened” said the king. “Adam wanted a massacre and he threatened you and your mother. He threatened the hellborns, the rest of the Rings... Not only to hurt innocent demons but also you and... fuck, if the fucker would attack the other Rings, the Sins would have declare war against Heaven. Open war and... I was so fucking afraid, for you, for her, for that... I signed it to protect you.”

 

“I didn't know...” said Charlie, hugging the king again.

 

Alastor and Vaggie exchanged a look. Sure, there were things to discuss, more than initiallly both thought, but it could wait a little, seeing there was still a riff between father and daughter that wasn't bridged yet.

 

“It seems that Lilith was adamant to keep you both apart” said the ex-exorcist. “And keep Lucifer alone, if she was the one that changed the king reactions.”

 

“I still don't know how she did it... not only with me, but also with Charlie” said the monarch. “She has the same resistance I have over charms and mental control.”

 

“Maybe she started when Charlie was a little kid” said the red demon. “Maybe when she wasn't resistant.”

 

Lucifer denied with his head.

 

“Charlie was always resistant” cleared the monarch.

 

“The effect wasn't in this moment, it was implanted” started to explain the deer demon. “You can feel fluctuations of magic, like I do. The song she used was a trigger, not an effect. Why she used just now? I don't know, maybe it was an error for her part, maybe she was trying to discern if the modifications were still there...”

 

The overlord thought for a moment, looking directly to his microphone cane.

 

“Maybe... thinking about it, you never really loved Seviathan to begin with, dear” he said, raising his eyes to look to Charlie.

 

“What? You... you really think that... my relationship with him was her doing?” asked the princess.

 

“Taking today, I think the possibility is great, my dear” said the demon.

 

“And taking our investigation” said Lucifer.

 

And taking they only informed Vaggie about it, they also told Charlie what they learned.

 

“Helsa” said the princess with a growl. “So maybe mom and the Von Eldritch did this, all of this. And you said they wanted a leg into the royal family and I agree, taking how they acted with me and mom wanted to hold to her power. Fuck, it's too much.”

 

“Yes, babe” said the ex-exorcist. “But the proofs are pilling up and I don't like it one bit.”

 

“Specially because this isn't simply a woman with a vendetta and holding with her nails to her position or a family with ambitions... They needed help and Alastor had the theory that the help came from Heaven.”

 

Charlie looked back to Alastor.

 

“Why Heaven?” asked the girl.

 

“For starters, your father's immunity and your resistance” started to explain the Radio Demon. “According to Lucifer, the most prominent user of mental control is the Sin of Envy and not even him came near to affect your father. That means a power that is not from Hell and taking your mother saying nonchalantly about her stay behind the Pearly Gates...”

 

Vaggie thought for a moment.

 

“Why then she told us she went there?” asked the woman. “I mean, for me that was already suspicious... it's not like Heaven is famous to backing up from punishment and she is ban from Heaven, as you are. And she said she was hidden...”

 

Alastor shrugged.

 

“The best way to lie is with some truth sprinkled over it” said the demon. “I told Lucifer, I was in the hotel for him, I even told him that I distrusted little apples because they were poisonous.”

 

Lucifer sighed.

 

“Yeah, now I'm seeing it... I don't know how you holded so much your vitriol” said the monarch.

 

“Easy” clarified the demon. “Not holding it completelly. Add some truth to your lies and those will always be convincing. The thing is... How Heaven helped her to accomplish this? Since when they are collaborating and what is the benefit for the doves upstairs?”

 

“Well, the major concern for Sera and Adam was the uprisings of Hell” said Vaggie. “Lilith could promise to control that, she in the throne undisputed, with her daughter too occupy with her... puto asco... husband to care for sinners and the king alone, behind closed doors, isolated from his daughter and the rest of Hell.”

 

The king clicked his tongue and nodded.

 

“In any case, she's being preparing this from a long time ago” said the monarch. “I had those... burst of anger since... around eighty years ago.”

 

Alastor remembered something.

 

“When you fought her, it was in those moments of anger?” asked the deer demon.

 

The king denied.

 

“No, it wasn't, those moments started far later” said the devil. “She pushed me, she pushed and pushed and I just... reacted. I didn't want to fight her, not really, I still loved her, even with all her cruelty and hate. But she actively tried to hurt me, to kill me and I... I didn't even hurt her badly, I just immovilized her and... remind her I'm the king and she was queen because I allowed it.”

 

“You fought mom? A really physical fight?” asked Charlie, of course not knowing that.

 

Lucifer lowered his head and nodded. He was obviously not very proud of that.

 

“I'm sorry, Charlie” said the king.

 

“Don't worry, dad” she responded, still sitting near him, holding him even. “I'm starting to see where is the real problem here... a bigger problem that I thought.”

 

“Thanks, applepie” he kissed her cheek. “I just wanted you to be happy, protect you from my broken marriage and... my problems.”

 

“Any bells about what she could get from Heaven to help herself?” asked the demon.

 

Lucifer denied.

 

“It can't be celestial power because my own could resist it or my demonic one nullify it” said the king, thinking. “Every archangel have an important object, imbued by Creation themselves. Michael's flaming sword, Azrael's scythe, Gabriel's scroll, Raphael's staff... I have twenty five siblings, I remember some of their objects but not all. And if one of those could affect me in anyway... I don't know, it doesn't sound like something a creation object could do but... It could be possible.”

 

Alastor thought for a moment.

 

“Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth” said the demon.

 

Lucifer nodded, knowing that phrase was one of the famous phrases of Sherlock Holmes... also it was called the Occam's razor or the Law of parsimony. An object imbued by Creation could nullify his defenses but something like that, to manipulate...

 

“Even knowing that maybe the Von Eldritchs and Lilith are conspiring against me, even knowing what happened... we still have a fuck-ton pile of shit to comb through. More fucking questions that answers” and that made the king angry. “And I want to know before I pile-drive my ex-wife and that family.”

 

Vaggie nodded.

 

“We still don't have news from Heaven since the last extermination, right?” asked the woman to her father-in-law.

 

The devil denied with his head.

 

“No, not a single message, not a single communication... Maybe they are waiting for whatever Lilith promised them to do here” he growled. “The hypocrite, angry with me for my deal and she making even more obscure and terrible deals with them. After all they put us through...”

 

Charlie thought for a moment to then hit the table with her fist.

 

“We need to act, to be ready for this” she said. “I won't let Heaven to hurt my friends and family and if mom is conspiring with them, I won't let her either. But we need more information, how are we getting it?”

 

Alastor thought for a moment.

 

“I won't like this but... The queen seems very interested in me” said the Radio Demon. “She always was. Maybe this was a way to test my abilities or she doesn't know the extend of them and she wanted me to push once and for all Lucifer far from me so I will be... free for her. In any case, even breaking her spell, I can play this in my favour, using her interest.”

 

Lucifer raised a brow.

 

“You want to play ball with her?” asked the monarch.

 

The deer demon widened his smile, it was very diabolical.

 

“If she wants the Radio Demon, maybe she can have him” said the demon.

 

“Are you planning to play Mata Hari with her?” oh, the jealousy was starting to show, in his eyes and in the horns breaking the skin near his hairline.

 

“Yes” said the demon. “If you are having doubts of my capabilities to seduce your ex-wife....”

 

Lucifer interrupted him.

 

“I don't doubt your fucking capabilities, I know what you can do” because he played him like a fucking piano and he saw him with his wife time ago... Even when the demon was not a fan of sex, the fucker knew how to use all the tricks of the game. “But you and her...”

 

Alastor moved a hand, taking Lucifer's.

 

“I won't enjoy it” said the deer. “But I'll learn what I can from her. But you three need to get into work too, I won't be the only one whoring myself here. Lucifer, you need to use your new pet to learn more of the connections of the Von Eldritch and the queen, more about them in general.”

 

“What new pet?” asked Vaggie.

 

“When Vox tried to kill Lucifer, after beating the crap out of him, I could convince our illustrious king here to spare his afterlife and get his soul instead” said the Radio Demon. “Vox is a demon not only of tv and technology, he also deals in information. Charlie, on the other hand, we need you to get into acting.”

 

Charlie nodded, she has questions but she was waiting for them.

 

“You need to talk to your mother, telling her about the incident but changing it a bit... Don't blame her, show doubt... Something like you think it was Seviathan, but you don't have that clear” started to explain the demon. “We need to let the door open for the wolves and the bitch. You need to use the misconceptiong people have with you.”

 

“What misconception?” asked the princess.

 

“People think you're naive and stupid, they mistake your dreams, your passions and your optimism for that... use it” said the demon. “Let a day pass and talk to your mother. Tell her I broke the spell and that you have suspicions over Seviathan but you can't blame the poor lad like that... No, no, no, no... we need to have our door open so we can lure them in.”

 

He then looked back to Lucifer.

 

“Besides that, we need to know if the angels have something Lilith could be using to manipulate you two and... we need to know if I broke it for good or not” said the deer.

 

“I'll try to make a list of my siblings' objects of power” offered the monarch. “And I'll consult Belphy about this too, maybe she knows a way to know.”

 

Alastor nodded.

 

“Now that I think of it” said Vaggie. “What was your object of power?”

 

She asked to the monarch.

 

“A scepter” said the king. “My brother and I were twin Kings of Heaven, only my siblings remember that or Sera... I don't know if they teach that to the winners or it's part of the dark history of the Silver City. In any case, my brother had the sword, he was the protector, I had the scepter, my role was to lead, to make people happy and help my siblings. In reality, I was less than a zero, with no power whatsoever to create or decide. It was frustrating... When they casted me out, they broke my scepter and the pieces fell with me and Lilith. The object still had power and I used it to create the different Rings for my Sins. Before that Hell was a homogeneous pit of desolation, punishment... I made it inhabitable.”

 

Charlie hugged her father.

 

Alastor, on the other hand, thought about that. Lucifer was far leagues more powerful that people gave him credit, maybe that was Heaven was fearing, not really an uprising, but an uprising leadered by the Fallen Angel. If he was the equal of he archangel Michael, now with the power of all the souls that Hell contained... he could conquer Heaven, change the order forever.

 

A part of his dark wretched soul wanted that, to spit in the proverbial face of God. Vengeance for all the mistreatment of Humanity, for making them live a life that was cruel at best, for some people like him with everything against, just to them throw them like nothing into this place... the fucking cunt of Creation, as punishment for being alive, for surviving for whatever means were necessary. How beautiful could be his Fallen Angel, sitting in a pile of dead archangels, in a throne made with bones and flesh, bathed in blood, ruling everything with a velvet glove and an iron fist.

 

He sighed in his mind.

 

Beautiful as that image was, to go there was to provoke suffering... to the winners that were innocent in Heaven, some like his dear mother, to people in Hell that could fall and if they were hellborn, die forever. Yes, Lucifer deserved vindication, deserved to rule and sure he could make it better than those sitting in high but that road was paved with flesh and blood, a lot of pain.

 

Damned they were if they didn't defend themselves and damned they were if they try.

 

The story of his life.

 

Going out of his thoughts, he talked to the Devil again.

 

“We also need information from Heaven” said the Radio Demon. “There is anyway we could learn what they are planning or who is working with your ex wife?”

 

For a moment, the king was about to say no but then he thought again and nodded slowly.

 

“Maybe there is a way...” said the king. “I talk to one of my siblings... every decade or so, it's more than I talk with the rest.”

 

Alastor didn't ask about what sibling was and why they talked after the Fall, the simply nodded.

 

“Try to get some information, then” said the demon.

 

“And what happens with Ankareeda?” asked Charlie. “She is so young, I don't think we should be telling a thing in case she slips but maybe we need to advise her not to be too friendly with my mother. I hate to think this but if she's like we are thinking she is, maybe Anka is in danger and she was very delighted with my mom in the dinner the other day.”

 

Both Lucifer and Alastor had the same type of smile in their faces, the smile of very proud fathers.

 

“Don't worry, dear” said the Radio Demon. “Ankareeda knows how to keep a secret and also she already distrust your dear mother. She told us as much.”

 

“She did?” asked Vaggie, with a soft smile.

 

“I explained this to Lucifer, but she's a very good judge of character” said Alastor. “And she uses her own silence to analize people. Don't worry about her.”

 

They talked a little more, according what the plan was and what was the part of everything... With Vaggie's part being just basic Vaggie, pissed with everyone but Charlie and suspicious of everything, and the girls went to talk on their suit while the Radio Demon and the king went to find their little girl.

 

Husk was behind the counter of the bar, with his usual vinegar infused face. In front of him a big nothing, in front of Ankareeda there were a wrist watch, several bags of snacks, two fully prepared mocktails (she was already sipping from one), some tied handkerchiefs in vivid colors, two big metal rings for magic tricks, several coupons for free food in different fast food chains on Pentagram, some dice and at least one hundred infernal dollars in bills of one with the pristine face of Lucifer printed in them.

 

Anka moved her head slightly to say hi with signs to both men after leaving her cards face down on the table. She took them again in her little hands.

 

“Did you fuckin' taught your daughter to play poker?” asked the bartender.

 

Alastor laughed.

 

“Maybe” said the Radio Demon.

 

“Maybe my ass!” said the cat demon. “I was teaching her some nice card tricks and she went 'How do you play poker? Daddy told me about poker. We can play for fun' and next thing I know is that I have ownership over my pants for sheer fucking luck.”

 

The Radio Demon laughed even more.

 

“It's your curse, Husker” said the demon. “You're destined to lose against my bloodline.”

 

He moved to hug his daughter from behind.

 

“Oh, good cards” he said.

 

Husk grunted some insult, dropping his cards over the table and moving under the counter to find something... after seconds, he raised with a bag of praline nuts, giving it to the little girl.

 

She said 'thank you' to then sign a little more.

 

“What is she saying?” asked the monarch.

 

“She saying the she only wanted the praline, Angel told her Husk had them” the red demon laughed. “She's returning the rest of her winnings now that she has what she was really after. Anka, darling, he lost. He should know by now not to gamble things he doesn't want to lose, let this be a lesson.”

 

The girl denied and moved everything, except the two mocktails, toward the cat demon. She took the drinks, gulped them and jumped from the tall stool to the floor with a vivid smile and her bag of praline.

 

She signed.

 

“She's saying that she's his friend” said Lucifer, understanding the girl and really happy for it.

 

“Hey kiddo” said the barman, throwing something to her. “Thanks... you can keep those too.”

 

It was a bag of chocolate covered cherries, the kid smiled and say thanks to Husk.

 

“Looks like your kid have more heart than you” said the bartender to the Radio Demon.

 

“That's not so difficult, I don't have any... whiskey, neat” he ordered while sitting.

 

“A Jolly Rancher, Husk, please” asked the king, jumping to the stool and sitting.

 

While the cat demon was preparing the drinks, serving first to Alastor, he remembered something while shaking Lucifer's cocktail.

 

“Ah, boss, there is a message from Carmilla” said the barman. “There is an overlord reunion tomorrow, ten o'clock, in her building.”

 

Alastor took his whiskey and drink before rolling his eyes.

 

“I have more important things to do...” then he thought for a moment. “But this will present a wonderful oportunity.”

 

“How so?” asked the monarch, thanking again the cat demon for the cocktail, drinking a little from the red fruity glass.

 

“Remember what I told you” he didn't want to clarify more but it wasn't needed, the king catched on it. “Also will be an amazing oportunity to make a presentation for Ankareeda.”

 

The girl, with her mouth covered in chocolate, licked her fingers while holding the bags of snacks with one tentacle and she signed.

 

“She's saying 'my what now?'” said the Radio Demon to Lucifer before he could ask. “You'll come with me to tomorrow's overlord meeting and you'll be on your best behaviour, the most charming one.”

 

“I'll go too” said the king. “I need to start to move and maybe the bitch will be there, I can't let her start to undermine my fucking autority before I can even use it.”

 

The deer demon nodded and presented his glass for a cheers.

 

“Then we're in an accord” said the overlord.

 

Lucifer nodded and moved his glass.

 

***

 

Near the hour of the reunion, Ankareeda was in the lobby, with her shadow doll. She had a cute dress in pink with cats in white in the pattern. She had white ballerina shoes and she was moving her head, like she was listening to music and surely, she had a tune in her mind.

 

Alastor was there and both were waiting for Lucifer, who came from the elevator placing his hat over his head and moving fast.

 

“Sorry, sorry... I had a call from one of the arcs goetia and he took his sweet time” said the monarch. “We are still on time, right?”

 

Alastor nodded. One thing Lucifer noticed with the demon, is that he always knew what exact hour it was... he didn't know if that was a power like his acute nose or was an ability natural to him. He knew some mortals that have that sense of time, the same that were humans with perfect orientation, but maybe that wasn't the moment to ask.

 

“We are in perfect time to be fashionably late” said the deer demon.

 

The girl, knowing they were about to go out, rose from the couch, adjusted her dress and went to her father.

 

Lucifer smiled softly to her.

 

“You're so cute, Anka” he said. “Alastor, do you mind if I give her something to tie her hair?”

 

The Radio Demon rose a brow.

 

“Why?” he asked, observing the king in detail.

 

“Well... I was thinking... If we are about to present this charade that you're under my employ and we are taking care of Ankareeda both, she needs something more that her cheeks to mark her as mine and I was thinking...” he was rubbing his hands.

 

The deer demon sighed.

 

“Ok, but do it fast” said the overlord. “There is a thin line between fashionably late and rudely late.”

 

Lucifer was elated and he moved near the girl, moving his hand to his hat. The golden snake with the apple resting around the ribbon edge brim moved to his hand, carrying the apple in its mouth and the king showed it to the little girl.

 

“This is Nahas” said the king. “He's with me since Eden, it's my companion like Oncle is your father's. This little apple he carries it's part of him, one of the apples from the Garden before the Original Sin... he's also my halo!”

 

The girl moved her hand and petted the golden snake over the head and for the way the ophidian closed his eyes, he liked it.

 

“Let me help you with your hair and he will be an ornament for you” said the monarch, while the snake moved to the hair of the girl, circling it and coiling around it until the girl had a tall ponitail with the snake as a hair tie, with the apple resting near the head of the animal. “See? You're so cute with Nahas there.”

 

He was delighted and Alastor was smiling softly to then clear his throat when he noticed the gaze from the shorter man.

 

“Very well, your highness, a portal to Carmilla's if you don't mind” asked the deer demon.

 

Lucifer snapped his fingers and the trio crossed the portal to the lobby of the weapons overlord, taking the elevator to reach the meeting room.

 

Alastor opened the door and Carmilla addressed him immediactly.

 

“Ah, Alastor, good to see you” she said but the deer didn't move from the door, instead he lowered his body with a reverence, placing his hand with the microphone behind his back to then point to the room with the other arm. “Your highness...”

 

Lucifer strolled tapping his cane to enter the room, taking a gander around, localizing in a second his wife sitting at the table in a preference seat.

 

“Good morning, Carmilla... and to the rest too” he smiled in direction of his ex-wife. “Lilith, can I know what are you doing here?”

 

“Taking care of the things that were neglected during my absence, darling” said the woman with a smug expression.

 

“No need, darling” he responded in the same tone. “I'm already here and, taking the issues of the crown doesn't compete to you anymore after our divorce, you can leave.”

 

He said, giving a small tap with his cane, having both his hands over the topple apple.

 

Saying that she felt offended and humilated was an understanding, the same that saying that Lucifer was enjoying her expression more than he was willing to admit.

 

She rose from her seat and moved to the door, passing near the king.

 

“I hope they'll be glad with a... half measure” said the queen with a wicked smile.

 

“Better to have the ear of a half measure with real power than the attention of a full size harpy with borrowed one” said the monarch with a jagged smile, not fully looking at her, just moving slightly his eyes to the side.

 

The woman went out of the door passing near the Radio Demon, that moved to go after her when she moved to the elevators.

 

“Your majesty, a second of your time, if you please” asked the deer.

 

“What do you want, Alastor?” she was annoyed.

 

The demon just smiled at her, that attractive smile, tilting oh so slightly his head in a disarming way.

 

“I was thinking... your highness still want to visit my radio tower and dine with me?” he asked.

 

Lilith crossed her arms.

 

“Aren't you too busy being my husband lap dog?” he asked, raising a brow.

 

Alastor moved his hand, taking one of the hands of the woman and moving it near his mouth.

 

“Don't confuse what I have to do to survive, to what I want to do, my queen” he said, speaking with his breath caressing the skin of the woman, to then, after passing his tongue through his lips, kiss her hand not once, but twice, softly, with lips like feathers... and making the woman blush on cue making the deer smile with satisfaction. “So... Can I tempt you to visit me tomorrow for a tour to my tower and a dinner fit for a beautiful queen?”

 

The woman was blushing, her chest moved up and down with a more prominent breathing... nevertheless, she looked over Alastor's shoulder, in the direction of the door of the meeting room, with Ankareeda still waiting outside.

 

“And what about my ex husband?” asked the demoness. “I thought after my last stunt you'll be taking his side...”

 

So it wasn't an error what she tried to do. Alastor stored that information and continued with his charade.

 

“We can't talk about that here, my gracious queen” he moved, near her, almost cheek with cheek, Alastor's breath was almost fire in Lilith's ear, his voice low, almost raspy. “Some things are to talk in private, your grace, but you should know by now I have my reasons to both play along the king and to despise him.”

 

He moved, biting his lip a little.

 

“But we'll talk tomorrow” he took the hand again to kiss it but this time wasn't merely a kiss...

 

Alastor opened a little his mouth and when his lips made contact, so it did his tongue, pressing softly against the digits... it was fast, but notable and Lilith could felt the little wetness, the almost promise of that tongue, maybe in other places. She bit her own lip.

 

“Nine o'clock, your majesty” said the man, taking an elegant bow. “I'll be very disappointed if I can't entertain your for the evening, my queen.”

 

He turned around and returned to the door.

 

“Sorry, Carmilla... by the way, do you mind that I have my daughter with me in this reunion?” asked the overlord at the door, like nothing, noticing by his periferal vision how the queen looked at him, how she was breathing before she turned around to pick up the elevator. “She's rather young but she knows how to behave and I don't have more people to care for her, being Rosie and Lucifer here and Charlie being today rather busy.”

 

The girl moved to enter the room and she took her dress with her free hand and made a curtsy that was both elegant and cute, with her other hand holding that strange rag doll completelly black.

 

The weapons overlord took a look at the little girl and her heart melted but not only that. She noticed the traits from both parents immediactly and that was a real surprise. The logistics escape her at the moment but she was starting to place the pieces of the jigsaw puzzle rather nicely.

 

“Of course, Alastor, there is no problem” she said. “And what's your name, little one?”

 

The girl signed and that melted the heart of the woman even more, if that was possible.

 

“She's saying that is a pleasure to meet you and her name is Ankareeda” translated the demon going near Lucifer and Rosie to sit, with the little girl strategically sitting between the overlord and the king.

 

“Is she deaf?” asked Clara, one of Carmilla's daughters.

 

The girl denied while taking the seat to then point to the scar over her throat.

 

Rosie moved in her chair so she can see the girl, having Alastor in the middle eclipsing her view and she winked to the little one.

 

The Vees were at the reunion too, in the other part of the table and Valentino and Velvette were looking to the king and the Radio Demon, and of course, the little girl that looked like a perfect mix between the two, with almost trepidation... Vox was fuming but trying to hide it.

 

“Very well, we can start this reunion” said Carmine, taking her place as head of the table.

Notes:

The next one is the overlord reunion itself and... what can go wrong? :P

Chapter 27: Don't forget, you're in my house, bitches

Summary:

The overlord meeting begins and Lucifer decides to take the lead to get the points he want to get across the overlords very clear.

And after the reunion, he decides to move his Heaven's connection locating the only one of his siblings that was communicative with him.

Notes:

Yeah, I'm taking my time with the chapters, sorry... I'll try to upload sooner, now that we are looking to the last part of the fanfic.

Also I have the ending visualized and fuck, I'm obsessed with it!! Also, also, I'm preparing my next Radioapple fanfic and maybe I'll do a little one short in between because today I saw this amazing illustration and it gave me an amazing idea for a short XD

“Ankh-Morpork had dallied with many forms of government and had ended up with that form of democracy known as One Man, One Vote. The Patrician was the Man; he had the Vote.”

~Terry Pratchett, Mort.

 

“Welcome sovereign overlords and welcome to his majesty” said the woman, starting the reunion. “We already hear about the proposition of the queen but...”

 

“What proposition?” interrrupted the monarch.

 

“The queen came with a proposition to the table of overlords, to unite and arm ourselves” said the woman. “She said Heaven is preparing a retaliation for the last failed extermination, that your intervention broke agreements with Heaven and now they will attack with full desvastating force.”

 

Lucifer scoffed.

 

“So that's what that harpy wants...” the king moved his eyes around the table, placing his gaze upon everyone of the overlords he didn't considered on his side, everyone of them except Alastor, Rosie and Vox. “First, I didn't break the deal with Heaven, they did. Second, we still don't have news from them, I'm working on an angle to get some information. If we arm ourselves now, Heaven will take this as that threat of uprising they fear so much.”

 

The blue flame demon... noboby remembered his name, they always called him Blueflame and that sticked, smirked.

 

“So we do nothing, right?” said the overlord. “We sit over our hands and bow down our heads so your fucking family massacres us. Like always, I don't know if it's simple second nature for you to don't do fuck or you really hates us so much you enjoy seeing us perish.”

 

Alastor moved his eyes to Blueflame and those were already radio dials but he couldn't talk the piece he was preparing to put that sinner in his place, Lucifer did. He was amused, enough to release a laugh that could freeze the blood in any living person's veins.

 

“Very funny” said the monarch. “Yes, I enjoy seeing sinners getting their due but is more a case to case basics. This intrussion in my domain was allowed to protect hellborn and the rest of the Rings. And you always can hide and find other ways to defend yourselves... Normally, yes, I won't care but they broke the deal in the worst way possible. They killed a hellborn that was serving my family for around two hundred years and they attacked Charlie. And be not mistaken, I'll transform to pulp anyone that tries to hurt one of my daughters.”

 

Ankareeda was giving the impression of a regular girl of that age, ignoring the adults, playing with her dolly but Vox, that was a natural detail oriented observer, catched how her eyes moved when someone talked and now, with the mention of 'daughters', she smiled for a microsecond.

 

“And... I wasn't absent, like most of you like to say” continued the king. “While I took the responsability to control the rest of the Rings and get the Sins in order, Lilith was supposedly taking care of Pride and the overlords and she squandered that responsability making parties to get her ass kissed. Taking she isn't my wife anymore and I'm not kind to letting power over my Ring to a twofaced aspid, I decided to take matters into my own hands. That is where Alastor comes to play.”

 

Zeezi Zilla laughed while pointing the red demon.

 

“Your fucking idea is for the Radio Demon to be our babysitter?” she said.

 

Lucifer, smiling, looked back to her.

 

“You're not that lucky” said the king. “Alastor's first suggestion was leaving the overlords to their own devices unless they were a problem... My problem, in the other hand, is that you are already pissing me off, conspiring with my ex-wife and talking about arming yourselves to go after Heaven, risking a bigger problem for all of us.”

 

“We weren't conspiring, your majesty” said Vox. “She came earlier and taking most of us were already here, she presented supposed privileged information about Heaven's next moves.”

 

“Information that you never questioned how she got her grabby hands on it” said Alastor. “You all are trusting fools, since when the caste of overlords is so weak to not be alert and mistrust things presented in a silver platter?”

 

Said the Radio Demon, shaking his head.

 

“If we arm and prepare ourselves, someone that could talk with Heaven could say to them that it isn't for defend, but for attack and maybe Heaven decides to stop seding mewling easy to kill exorcists and start to send proper soldiers” said the demon. “What will you do then when the celestial sphere decides to send a seraphim or and archangel? Specially if the King of Heaven decides to take the arms, if Michael takes the lead, we all are fucked... And I have a daughter to protect, so let's try to think and left this Ring in mint condition.”

 

There were some murmur in the meeting room, with Carmilla talking to Zestial, Vox and the two other Vees talking and Zeezi talking to Blueflame.

 

“So what do you want from us, your majesty?” asked the weapons overlord.

 

“First of all, I don't want a single overlord in cahoots with my ex-wife” started to say the king. “I don't think Lilith has the best in mind for this Ring or for Hell. Second, I want to be informed about my domain, so I'll attend the overlord reunions from now on. Following my adviser, I won't meddle in overlord business unless it affects negatively the Ring but this will be in exchange for services rendered to me.”

 

Valentino took a puff of his cigarette and let some smoke out of his mouth.

 

“Services? Papito, are you taking us for your little whores?” asked the moth overlord, with a playful smile.

 

Lucifer... has a playful smile of his own, with more edges and more dangerous than the sinner's.

 

“There is not a secret that Hell is my whorehouse and you all are my bitches” said the monarch. “Me giving you very long, long leashes doesn't mean you don't have one... And I can jank it, any time I like. Trust me, polillita, you don't want to make your own afterlife harder.”

 

Val, that was sitting slightly to the table, with two of his arms over the table, in a jerked move he started to sit straight. He didn't know if was for the tone, for the affirmation or for calling him 'little moth' in perfect spanish that he felt less and less secure by the minute.

 

Also, the severe gaze on that man, that short man that in magazines and newspapers was always smiling, funny, cheerful or even joking, now so vicious, direct and commanding was a terrible shock, and seeing the rest of the table, he wasn't the only one feeling that.

 

“Now, let us clear terms” said the monarch, to then point to his companion. “Alastor, if you please.”

 

The Radio Demon nodded. They didn't talk about what Lucifer wanted from the overlords really, he only wanted to get a more controlling approach to Pride Ring, making it a better place not only for the hellborns that were living there but also for the sinners with not so much sins to their names, those that were meant to be easy prey.

 

But after knowing that Lilith was starting to plot and those fools already dancing to her tune, he knew what needed to be done and Lucifer was giving him a vote of confidence letting him talk for him.

 

“First, as the king said, he won't intervine in our affairs, in exchange, we'll maintain him informed, specially about the moves of the Queen” said the Radio Demon. “In fact, his highness will reward handsomely any information about the harpy if she tries to get her hands over the political sphere of Pentagram or Pride Ring.”

 

Some whispers in the room, Alastor continued, marking the points with his hand.

 

“Second, I informed the king that isn't easy to control the market of angelic weapons” said the demon, looking to Carmilla. “There are already too many of them sold, specially to other rings, there is the black market. Carmilla darling tries to have the monopoly but isn't easy to achieve... So, taking some of the load from out gracious host here, his majesty will be glad if you all can control that problem too. Any illegal auctions, sells and inventories of the existing ones in your property or your contracted souls.”

 

That was for double purposes. To avoid another attack over Lucifer or, and that worried the king more, his family and also to avoid what the queen likely was trying to accomplish: mass shipments of weapons moving and giving the High Realm an excuse for another attack with no new deal in the middle.

 

“And, his majesty will be glad if, until this crisis with Heaven is finally resolved, you don't start new disputes about territory or your respective spheres of influence” said the demon, knowing how prone they were to find ways to fight about.

 

They talked again between them and this time the one that talked was Velvette.

 

“And what happens with the holy rollers?” asked the Vee. “If they want to keep going with the exterminations, then what? We roll and accept that?”

 

Alastor looked back to Lucifer because he didn't know the response to that question either. Did he wanted another deal? Maybe excluding the hotel too?

 

“There will be no more exterminations on my realm ever again” he said, firmly. “For the good of the majority of Hell I played ball with Adam and threw part of my subjects under the bus and they trampled over that sacrifice. Never again... I don't want more intermissions on my domain, if they insist I won't start a war with the High Realm but I'll fucking finish it.”

 

“So you now want to fight?” said the smallest of the Vees. “Fuckin' bloody time for that! We need to fight!”

 

“So you now want to fight, for real?” asked Alastor, tilting his head and jagging his smile.

 

“What are you talking about, Radio cunt?” said Velvette. “I wanted to fight from the bloody beginning!”

 

“And when the fight came, Carmilla provided the weapons, Rosie provided the cannibals, I took a quarter of the exorcists with my powers and faced their general head on” he chuckled. “You and the other two disgraces hid in your tower. Looks like the 'overlords scare to fight' were you three all along!”

 

He said, with his usual cheery flair but that stroke a nerve on the tiny overlord. She jumped over the table going near the Radio Demon.

 

“Hear me well, you wanker” she started to say “Like fuck we were about to protect that stupid hotel and Lucifer's brat and you ate shit and flee, like the little bitch you...”

 

The table tembled a little, the illumination of the room was losing strength little by little and the temperature was dropping... and that effect wasn't Alastor's or Lucifer's. Ankareeda was looking to the woman with an expression that could be even cute in a girl so little if it wasn't for her eyes changing with her bright golden irises and the little horns coming from her forehead. Using her tentacles she raised herself to the table, just inches from the social media overlord.

 

Anka was smaller than the woman, even when the woman wasn't that tall, but the presence of the girl was far superior from the presence of the sinner and she was starting to feel that, taking a step back as a kneejerk reaction.

 

With one of her tentacles, the girl took her shadow doll and started to sign.

 

“My father fought and was hurt, true, but he fought” Rosie was interpreting what the girl was saying, with a satisfied and proud smile in her face. “He was very brave serving his king, without doubts. You hid and that's fact.”

 

The way she was signing was deliverate and slow, with her eyes looking directly to the vee, with a security that was overwhelming.

 

“If you talk about fighting and then you hide, no matter the excuse, you're a coward and those are facts too” continue Rosie with the translation. “And I'm my father's daughter: I don't fear a fight. Specially if someone so pathetic insults my father's bravery. Now sit and let your king and your betters to speak or I'll ask my king the pleasure of teaching you a lesson on manners.”

 

Nahas, Lucifer's golden halo serpent, hissed from his position on Anka's hair, giving a warning and Rosie was so proud, she looked to Velvette and raised a brow.

 

“Well, darling, sit or you will be seated” said the cannibal overlord.

 

The tiny overlord was about to retort when she felt a tap gave by Vox and looked at him.

 

“Sit the fuck down, Velvette” he said, biting the words.

 

Grunting, the overlord went to her seat and Ankareeda retracted her demonic attributes to then turn around to see Carmilla, signing to her with a lovely charming smile.

 

“Sorry, Miss Carmine” said the little girl thanks to Rosie's translation. “I don't like when my papa is disrespected.”

 

The woman smiled softly to the girl... She couldn't help it. That girl was cute, was polite, was a protector and so little... That was her soft spot and that girl was pounding it without mercy.

 

“Don't worry, princess” said the woman.

 

The girl signed again.

 

“Even when my father is King Lucifer too” she explained with signs “I'm but the daughter of the Radio Demon. The princess is my sister Charlie.”

 

She said thanks to Rosie for the help and went out from the top of the table and resting sitting in her chair, taking again her doll in her hands.

 

“Well, do you or your adviser want to add anything more, your highness?” asked Carmilla.

 

Lucifer denied with his head.

 

“I think everything I wanted to say, is said... well... not all” said the monarch. “As Carmilla said, Alastor is my adviser, he has been my adviser for eight years now and, it's obvious, we have a daughter in common... so it goes without saying, any insult, attack or similar over the Radio Demon and his daughter is a direct attack on me and I'll take that very personal and very seriously. The same that my Charlie is not real estate for jokes and demeanors anymore and I'll punish that severely.”

 

He gave a serious gaze to all the overlords, specially those sitting in front of him. He wasn't joking, he was more grave in that moment than in any of his life. If they got accustomed to having their king just being a layback funny goofball, for him those days were over.

 

Alastor was right. That facet of his personality was for people he care about and cared for him, if his subjects only understood fear from him, that was what he was about to give to them to get their respect, for him and his daughters.

 

“I don't have more to say” he finished.

 

Carmilla looked around.

 

“Anyone of you want to present another point to the table?” there were murmurs but nothing more. “Well, this meeting's over.”

 

When the rest of the overlords were about to go, the king moved to go near Vox.

 

“We need to talk, in private” he said to the overlord.

 

For her part, Carmilla looked back to Alastor and his daughter.

 

“Alastor, can we talk for a moment?” she said, pointing with her head to her office nearby.

 

“Of course, darling” said the Radio Demon. “Wait here with auntie Rosie, ok?”

 

He said to Ankareeda and the girl nodded, talking to the woman with signs and Rosie responded the same so others what were going out of the room couldn't catch on her chat.

 

The demon moved behind the woman, going to her office, closing Carmilla the door to talk in privacy with the Radio Demon.

 

“I wanted to thank you” said the woman, as a starter. “You explained to the king that I can control the weapons just to certain extend.”

 

She said and Alastor nodded.

 

“Of course” said the deer. “The king was just annoyed from Vox's stupidity and being immune to angelic steel, he wasn't worried about himself.”

 

The woman nodded.

 

“I noticed the scar over your daughter's throat” said the woman.

 

“Yes, people tried to kill her when I was carrying her in my womb” said the demon. “I killed them but... we are still investigating who send them. The first priority was hide.”

 

“So that explains your absence...” said the woman, thinking. “You have my sympathies, Alastor. I don't know what I could do if my daughters got hurt in that way.”

 

“The same I did and the same I'll do, if Lucifer doesn't do it first, to the person that provoked that, I'm sure” said the Radio Demon. “Vaggie told us at the hotel how you learned about angels' vulnerability and I felt a strong kinship in that moment.”

 

Carmine raised a brow and presented a smirk in her face.

 

“Also Vaggie told me that you spied on me and learned that secret yourself” said the woman.

 

The Radio Demon laughed.

 

“Well, dear, I was doing my job” said the demon with canned laughs around him. “Your expression when you saw the head was pretty clear for me.”

 

“Vaggie also told me you made a deal with Charlie for the information... The king knows that?” she asked.

 

“Of course, darling” said the demon. “Charlie didn't know I was there in orders from her father and she didn't know me well, I had to act like people expect me to act.”

 

That reminded the deer that he needed to inform the princess and her paramour about what happened in the reunion, so Vaggie wouldn't betray their play talking too much with the spaniard sinner.

 

“I never cashed it and I nulified it as soon as the secret was out” said the Radio Demon. “You can ask Miss Exorcist if you don't believe me. I'm not trying to take advantage of Lucifer, Carmilla... I'm not an oportunistic. Well, that's a lie, I am, but not with him. I know the type of power he really commands and he has my respect... and more. I'm not in liberty to say, I guess you understand.”

 

The woman nodded.

 

“I do” she said. “That was all, Alastor, thanks for this chat.”

 

“Pleasure, Carmilla” said the demon, turning over his heels to go out.

 

“Say... Are you amicable of receiving presents for your daughter?” asked the woman, looking over the shoulder of the demon, through the crystal of her door to the reunion table, with Ankareeda talking with Rosie.

 

“Sure, of course” said the demon. “My little one will be most appreciative.”

 

The woman nodded.

 

“We'll see... good bye, Alastor” said the woman.

 

“Till next time, Carmilla” he said, going out of the office to the meeting room.

 

***

 

At the same time...

 

“Hey, what you want to talk to Vox, you can talk it with us present” said Velvette, protective of Vox all of the sudden.

 

“No, you won't” said the TV demon. “Don't worry, I'll tell you everything later either way. Wait for me in the limo.”

 

He asked, both of the vees weren't agreeable to that but they saw in the eyes of the Devil he really didn't want them there, so they both nodded and took the elevator.

 

“What I can do for you, your majesty?” asked the demon, without smiling.

 

Taking his soul only deepened the hatred he has for the Fallen Angel. Not that Lucifer cared at all about the hate the he could almost felt irradiating from the overlord.

 

“I want you to do a job for me” said the monarch. “A surveillance and investigation job, surely you'll love it.”

 

He said with a wicked smile, making the demon almost growl, almost.

 

“Ok, who do you want to get information about?” said the TV overlord. “Your darling wife, perhaps?”

 

Lucifer's eyes went full red.

 

“Ex-wife” said the king. “And yes, her... and the Von Eldritch family. I want to know their movements, I want to know conversations, specially between them or when they get together or near, with any member of that family. I want to know their whereabouts, I want to know their secrets... I want to know everything, even when they eat and where. Not a single detail is too small.”

 

Vox thought about it... the Von Eldritch was a very important family, as important as the Goetia but not as powerful. Was the fallen shit fearing an alliance between them and Lilith? Was the woman really speargunning for the throne of Hell against her ex-husband? That could be interesting.

 

“You really want me to monitor them all the time? The Von Eldritch family isn't small” he was curious and wanted to do it to learn more but fuck if he was about to bow down to the fallen filth so easily.

 

Lucifer gave a step nearer the overlord. The king was shorter than the man and had to look up to see directly to his face but the weight of the present of the monarch was very notable for the tv overlord.

 

“I own you, bitch” said the king. “Be thankful I permit you to continue with your pathetic little afterlife, I could store you in a room, having you at my service without rest. It's that what you want, little bitch?”

 

Vox had a shiver all over his body and his monitor lost some brightness over that phrase. He gulped before answering.

 

“No, your majesty” said the sinner, lowering his head with respect. “I'll take care of your order as soon as I can, I'll focus in that.”

 

For more that he hated the man, he didn't want to learn if that was bravado and just words or if he was that cruel of a master to do something like that. He thought for a moment... well, he had Alastor stored for almost a decade and they were... Whatever they were.

 

No, he didn't want to anger the Fallen Angel.

 

“Excellent, I'll wait for your reports” he said, just when Alastor was coming out of the meeting room with Rosie and Ankareeda.

 

The girl moved near the TV overlord and signed.

 

“Yes, I'm Vox of the Vees, CEO of Voxtek” said the overlord, without the need for translation.

 

Lucifer growled at the same time he raised a brow.

 

“You, of all people, know ASL?” asked the monarch.

 

“Yes... I... I... I like to control my cameras and drones and... information is power so... and after so many years and seeing deaf sinners, I learned” said the man.

 

The girl signed and the overlord smiled softly. That was, maybe, the most sincere smile someone that wasn't Alastor saw from him, the deer demon saw him smiling at him like that countless of times.

 

“It's a pleasure to meet you too, Ankareeda” said the sinner, extending his hand to shake the hand of the little girl, thing she responded doing. “What do you have there, a shadow like your papa?”

 

Asked the demon and the girl nodded, showing the ragdoll so the overlord could see it better.

 

“Beautiful, what's its name?” he asked.

 

The girl thought. Oncle has a name... she moved her hand and pat a little the head of the gold snake. That was Nahas, and has a name. The girl signed.

 

“No name yet... Well, you have time to name it” the overlord was almost enthralled by the girl and his mind was goind wild.

 

If Alastor and him stayed together, if the deer loved him... maybe they could find a magick powerful enough to achieve that miracle. Maybe Ankareeda could have Alastor's hair or a mix of color of blues and reds, maybe one of her eyes could be like his hypnotic one, metalic nails like him... It was stupid to dream in something like that, Alastor never loved him and achieving that between sinners without a power like Lucifer's was a mirage.

 

He pat the hair of the girl, removing the hand fast because Nahas was trying to bite him.

 

“Well, I'll need to go, was a pleasure to meet you, Ankareeda” said the overlord. “Continue defending your father in that way, it was admirable.”

 

The girl said bye with the hand to then take the hand of his father, taking Alastor his girl in his arms immediactly.

 

“That bitch...” said Lucifer.

 

“Well, I should go too” said Rosie. “We have a sale on the Empirum and my girls will need me. Tomorrow I'm free, so I'll go to the hotel, I have a couple of things for my baby and for Charlie.”

 

The king nodded, trying to calm himself and smile after Vox was far gone.

 

“Of course, Miss Rosie, will be a pleasure having you there” said the devil.

 

“I would go even if it wasn't, your majesty” said the woman, she kissed the little girl and went to the elevator.

 

Alastor said goodbye to then look at the monarch.

 

“If you're so kind to open a portal, dearest”he asked.

 

Lucifer nodded and snapped, creating a portal to the lobby of the Hazbin Hotel.

 

The place was empty at that hour and the monarch turned around to see the deer demon.

 

“Well, if you're so kind, could you inform Charlie and Vaggie about our progress?” said the devil. “I need to catch in the sibling I have that still talks to me and it's gonna take me time.”

 

He moved near the girl when Alastor placed her on her feet near him.

 

“You were amazing, Anka” said the man. “I'm so proud.”

 

She signed.

 

“She says she did it for me” the demon, went over a knee to hug the girl properly. “She was protecting me, even when she knows I can protect myself. And she catched in what we wanted to do.”

 

The king nodded.

 

“Again, very proud... Now, I need to take Nahas before he gets too comfy” the snake moved with the apple in his mouth to the hand of the devil, placing it again in his hat. “And I'll go. I don't know when I'll return, because she isn't easy to find, even when I got an idea but... I'll tell you and the girls as soon as I know something.”

 

He was about to go when Alastor took him by the hand.

 

“My king” said the demon. “You were also amazing today. It was about time Pride and Hell has a proper ruler.”

 

The man smiled with the praise.

 

“So I was according to your expectations?” asked the shorter man.

 

Alastor kissed the hand.

 

“You surpassed them” he said, releasing the hand.

 

Lucifer sighed to then clear his throat, adjust his hat and disappear in a mist of red glitter.

 

***

 

It wasn't easy to locate her...

 

She didnt have a concrate place to be or a exact way to be localized but he had an idea to where she will be.

 

Lucifer was in the Living World, in a hospital in Detroit in the intense care units for children, invisible to the eyes of mortals. He was moving for the rooms, trying to find what he was looking for and finally he managed.

 

There was a little girl, similar in age to his Ankareeda.

 

Her head was hairless, she was intubated and had a respirator applied to her. The king squated to read her medical history at the foot of the bed.

 

Orphan, leukemia in final stages... she lost the battle, specially in that country with little to no medical help to those in most need. It was a pity, almost an injustice.

 

He sat near the girl in a chair and waited.

 

A couple of hours later, when the girl suffered an spasm, the time looked like it was going slower and slower little by little... the color of the room and all the things around started to fade and everything was in black and white.

 

A woman entered the room, small in stature, almost equal to the king, dark coffee skin with black curly hair styled with small braids to end in a afro back knot. She had a hairpin of a skull and a flower, a white chrysanthemum. She had violet eyes and her clothes were fairly modern, with black jeans slightly ripped and a black tank top with a decal of a metal rock band called Lordi. She was wearing high sole military black boots, had her nails painted in white and multiple bracelets in her right hand.

 

“Hi, bro, long time no see” she said, very cheerful.

 

“Hi, Azreal, good to see you too” said the monarch, moving to hug his sister.

 

When they hugged, the angel booped her brother.

 

“You were waiting for me, right?” asked the angel. “What do you want, big bro?”

 

Lucifer sighed.

 

“I need to talk, to ask you... a big ask” said the monarch.

 

“I kinda of need to ferry the little one...” both moved to the bed, both the Fallen Angel and the Angel of Death observing the girl, frozen in time in her last moments.

 

“So young... She deserved more time” said the monarch.

 

Azrael shrugged.

 

“She had what every one of them has: a life” the woman moved her hand softly over the girl's hair. “It's a pity hers is so short...”

 

Lucifer thought.

 

“Well, I can give her a present” and he moved his hands, closed his eyes and concentrate, washing the ill girl in a golden warming light.

 

“This is more than a present, Lucifer” she was serious, not annoyed or angry, just serious.

 

“What better present, than a future...” said the king.

 

When he finished, minutes later, he opened his eyes and cracked his neck.

 

“I'll talk with witches from my cult in the zone so she could get adopted” said the fallen angel. “She will need to fight what's left of the illness and all but... now she has a chance.”

 

Azrael moved an arm to pass it over Lucifer's shoulders.

 

“You were always the sweetest of all of us, big bro” she said. “Ok, you want to talk and I don't have a job right now with this part of me so... I know the perfect place to talk. Want to pay a beer for your younger sister?”

 

“Let's go” said the monarch.

 

He loved Azreal. The same that him, she was connected with all of Humanity... for taking his side when the Original Sin was discovered, she was punished by being the Angel of Death. She didn't have a regular stationary form, she had thousand incarnations of herself, all connected at all times to fullfil her job and with her compassionate heart, she was force to see suffering and pain at close and, with time, she developed a philosophy about it.

 

She was his favorite sister, by far. And he really hoped she could help him.

Notes:

Next one is the chat with Azrael, the Angel of Death... and some revelations are ensued. So, you know... Stay tuned ;)

Chapter 28: The Grim Reaper and The Devil walks into a bar

Summary:

Lucifer has a conversation with his younger sister Azrael, the Angel of Death, in a very particular pub.

Meanwhile, Alastor, thanks to an exercise created by Charlie, finds kinship with someone he thought was day and night compared to him.

Notes:

These two conversations, because this chapter is two big conversations and I regret nothing, were really fun to write

“When the first living thing existed, I was there waiting. When the last living thing dies, my job will be finished. I'll put the chairs on the tables, turn out the lights and lock the universe behind me when I leave.”

~Death, The Sandman: Dream Country

 

The Oblivion Pub.

 

Both the Devil and the Angel of Death were in Manchester, England, near the Cathedral Colegiate of St Mary into a very dark alley that was giving all the vibes of Rape Town or Mugging City, with a potent smell of piss, semen and the worst of Humanity. The street behind them was called Hanging and someone drew a man hanging from his neck, with the tongue outside.

 

Azreal stopped in front a metalic door that had for him no distinguishing markings, at least until he was near the same. His capacity to catch on magic fluctuations alerted him of a symbol, human protection, very ancient, from the times of Babyl, more or less.

 

It was a seal compossed of Luzbel, one of his old names and Mikal, one of the old names of his twin brother. It was seal to protect those that walk between Heaven and Hell, like a pact of no intervention for either side.

 

“This is the place? Should I be taking a human disguise?” asked the monarch.

 

“No, need, bro, you'll see” the woman knocked twice and a voice came from behind the door.

 

“Password?” asked a masculine voice.

 

“Open the bloody door, you wanker, you know who I am” said the angel, with a huge smile.

 

A very tired sigh was heard from the other side of the door to then the sound of opening locks to give presentation to that door sliding and showing part of the interior.

 

There were music, in that moment a song from Carrie Underwood called Cowboy Casanova.

 

The interior smelled, well like a well cared but seasoned pub on England should smell and when both entered, it was obvious that the angel was a regular.

 

He's a devil in disguise,

a snake with blue eyes

and he only comes out at night.

Get your feelings that

you don't wanna fight,

you better run for you life

 

“Fuckin' bloody Hells, Azy??!!” said the barman, a man slightly bigger than what even consider bigger for humans, with leathery skin, bald head, slight shady three days beard, fangs and a little, very little imp horns in black and white. “You really had to bring the bloody King o' Hell here, girly?!”

 

Said king raised a brow while the woman smirked going to the counter.

 

“Lucifer doesn't bite” she said. “I want a brown ale and some pistachios. You brother?”

 

Asked the woman.

 

Lucifer was looking around the bar to the regulars reunited in it. It was obvious that the barman was a nephilim, a mix from a divine or profane creature and a human, in his case, imp. There were at least another two nephilims present, one with attributes of an angel, with feathers coming from eyebrows and part of the arms and another one, rather attractive with marks from a succubi.

 

He counted also a couple of witches and warlocks, a disgraced exorcist with a broken halo completelly wasted and three cherubs also drunk as sailors sleeping over a table with varitable amount of empty bottles around them. When Azrael called his attention, he moved to the counter too.

 

“A Chimayó” he asked.

 

“The fuck is that?” then he thought for a moment. “Your majesty?”

 

Lucifer raised a brow.

 

“Apple cider, tequila, crème de cassis liqueur and a touch of lemon” he said, like that was obvious.

 

Azreal laughed, placing a hand over her brother's shoulder.

 

“I'm so glad you're the Devil and you can create with fear a very inclusive ambiance for yourself, big bro, or here you'll be beaten into the ground for asking a fruity little drink like that” said the angel, looking to the barman. “Give him a Kopparberg, the wildberries one.”

 

The barman nodded and prepared the beer, the big can of cider with a glass and the plate with pistachios, Azreal picked all and moved to the farther table from the entrance and the rest of people, sitting down and giving her drink a large gulp.

 

“Ohhh... I needed that!” said the angel, resting comfortable against the chair. “Ok, what can I do for you, bro?”

 

Asked the woman.

 

The king opened the can, similar to a can of beer but when he poured into the glass, he noticed the sweet aroma of fruits and cider, giving it a taste and enjoy it with a cute smile, giving it another.

 

“This is so good!!” he sighed. “I'll ask but... I need to place you into situation first.”

 

And Lucifer started to recount all that happened, from Alastor's mother invoking him to that very point in the story, where they were navigating making amends and resolving the mystery.

 

“Wait, wait, wait... ti'Alastor is your paramour?” asked the woman.

 

“Ti'Alastor?” asked the king.

 

“It's creole, it means petit or little, it's how Aloÿia calls him” said the woman.

 

“You know his mother?” asked the monarch, not with a small surprise in his face.

 

The Angel of Death took a sip from the beer and nodded.

 

“Yeah, all his family are devotees of me” she started to explain. “It's a long line of witches and warlocks that dates back to the Old Continent. They know me as Maman Brigitte and they follow my teachings, appreciating life and appreciating death, knowing that I'm not a monster in the night, I'm a guide, for rich and poor, for young and old, for good or bad.”

 

The monarch thought about that for a moment.

 

“Why then she invoked me and not you?” asked the devil.

 

“Because you gives boon and wishes, I only deal in death” said the angel, like that was obvious. “And I can't break the rules, I can bend them and I'm been doing it since the beginning of time, Creation, Michael and Sera be damned, but I don't deal with the rest.”

 

Lucifer continued with his tale and when he reached the part about the conversation with Alastor in his bayou after discovering Ankareeda, the angel moved... taking part of her angelic superior form.

 

In that form, the angel had six black wings coming from her back, her halo was black as the exorcists but in the form a top hat with a central raven skull. In her face appeared a white mark of a skull, the same the arms had like white bright tattooes of bones and she had eyes... one in the forehead just in the middle, one per hand, one bigger in the middle of the chest and several in her legs.

 

“You're stupid!!” she hit Lucifer's hat out of his head and then took the Fallen Angel by his pointy ear, making pressure, with the devil complaining and in pain. “You very, very, very stupid... How you could do such a thing?! Christ on a stick, fucking Samael!! You don't treat people like that, specially people sharing a life with you. How can I be more connected with humans when I only deal with their death and I only live like a human one day every decade?!”

 

“Ok, Ok, Azy, I'm torture myself enough, release me!” he asked.

 

“Like fuck I'll do... If I were Alastor, I would cut your dick and balls and be done with you” she finally released her brother and sat again, normal form again and arms crossed.

 

All the bar was looking in that direction, with the typical expression of someone that sees two powerful beings of incredible power bicker and they don't want to be in their blast radious.

 

“Something on my face?” asked Azreal, still a little angry... the patrons of the establishment denied and returned with their private conversations. “I thought so...”

 

Lucifer took his hat from the floor, clean it with the other hand and placed it on his head. Now he had one ear normal and the other was like an oversized tomato.

 

“Fuck, you're a brute, sis” he said, trying to calm the pain massaging it.

 

“Not enough!” she said. “You know? I ferried him to Hell when he died. All are equal before me and the lies drop when you die and I never mislabeled him. In fact, when he died for papers they buried him under his dead name and I fucked that tombstone and placed his name correctly.”

 

Lucifer opened his eyes widely.

 

“So you know how he died” he said.

 

The angel nodded, beer in hand.

 

“How he died?” the king asked, full of curiosity.

 

Azreal raised a brow.

 

“He didn't told you?” Lucifer denied. “Then you don't get to know it!”

 

“Oh, c'mon, is just the death of a mortal, can't be that important” he said and he knew the error as soon as the words abandoned his mouth and he saw the expression from his sister, the expression of someone wanting to give him a matching ear.

 

“It's important to him and if he didn't want to tell you, tough luck, big guy, you don't get to learn about it” said the reaper. “You don't need to know everything about your partners, there is a thing called respect... There is even a song about it.”

 

Lucifer growled but he understood... even when he didn't want to understand. Alastor was very self-conscious about his death, something that was his fault, something that embarrassed him about it. Azreal was right, maybe he shouldn't know about it.

 

He also thought it was cruel to bury him under a name that was not his own. Being dead, what mattered to others what was in his tombstone or not? Did his mother allowed that or she wasn't in the picture?

 

“And his mother is upstairs?” asked the monarch.

 

Azreal nodded.

 

“Yeah, she is... in fact I eat at her house twice a month, she's very accomodating with me, it's almost like having a mother” she smiled softly. “But heck, bro... even with external influence, you fucked up big time. You know emotional wounds are worse than physical ones? And... doing it the days he didn't want to... I defended you all my life against the Bible Fan Club, and now I got the fear that my sweet baby niece was conceived on those... fucking rapey days.”

 

The puzzled Lucifer, making him open his eyes widely at the implications his sister was laying in his direction.

 

“Wait a minute, it's not the same...” she gave him a gaze that could freeze the Wrath Ring.

 

“If you fuck someone when they aren't in the mood, it's not consensual, you ass!!” she shook her head. “Fuck, I don't know it if just ignorance or really Hell fucked with your morals at last. Or maybe is because you had your head deep down Lilith's cunt from the beginning of time and you don't know how to deal with other people.”

 

He tried to retort but he couldn't, he just lowered his head.

 

“I fucked up, I know” said the monarch. “Maybe I'm not better than bitches like Valentino.”

 

The angel sighed, to then place a hand over his brother's shoulder.

 

“Look, repentance goes a long way” said the woman. “Knowing you fucked up and you could fuck up even worst, knowing your errors and misconceptions is what can differentiate you from a really vile person. And sure, if what you told me is right and Lilith has her hands in this...”

 

She clicked her tongue.

 

“I liked her a lot, you know?” said his sister. “She was good for you, you both sticked together in the good times, the bad times and the worst times. You two were relationship goals, I can't imagine her changing that much.”

 

Lucifer took his cider and drank it completely, asking for another with a sign to the barman.

 

“Yeah, had been hard for me too” said the king. “Since the moment she became pregnant, all her personality mutated to this horrid aspid full of hatred and vanity. And if she really is colluding with Heaven and tried to use me to hurt Alastor... I won't hesitate, I'll destroy her for good.”

 

“Will you kill the mother of your child?” asked the woman, seriously.

 

“I won't kill her without proof” said the monarch. “But if she has become this... monster, if she betrayed me and Charlie, if she made me hurt Alastor and Ankareeda, my heart won't hesitate and she'll meet the Devil everyone fear.”

 

And he said that with his eyes going from golden to red in his sclera, his horns slightly piercing his skin near his hair.

 

“And that's where I need you, sis” said the devil. “I need to know what's happening in Heaven with this zero communication bullshit and I need to know if any of the imbued objects of our dear siblings could affect me... also, I won't mind to know with who the fuck in Heaven my ex-wife is talking.”

 

Azreal took a sip from her beer.

 

“It's a big ask, bro” said the angel. “But I can manage, using one or two of my versions to bend the rules and sniff around. But I want compensation for services rendered.”

 

Lucifer was serving himself the cider and giving a big gulp, to then raise a brow looking to his sister.

 

“What compensation, Azy?” he asked.

 

“First, I want to meet my nieces, both” said the woman. “Doesn't have to be now, but I want to know the family... Alastor too. His mother is always worried about how her babyboy is dealing with Hell.”

 

The king laughed.

 

“Alastor didn't make Hell his bitch because his ambition doesn't grow in that direction” said the monarch. “He's an overlord, respected to the point of being feared. He's cunning, a control freak and very reserved. He's also an amazing radio host and he's very protective of people that is weaker than him. Not so many friends, tho, only this friend called Rosie that threatened me with cutting my balls...”

 

“Don't know her, already liking her” said the Angel of Death, raising her glass.

 

“And my Charlie considered herself as his friend” said the monarch. “And he's freakishly powerful and... I love him, I really think that I love him.”

 

Azreal sighed.

 

“You better” said the woman, drinking the rest of her beer. “Because if this ends up being midly infatuation and you get bored of him when you'll really have him or in a couple of years or decades, the damage will be monstruosly high, big bro, and stories like those, if you keep getting them long enough, always end in me.”

 

She rose from the chair, stretching to then move the hat from his brother up a little to kiss him in the forehead.

 

“Be good, Lucifer Morningstar” she said. “When I have all the information, I'll go to that Hazbin Hotel, ok?”

 

Then she whistle to the barman.

 

“Hoi! My big brother will pay my bill and one round for everyone here” there were no cheers or common happiness... that refuge, the Oblivion Pub, was a place for broken abnormalities and people walking or dancing in the edge of the sword of Divine Judgement.

 

A drink was an arm-flotty, not something that could produce real happiness.

 

***

 

Meanwhile, Charlie decided to prepare a very special exercises for the hotel and wanted the collaboration of everyone.

 

“Today exercise will be communication and finding things in common” explained the woman. “All our names are in this bowl and Anka will take out the names to form the pairs. You'll have to communicate with the other for half an hour and then you'll share your impressions with the rest of the group, what you have in common and what not.”

 

Ankareeda helped the princess with the selection and soon the couples were sorted, with Alastor ending up with Angel Dust, taking a huge sigh when he saw the spider demon distracted, looking through his cellphone.

 

“Charlie, darling” said the overlord, catching the attention of the woman while he was seeing how Ankareeda moved to be pair with Cherri Bomb, making the girl a notebook to appear to facilitate the conversation. “I know I need to do this but I think I have little to no thing in common with dear Angel, so maybe...”

 

The girl placed a hand over his arm.

 

“Then talk about your differences” she said, moving the overlord dragging him through the floor like he did with her countless times to place him near the spider demon. “Now, get together, find a place and start talking. Remember, half an hour.”

 

The overlord sighed to then look to Angel.

 

“Well, my delicate fella, we should do this” he said, pointing to the couch in the lobby nearer the counter of the reception.

 

Everyone were to different parts of the hotel so that place was empty for them to talk in relative privacy.

 

“This 's stupid” said the porn star. “I don't have enough alcohol on me for this.”

 

Alastor nodded, sat at the couch, looking upfront without catching not even a glimpse to the spider demon.

 

They stood in silence for at least a minute when Angel decided to break the ice, so to speak.

 

“Fuck it!” said the demon. “We need to talk about somethin' or Charlie is gonna get piss.”

 

The Radio Demon looked back in his direction.

 

“About what? We don't have a thing in common” said the deer, sure about that.

 

“Let's see... You like jazz, swing, those things, I prefer modern, I like to get with times” started to enumerate the sinner. “You like spicy food, I don't, you eat people, I don't, you cover your body a lot, I rather not cover myself...”

 

Alastor interrupted the rambling.

 

“I never saw you without footwear” said the deer, shocking Angel in his tracks because he didn't think the man kept enough attention on him to notice.

 

Angel looked somewhat ashamed and Alastor was seconds to say him that didn't matter and change the subject, when the porn star talked again.

 

“I kinda of dislike ma feet” said the spider demon. “I know what I am, don't get me wrong, but most of the time doesn't show up but my feet are... very spidy-like.”

 

“You don't like what Hell made of you?” asked the red demon.

 

Angel just nodded.

 

“Me neither” said the overlord, reflexively. “With time you get used to it, no doubt, and I know I got it better than other demons but... I was never a prey and Hell tried to make me one, to make me... not a stag, a doe.”

 

The porn star just sinked a little in the couch, arms crossed.

 

“That's shit” he said. “How much time you've been here?”

 

“One hundred years, give or take” said the demon. “And you?”

 

“I kicked the bucket on 1947... so around the same” said Angel, making one of his extra arms to appear with a bag of fruity candy, offering to the overlord with him saying 'no' with his hand.

 

Alastor thought for a moment.

 

“So we're around the same time” said the deer. “You're very update to trends and technology and such, I thought you were from a most recent age.”

 

The spider demon denied, savoring one of the candies.

 

“Nah, I don't care about technology but trends and such? Those I like to be on the wave, if you catch my meaning” he said, with a smile. “Clothes, music, those things I care.”

 

So he was like him, in a sense, the modern technology, even when he was capable of seeing their uses, was unnecessary for him, except for the uses he deemed fit. So Angel had a cellphone but he didn't care about computers or even TV if it wasn't about something he liked it.

 

He could understand that.

 

“Why don't you like technology in general? Or anything modern?” asked the spider.

 

The red demon thought for a moment.

 

“Well, trying to learn new things for my daughter I discovered new genres of music, not very modern but I liked them too” said the deer. “And technology... I come from very humble origins, my mama and I were very poor, we couldn't affort things that other took from granted in those times and I based my pride in living without them. Then I started to see the fails on their excessive use.”

 

“What fails?” asked Angel with curiosity.

 

“People tend to lean a lot on technology and they forget basic abitilies” started to explain the demon. “I saw demons that doesn't know how to clean a dish by hand or tricks to remove encrusted food from them because they depend on a dishwasher. People forgot how to clean clothes by hand and when appliances break, they don't know how to do things without them. And don't let me start on what detrimental problems I saw with portable phones and tv.”

 

He sighed.

 

“I don't know, I don't like to depend on things so easy to break” he said, shrugging.

 

Angel thought he had a point, sure most on the hotel could enter into panic mode if the microwave or their phones broke. Technology was nice, made the afterlife easier but it was true that was a problem to be a slave of it.

 

The porn star's mind started to wander in the time Alastor was alive and he wanted to ask a question he didn't know if was... safe. Sure, they were suppose to talk but with a private demon like the overlord, one could never know if it was about to end double dead.

 

“Yo, Smiles... In your time, it was hard to get to be yourself?” he asked and braced for impact if the response of the demon was a sharp or cutting one.

 

But the Radio Demon just sighed.

 

“Yes” he responded. “I was lucky my mama knew I was a man before even I knew. She started to redirect to my masculinity little by little, first with sensible undergarments, then it came the clothes... My mother was afraid of my father, with reason.”

 

“Shitty father you too?” asked Angel.

 

“The shitiest” said the demon, sighing. “He was... very abusive. He hit us, for fun, inventing excuses or using everything that was wrong with the day to hurt us. When my mother found for me a new name and I started to use it, with sensible clothes, my father surpassed a point. He told I was already a shameful thing for him and... He was just bravado and threats until they weren't.”

 

Angel moved a little, was almost imperceptible but he moved nearer the overlord, like if he wanted to give him some semblance of understanding and closeness without words or being too obvious.

 

“Mine is also a piece of hot shit” said the spider demon. “My time, liking guys wasn't good and more in my family. We were in... ya know, the cosa nostra. The mafia... My father was a don, I worked for him, my brother worked for him...”

 

“I get for your accent New York and not Chicago” said the Radio Demon.

 

“Yeah, Brooklyn, born and raise” said Angel with a smile. “I tried to get my attraction in the shy side, ya got me? But my brother knew, my twin knew...”

 

“Do you have a twin brother?” asked Alastor, curious.

 

“Twin sister, Molly... sweet of a kid, even in the brutal family and with the brutality we had all the time around us” said the spider. “She and mom are the only ones that aren't in this shithole.”

 

“Your father is here, now?” asked Alastor.

 

Angel just nodded.

 

“Mine was sent here too” said the deer. “He was already an overlord when I died and he tried to resume his abuse when I ended here.”

 

“No shit! Your dad was one of the overlords you...?” and he made the gesture of cutting throats.

 

Alastor nodded.

 

“The first one” said the Radio Demon. “He tried to treat me like that frighten little boy I was. I wasn't fourteen anymore, I lived, I killed and here... my power here was a surprise for him, the same as for myself. Not only I destroyed him, I absorved his power for myself and his contracts ended up in my hands.”

 

“Jeez... Then you started to go for the rest” Alastor nodded. “Amazing, I could love to put my bitch of a father in his place. I... I started with Val just to flee from him, see what that brought. When alive it was... shit. How it was in your times to being gay and shit?”

 

The deer demon thought for a moment.

 

“Well, I'm from the Roaring Twenties as they were called, the Pansy Craze era” started to explain the demon. “Parties, drugs, alcohol under the table due to prohibition... those were common. Broadway started to make homosexuals as something glamourous, with the 'anything goes' and what not. Still, the papers still call us deviants and what not.”

 

“Us? You like men too?” asked the spider demon, somewhat surprised.

 

“I fucked Lucifer, what do you thing, Angel?” he asked, almost laughing.

 

“Shit, Smiles, so direct... I thought you were, you know, more on the green side” said the porn star.

 

“I like men, Angel, I like women too” started to explain the red demon. “I try always to present myself as a gentleman, doesn't mean I'm a prude or ignorant. And I never had sex drive before Lucifer or after him but I know what I liked, even if it was for a sense of... aesthetics.”

 

Angel, all of the sudden, was really comfortable talking to the overlord, like if they were not only friends, from time ago, but also similar in spirit.

 

“So except for Lucifer, nothin'?” he asked.

 

“Nothing... well, in my time I had an arrangement with Mimzy, to pretent to be her paramour” said the demon. “It was expected of me, but besides kisses and little more, we never did a thing, the same with Vox.”

 

The spider boy laughed.

 

“Shit, so it's true? You were with Vox?” he asked.

 

“Yes, we were a full couple” said the demon, sighing, with a pinch of nostalgia that he couldn't hide. “We lived together, we slept in the same bed, we kissed, we hugged. Nothing more, even when sometimes he tried to initiate, I was never in the mood and he respected that. He never asked me even to touch him and I think I could, it meant nothing to me but it meant for him... but he never asked.”

 

“Hard to believe that creep was a decent guy once” said the spider.

 

“Yeah, it is” Alastor sighed.

 

He looked back to Angel and thought for a moment.

 

“Do you always liked to dress in affeminate clothes?” asked the Radio Demon.

 

Angel nodded.

 

“Yeah, always like it” said the demon. “I felt... powerful, in a way, sexy... sexier, ya know. More like meself in a way. I was called tranny, sometimes but...”

 

“Yeah, me too” said Alastor.

 

“Really?”

 

“Yes, I was good presenting myself but some guy once in a blue moon catched on me and tried to treat me like a broad or call me tranny or tomboy and there is nothing that can promote acceptance in your fellow men that two months on the hospital eating via a tube... and that taking that I only talked with my fists. I was thin and tall but I was deceptively very strong in the physical sense... Between my accursed body and being a mix creole runt, I enter in more fights that I could count.”

 

Angel looked to Alastor with more curiosity.

 

“You're mixed?” he asked.

 

“My mother was a beautiful black woman of creole origins, my father was a cracker” he said, to then point his face. “I know I don't looks like it, I'm not trying to hide it here, but I tried to hide it when I was alive. I stretched my hair, my mother taught me to apply makeup so I could light my skin tone from mixed to tan. I wanted to be a radio host and in my times, my people had it rough. They wouldn't have allow me to be a radio host being... mulatto, was the word. Mixed or directly calling me that awful word.”

 

The porn star nodded.

 

“So you went from mixed to having a white pass, right?” Alastor nodded. “Shit, our times were pure shit for people like us... Me liking dicks, girls clothes, you being trans and mixed... That's fucking rough.”

 

“Not having sex drive was also a problem... but yeah” he looked back to Angel, with a sincere smile. “You know? I also crossdressed when alive, for fun, you know. Sometimes I do... my problem is not with female clothing, is when people doesn't understand what I am.”

 

Angel nodded.

 

“I remember with Lucifer, the nun outfit... it was a surprise, I choked on one of Niffty's cookies” he said, laughing, with the deer demon laughing with him.

 

“I was... tense and scared and what not but in that moment, it was something fun! Entertainment! It helped me to relax too” admited the overlord. “But I don't do it often, for the good of my own mind. I guess it could be easier if I were, you know... If my body was fixed.”

 

“So you never went under the scalpel??” asked Angel, who didn't know the logistics of the deer demon.

 

He knew he was trans but not all the details because even when the cat was out of the bag, Husk didn't want to talk about Alastor and his past secrets even then.

 

Alastor denied.

 

“Belphegor offered it to me” said the demon. “I'm still thinking about it.”

 

“Ya know, you're a guy whatever... so that depends on how much you want it or you think it can help you” said the spider demon.

 

“I... have my fears” confessed Alastor. “Not for the scars, I'm full with them and I'm proud of them, they show my resolve but... I fear change and... I don't know if I'm naive or stupid, but I have hopes for Lucifer, for something with him. And he told me, he never was with a guy but he told me he likes them but I'm fearing that maybe, you know, one of the things that raised his interest or love, as he calls it, was my body.”

 

Angel doubted for a moment but in the little bubble of vulnerability and sincerity, he decided to have some balls and he moved an arm, placing it around the shoulders of the deer demon, surprising him but with no animosity or recoil from him.

 

“Ya know, the shortstuff talked about love and what not and I know you love him” said the demon. “But maybe is time for him to prove it to you, not the other way around. Sure, he's cleaning his act and there were shit behind your backs but until now I'm not seeing gestures from him, just words. Even Valentino, piece of hot garbage as he is, he accepted me for what I was and Lucifer will need to do the same, babe, and fuck him if he doesn't. Just think in what that means to you and decide for yourself.”

 

Alastor looked back to the man with a soft smile.

 

“Surprisingly good advice from you, Mon Ange” he said.

 

He blushed a little.

 

“I like that nickname, rolls nicely in your tongue” said the spider demon.

 

The Radio Demon laughed and raised from the couch when he saw Charlie going to the parlor... that meant the time was up and all the pairs from the exercise should be returning. As a gentleman, he tended his hand to Angel to help him raise from the seat.

 

“You know, if you want to, I could solve your fatherly conundrum” offered the demon in a surprising genuine form, even when talking about offing another demon.

 

“Nah, no need, Smiles” said the porn star. “He's being far from me and he ain't bothering any more... But if he comes to the hotel, you have my permission to eat him.”

 

Both men returned to the parlor for the end of the exercise and Charlie, seeing them so chubby with each other, had to ask before they officially started.

 

“Oh, did you find something you have in common?” she asked, almost elated for it even before the answer.

 

The deer and the spider exchanged a gaze.

 

“You can say that...” admited Alastor.

Notes:

Next one is gonna be the date of Alastor and Lilith... you can almost smell the angst, chaos and sexual tension in the air!

Chapter 29: Mata Hari

Summary:

Alastor have a chat with Vaggie, very revealing for the ex-exorcist angel, while cooking the dinner he was about to present to the Queen of Hell.

Maybe sex was never a motivator for the Radio Demon, but he wasn't green or coy about it and knew how to use it to get information he needed.

Notes:

I know I'm taking my time with these updates, taking how fast I normally write but between the summer heat (that doesn't help) and some other things, it's taking me more to this updates. I won't promise updates sooner because summer is a bitch in a tropical island (humidity and heat aren't friends) but trust me this will go without pause, even if it goes slowly.

“In the game of life, you must be willing to take risks and bet on yourself.”

~Mata Hari

 

“I didn't think that could be a problem” said Vaggie, talking with Alastor while the overlord was making the special dinner to present the queen with. “I just trust her and I was worried about Charlie.”

 

The Radio Demon was cutting vegetables that his sweet Anka was washing for him, pealing and cutting with the mastery of someone with almost a century in the kitchen.

 

“You just trust her, but not me” said the demon, humming, he didn't look annoyed or angry, not even disappointed.

 

The ex-exorcist rolled her eyes.

 

“I trust you now” said the woman, crossing her arms.

 

“I came to the hotel in your paramour's hour of need” started to say the demon. “I cashed on my contracts to give you personal for the hotel. I fixed said hotel that, let me tell you, was a dump. I protected you all from Sir Pentious the first day... renamed the hotel, cooked for you, fixed more things, made a really funny commercial that you discarded, help you with another with a huge production, protected again the hotel from Sir Pentious, babysitted his egg minions at your petition, not being able to eat my breakfast I might add, cooked some more, fixed more things, enrolled sweet Rosie to Charlie's defense, protected you all during the extermination and got severely injured fighting Adam... And, I might add, I was severely injured and none of you tried to find me for days... And I do a simple deal with Charlie, not even for her soul, and suddenly I'm less trustworthy than an overlord you met for... five minutes?”

 

He adjusted his monocle looking to Vaggie. Ankareeda looked to the woman and she was denying with an expression she could read easy: I'm very disappointed in you.

 

“Hey, don't give a hard time, shitlord!” said the woman. “You had a fucking reputation!”

 

“And Carmilla Carmine didn't?” he said. “She's known to be cutthroat, strong, direct, without mercy... and a weapons merchant. At least, my dear, all the killings in my name, I did them myself. I'm a dispenser of death, not a provider or allower. And specially not a beneficiary”

 

“Fuck, it's not the same, Alastor” said Vaggie, annoyed. “You had a reputation for killing overlords, to torture them in your broadcasts. A deal maker and bad news... I thought you were manipulating Charlie to gain more power.”

 

The overlord looked at the woman again.

 

“I was manipulating Charlie, my dear, but being powerhungry was never my reputation” said the demon and he was right, now that Vaggie thought about it. “I never cared for being an overlord, I never cared for power because I had power already. My reputation was right: I dispatched the overlords, I played their screams in beautiful stereo sound for all Hell! Not for power, not for position. I managed two things: eleminate very unsavory elements and managed for people to let me alone. So, again, Vaghata dear, if my reputation wasn't about gaining more power, I was known for only targetting overlords... Why you were afraid for Charlie? Why I was not trustworthy again?”

 

Vaggie was fuming... because she know he was right. She knew the demon at least for six months and she trusted more Carmilla after an hour than him, even when he never gave a hint about having an agenda (she just assumed he had one) or being malicious to them. And fuck, yeah, she assumed all his reputation was Alastor = Bad, but really his reputation had very specifit caveats.

 

“Or maybe... it was because I was a man” said the overlord, moving around the woman with that predatory smile “and now you trust me because, even being a man, we share similarities in... equipment...”

 

“It's not that, Alastor, la concha tu madre!” she said, angry.

 

“Or maybe because no hablo español” he said, with strong southern accent saying the words in spanish. “I'm sorry that my language limits are around good old american english, southern english... trust me, it's a variant... creole french and french.”

 

Vaggie was in a point were her head was raising to the ceiling of the kitchen. It was a very human gesture, a tic mortals carried from the beginning of time, that compulsion of trying to talk to God when their lives weren't going in the right direction... or, like right now, she was frustrated.

 

“It's not that either... shit...” and she thought a moment, when Ankareeda laughed in that way she had to do it, in silence. “You are giving me a hard time just for shit and giggles, aren't you...”

 

The Radio Demon laughed.

 

“Of course, my dear” said the demon, taking the latin woman by her shoulders in somekind of one arm hug. “I'm just teasing you, deary. Tho I must confess that I felt a little tad hurt for the easiness of your confidence on Carmilla. I know she gives very strong motherly security, she always did, but she has a reputation too, she's an overlord and we are what we are doing what we do.”

 

Vaggie sighed but she didn't run or escape from the hug of the Radio Demon.

 

“But you have to admit your reputation is way more sinister than hers” she said.

 

“Oh, Vagatha, dear, I know how my threatrics worked for my reputation, was a calculated move” said the red demon. “But, if you strip the theatrics away, what's the information that remains?”

 

She sighed again, with resignation. She know what he was trying to say and she hated he was fucking right about it.

 

“That you targeted overlords, strong ones, dominant for centuries” said the ex-exorcist.

 

“If an elephant hunter wants to befriend you being a lioness, what you have to fear?” he raised a brow. “Not blaming you, dear. My motives were less than honorable at first and I know how you are protecting the sweet princess. In any case, you should hold some information privy just to the hotel from Carmilla. She can be a valuable ally but we are playing a very dangerous game of poker, so better we have the cards near to our chests, çe bon?”

 

The woman nodded while Alastor moved to continue with the vegetables.

 

“That is creole or regular french?” she asked, moving to see what he was doing, though is was early to know taking he was only cutting vegetables, but very varied.

 

“Creole... I'm pretty dusty on my creole french because I tried to better it to teach french to my baby” he said, smiling to Anka. “Also, when alive, I only talked it with my mother, was.. a family thing.”

 

Vaggie thought for a moment and a sweet smile, sweeter than any she ever gave to Alastor, showed in her face.

 

“So we're a family” she said.

 

“Of course, my dear” he tilted his head, with a soft smile himself. “I came to be very fond of you all and my girl too.”

 

Ankareeda signed a 'Yes'.

 

“But...” he thought for a moment. “I'm not a huge gestures person nor I used to make shows of affection, so don't wait for them. I prefer to talk with my actions so I'll let them to speak for myself.”

 

Vaggie nodded to then point to the vegetables.

 

“What are you doing?” asked the woman. “It's for that perra?”

 

Her animosity against Lilith was palpable and delicious for the overlord. He just nodded.

 

“Don't worry, I'll cook something for you all too” said the man. “But I'm making vichyssoise and I started last night cooking some Coq au Vin or Rooster with wine. Also I'll prepare some of my garlic bread, I'll make enough for everyone not just for us.”

 

She nodded, those seem like very good dishes but then she thought about it.

 

“Funny, I thought you'll be cooking one of your mama's recipes” said the fallen angel.

 

Alastor denied, as serious as a person with a permanent smile could be.

 

“Creole cooking and my mother's recipes are reserved for people I like” said the overlord. “I won't waste the love that cooking requires on a conniving aspid with horrible taste for clothing and perfume.”

 

Vaggie laughed, punching the overlord in the arm with some camaraderie.

 

“Damn, shitlord, so catty” she said. “But I get it. That being said, I need to dust my cooking skills a little and make some empanadas. Empanadas and arepas. It's my family food, only for my family.”

 

Alastor hummed.

 

“I'll love to learn how to do them, then” said the overlord, taking a very soft smile from Vaggie's lips.

 

And their moment was interrupted by Lucifer, opening the door with not a gentle touch, mood sour to the max and growling as soon as he saw Alastor cooking.

 

“I don't like this” said the short man. “I don't like you alone with her, I don't like you cooking for her...”

 

He sat in one of the chairs of the kitchen, like a toddler that is forced to wait for dinner, with a pouting face and arms crossed.

 

“You're saying it like I'll enjoy it, your majesty” said the Radio Demon, continuing with the cooking.

 

“I know! It's just...” he couldn't continue.

 

Ankareeda signed something and Lucifer understood 'you are' but not the last part.

 

“She's saying you're jealous” translated Alastor.

 

“I am n... maybe I am! But that ain't bad!” said the monarch, like trying to defend himself. “Also, she's dangerous, who knows what she can do to you.”

 

The Radio Demon sighed.

 

“We are all dangerous, darling, we are demons... or the devil... or an ex-exorcist angel with the proclitivies of trying to resolve everything with a lance.”

 

“Or a demon trying to resolve everything by eating it” said the woman, sat at a chair too, with a smirk in her face.

 

“Multitasking, darling” said the red demon. “I solve the problem, keeping myself entertained and fed. And with little behind for dear Niffty to clean. I am the very model of a modern gentleman, darling.”

 

But Lucifer wasn't for laughs or quips, not even to mentions to musicals like with Alastor's last phrase. The idea of the person he loved in a date, even if was a date to get information, with the woman that he now hated with all his guts... No, he hated that idea, he hated that, he hated his imagination for torturing him with scenarios where Alastor decided to take her side and not his.

 

He was so distracted in his internal debacle that he didn't notice the overlord standing in front of him, looking at him.

 

“I'll cook for you a special dinner” announced the demon. “My special chicken soup and lamp chops with garlic and rosemary and potatoes au gratin... Just for you, so you can dose your internal fire with good food.”

 

The Radio Demon moved his hand to hold Lucifer's face under his chin, win this long fingers softly on his cheeks. Lucifer blushed violently in reds and goldens.

 

“Ohmmm, ok” he said to then add. “B-but I don't want you to slave yourself in the kitchen doing two different dinners.”

 

He said, raising from the chair when Alastor moved to continue cooking.

 

“Then help me” said the man. “You can wash the potatoes, I need them with the skin on and cut in thing slices, maybe use a mandoline for that if you aren't apt with the knife.”

 

With a renovated smile, the king moved to the counter rolling his sleeves.

 

“So you know, I'm very good with a knife” he said.

 

“I'll be the judge of that” responded the demon.

 

Anka, happy seeing her fathers collaborating in the kitchen, moved to find the pasta for to the soup.

 

***

 

The Radio Demon was finishing the details in his clothes. He was dressed in a wine color three piece pinstrip suit, a black tie with little false rubies from knot down.

 

He used a variant of his homemade aftershave, adding a hint of mirabilis jalapa, a flower also known as Marvel of Perú or four o'clock, because it only opened at night and they released their sweet aroma when they did. In the night that fragance would be most aluring in him, mixed with the sandalwood and aged rum he used to mix in his fragance.

 

He also tied his hair and he was looking to himself in the bathroom mirror having the accept to himself that he didn't look half bad.

 

It was short lived, nonetheless, the deer still had problems with his reflexion but he knew when something was necessary, like that dine.

 

He took his cane after adjusting his monocle and teleported via shadows to the lobby of the hotel, waiting for the arrival of the queen, who ended up being rather punctual.

 

Alastor used one of his tendrils to open the door, so the queen could see him in all his glory, primp and proper for her.

 

“My queen” he said, bowing a little, approaching at her to kiss the offered hand. “You're astonishing this night.”

 

She was dressed in a red sleeveless outfit, with micro-jewelry imbeded in the fabric making it sparkle. The dress had a side slit leaving to the open one of her legs, or both when she walked, and two one per side leaving the skin around her hips to plain view. She had transparent stockins, with a little lace to the thigh, high heels pumps in the same color as her dress. Her horns were visible and she had jewelry in them and her long blond hair was composed into an intricated bun. Her makeup was the night party variaty, with dark violet almost black lipstick and red eye shadow. She batted her luscious eyelashes before speaking.

 

“My, my, Alastor, you look totally delectable” she said, getting near him and invading his personal space in record time, placing a hand over the chest of the deer demon. “You cleaned up rather nicely, more then nicely. I'm almost tempted to pass of the dinner.”

 

She said, in a sultry voice.

 

Alastor took the hand over his chest and kissed it.

 

“No need, your highness, the night is young” he offered his arm to the woman. “And it took me hours to whip something I think, humbly, her majesty could enjoy.”

 

The queen hummed with pure satisfaction.

 

“So you cooked for me” she said, pure delight. “Oh, Alastor, I heard the rumour that you're an amazing cook but I thought I'll never taste your art in the kitchen.”

 

“Your majesty is too gracious with me” he said.

 

Lilith gave a look around, noticing the empty reception and the lack of noises from the patrons or the staff of the hotel.

 

“Where is everyone?” asked the queen.

 

“In the kitchen, dinning” said the demon.

 

“It's a pity, I wanted to see little Ankareeda” she said, not fooling the deer in the slightless.

 

She wanted to see Lucifer, she wanted to see the rage in the king, the jealousy, the pain... she wanted to torture her ex-husband like she was feed on his suffering. That's why the demon recommended to the monarch to stay in the kitchen with the rest, helping Rosie, that was visiting, to care for Anka.

 

“There is plenty of oportunities for you, my queen, to know better my exceptional daughter” said the red demon. “This night, is ours.”

 

And he used the shadows to move the woman to the door of his radio tower, opening the door and waiting for her to enter in the room.

 

That radio studio, even when it was built by Lucifer, had all the markings of the Radio Demon, from the decoration to the smell that permeated the place, that smell of Alastor mixed with petrichor and blood.

 

“So this is where the magic happens” said the woman, moving around the space, rubing her hand over the control table, moving, catching in that even when the place was cleaned, it has some blood splatches here and there. She touched the backrest of the chair, she moved catching on the aromas and then she started to look through the window, admiring the view that Alastor has of Pentagram City from there.

 

The demon moved behind her, placing his right hand over her hip and the other in her arm. She smiled.

 

“The view from here is marvelous” said the demoness, with a low voice, moving slightly her head in the crevasse between Alastor's shoulder and face.

 

“I'm a simple man, when I come here, I come to work, so I don't dally in the view but...” He moved, taking the hand of the woman and giving a quick look, from shoes to face. “Yes, the view here is exceptional.”

 

And Lilith blushed, completelly, biting her lower lip ever so slightly. Alastor snapped and a round table with a beautiful tablecloth black and silver appeared, with plates, cutlery and two chairs.

 

Like the gentleman he was, the demon moved behind one of the chairs to help the woman to sit and she did with that smile in her face. He walked to his own chair and passing by the table he moved his hand over the two black candles in it and both burned with green fire.

 

He sat himself, took the perfectly folded napkin to place it in his lap and snapped again, making to plates with a green cream to appear, together with a basket of very small breads.

 

“I hope you like vishyssoise, your majesty” said the demon, while taking also a bottle of white wine that he made appear with two glasses and serving the woman. “Also, the drink. This is a Vouvray, slightly dry wine but perfect for this dish. Any clear wine will do but I'm partial to this one.”

 

The woman was smiling, clearly all the attention focused in her was doing marvelous for her mood. She waited for Alastor to served her and she took the glass, catching on the aroma of the wine before taste it.

 

“Mmm... Dry but delicious” she said, taking her spoon to taste the cream, savoring it. “But you're right, it goes very well together. You have an impecable taste.”

 

“Merci, mon reine” said the man, lowering slightly his head to take his spoon and start to eat himself.

 

The started with the cream and with light conversation, alluding the food itself, asking the queen about when the demon learned to cook that way, commenting in the soft texture, so delicate, the spices giving it a different taste from other times she ate it before.

 

“Say, Alastor...” started to ponder Lilith, taking her glass and just moving it to see the wine dancing inside. “Why indulge me with this dinner after the stunt I pulled?”

 

She asked, with a wicked smile. Alastor placed a wicked smile in his face himself and laughed low.

 

“You did it knowing I could catch up, am I wrong, my queen?” asked the demon.

 

The woman denied with her head.

 

“I didn't know, really!” she said, almost with fascination. “Your powers are always surprising, like you always hold a card up your sleeve and even presenting it, you have always another. It's transfixing for me.”

 

“Oh, your majesty will make me blush” he said, taking a sip of his wine. “But to answer your question, I guess you learned I was the one that... disenchanted young Charlotte and Lucifer.”

 

The woman nodded.

 

“Charlie was convinced that maybe it was Seviathan... but you knew it was me, right?” asked the demoness.

 

The Radio Demon nodded, snapping their plates away to present the next course of the food, that Coq au Vin he was preparing since the day before, smelling deliciously, pipping hot and with the garlic bread. He also changed the bottle of wine for a red Château Montrose, pairing again the perfect wine for the food in question.

 

“Of course, I knew, your majesty” said the demon, like that was obvious, serving again the wine for her in a new clean glass. “I detected also that it was an old effect, not a new imprint. I wasn't about to let Lucifer abuse me again, darling.”

 

She took the glass and raised for a cheers.

 

“Cheers, my deer” said the woman. “For the only intelligent man I know... the only interesting one too.”

 

The demon took his glass and clinked it towards the queen's, smiling, always smiling to her.

 

“Cheers, my dear” said the man.

 

“Though you never responded my question” said the woman. “Why? You could out me to my daughter, to Lucifer... I'm pretty sure he'll love to have an excuse to destroy me.”

 

“You can say that” he admited. “But... responding to your question, I needed to know if our interests align, my queen.”

 

“Interests?” she asked, tasting the food and again that expression of pure delight and enjoyment. “Are you saying that you aren't Lucifer's pet?”

 

The demon showed her a very severe look. His smile was going no where but his eyes were serious, the radio dials flashing in them without showing completelly.

 

“I'm nobody's pet, your majesty” said the demon, severely. “After so many years knowing about me, following my career, you should know that by now.”

 

She blushed, moving tad forward showing all her bosom in tempting display.

 

“That's the fire I was missing in you”she said, with almost a sultry voice. “These days, seeing you with him and knowing what I know from Charlie... He treats you like a lapdog and you allow him.”

 

Alastor hummed.

 

“My queen, I'm powerful, for a sinner and overlord but I can't deny the Devil” said the deer. “I'm just binding my time, trying to find a way out of this.”

 

“Sensible... taking how he is” said the woman. “You know, my charm only works to bring something already existing, it can't create from nothing. Charlie was happy with Seviathan and I tapped into that because that hellborn is a more perfect partner for her than a lying fallen angel that can't offer her any help with her passion project. And with Lucifer... I just released the monster that lurks beneath.”

 

The Radio Demon wasn't observing her, but his glass, catching on the words, allowing her to release more and more information. He only needed to pull a little in his direction, a tad, a small calculated movement.

 

“You knew I was that woman, right?” he asked, without looking at her.

 

It was calculated but not lacking risks. If she didn't know he was Milady, he was exposing to her information that could be detrimental to gain her trust, but maybe that openess of information is what he needed.

 

“Not initially but I learned after some conversations with Lucifer, when he had to attent to the little royal duties he managed, the buffoon” she said, with evident contempt. “When he talked about the power over radios and shadows of his new paramour, I knew it was you.”

 

Alastor, smiling, humming, took some more of his food. He wasn't particulary hungry, having to deal with that woman, milking her for information with very carefully selected words, but he wanted to appear relaxed and not showing his animosity.

 

“And then you enchanted his mind and released him against me” he said, raising his eyes with a dangerous light.

 

He wanted to gain her confidence but he needed to show some realism. Milady was mistreated by Lucifer and almost die, if he didn't show some hate, that pantomime wasn't believable at all. Sure, she was about to come with an excuse or saying she didn't know Lucifer would carry his abuse that far...

 

“I didn't” she said, shrugging. “My charm came later, when you already ran from his clutches. I wanted to show that part of his personality to my daughter so I could separate them for good, for her own good. He'll never show his real self in front of her, he wants to present himself like a perfect father... But he hid in his manor and wasn't seeing Charlie or anyone for that matter, attending everything via phone... At least he did before I went to Heaven and I was informed that didn't change.”

 

She sighed.

 

“I'm really, really sorry for what happened to you, Alastor, but that... everything? Was only Lucifer, he doesn't need my help to be abusive, cruel and violent” said the woman. “He was with me, that's why I left him.”

 

The Radio Demon was analizing the woman. He was really good at reading people but he wasn't sure with Lilith. Or she was an exceptional liar, thing he didn't discard out of hand, or she was telling the truth. And if she was telling the truth...

 

“He told me you were abusive to him, hit him and insult him” said the deer, tacitly. “That you were angry after the deal with Heaven for the exterminations and paid it with him.”

 

She made a gesture with her hand before taking a slice of garlic bread from the basket.

 

“You really think I can mistreat Lucifer?” she said, pointing the demon with the bread. “Ha! He's too powerful for me, too prideful... And yes, I was furious with him for the deal, after all the terrible things Heaven did to us he was fucking downing his pants and bending over so they could sodomize him... It was maddening!”

 

And that was a truthful reaction that Alastor could catch, that fury against Heaven? That was totally genuine. That woman really hated the High Realm and that only presented more questions.

 

“But I'm not stupid, I knew his temper even when he never showed it to me” said Lilith. “If I was mad enough to hit him? I won't be here, my deer. That man doesn't allow disrespect of any kind... you should know it, you're lucky you're alive!”

 

Alastor nodded.

 

“That's... true” said the demon. “He also said to me that he never ordered his guards to hurt me, he only wanted me to return to his manor.”

 

“Conniving perjurer...” said the woman. “Who could order the guards instead? We decided to separate our residences, I took a manor on Lust and he took Magne Manor... out of spite I must say because it was my favorite. And after that, he instructed the service and the guards to only respond to him... and I know that because when I learned that woman was you, I wanted to know more and talked to one of the guards. I knew that guard since he was a runt and he told me he was cursed, by Lucifer, to not say a thing.”

 

She scoffed.

 

“Such extremes...” she said, taking more of the food.

 

“So you really think he's lying to me” said the demon, analizing the responses from the woman.

 

“Of course he is” said the woman. “Let me tell you this, Alastor, because I like you very much and your little one doesn't deserve to be hurt by that monster: Lucifer is the Devil and he's more the Devil by human standarts than anything, he just hide it very well, specially when Charlie is around. And the depth of his cunning and evil knows no bounds... He's not only lying to you, every effort he has to do now to present this angelic face, every word he had to swallow... He will make you pay for everything when he has you again.”

 

She took more from the food, sighing, talking again a minute or two later.

 

“He is... when everything is according to plan, his plans and desires, he can be so sweet” said the woman, almost with nostalgia. “Very attentive, detail oriented, lovely and even passional... When a single thing isn't to his taste, when you are not in agreement with him, he changes. Like taking a mask off.”

 

Lilith took a slice of the bread, looking at it like she was trying to perceive the details.

 

“I blame myself for not seeing it sooner” said the demoness. “He was like that with other people but he never was like that with me... Until I disagreed with that deal. And I loved him, I couldn't abandon him. Not even thinking he wasn't about to let me... I just loved him. I bet you understand...”

 

Oh, he did, but still that, he didn't know if was an act or not, just raised more questions, again.

 

“But you finally did it” said the deer.

 

The woman nodded.

 

“I did, wasn't easy, but I did” said the queen. “I told him Charlie would suffer if she knew how he was... With all the terrible things I have to say about him, he really loves her, to the point of nearly obsession. And sadly... he will never love another child like her. I'm sorry, Alastor, because Ankareeda looks so sweet and clever.”

 

The Radio Demon nodded.

 

“She is clever, indeed” he finished with his plate and place his cutlery over it. “So you used your daughter to get far from him.”

 

The woman also finished her food.

 

“Yes... and it worked” claimed the woman. “We get together for photos and going to Lulu World together or theater or cinema... We continued to show a mask for all of Hell and our own daughter. But... she's an adult and... at risk. For that I wanted to use my song, so you and her could see the monster and get some distance from him. With Charlie's help, you could do it, Alastor.”

 

She moved her hand and placed over the hand of the overlord, so sympathetic and caring.

 

“And you need to, because if you won't, if you open your heart again to him, the abuse will return worst than before and with your daughter, a daughter he didn't want to have, in the middle” she sighed.

 

The Radio Demon turned his hand to take the hand of the woman, looking directly to her eyes. He couldn't read anything in those amathysts that could clue him into the lie he wanted to believe she was saying. Of course, he wasn't so ready to enter into her game, he didn''t rose to the pinnacle of the cutthroat political game of the overlords trusting in the first long legs with a double-D chest he saw but now he had to admit to himself that he had doubts.

 

“Even with that... I take you aren't just conform with being far from him” he adventured to say.

 

He smiled, raising from his chair with the hand of the queen still on his own and music started to play, with the dulcet tones of Ella Fitzgerald singing Blue Moon. He conduced the woman to a part of his radio studio, where they could have more room and started to dance, slowly, very near her, with a hand in her back and the other still holding her hand.

 

“No, I am not” said Lilith. “In fact, I was planning for a shift of government in Hell. Giving our realm a more efficient ruler.”

 

“Of course, you aren't about to reveal to me... your evil plan, right? You're more intelligent than that” he laughed, looking her directly in the eye.

 

If she was the expert liar he was assuming she was, that won't work in a million of years, so better play the card that stroke her ego.

 

“No, I want to triumph, this is too important, for me, for you, for Charlie, for Anka and for Hell” said the woman. “And no, before you say anything, I wasn't planning on using angelic steel. I know it doesn't work on him.”

 

Alastor nodded.

 

“Yes, I tried” said the radio host. “I rammed an angelic sword through his chest and nothing.”

 

Said the man. Of course he didn't, his shadow protected Lucifer and was the very same king that delivered the blade through his heart as a show, presenting his invulnerability to the Radio Demon.

 

“It's a pity, really, that he has so much power” said the woman.

 

“So... you are cooking a more effective plan with Heaven's help?” asked the demon. “My queen, where was it that hate for the Celestial Plane?”

 

He said, in a slightly mocking way, taking a chuckle from the demoness.

 

“I'm not collaborating with Heaven, only a little part... people that are afraid enough of an uprising commanded by Lucifer that they are... very informative” she said, her hands one in Alastor's chest, the other in his wide back, noticing the muscle hid by his perfect suit.

 

“I love a good gossip, my queen” said the demon, in a very sultry voice near the ear of the woman, low, almost a purr.

 

“I can't... I'm so near, Alastor... And... I want your help, sure” said the woman. “You're invaluable to me but I can't risk it. But... you can do some things for me to trust you...”

 

The song finished and another started, a very sensual song called Damn your eyes, by Etta James and with that change, Alastor decided to push the envelop further, taking both hands of the woman with a single hand, moving her fast to the nearby wall, pressing her back, caging her hands over her head, his other hand moving around her hips.

 

His mouth moving to her neck, his lips barely caressing the hot skin, like feathers.

 

“I must warn you, my queen” he said, in his raspy voice, speaking directly to the desire of that woman. “After the Hell Lucifer made me live, my soul will never again be for sale... And I'll find a way to destroy those that dare to suggest to me such an act.”

 

He said, allowing the woman to feel his very sharp cannibal teeth. Lilith moaned, biting her lip and closing his eyes, taking a deep breath to catch on Alastor's aroma.

 

“There are other ways...” she said. “I... I... I have other people helping me and we can do it, Alastor, we can get our revenge, Lucifer's death in our hand.”

 

She said, moving slightly her pelvis nearer the demon, near his middle section, trying to get some form of contact, some touch, anything... Lilith looked almost desperated for it.

 

“Tempting” he said.

 

He had his eyes closed but opened them slightly, catching in the little mole the woman had in the neck... near the ear... it was curious, like a small apple. Heaven, Hell and their consistency with tropes.

 

“But I'll need to think about it, my darling” said the demon, looking directly to the woman... with her trying to close the gap between their lips. “Ah, ah, ah, my queen... That's dangerous.”

 

Said the demon, placing a finger in her lips.

 

“I don't feel desire as a regular sinner” he said, moving the razor pointed finger around her lips. “My desire cames with my appetite and I don't want to hurt you...”

 

He moved the hand, moving the finger around her jaw, her neck... to then, like a surprise, hold her harshly by her nape, making some pressure so she could feel his claws.

 

“Not yet...” he said, in a purring tone.

 

He released the hands of the queen while biting his lip, taking one to start to kiss it, kiss after kiss.

 

“I have a lot to think, your highness” said the demon. “But rest assure, I'll take your proposal with antici... pation.”

 

Said the demon, separating from her with a confident smile, a seductive one that made Lilith's knees weak. She was looking to that man, her pupils dilatated, her mouth slightly opened, her bosom raising with every breath. She licked her lips, like trying to retain the flavour from his finger.

 

“I guest this means the night is ending” she moved near him, hugging from behind, her hands moving through his chest. “It's a pity, I was hoping for a dessert... a sweet one while making you feel better, Alastor.”

 

And the innuendo wasn't lost on him.

 

“But I'll never ask from you something you don't want to give... yet” she said, kissing him in his cheek. “Think about my proposal and don't let yourself be fooled by that horrid man... We can be free Alastor... And we can rule Hell together, giving your little one something she could appreciate: A mother that could love her.”

 

She moved, presenting her hand to the demon, who took it and kissed it.

 

“Thanks for the lovely night, Alastor” said the woman with what looked like sincerity. “It's nice when someone treats you well...”

 

“Pleasant night, my queen” he said, bowing while she enveloped herself into a mist of violet and little lightning to dissapear.

 

***

 

Alastor was again in his room, changing his suit for his pajamas, thinking hard in the words of the queen.

 

He got information, sure, but... also a lot of questions, questions about his own life, his own impressions, even his own heart.

 

Of course he didn't want to doubt Lucifer, he didn't want to. Everytime he tried to think about, images from his seven days with him in the Living World when he was a teenager came to his mind, like a wall of thoughts and feelings keeping him apart from that idea. He didn't want to believe Lilith, he didn't even like the woman but...

 

But... What is it was true?

 

Could be Lucifer fooling him that easy? The man was... a monster with him and the idea of not being him, but her, just her, with her magicks of siren changing the perfect angel he loved into that horrible creature that abused him, that robbed him of his parts one by one, like a sadist taking layer by layer of skin little by little...

 

He sighed and placed his monocle in his bedside table, passing both hands over his face trying to release it from the tension he was feeling.

 

Since he ended up in Hell, his smile was permanent. One of the cruel wicked jokes of Hell, the same as his deer attributes and some days, that smile hurt... It hurt hard, he didn't want to smile all the time, he didn't want to smile when he was sad or being serious. When he wanted to convey those emotions with people he cared about.

 

And now, it was hurting... His smile, his head, his heart, the memories, the ideas, the distrust... everything was hurting him, taking him to the border of tears.

 

If the king was fooling him, if all of that was a big lie, a farse, just acting... He knew it, he painfully knew it.

 

He couldn't survive more pain delivered by the Devil.

Notes:

Next is a very interesting one... we'll start to take some revelations with it, little by little ;)

Chapter 30: Talk to me

Summary:

Lilith's words were making a dent in Alastor's trust on Lucifer and the deer demon decided those days to stay far from the shorter man.

Some conversations ensue and the Radio Demon takes a decision that Lucifer doesn't approve.

Notes:

This was due yesterday but I couldn't finish it before the Warframe's Tennocon (avid player here) But you had it today.

Some conversations incoming!

“Everything was a test. Everything was a competition. Life put them in front of you every day. You watched yourself all the time.You had to make the choices. You never got told which ones were right. Oh, some of the priests said you got given marks afterwards but what was the point of that?”

~Terry Pratchett, Carpe Jugulum

 

The next days after the dinner with the Queen of Hell were... contemplative for the Radio Demon.

 

He had to think. About his actions, about his afterlife... More than one morning he contemplated himself in the mirror thinking about what he was doing with his afterlife. He was powerful and prideful, he was a father of a little one, the protector of that hotel and he was acting all the time on what his heart was telling him and he knew, he painfully knew, his heart wasn't his best adviser and never had his wellbeing in mind.

 

His heart was Lucifer's and like the good servant, the good slave of The Devil, his heart didn't think about himself, never took into consideration his suffering. Alastor was used to push and push and push through agony and pain, not stopping to feel his feelings, to care for himself or even to soothe the aching. The only time he thought was when he was planning his vengeance... not the first years, no.

 

It took Rosie and a good dose of commentaries and chats and interventions for him to forgive himself for something he didn't provoke or did, because the deer demon really thought all the bad things that surged with Lucifer, all his misdeeds and abuse was his fault in a way. He didn't give enough, he wasn't devout enough to his lover or maybe he misunderstood him, maybe the way of showing love for Lucifer was... that... horrible thing, taking his soul, screaming at him, ordering him and remind him everyday that he was nothing.

 

Rosie and a lot of patience for her part was necessary, to manage to get some sense and self-preservation into the head of that man but he started to think about it, to feel different.

 

The conversation with Lilith opened a can of worms that Alastor was avoiding like the Plague, the thoughts of doubt and dread he wanted to avoid at all costs... he was a man of action, not words, even when he was a master with those too and he didn't want to think about that, about the idea of that man that he still loved, a thing he knew he couldn't avoid, manipulating and lying to him, trying to get together with him again just because he thought he belonged to him, that the monster wasn't a spell or a phase or something sporadic, but his true nature.

 

That he could never love his daughter the same way he loved Charlie, with the same intensity and care.

 

That, even more than the idea of being manipulated, that was the thing that hurt him the most.

 

He talked with Lucifer about the dinner with his ex-wife, he informed him, Vaggie and Charlie about what she said that was relevant about her posible plans, but he never made a comment about what she said to him, what she warned him against. Alastor carried that inside himself, leaving that words to eat him alive, little by little....

 

The overlord resumed his chores in the hotel like always, he continue to give classes to Ankareeda and practice with her some magic and new tricks, he helped Charlie, he cooked... but he was avoiding the king all the time. Every time Lucifer tried to talk to Alastor or be near him, the Radio Demon found an impecable excuse to create distance with him or not talk.

 

Only in the kitchen he had problems with that, because he had to attent what he was cooking but he managed to not speak with the monarch more than monosyllables and a couple of short word responses.

 

Of course, Lucifer wasn't stupid, he knew something happened in that dinner with his ex-wife and tried a couple of times to poke the deer about it but failed... And that day, he wasn't having it.

 

“You have been avoiding me” said the monarch, cornering the demon when he was about to go to the bar to talk to Husk.

 

Alastor sighed.

 

“I wasn't avoiding you, your highness” lied the deer. “I'm been busy to prattle in idle chit-chat.”

 

He tried to step by a side of the monarch but he again blocked his walking.

 

“Don't lie to me” said the Devil. “I want to know what she said to make you avoid me.”

 

It was almost an order and Alastor never dealed well with orders or authority, so the first thing the king noticed was the ears of the demon going against his hair, the slightly curl of his lip showing his black gums and the severity of his eyes.

 

“No” he responded, entering into a shadow to appear just behind the monarch, continuing his steps towards the bar.

 

“What do you mean 'no'?” asked Lucifer.

 

“It means 'I don't have time for your pitiful insecurities', I have things to do more important than comfort your fragile ego” he said, almost spiting the words like they were venom. “And I'm not your servant to follow your orders, your majesty.”

 

The king was surprised and frustrated.

 

He was agape that Alastor talked to him like that but in the other hand, if that viper of a woman messed with the head of the overlord, this was absolutely the result. He growled.

 

“I don't want you to obey me, Alastor!” he said, following the man, that didn't stop, going with big strides to the bar. “But talk to me, please.”

 

The devil was almost desperated, wanting to fix whatever that woman had to say to make the deer demon dodge him like he was a malady. But Alastor wasn't ready for that chat just yet... In fact, he wanted to think before uttering something that the king was about to negate either way, being sincere or being deceiftful.

 

When the red demon arrive to the bar, he just talked to Husk.

 

“Do you have the list?” he asked and already the cat demon had it in hand, tending it to the overlord. “Excelent, I'll have your goods this afternoon.”

 

“Thanks, boss” responded the demon. “Want somethin' to lube the pipes?”

 

“No, I'm very busy to drink now” and he turned around, only to find the small frame of the King of Hell, almost begin with his eyes to be reassured by the deer demon.

 

Alastor looked down and simply fused with shadows, going out of there.

 

“Fucking Hells, Alastor!!” said the monarch, showing both horns and tail. “More mule than deer on how stubborn that man is!!”

 

Husk looked back to the devil and started to prepare a shot of his favorite tequila, knowing what the king was about to order before he did.

 

“You won't get Alastor to talk if he doesn't want to talk” he commented to the monarch. “And if you insist, you're just placing yourself in danger.”

 

Lucifer moved to sit on one of the tall stools, still his tail was trashing behind him, showing his soured mood.

 

“He can't do a thing to me” grumbled the king.

 

“Not true” said the cat demon. “Physically, yeah, but when the boss is annoyed, his tongue is sharpen than a sword and he has a tendency to go for weak points, no survivors... If you continue to poke him, he'll end up sayin' something that will sting like a bitch, sunking your mood like the Titanic.”

 

The worst thing is that Lucifer knew that was true. Sure, the demon and him had very good dialectical matches in the past but Alastor was always holding himself back because he was planning to take him off and didn't want to provoke him too much. Now, with all the cards over the table, he was pretty sure that demon deer could destroy his self-esteem and his ego like a charm.

 

“I know, I fucking know but I need to talk to him” he said, taking the shot of tequila and gulping it in one fast movement. “That fucking bitch told him something, something that made him be more... I don't know, cold with me.”

 

Husk served the king again.

 

“He was already cold with you, your highness” said the barman. “But you're right, he's moodier since that dinner date with your ex-squish. But, if you want to follow the advise of someone that knows the boss from more time than you...”

 

He let the offering opened and Lucifer nodded, giving the bartender his full attention.

 

“Alastor ain't a touchy feely kinda of guy” started to say Husk. “He doesn't talk about himself, he doesn't like to talk about those things... If the queeny told him something that made him think, he will mull over it alone, he will only talk about when he reachs a conclusion.”

 

The monarch sighed, his life was a mess always, nothing was easy for him, not even dealing with the people around him.

 

“And if the conclusion is bad?” said the king.

 

“Then you'll know and could try to talk with him about it... Alastor is headstrong but he's an intelligent kind of guy” said the demon while cleaning his counter. “He only need his space, highness.”

 

He didn't like that... but he understood. He didn't want to, but he did.

 

“Today's visit to Belphegor is gonna be uncomfortable” he murmured, gulping the tequila again.

 

***

 

Angel Dust was in the parlor, pacing with the phone on hand, looking to the messages from Valentino with his face riddle with pure panic. He wanted to try 'a new thing' and every fucking time the moth wanted to try something new for their films, it usually was at the expenses of Angel's body and discomfort.

 

He was all for trying new things, when they could be enjoyable but the Vee didn't care for his pleasure or even for his security and, taking that, he was ignoring the text messages from the moth all day and he knew the phone call could came and he won't have an escape from it.

 

Alastor was entering the hotel with several boxes carried by his shadow minions and some by his own tentacles when the phone ringed and the spider demon couldn't avoid the problem any more.

 

“Yes? Oh, Val, no, no... yeah, no, I was... yeah, understand” said the demon, showing in his face how little he wanted to go. “I was busy, with things, wasn't ignoring... no, no, of course... I...”

 

“Angel?” said Alastor, near enough of the demon and his phone that his voice could be heard in the other side. “Charlie is waiting for you, dear, you should be moving...”

 

The demon looked back at him with a questioning face and the Radio Demon just winked to him to then raise his brows.

 

“Yeah, Alastor, sure... but... I got to go, Val, you see...” he said, understanding that the deer demon wanted to do something but he didn't know what.

 

“Oh, maybe my sweet disposition was the wrong approach” said the demon. “I mean now...”

 

His tone was more severe, more dark but he didn't change, he didn't transform... But that was the voice Alastor used when he did, when he was intimidating.

 

“The moth can wait” he said, Valentino was asking over the line if that was Alastor.

 

“Yeah, yeah, he is... and he's pissed off...” said Angel, murmuring, like he was talking so the deer won't hear him. “Sorry, Alastor, you see... Val needs me for this new idea he has...”

 

And the demon was saying the deer with gestures that he really didn't want to go, Alastor just nodded.

 

“You have to pursue your rehabilitation, dear” said the demon, with that tone that wasn't leaving place to discussion. “And if the moth doesn't understand that, maybe I'll jump there in a jiffy and explain things to him.”

 

And he said in a tone that was almost suggesting dismembering and cannibalism as a giving thing.

 

“Val, Alastor is not having it today and he is... in a mood” the moth demon said some insult in spanish that Alastor couldn't catch and after a small silence, he said something more and hanged up the phone. “Oh, fuck, Al, baby, I owe you one, big time.”

 

The Radio Demon hummed.

 

“That won't work again, I hope you know it” said the demon while leaving the boxes he was carrying to his minions so they could stored them in the bar and the kitchen.

 

“I know, Smiles, but fuck, thank you, so much” said the spider, to then think for a second and do something he wouldn't normally do, moving to kiss the overlord in the cheek.

 

It was a surprise for Alastor, sure, but he didn't recoil, nor he felt uncomfortable like other times with the man. In fact, he smiled softly.

 

“Don't worry, I despise the moth too” said the demon. “So if I can ruin his day, that's enough pay for me, darling.”

 

The spider demon moved to the couch and Alastor followed him, sitting near him.

 

“So you have your history with Val too?” asked Angel, curious.

 

“You can say that” said the deer demon. “When Vox and I were a couple, we already knew Valentino. He was a pornstar in Pride, Vox wasn't an overlord back then, he was happy just being my right hand man and partner but he had some ambition poorly hidden, he always wanted to mix our areas of influence, create an empire of audio and visuals... The Vees today are a poorly imitation of what he wanted to achieve with me. When I broke up with him, Valentino was his... rebound guy, I think is the term.”

 

Angel nodded, sighing later.

 

“When he was with me...” started to say the pornstar. “I know he was eatin' Vox's ass too but he always told me he was just his business partner. I knew he was lying but, fuck, I wanted to believe him.”

 

“They weren't very stable anyway” said the deer demon. “I know they had petty fights, to then come together again... and even when they were angry to each other, they covered each other's backs. I had a fight, time ago, with Vox, I didn't want to hurt him so I was toying with him. He thought he was fighting me alone because they had a disagreement, he told me, he was facing me alone but the moth came, with an angelic spear then rammed it through my thigh.”

 

The spider demon made a hurt expression.

 

“That must hurt like a bitch” he said.

 

Alastor just nodded.

 

“I didn't feel pain in the heat of the moment, always happens with fights and me, in the moment I don't register the pain” he said, seriously. “So I broke the shaft of the spear, took out both ends and swinged the tip trying to decapitate the moth. He dodged and his antenna was pulverized. I tried to stab him next but Vox reacted fast and they escaped.”

 

Angel whistled, very impress with the demon.

 

“You're a fucking bloke, Smiles” said the demon. “Tough as fuckin' nails. A pity you didn't finish the bastards...”

 

The Radio Demon denied.

 

“I didn't want to kill Vox, at least in the beginning of the fight, he was trying to get to one of my employees and I wasn't having it” said the deer. “But when the moth appeared I started to see red, if they hadn't retreat, I could have killed them.”

 

The spider demon nodded. He understood Alastor in a way, even when he couldn't fanthom the idea of the power the demon possessed. Even having the power to take Valentino's life, Angel maybe wouldn't do it unless it was to protect someone else... he loved him, once. The lust overlord was more than a lifeboat to escape the clutches of his father, he really loved him and didn't want to see him dead. He only wanted... to be free again.

 

There was a silence between spider and deer but they were comfortable in that moment, not breaking it for the moment, unless until Angel thought in something he wanted to ask Alastor.

 

“Did you have time to think about what Belphegor offered you?” asked the spider.

 

The deer demon remained in silence for a moment more but then he sighed and nodded.

 

“I did” said Alastor. “These days I'm been thinking a lot, in fact. And that, is something I always wanted. My body always was a contradiction to my own mind, I liked my scars, they are the verses of a Bible in my name, to my achievements... and I have the power to change a lot of things in my body but not where it matters and it's about time that I start to think in me.”

 

Angel smiled.

 

“Good for you, Smiles” he said, bumping his fist in the arm of the overlord. “You have to think more in yourself not in what could happen with other people and what not. Told, they have to accept you as you are.”

 

Alastor nodded and Angel added:

 

“You seem almost nostalgic talking about Vox there... and almost sad talking about Val and Vox relationship” he was curious because he knew he loved Lucifer but maybe he loved Vox too.

 

“It's not like I want to return with Vox” said the deer. “But... I kind of miss having a relationship like that. He changed, a lot, he's not the same man but once, time ago, he was caring, he supported me... I miss that, I miss having someone taking your corner without a single thought, don't asking a thing from you, knowing that someone somewhere has your back without hesitation, that you could always count on them.”

 

He sighed and palmed his own knees, raising from the couch. That was enough sincerity for a day.

 

“But, again, that's not who I am or something I could achieve” said the deer demon. “And I don't duel in fantasies.”

 

Angel tilted his head, maybe Alastor wasn't showing it right now, but there was an air of sadness around him that was almost palpable. He rose from the couch too.

 

“Maybe you have people in your corner Smiles...” he said, but he didn't add more.

 

Now that he didn't need to go to work, he was about to dress comfortable, go to the bar and chat a little with the resident grumpy cat. Alastor softened his smile.

 

“Thanks, mon ange” he said, entering into a shadow.

 

The door in the lobby that lead to the parlor was slightly opened and in that moment opened completelly, reveling the King of Hell behind it. He saw the exchanged of both demons, how Alastor helped Angel... That made him smile, in the end, very deep inside him, the demon cared for the residents, for the people around him.

 

But... that chat moment with Angel, so opened and soft, those words... It was obvious that Alastor didn't see him in that way, like that partner that was always in his corner, supporting him. He cared for the demon, he really cared and he knew he will protect him always and it hurt him that Alastor wasn't seeing that.

 

Also, that friendship that was developing with Angel was starting to piss him off. Since when they were so chubby? In those days was not the first time they have a talk, mostly with lighter themes but they were getting comfortable and Lucifer hated that, made him jealous as fuck and mentally he was asking what had the spider demon that he wouldn't have double? He wanted to be like that with Alastor, with the deer demon opened to him, being sincere... And those days were worst because he was avoiding him.

 

He was... fuming, his horns and tail in full display. He decided to take a relaxing bath instead of doing something really stupid like going after Alastor.

 

***

 

It was almost the hour to go to Belphegor's on Sloth and Alastor was waiting already for Lucifer in the lobby of the hotel, seeing Ankareeda tackling a one thousand pieces puzzle that Charlie got for her in Gluttony, a cute thing about foods and sweets that she was enjoying greatly, taking a sincere smile from the face of the overlord.

 

“Are you ready to go?” asked Lucifer while he was adjusting his hat and his coat.

 

“Yes” said Alastor.

 

“Mmm... Can we talk? Just a second, about a doubt I have” said the king, making the deer by instint to roll his eyes.

 

“I told you...”

 

“It's not about that, please” said the monarch slowly, making then a gesture with his head pointing to the door of the parlor.

 

Alastor didn't want to talk to him, not about Lilith, not about the dinner but also not, in general. With all the thoughts he was having those days, the things he was meassuring about the devil and his own behaviour, he didn't want to talk and the conversation going to his thoughts.

 

But... Anka was already looking back at him and he didn't want also the chat with his daughter, explaining why he was distancing those days from her other father.

 

“Very well” said the overlord, raising from his seat and going after the shorter man.

 

They both entered into the parlor and Lucifer closed the door behind him. He was nervious, he didn't want a discussion with the deer and during the bath and later he was thinking a lot about that conversation with Angel.

 

Alastor wasn't talking, not even to ask what he wanted, so he took air and started talking.

 

“I... I overheard you and Angel talking” Alastor just responded by raising a brow. “And... about what you said about Vox and...”

 

The expression of the overlord was inscrutable, Lucifer didn't know if he was annoyed, angry, indiferent...

 

“Not only you decided to accost me these days but also spy on me” again, the tone wasn't showing a thing. “Go on...”

 

“It wasn't intentional” he tried to justify himself. “I was here, looking a catalogue online in my phone, I wanted to get some books for Ankareeda...”

 

“Without my permission... do go on... I want to see if the list of your transgressions stops in any giving moment” said the man, sitting in one of the couches.

 

Yeah, for a moment he forgot he wasn't allowed to interfere in her education and of course he was about to ask Alastor, he only wanted to ask when he had some books clear or decided.

 

“I was about to ask you before do it” he said, he knew that didn't fix it. “Anyway, I heard you and Angel talking, about... well, your past relationship with him and what not. And you said you wanted someone always in your corner... I just want to express that you can count on me, always.”

 

He said, with a soft smile... smile that was demolished and erase from his face when he saw the sardonic smile in the deer demon's face.

 

“Unlikely, your highness” said the demon. “First, my aspirations are none of your concern. Second, we both know that statement is false.”

 

“I mean it, Alastor!” said the monarch, sitting near him.

 

“Oh, I have no doubt that in your mind you really think you mean it but words are so light the wind can carry them easily” said the overlord. “I love mental visualizations... Imagine one day, no explanation, I came to the hotel with a sinner, badly hurt and I continue to hurt him, taking them to my radio tower even... The next thing you hear are their screams, asking for mercy in my radio waves, with all the radios on the hotel going full volume with the delicious agony. What will you do?”

 

He waited.

 

“I... I'll ask... you, if they are...” tried to say Lucifer, Alastor cut him there.

 

“Don't try to decorate your reaction and don't try to tell me what you think I want to hear” said the deer demon. “Your reaction, your natural reaction, first reaction, the kneejerk one. What will you do in that situation?”

 

“I don't know, ok?” Lucifer took out his hat to pass a hand over his hair. “I don't know! Ask you why? Stop you? What they did, why you are doing it?”

 

“You're easily paralized by indecision” said the red demon. “If I tell you I felt like it, like torturing a poor sinner... You'll stop me, of course, you'll remind me about the hotel and Charlie and what she wants to achieve...”

 

“So you want me to be a sadist? That's it?” asked the monarch.

 

“You already are” responded the demon. “You showed me in the past how much you enjoyed tormenting me, the sadist is right there inside you. Doesn't matter if you deny it.”

 

“I am not...” tried to say the monarch.

 

“You are” said the deer. “In any case, still isn't what I was refering with Angel, if you must know. And what I was refering you are incapable of delivering.”

 

“Why are you so sure?” asked the king. “It has something to do with what Lilith told you?”

 

The demon rolled his eyes.

 

“No, it's something I know” said the red demon. “I know no one in this hotel will take my side of things with blind faith, no one. Any action I'll take will be analized, checked, my motives questioned.”

 

“I'm sure Niffty will follow you without question” said the king.

 

“Ah, Niffty... maybe, but still there are things she doesn't like, devout as she is, she's still her own demon” he denied. “I told you when you asked me if we could be friends, I was being sincere in that moment. Even when you say you want to be with me, even when you said you love me, deep inside you, you don't trust me. Case on point: You won't stop question me about the dinner with the queen. I'm pretty sure you fear I'll align with her.”

 

“I have my reasons to fear that, she's a...” Alastor raised a hand.

 

“I don't want to hear it” said the overlord. “Fearing that will happen is an admission of not knowing me at all. You're doubting me and, at the same time, you want me to believe you when you say you'll be there for me. It's absurd.”

 

He raised from the couch and went to the door, opening it to go near Ankareeda.

 

“Love, papa is going to Sloth with the king” he kissed her head. “Be good, ok?”

 

She signed and Alastor sighed.

 

“No, nothing happened” said the deer. “Our sire only had a doubt he needed clarified. Don't worry...”

 

Alastor turned around to face the monarch, waiting for him to open a portal. Lucifer placed his hat again in his head and snapped, he really hope that Belphegor could help him with all of this, because he was out of his depht those days dealing with the overlord.

 

They arrived to the sin's consultation but the goat demon on the reception told them the woman was running late for a problem in one of her laboratories. They were waiting outside her office, in silence... A silence that Lucifer, despises his better judgement, decided to break.

 

“Al...astor” he was about to use his nickname but decided against that last moment when he saw his gaze. “I also heard about what Belphegor offered you and that you were planning on accepting.”

 

The deer didn't respond, he just started to look upfront.

 

“I... I support your decision” said the monarch.

 

“I'm feeling a 'but' coming...” said the Radio Demon, looking to Lucifer again by the side of his eyes.

 

The king felt uncomfortable in the seat, moving a little. He wanted to show support to the man but, at the same time, he feared to say something that could anger him... more.

 

“It's not bad, it's... I like you the way you are, you don't need to go through it” he said, with a small voice.

 

But small voice or not, the response of Alastor sounded like the knife.

 

“What you like or not is unimportant” said the demon. “It's my body, my choice and my desire, it's something I always wanted and thought impossible. If you have a problem with that...”

 

“I told you I don't... It's just... I think you don't need it to be...” and he couldn't finish the phrase.

 

Belphegor was going to her office and soon will call for them and Alastor wanted that conversation topic closed and forget.

 

“What I need is for me to decide” said the overlord, biting the words.

 

“Lucifer, I'll see you now” said Belphegor from her door.

 

Alastor made a gesture to the monarch, indicating the direction of the office.

 

“Funny way of showing you're in my corner, your majesty” the title he said it with a voice laced by static and annoyance.

 

Lucifer wanted to retort, to try to explain himself. He wanted to say a thing and Alastor was deliberately understanding another, like he wanted to be annoyed with him or something. With a growl the king jumped from his seat, strolling hard to Belphegor's office and releasing both horns and tail as soon as he entered.

 

“That fucking obtuse man!” he said, going to the seat and sitting hard.

 

“I take you were discussing something with Alastor?” asked the sin.

 

“It's worse! He's being antagonic with me just for the sake of it” said the monarch. “He insisted in having a dinner with Lilith, we are trying to learn which objectives she has, what she did and will do and whatever... He took dinner with the aspid and now he's been days avoiding me!”

 

The woman took her notepad and clicked her ballpen.

 

“Ok, Lulu, start from the beginning” she asked.

 

Lucifer started to recount all that happened, in the overlord reunion and later with that dinner with Lilith, what Alastor told him and nothing more, how he was feeling the overlord as keeping something underwraps and was dodging any conversation with him. His fear about what lie he was believing... even the conversation they had before coming and the new conversation.

 

“And how it makes you feel that Alastor decided to take the operations?” asked the woman.

 

The king mulled it for a moment.

 

“I.. I don't know, I just... he suffered enough, he has a lot of scars!” said the monarch. “I just didn't want for him to have more. If I could use my shapeshifting in him in place of operations, I won't have anything to say about if that makes him happy.”

 

The sin took notes.

 

“You know this is very important for Alastor, right?” asked the demoness. “And, as you said, there is no other permanent method. Both you and I can change his body with our power but you know isn't permanent and is something he wanted since birth, to make his body his own.”

 

“I know! It's just... He shouldn't be hating his body so much” said the king, frustrated.

 

“But he does and this will help with that” said the sin. “You know, this isn't about you, at all. The same with him doesn't want to talk to you for a couple of days... You didn't think maybe he was avoiding to say something hurtful for you? I don't doubt Lilith told him something that made him think but you have to learn to trust others, Lulu.”

 

“I trust others...”

 

“You asked me if I was on your side when this started, when you started to suspect Lilith” say the woman, softly, that wasn't a reprimand. “After your Fall, your relationship with Lilith and her taking Charlie and saying things to push her against you, I understand you mistrusting but you need to learn to trust on the people and I think on their actions... Do you really think that after all this time Alastor will betray you over just words?”

 

He wanted to say 'no' but a little voice in his head was telling him that Lilith was convincing and who knows what she said to him, a man that showed resolve in getting together with him, a single focus in that goal, to make him doubt.

 

“I don't know” said the monarch, sinking in his seat.

 

“If you don't know, my statement last session still stands: you don't know the sinner at all” said the sin. “After all you told me and chatting with him, I doubt he will side with other person against you without provocation. You need to learn to trust, Lulu, and to let people take their own decissions.”

 

Lucifer just sighed, lowering his head. He was feeling like he was failing, that again he was making a huge error and fucking everything up and he didn't want to. He wanted to make things with Alastor work, he wanted to be able to form a bond with Anka, to be there for her the same for Charlie... And he couldn't blame just Lilith for his misdeeds.

 

“It's... It's difficult” admited the king. “I don't want to end up alone again. These last seven years have been torture for me. I... I'm afraid to return to that, I was barely living.”

 

“There is an old human world saying: If you love someone you must let them leave... if they return, they are yours” said the woman. “You can't pretend to have company with a short leash, Lucifer... It's no different from having someone under a deal. You need to give, also, you need to trust and make an effort.”

 

“I'm making an effort!” he said... he said and he believed it or wanted to believe it.

 

There was that voice in his head telling he wasn't but he tried to ignore it.

 

“Ok” said the sin. “Did you try to know him better like I tasked you?”

 

She asked and Lucifer nodded.

 

“What did you do?”

 

“I heard his radio show...” started to say the monarch.

 

“Taking that maybe is his passion, that's given” responded the woman. “What more?”

 

“I talked to him, asked things about him... favorite color and those things...” he said, and he didn't know why, but he was feeling that was not the right answer.

 

“So instead of knowing him organically, you did the bare minumum and a quiz?” she said, he was trying not to show her frustration but said frustration was creeping its head around her. “Ok, I know you never dated as it is. I know you had lovers after Lilith but I also know it was with no effort on your part. Right? They came to you, you downed your trousers...”

 

She sighed and was the sigh of a woman that was trying to use all her patience with an incredible difficult patient.

 

Lucifer, for his part, was blushing in reds and goldens. He didn't want to say she was right, nor even nod... But sure, she was right. He wasn't a ladies' devil, he didn't know how to seduce, not really. Of course he thought he could but he didn't have to. Women were throwing themselves at his feet to please the monarch when the queen was not in the horizon and he thought in that moment that he needed the release, he deserved the sex... None of them meant anything to him, except Milady. She started for him as the same, after the first night he wanted more from that mysterious woman. And when he thought he lost her forever he couldn't fathom to sleep with other women.

 

No, he never tried to woo someone or gain a heart... Not since Lilith, that was and his ex-wife was... easy. His only competition was Adam, that made half his dick inside the first woman just by default.

 

“You need to make an effort, Lulu, a real effort” said the woman. “I can't guarantee that Alastor will fall head over heals for you for that but if you don't make an effort, when all of this is resolve, maybe you won't have the end you so desperately want to get. His love for you is dying, specially if you don't support his decisions or try to really meet him as a person, not with a questionnaire.”

 

“I.. I don't know what to do, what do you suggest?” asked the monarch, almost with desperation.

 

“I dated little, for me it doesn't worth the hassle, but talk with Charlie” said the woman. “Ask her how she knew better her partner, how to act with someone you want in your life. And try... let the questions roll organically. Again, that's your exercise for this week.”

 

***

 

After the Devil, Belphegor attended the Radio Demon.

 

“Lucifer told me you want to go with the procedure” said the woman, smiling to the demon.

 

Alastor growled.

 

“He doesn't stop to intrude... But yes, I guess is time I get something I really want” said the deer. “And I really wanted this my whole life.”

 

The sin nodded and took a form to fill, taking data as she went.

 

“Very well” she said. “You will want to get the transition all the way or you want top surgery only?”

 

Alastor mulled for a moment, the sound of shuffling of channels was prominent around him.

 

“Top, for now... but I don't brush over the idea of...” he didn't end the phrase.

 

“Understood” said the sin. “In prevision you could say yes, I got already the instrumentation thanks to Carmilla Carmine. Don't worry, I placed the order but never mentioned a reason for it, your privacy is intant. I have an opening in my schedule in three days, you'll need to prepare things because you'll need to stay in the hospital two days, mínimum... and that's taking into consideration that Lucifer could seal the wound, I'm counting on him for this.”

 

Alastor just growled, crossing his arms.

 

“He doesn't want me to take the operations” said the demon.

 

“Lucifer is just unsure” said the sin. “That man is bafflingly insecure, I doubt he knows what he really wants. But in anycase, I can bet he won't let you stay a month recuperating in the hospital is he can expedite the process.”

 

“You seem to know him pretty well...” said the demon, with a renew interest and observing disposition.

 

“He's my progenitor” said the sin. “We sins are part of him, he created us inside himself with all the new emotions he was discovering while the Fall was happening. And he vomited us when he reached Hell... Not a very good view in once's birth but it's the truth nonetheless. And, as he was linked to Humanity for the Original Sin, humans started to develop us too. Heaven had to intervine, giving Eve a blessing so the Seven Heavenly Virtues could be born too.”

 

“It's not... common knowledge, I take” said the sinner, surprised after learning how interconnected were the sins with both Lucifer and Humanity. “So mortals first developed sin and then virtue...”

 

Belphegor nodded.

 

“And Heaven misrepresented for mortals what we really are” said the woman. “Not good, not bad. The sin I represented is Sloth... born from Lucifer's apathy seeing his Fall was unavoidable and even his twin brother was against him. I want to investigate and innovate to make lives easier, my own life easier... With better vaccinations, better health care, I won't need to work as hard. Satan's wrath could seem bad, but he reserves it for the right moment, as an impulse, a motivator, against the undeserving. Levi's envy could make you strive, better yourself to get into the same possessions, positions or even emotional state as others... And, the same goes for the Seven Virtues, they like it or not. Charity can lead to ableism, patience can lead to an inability to act... even chastity, lead to a extreme, can produce several health problems.”

 

She shrugged.

 

“But I digress” said the woman. “Yes, I know very well Lucifer, for millenia.”

 

Alastor mulled something that he wanted to ask and he decided to finally did.

 

“Do you think he's manipulative, that he can elaborate a plan and follow suit?” asked the deer.

 

The woman laughed.

 

“No” she said. “The Devil is too proudful, he knows he's powerful and he never learned to play the long game because that was unnecessary for him. Also, even when he tries to control it, he has a huge temper... specially because he never release part of that ire. I know what reputation he has for mortals, I read the literature but Lucifer is more direct than sibylline.”

 

“And you think he can hold grudges?” asked the demon.

 

“Oh, yes... He isn't free from that, you only need to see how much he hates Lilith right now, a woman that was his universe for ten thousand years” said the sin. “But... maybe, if you have doubts about him, you can talk to him, try to assess by yourself if he's lying or not, if he's trustworthy or not or if he's manipulative or not. You're a intelligent demon, Alastor.”

 

The Radio Demon wasn't a man that wasn't equiped for adversity, for things not going his way or not being able to face everything... but even with that, he sulked in his seat. He was intelligent, but maybe not enough for what he was dealing with.

 

He didn't want to believe Lilith, but also wasn't so far fetch for a Sin that was born from the Devil to lie for him, to lie to Alastor, to lure him in the spiderweb of Lucifer like a fat insect to be devour. The deer wanted to trust Lucifer, but...

 

He was...

 

The demon didn't ask what he really wanted to ask, he didn't ask the sin if she thought that Lucifer could really love him, really care for him and not for the facade qhe presented to him with Milady, to care for him as a man, to really love his daughter with the same intensity he loved Charlie. He didn't ask for any of that and just nodded to her advises about the upcoming operation and nothing more.

 

He went out of Belphegor's office, lost in his thoughts.

 

Lucifer catched on that but he had another important matter at hand, one that needed the deer demon.

 

“Vox sent me a text” said the devil moving the phone in his hand. “He said he had important information, we should go to V Tower.”

 

Alastor just nodded and waited for the portal to appear at Lucifer's command.

Notes:

Vox part was more central to this one and was part of this chapter but I prefered to leave this part here and prepare a full chapter just for Vox's information and some Lucifer's shenenigans. So stay tuned!

Chapter 31: I spy with my little eye something that starts with V

Summary:

Vox calls for Lucifer and the monarch goes with Alastor, learning important information about the Von Eldritch family.

Days later, Alastor at least takes his first step into reclaiming his body as his own and Lucifer does something he shouldn't have done.

Notes:

This beast of a chapter took me a lot. Not because is very long or anything like that but because I'm been (again) sleeping like shit and the heat isn't helping.

In anycase... Mind the tags, tags changed again.

 

Btw, one of the artist I commisioned finished my radioapple fanart. It's not for this fanfiction, but for my long one, three parter (look at my profile if interested ;P). It's an art from the final battle of that fanfiction and is so fucking tasty!! You can catch a glint there or in my Twitter's: @Vengerin

And soon I'll have one about this very same fanfic and I'm salivating with that ^^

“No matter how long we exist, we have our memories. Points in time which time itself cannot erase. Suffering may distort my backward glances, but even to suffering, some memories will yield nothing of their beauty or their splendor. Rather they remain as hard as gems.”

~Anne Rice, Blood and Gold

 

Alastor and Lucifer appeared into V-tower, in the basement of the place where Vox had his sancta sanctorum, full of monitors and fishtanks with different versions of technologial fishes. The overlord always loved the sea, thought Alastor with a tip of melancholia, remembering how he could be hours talking about sharks as the perfect God's creation they were, according to him.

 

The TV demon was in his desk, typing something in his keyboard while sipping coffee, with his mind centered in that as he noticed the visitation when both men were almost over him.

 

“Ah, Alastor, his majesty” said the sinner. “Glad you could make it fast, I have some information your highness maybe will find valuable.”

 

While the monarch approached the desk of the overlord, the deer demon stood behind him, his hands to his back, his eyes to the side, thinking... submerged into his own thoughts in a way he didn't notice that Vox was catching on him, looking to him with almost a concerned gaze.

 

“Al, something the matter?” he asked, his voice showing concern just managing to produce an annoyed look from the monarch.

 

Al... it has been years since the TV Demon called him Al... that dented in the nostalgia he was already feeling, having Alastor to push it down, to negate its very existance. His gaze in response was cruel and calculated.

 

“Center yourself in what we are here for” he said, biting almost the words. “Our king is a very busy man to waste time.”

 

“That's correct, thank you, Alastor” said Lucifer. “Chop, chop, pet, what you have for me?”

 

Said the Devil, he wasn't in the mood to let the overlord be kind with the deer, worrying for him making him feel even worst because he couldn't do that, Alastor in that moment didn't want him near and less talk to him.

 

Vox gave a last look to his ex-partner, just finding in him a severe unreadable expression. He sighed to then made a gesture with the hand, several monitors moved from their positions to be near him.

 

“I'm been following the steps of the queen and the Von Eldritch and, for the moment, I don't have anything interesting about her” said the overlord. “But I catched a couple of interesting conversations from the Eldritch family that you want to hear.”

 

Both Alastor and Lucifer leaned over their canes, observing with attention the monitor.

 

In there, a rich and gaudi living room, with a couple of imp servants preparing tea and some biscuits. For the position of the recording, that was taking directly from a TV sited in the room.

 

In said place, there were Bethesda and Frederick, talking with Helsa and Seviathan.

 

“Any news from the princess, son?” asked the patriarch of the family, taking his cup of tea in hands.

 

“No, father, not yet but there will be. She'll call me” he smiled, secured.

 

Helsa, on the other hand, scoffed for a moment, taking her cup while making a gesture to the imp that tried to offer biscuits to her.

 

“I don't know why we care” said the woman. “Charlie...”

 

She said the name like it was an insult, extending it between her lips with a mocking.

 

“It's useless” she said. “Her ideas are ridiculous, she's weak and stupid and her taste in clothes... I could be hours...”

 

“Helsa” her mother looked back to her severely. “This is not a matter if that garbage princess is useful by herself or not. We already know she's a disgrace for Lucifer... not the king is better, both are clowns.”

 

All the devil attributes from Lucifer showed at once, with all the eyes over his body looking in the direction of that woman.

 

“But we need this” said Frederick. “We need this union to happen, once and for all to stop the declive of our family.”

 

Seviathan, like the follower he was, nodded to his father. Alastor could almost smell the necessity from that young man to make his father proud... That made him sick. He was just like that young demon when he was human, before the incident with his father. He only wanted to make him proud, to appease him, like that was about to stop the beatings any time soon.

 

“Don't worry, father, I'm on it” said Sevithan. “I'll make Charlie to fall in love with me again and I'll marry her.”

 

Bethesda nodded to her son but Helsa wasn't having it, she was still pissed for all this plotting, for returning to give attention to the Morningstars.

 

“This is stupid” she said. “We lost some power, don't matter. We are still powerful, we have prestige and reputation... We don't need to crawl back to Little Miss Saviour and her useless dad.”

 

“Helsa!” Frederick moved, his demon form, an eldritch ancient terror, was taking part of his face, planting eyes and tentacles around his body. “You won't dare to discuss this, to complain about this or falting in your part of this game. This is too important, it's not a fucking lose of some potency, is Hell refussing to gorge us, feed us and power us like before.”

 

She was sinking by moments in her seat, with her father coming close to her, leaning towards her, with that aggression very visible.

 

“You will follow the plan, to the letter, am I making myself clear?” she nodded. “Good, because at this point I prefer to lose a piece on the board to losing the fucking game. We are risking a lot, buffoonish as he is, Lucifer is not to mess around or underestimate. I don't want a fucking error... for our power and survival is why we are conspiring with the queen, nothing more.”

 

Helsa nodded again and her father relaxed his demon form, returning to his place adjusting his suit.

 

“This is Hell, daughter” said this time her mother. “If we can't show force, they will eat us and if the rest catches on our weakness, we are done. Reputation and respect is something you force in others, it's not given.”

 

The woman nodded, still a little bit intimidated by her own father, looking in his direction with evident fear... and not the one that is seeing something new or surprising, that fear was the one that comes with knowledge.

 

Seviathan moved to take the hand of his mother.

 

“Don't worry, mother” said the young man. “I'll achieve my task.”

 

Frederick made a smoking pipe appear and he started to filling with tobacco.

 

“If not, will need to force another type of union between the two families” said the man, contemplative. “Maybe a forced bastard is in order... the Morningstar blood is weak with that girl, a waste, sure we can manipulate her mind enough to get a couple of hours... with the appropiate spell, we can force a pregnancy. I hope I don't need to use that path, taking that I'll need to disguise the magic perfectly so Lucifer won't notice but it's an alternative.”

 

Bethesda nodded but Seviathan wasn't so agreeable for his expression of pure disgust.

 

“And the queen will allow that?” asked the young demon.

 

“She will... taking what she wants to gain for our colaboration, it's a necessary evil” said the noble demon, smoking from his pipe with satisfaction.

 

Lucifer, observing that conversation, on the other hand, was fuming... fire was escaping from his nostrils and mouth, his fists were clenching to the point in where his bones were starting to sound with the pressure and the floor under him was vibrating a little... The thing is, he wasn't the only one extremelly furious.

 

Alastor was seeing those noble demons, talking so freely about abusing Charlie that he was half transformed, with black saliva escaping his mouth and holding to his cane with such brutality that was starting to sound like it was about to break. He cared for Charlie, that was obvious to Vox, but also he knew how that particular act, taking his history, was for the deer demon... A fast way to torture time at the hands for the Radio Demon was to mention that act or trying to do it in his presence. If Alastor has a trigger, that was it.

 

Both men, in their world of pure rage,continue listening to the conversation.

 

“I... I don't know if is secure to do that” said Seviathan. “The Radio Demon is protecting that hotel and Charlie.”

 

“We know” said Frederick. “The Queen is working in that angle, maybe we could have him as an ally. We made sure he has his reasons to hate Lucifer... and he has... liabilities, weaknesses, we can exploit.”

 

The red demon growled and the monitor's screen shattered. Vox, without reacting, was changing said conversation to another monitor. That man was threatening Ankareeda and knowing Alastor, the TV Demon was grateful the rest of his monitors were working intead and that the power grid didn't bursted, because he knew how Alastor's emotions affected technology around him, like a fucking walking EMP.

 

“If not, we will destroy him” said Frederick.

 

“Good luck with that...” said Helsa, her father drilled with a gaze and she just muted herself.

 

“That's all I have in this conversation” said the TV Demon.

 

“I'll tear them apart” said Alastor, just that phrase, focused like a laser, no rage in his tone of voice... that was a vow, like something that is about to happen no matter what.

 

“We'll do it” said the monarch. “Anything more, Vox?”

 

The king, also very, extremelly angry, looked back to the overlord. His eyes were dangerouos, like he was about to lose control in any given moment.

 

“Yes, I have another” said the sinner. “This other I catched with a drone, from the Von Eldritch state, it's a conversation between Helsa and a confident.”

 

Said the man, making the image to start play.

 

In there, they could see the gardens of the Von Eldritch state in the Royal Circle, beautiful colors, flowers and plants. In the middle of the imagen a pergola with a complete set of appetizers.

 

“...And they are making me work like I was the service” said the Von Eldritch to another demon woman, a siren hellborn. “Let me tell you, I think my father is losing it. I don't feel so diferent and he's acting like it's the end of Hell or something.”

 

Helsa made a gesture and some sugar cubes flied by themselves to her cup, starting to stir with the little silver spoon.

 

“I got to deal with the queen, then with that guard that served us years ago... I'm been going from here to dare on the whimps of my father over something so stupid” said the noble woman, drinking some tea after.

 

“And since when your father said he's feeling this lost of powers?” asked the siren.

 

“Seven years” she said. “Honestly, I think he's exagerating. Besides, him losing touch of his magicks doesn't mean a thing for the rest of the family.”

 

The siren then placed a cruel smile in her face.

 

“What is a disgrace is that you have to deal with Charlie Morningstar again” she laughed. “She was utterly ridiculous, it's a pity we didn't pull that prank at prom. Cover her in sinners' blood... That could have been fantastic!”

 

Helsa laughed to then scoff.

 

“Seviathan didn't approved” said the woman. “He said that all the other things we did to her weren't a problem, but something like that? He was convinced that Lilith or Lucifer or both could have kill us. Like they care about that embarrassment.”

 

“Charlie never told me about the bullying problem, only when she finished high school” said the monarch, still very angry. “But if my apple suddenly returned to home covered in blood, that fucking school would have exploded the next day.”

 

Alastor looked back to the monarch and nodded but he said nothing. He was still angry too for the past revelation of what that fiend family wanted to do to Charlotte... he didn't know why this conversation stroke importance to Vox, besides the information that the Von Eldritchs were feeling weaker since seven years ago.

 

“By the way, did you finally activate the sigil on Tamirah?” asked the siren demoness.

 

The Von Eldritch girl nodded.

 

“Yes, she was delighted to be part of our inner circle” she said. “It's that why I said to my father that doesn't matter if we lose a little bit of magic, we have influence. People still want to become part of our circle... Even if that places a magical ward so they can't reveal our secrets.”

 

The siren then showed her tongue and it looked like Vox zoomed in it. There it was a green sigil, one of the sigils used by the Von Eldritch family.

 

“I kinda of like mine” said the siren, laughing a little.

 

Helsa laughed with her, in that sibylline form she had to do it.

 

“It's fetching and elegant, like everything we Von Eldritch do” said the demoness. “In any case, I didn't just because I like her. I need her... The queen wants says we need to remove the Cannibal Overlord from the equation, she doesn't want to eliminate her, just place her against the Radio Demon but... taking there are thick as thieves, if Tamirah doesn't discover a way, we'll get rid of the Cannibal Lady.”

 

Oh, Alastor was mad, in fact that monitor didn't shatter, directly overheated to a point of no return, releasing smoke and a fire burst from behind, with the smell of burned circuits.

 

“If they try to touch Rosie or Charlie or my daughter, I'll rampage over their states and mansions and devour every single one of them, the plan be damn!” said the demon, with his eyes in full radio dials and the shadows around him moving nerviously.

 

“Don't worry” said Lucifer. “Now we count with information, before we were almost in darkness. First things first, we'll find that friend of hers and we interrogate her thoroughly.”

 

Alastor looked back to the monarch.

 

“But the magicks...” he started to said, just to be interrupted by the secured smile of Lucifer.

 

“Now that I know is theirs and where they favor to place it, I can nullify it with ease” said the king. “We'll extract every ounce of information and, before they could miss their new confidant, we'll feast on them, you and I. We have some very serious scores to settle.”

 

“This also confirms your wife's involvement” said the Radio Demon.

 

“Yes but... even when I want to pulverize her now” he sighed. “We still need to learn more. Why is she collaborating with the Von Eldritch and what she wants from them?”

 

“We can take that information from them” said Alastor.

 

Lucifer nodded in agreement.

 

“Yes, but still we're lacking information from Heaven” said the Devil. “I don't want unnecessary risks. We'll wait until my sister communicates with us and then...”

 

His fist full of fire, he closed it strongly. His smile was almost manic, enjoying the canarge as his brain was conjuring it in his mind.

 

“Ding, dong, the witch is dead” he finished the phrase.. he then looked back to Vox. “You did well, pet. Still keep an eye on my ex-wife and the Von Eldritch, I don't want surprises... Also, if you can, have an eye on Rosie's turf, just in case.”

 

The TV Demon sighed under those orders.

 

“I could try but Cannibal Town is very old school” said the overlord. “I could try with a drone but I don't promise a thing.”

 

The king nodded.

 

“Whatever but try” he said.

 

He had information, he had an objective at last, something to release his ire, his wrath upon... all the frustration and aggression that was building inside him. He still needed to talk to Alastor, learn what that bitch said but he decided, now that his fury had a focus, to follow Husk's advice and let the deer demon work on that in his own time.

 

Also, he was ready to go, he didn't want to stay more near the TV overlord.

 

“Let's go” said Lucifer and Alastor nodded, snapping the king his fingers to open a portal for both to return to the hotel.

 

“Alastor, a word...” said the technological demon.

 

Lucifer growled... And, taking his mood of these days to not be submitted to the king, the deer demon actually stopped and turn around to face the TV Demon.

 

“Sure, Voxxy” he said, with his usually 1000 watts smile.

 

The king stood his ground, near the portal, with both arms crossed and his eyes saturated with red.

 

“What really happened seven years ago, Alastor?” asked the overlord, almost in a whisper and with a non concealled worried expression in his face. “When Lucifer beat the crap out of me, he said you two have to fix things, that he deserves some punishment but not for what I thought...”

 

“My, my, Voxxy, I never thought you were so gossip starved” said the deer demon.

 

“Alastor, we went to shit but I still care for you...” he started to say.

 

“That's why you placed in prime time television my fight with Adam?” said the red demon, showing his sharp teeth bare. “Don't lie to yourself, it's unbecoming of an overlord. You don't care for me, at all, darling.”

 

Vox grunted and moved nearer the deer, still with that tone of confidence he was using with him.

 

“I do” said the demon. “I fucking do, Alastor. And now, I'm in your corner, like it or not. I really never wanted you dead, never wanted real harm for you... I was... just... hurt, ok? I... I'm worry about you. I'll be more effective if I know what's what. What happened? What Lucifer did to you? What the queen did?”

 

The Radio Demon bridged the little distance that was between both overlords, looking directly to his eyes with an expression so resolute that was almost angry.

 

“None of your business” the deer overlord bit the words. “I'm here because Lucifer wanted me here, I'm not here to entertain your saviour complex. I'm not a damsel needing rescue, let then sink into your wired brain. As for being at 'my corner', you're just forced by Lucifer, nothing more. In my corner there are only Rosie and my daughter and I know that with certainty so stop trying to milk for information you don't have a claim to have.”

 

The red demon moved his hand, taking the other overlord by his bowtie, talking to him so near that Vox felt his hot breath, smelled his aroma.

 

“Do as your king commands you and nothing more” said the demon. “I don't need you.”

 

He turned around and went directly to the portal, going inside it without a single glance behind him, a single look to the TV Demon that in that moment was deflating by the moment. Lucifer, even when he didn't like... even hate, the man, in that moment he felt a pinch, just a little tiny pinch, of pity for him.

 

Lucifer followed Alastor and both were in the foyer of the hotel, alone and with the portal already close.

 

“I think you were rather cutthroat with him” commented the monarch.

 

Alastor scoffed.

 

“Now you take pity on him?” he said, looking from his higher position to the Devil, with that air of cruel superiority. “This must be solidarity between vermin trying to save me or intruding in my afterlife like they have some right to it.”

 

He said, turning around over his heels to go to the stairs.

 

“By the way, sire” he said, stopping for a moment to watch at Lucifer's face over his shoulder, with a very jagged smile. “In three days from now, I'll need transportation to Belphegor's hospital.”

 

Lucifer sighed.

 

“So you're gonna go with the procedure” said the monarch.

 

“Yes, your highness” said the deer demon, with satisfaction. “Apparently the Sin is counting on you to seal my scars with your power so I don't expend more than the necessary time there.”

 

The king nodded.

 

“Of course, no problem” he said.

 

“Lovely” said the overlord. “Now you can say good-bye to all the things that really enamored you from me, maybe now you can stop pining over me like you are really interested.”

 

And he entered into a shadow near the wall to disappear, Lucifer couldn't even manage to say that wasn't true or protest or even ask why he was behaving in that way. No, he dropped the bomb and go like nothing, like he did with Vox.

 

There was something in there with Alastor that the monarch couldn't grasp, something that pushed his bottoms to act in that way.

 

But that... was something for another's day Lucifer. Now he had to inform Charlie and Vaggie on what they learned.

 

***

 

Those three days Alastor still evaded the monarch, dodging every conversation, didn't matter with what line the devil tried to initiate. The deer demon wasn't having it, centered as he was in calming his nerves.

 

Not because of the operation, no, that was something that he wanted all his life and the idea of finally looking in the mirror and see himself, was producing some comfortable heat inside him, like the beginning of happiness. But... being a survivor, someone that had to bite, claw and kill to traverse Hell, the idea of being knockout, far from his refuge, with no defense in place and no control was creeping in him.

 

In fact, minutes from having to go to St. An's Hospital, he was sitting in his bed, thinking, feeling the pressure of his doubts in his chest.

 

Anka opened the door that separated both their rooms and went to her father, hugging him and sitting over one of his thighs. She signed.

 

“No, love, I'm not afraid of the intervention” he responded. “I just... nervious, it's all.”

 

The girl signed again, she was extremelly curious.

 

“It's not for the change, love... It's something that papa always wanted but I'll be alone, in the hospital, a complete day” he explained, his daughter signed again, making him sigh. “Yes, Lucifer is gonna be there but I can't count on him, he's useless.”

 

Ankareeda raised a brow while tilting her head, signing again.

 

“We didn't fight” said the overlord, the girl crossed her arms. “We didn't! It's simple... I needed to think in something and he insisted in pestering me. And I can't count on him.”

 

The girl hugged her dad and Alastor returned the sentiment, kissing her in the top of her head. She then singed again, without moving for that little refuge she made for herself in her father's arms.

 

“No... well, yes, the Queen said something and I have to ponder on it” said the deer demon. “Lucifer didn't earn my unshaken confidence. He did bad... and he's a liar. People surely call him the Father of Lies for something.”

 

His girl started to sign again, a long statement, thinking in the middle how to express herself better, when she finished, the demon sighed again. His daughter was very insightful.

 

“I know he didn't lie and she did” he said, brushing the blond hair of his dauhghter with his claws. “But I can't trust him, I need to question, I need to... Be sure. I don't want anything bad to happen to you, mon etoile.”

 

He talked more with his daughter, with her trying to calm his nerves, smart as she was and trying to move him to trust a little the short Devil. When it was the hour to go to the hospital, the deer demon was calmer and wasn't as aggressive with the monarch as he was the days before. Not amicable, by any extend, but not antagonic.

 

It took almost an hour to prepare him for the operating room and the operation itself took around three hours.

 

Lucifer tried to show patience waiting but he changed seats a couple of times, ate way too many junk food from the vending machines and played with his phone between text and text from Charlie and Angel Dust asking for Alastor.

 

Finally he was moved to a room and Belphegor let him stay with him.

 

Alastor was sleep, his factions relaxed, his smile soft. The Sin let the task of healing his wounds, saying she will return in an hour to review the healing and let them alone.

 

The monarch, softly, moved the crimson locks from the overlord's face, delighted in that soft expression, the calm he was exuding. Something, in his core, told him that Alastor wasn't used to peace, wasn't use to just relax and rest.

 

“Poor thing...” he whispered, passing his thumb over his lips. “You don't know how gorgeous you are in this way.”

 

He sighed and moved his hands over his chest, unbottoming the hospital pajama to reveal his bandaged upper body. The Devil didn't want to hurt him but he needed to have his hands nearer as possible to the wounds so he placed both delicately over the bandages, closing his eyes and feeling the damage under his fingertips.

 

Lucifer focused his angelic energy in healing and he noticed this was way easier than healing Adam's wound. Normal thing, taking Belphegor used regular angelic steel and not coated with divine energy, like Adam's axe. His small hands moved softly, like feathers, over the bandages, noticing the wound closing and scaring under his ministrations.

 

He sighed again when he noticed the deer demon making an expression of pain... He needed to slow down or he will wake up before he could finish. Better to go little by little.

 

The monarch stopped to let Alastor's body rest before continuing and in that time he observed the multiple scars over that body, all the damage he had sustained over the decades. And now, two new scars... It was something that Alastor really wanted and Lucifer understood how important for him that was but... He suffered enough, he did.

 

His fingers started to move, almost by themselves, passing softly over those damages, over those permanent marks over the body of the man he loved. He knew Alastor wasn't right, he loved him. Not even Lucifer could explain the sentiment but he knew he loved him in the same moment he thought he died years ago. His fingers encountered the lichtenberg scar the deer demon had from Vox on the left side of his body.

 

Vox looked like he was worried for Alastor, no matter how much that annoyed the king, that was the truth he himself saw but Alastor wasn't having it... What happened for that? Why the Radio Demon wasn't ready to forgive the Vee?

 

Curiosity killed the cat and Lucifer was almost a progenitor of bad decissions so he placed both his hands over the scar and centered his mind, using his power to see the past, the creationg of that scars, those moments...

 

***

 

The Radio Demon's mansion, his disctrict, decades ago...

 

“Please, Alastor, we can talk about this” Vox was following behind Alastor, who was moving towards the kitchen, taking out his coat and rolling his sleeves.

 

“I said I don't want you here anymore” said the Radio Demon, with a tone as cold as Siberia. “I gave you an oportunity after that party, insistent as you were, but it wasn't the same. You want something I can't give, so it will be better to split before this turns sour.”

 

“But I don't want that, babe” Vox moved, he moved behind Alastor, to hugging from behind like he did countless times but he knew better than to touch him when he was upset, so he just stood there, near him. “I'm ok if you don't love me, Al, I just want to be with you. We can make this work, you and I, like old times.”

 

Alastor was ready to cook, cooking was something that relaxed him and after having an almost discussion with the other demon, he needed the calm that act brought to him.

 

“I told you, I don't want to do this anymore” said the deer demon. “It was an error for my part to start this knowing well your feelings and knowing myself.”

 

He sighed, turning around to see Vox directly to his face.

 

“There is no turning back, Vox” said the demon. “It was cruel for me to use you to have company, was a weak moment for my part and you don't deserve this. We can still be friends and collaborators. I still can support your projects but this... lie we have been living is wrong, for you and for me.”

 

“Babe, don't say that” asked the TV Demon, almost begging. “I want to remain to your side, to give you that company you need. You don't need to be alone, Alastor. That Fallen Filth refusing you, disparing you, doesn't mean a thing. You don't need to flagellate yourself or be punish. It's not your fault... That was doomed from the start.”

 

Alastor growled, holding the knife so strong that his hand was making the sound of tense leather.

 

“Don't start again” he warned the other demon. “Not a single word. I'm not taking a penance or something like that, I want to be alone, to focus... And, again, I don't want for this to end badly.”

 

He turned around to pick some vegetables to cut but Vox grabbed him by the arm, forcing him to turn around.

 

“Fucks, Alastor, that's what you're doing” he protested. “You are breaking us... US! Over a stupid motherfucker that will never, ever, love you or care for you. Do you understand that? He will never do that... Doesn't matter what you remember from him when you were a confused teen or how much he fucking groomed you to pine for him so deeply, that fucking man will never care for you.”

 

“Don't touch me!” his eyes were in radio dial form and his ears were pressed against his hair. “And never talk about my past again. Or about him in that way... And also I don't want love from him, I want to serve him, make good on my promise... Something apparently you can't understand.”

 

He never moved the hand from his arm.

 

“I understand perfectly” said the TV Demon. “And I started to think he made those moves on purpose, taking advantage of a very confuse kid. He has the Sins, the Goetia, the Von Eldritch... you're not so stupid to think he needs an overlord. He told you already... and he doesn't want you because he didn't recognized the little girl he groomed for himself in the Living World.”

 

Alastor's hand was over the neck of the other demon in no time, making pressure and moving him until Vox touched the nearby wall with his back. The strength of the deer demon was always surprising for him and now he was crushing his windpipe with no problem.

 

“I know you are upset and for that is the only reason you'll live pass this offense but I don't want a single word to cross your lips again” he moved his face near the screen of his ex-partner. “Pick your things and move from my mansion, I don't want to see your face here again... and about that continued friendship, take my offer as officially rescinded.”

 

He snarled a warning before releasing the hand, moving to the counter of the kitchen again, leaving the demon catching his breath.

 

“I won't fucking leave you...” he said, panting. “You hear me? I love you, Alastor... And I won't let you punish yourself with loneliness or pursuing a terrible man that will never care for you, destroying yourself in the process!”

 

He turned around the Radio Demon again, he holded his face with one hand, the other over his waist.

 

“I love you and I'll show you how much... I'll be here for you... You don't have to throw your afterlife away, your ambitions away just because your mother was too illiterate to help you without invoking the fucking Devil. She should have kill your fucking father years before he tried to rape you” Alastor was paralized, Vox was kissing him, kiss after desperated kiss. “You're mine, Alastor, and I'll care for you, better than your mother did, better that repugnant devil could ever do... You're mine.”

 

And he fused his lips, Alastor led him, Vox's tongue trying to find his... But what the tongue found were the sharp teeth of the deer demon, toring his tongue apart, tearing it from his mouth and devouring it. Alastor's eyes were dangerous, more when he sinked his claws both in his body, growling furiously like an animal.

 

Vox tried to say his name but could, the pain was extreme and the lack of the organ in his mouth was making the act more difficult... in fact, he was bleeding profusely. He wanted to escape, Alastor was in a rage like state, out of his mind, tearing apart his flesh.

 

The man concentrated his power over electricity... He didn't want to hurt Alastor but seeing him to out of his seems, so feral, was enough to activate his fight or flight response. He electrocuted the Radio Demon and that was for nothing... Yes, he released him but then, growling, he started to change to his demon form to then start to pass to his eldritch one.

 

It was the first time that Vox saw that form.

 

The red demon always said, mostly in a proudful or arrogant way, that his lover never saw all his tricks, that he wasn't using his whole repertoire since the first decades when he arrived to Hell. And now, he was seeing it, it wasn't just bravado.

 

He was screw, he knew it while he saw that monster grow and grow, destroying the manor... Angry and feeling abandon, he runned his mouth and his first death in Hell was the price to pay for that. That and the complete death of their relationship.

 

***

 

Lucifer returned his mind to the present and the tears were in his face.

 

Not only feeling for Alastor but also for Vox. He really loved Alastor and he tried but the deer... That was his destiny? Now that Lilith intruded his mind, after all the things he also did, that was his future? Will he take Ankareeda and leave him behind?

 

Doomsday District was what remained from the turf of the Radio Demon after that rampage that Vox provoked and Alastor never looked back.

 

The king didn't want to think in that but... tears refused to abandon his face. As a way to distract himself from his self-destructive mind, he focused in other scars.

 

Fights, battles... He continued to move his hands until he found one that was over the horizontal long one under his belly, to a side.

 

***

 

New Orleans, Louisiana, 1914...

 

“Leave my mother alone!” screamed young Alastor, decking his drunken father after the first hits over his mother.

 

The teen was helping the woman with her vegetable garden and he came as fast as he could after the first scream. And after that punch, he prepare, ready to fight his father this time. He was tired of stand his drunken ass, his brutality and the bruises... specially, he was tired of his mother suffering and crying in the nights he chose to be with a prostitute than with her.

 

“How you dare, girl!” said the man, a bloke tall and strong, an almost six feet drunkard with a builded body, disgraced boxer and now a thug for one of the criminal families of New Orleans.

 

He rose from the ground, cleaning his mouth and fixing his disheveled brown redish hair.

 

“I'll teach you a lesson in manners, girl” said the brutish man.

 

“Left Alastor alone!” Aloÿia tried to protect his son but the man slapped her hard in the face, throwing her to the floor.

 

“Shut up, bitch!” he spat in her direction. “Come here, girl. Obey your father, -----”

 

“That's not my name!” said the boy, ready to react, to fight. “And I don't fear you.”

 

He said, grinding his teeth.

 

It was fast, his father took one of the knife from the table, they were about to eat after Alastor would finish with the garden... and rammed through the side of the stomach of the teenager. He didn't register the pain, he tried to defend himself but was overpowered in seconds. The brute grabbed him from the neck and tossed him to the ground hardly, still the knife embeded in the stomach.

 

The hit disoriented the young man for a moment but when he could focus his sight again, saw with horror how that... monster, was unbuckling.

 

“I'll teach you a lesson, bitch” he was saying, salivating like a fucking animal, releasing himself while holding the young man still.

 

Alastor tried to kick him, tried to claw him, to punch him in the sides.

 

“I'll show you to be a woman, you will learn that you're in this world to please men like me” he said, grunting while tearing apart the boy's clothes. “As God intended, this blasphemy is gonna end... I'll fuck some sense into you, -----, and you'll learn.”

 

The boy didn't want to scream, didn't want to gave him the satisfaction but he was realizing the maybe the thing he feared the most, the thing that disgusted the most, was about to happen. He felt the fear comming to him, the horror...

 

His mother moved, taking a crystal pitcher and breaking it in her husband's head, making him scream in pain... But he was still drunk and numb to pain.

 

“Fuckin' bitch!!” he screamed. “That's what I get for fuckin' a paperbag, fuckin' negr...”

 

He couldn't finish the slur. Alastor took the knife from his stomach and launched over his father like a feral animal, knocking the huge man down and start stabbing him with brutality, both hands over the knife, one, two, three... He was screaming while doing it, he was covering himself in blood and he didn't stop, not even when the man was dead. He continued and continued and continued... until the knife broke.

 

With a scream he tossed the broken handle and started to punch him, hard, until his mother hugged him, trying to calm her boy.

 

And he cried... like a baby, crying in the arms of his mother, still over the corpse of his father, bathed in blood.

 

The birth of a survivor and the raise of a demon.

 

***

 

Lucifer was panting, crying... hard, his breathing was failing him. All the sensations from Alastor he felt them, all his emotions...

 

And even using his power, the domain of the Radio Demon was so strong that even blocked his ability, hearing a sharp static noise in place of that dead name he hated with passion. And he knew it now, Lucifer knew it... He hated that name, he felt it.

 

And he couldn't stop crying, he couldn't. He moved his hand, tears falling from him to the chest of that man, damping his bandages. He caressed his face, like he needed it, like water in a dessert.

 

Alastor started to came back, to wake up and the first thing he saw when he could focus his gaze, still affected a little by the anesthesia, was the Devil, over him, crying hard tears and breathing heavy.

 

“Lucifer? What happened?” he asked, feeling his mouth dry.

 

“Sorry, Alastor, I'm sorry... I'm...” he shook his head. “I... I was never fair with you, I was... I... I'm sorry.”

 

And he didn't ask permission, he didn't say another word. He didn't thought that days before the deer demon was almost angry at him, keeping him an arm's lenghts, he didn't even thought in that he was recently intervened and needed rest and more healing. He just tried to find solace in his chest, crying over it and holding to him... And Alastor allowed him.

 

Something in that sadness was known to him, something familiar... And something that was impulsing him to care for the Devil trying to stop and dry his tears.

Notes:

Ok, a few things. Like fuck I was about to write my Alastor's deadname... and I thought it was a nice trick that not even revisiting his memories Lucifer could hear it.

Also, I was slightly uncomfortable with the slurs but... His father was a piece of fucking shit, of course he was with a black woman but was a fucking racist too.

Well, beast of a chapter, yeah... Anyway, next one it's gonna be interesting ^^

Chapter 32: A real effort

Summary:

Lucifer regrets the choice made, regret that his curiosity took the better of him and made him do something he knew was bad.

Alastor reacts to the transgression, place the cards over the table for the Devil and ask to be alone... The king uses this time to talk to an old friend.

Notes:

Well, I managed to upload sooner this time.

“Some humans would do anything to see if it was possible to do it. If you put a large switch in some cave somewhere, with a sign on it saying 'End-of-the-World Switch. PLEASE DO NOT TOUCH', the paint wouldn't even have time to dry.”

Terry Pratchett, Thief of time

 

“You did what?!” all the effect of the anesthesia in Alastor evaporated at once as soon as the monarch explained.

 

First, the deer demon was worried about him. That sadness looked so genuine, so... Even in the cobwebs of narcotics, the Radio Demon feared that something happened while he was being intervined. An attack on the hotel, the Von Eldritchs making their moves, he feared for his daughter, Rosie and Charlie for a moment and then he started to talk, to stutter his words, yes, but telling him exactly what he did and exactly what he saw.

 

“I'm sorry, Alastor” said the king, just to receive a growl from the overlord, taking his hands far from the king's. “I didn't want to...”

 

The demon scoffed.

 

“You didn't want to? That must be your fucking favorite song on how much you sing it” he bit the words. “It's like you think my boundries are your personal milestones, like you take them as a dare to your person.”

 

The monarch was still with the sensations from Alastor when he was a teen all over his body and he was still trying to calm his breathing and the way his hands were shaking... Maybe Lucifer was more powerful than Alastor, but mentally? The overlord was leagues above him since he was young, Alastor was not shaking in the memory.

 

“If I don't give you some information about myself, you have no right to find it by your means, specially using my unconsciousness for that” said the deer. “You have no claim over my fucking memories.”

 

He felt a tad, a pinch of pain in his chest. Knowing very well himself, he was sure that was feeling more painful that he had registered but like always happened with him when he was angry, tense or in the middle of a fight, he wasn't registering the pain over his body.

 

Lucifer moved the hand when he saw the expression of the overlord changing but Alastor bumped the hand away from him.

 

“Did you saw my death?” asked the man.

 

The Devil denied, vigorously.

 

“No, no... I... some flashes of fighting and those two memories, nothing more, I swear” he said.

 

“You're impossible!” said the red demon. “You already knew what happened with my father, you didn't need to violate that memory and Vox's... That's my private afterlife, you have no claim to my memories. Do you hear me? This isn't something you can't control, this is something I didn't want to talk with you and you probed, deliberately, intruding in my head not only without my permission, but with my prohibition even.”

 

Lucifer cleaned his tears with hands and fists.

 

“It's not like that!” said the monarch. “This power doesn't enter into your mind, just... catches on the energies of the past, in a pivotal point on something I touch and transport me there. I...”

 

“I don't want to hear it” said the demon. “This... this is starting to looks like what the queen told me.”

 

“What?” said Lucifer, surprised for the phrase.

 

“You can only see what you want, nothing more” started to spit the demon, trully annoyed. “And you just push until you get it, thinking you have all the right to it, like a petulant child to whom nobody said 'no' in his fucking life. You don't own me, Lucifer, I'm not yours to gain or keep, I'm not your concubine, not your fucking object... I'm starting to become tired of this, of all of this.”

 

“Alastor, please.. it was an error...” he tried to appease the demon.

 

“A deliberate one” said the demon, his eyes in full radio dials. “I didn't want to talk to you these days, you know why? Because I was mulling over what the queen told me and my memories were becoming raw with our time together, I didn't want to hurt you with my words, do you understand? I wanted to think, to analize in peace but you had to push and poke and demand my attention like I'm your fucking whore... We have a daughter in common, Lucifer, nothing more! And at this rate, we'll never have nothing more in common.”

 

The king was feeling him, the anxiety creeping over him like a shadow, coming to tense his stomach and make him sick.

 

“What are you telling me, Alastor?” asked the devil.

 

“I'm becoming tired, Lucifer” said the demon and, for the first time since their time together, he saw him plead, almost cry, with his feelings very on display in the surfice. “Do you understand what you are doing to me? You said you love me but I don't see love in any place with you. Every day you fill your mouth saying you want to change, make an effort, fix our past... you are not fixing our past, Lucifer! You're killing our future.”

 

Alastor for a moment moved his hands over his face, he was starting to feel all the pain of the operation mixing with those feelings that were becoming torture coming out of him.

 

“It's so hard for you to respect me, Lucifer?” he asked, softly, moving his eyes to see him. “I don't know if you really think you have a claim on me or you see me just like a sinner not worthy of your respect or... it's something that has to do with me. But is it so hard?”

 

His tone was almost a plead, almost begging for an answer... but was also sad, like the Radio Demon was about to cry according to the answer.

 

“No, no... It's not, it's just... I want this to work, I want to know you better and I don't want to lose you or Ankareeda and I'm so afraid, Alastor...” he was at the border of tears again. “And... I don't know how to treat you, how to show you what I mean, what you mean to me and I try to know you better so I can... I don't know...”

 

“Lucifer...” suddenly, the tone of Alastor was... soft but sad, was low.

 

His chin was almost to his chest, his eyes weren't focused in the devil but in some point in the sheets of his bed, his hands laxed over his lap.

 

“I know what I am, I know I'm not enough, I know what you are... specially what you are, high in your throne” said the demon. “But I can't go in this way, Lucifer. I'm torturing my daughter with my recurring nightmares with you, returning to be that monster that I learned to fear... I don't want to go, day by day, with panic over losing my freedom again, my soul, the autonomy over my body... I don't know if you understand, I don't know if you ever will understand. I only know I can't go like this, for the sake of my child.”

 

He took some air, the wounds in his chest were hurting him terrible in that moment but he was holding to finish his piece.

 

“If you continue to see me like something you deserve and owns... when all of this is finished, I'll depart” said the deer. “I don't want to hurt you with my words, they are not an ultimatum and I won't take my child like Lilith did. She loves her sister and the people of the hotel, she loves you even when she barely knows you, that's what she is... I guess in the part of angel in her... I'm not blackmailing you into a change that most likely you think you don't need to make or don't want. I know... what my real value is, despise all my bravado and egomaniacal antics... I'm stating facts, I can't continue in this way.”

 

Alastor moved, he needed to releave some pressure from the bandages over his chest, so he rested again in the bed, turning his back to Lucifer while resting on his side.

 

“We need to solve our current problems, I won't let Charlie, Rosie, my daughter and the hotel unprotected, so I'm not moving anywhere for now” he reassure the man with that sad low tone, being more communicative with him in those minutes than in all the time they knew each other. “But after all of this, Lucifer, I can't have this anymore, I need to be an stable father for Ankareeda and I'm too deep in misery and Hell to start to believe in miracles now.”

 

The king was feeling the weight of Alastor's sadness and self-loathing, feeling almost over his skin how the demon felt about himself or how he saw himself. And how he saw him.

 

At least that words, communicating with him, telling him he won't hide Anka from him, repeating his history, released part of the knot he had in his stomach, that anxiety that was that was danggling around him ready to asphyxiate him.

 

He moved a hand to touch the demon's back but he holded himself.

 

“Alastor...” he called softly the name of the deer demon.

 

“Please, let me rest” asked the Radio Demon. “It's all I ask for now, let me rest, please.”

 

The sincerity he just uttered took everything from him.

 

He was hurt physically and mentally, his chest was hurting the same as his heart and all the intrusive thoughts he always had, that he always had to fight doning the mask of a very secure demon, were creeping at the same time.

 

Alastor needed peace, he needed silence and solitude, so he could relieve his aching soul crying alone, trying to recover his composure because he was not only hurt by Lucifer's actions, his vulnerability was also something that always made him feel miniscule, like a frightened kid again.

 

Lucifer wanted to say so many things: he wanted to say that he loves him, that he was really making an effort, that angel he was but he wasn't perfect, that he made errors, honest mistakes not knowing the consecuences. He wanted to scream that he was the first time he was so invested into a soul, that he wanted to know him to understand better his limits and boundries, that he didn't want to hurt him... That he saw value in him, that he didn't took him like a commodity and certainly not like a peasant just destined to serve his king.

 

He barely saw himself as said king, for starters... He wanted but... Alastor was right, he deserved to be respected. He remembered the words from Belphegor, about letting them go so they can return...

 

“Ok, I'll return in a couple of hours to heal you again” he said, sotfly.

 

He wanted to add to call for him if he needed anything but he didn't, he just took the door of the room and went out, leaving Alastor, laying over his side, with tears running down his cheeks in a day he thought could be the happiest of his life or afterlife but it was moving as one of the saddest.

 

***

 

Lucifer was sitting in the waiting room of the hospital, trying to show an stoic facade. His feelings were only for Alastor and his daughters, he wasn't about to flaunt his fragility for all Hell to see, not when he was dancing the tango of trying to be a respected king once and for all.

 

He picked up his phone to distract himself and after browsing for a while, he decided he couldn't distract himself from the problem. He needed to talk and he knew he couldn't do it with Charlie and Husk had too much skin on the game with Alastor to be completelly direct with him.

 

The king moved to his contacts trying to find one.

 

Lucifer: Ozzie, you free?

Ozzie: For ya always, Lulu. Come, we'll have something to eat.

Lucifer: Portaling now.

 

He took his coat and hat, that he had removed previously, adjusted them and took his cane, snapping his fingers to create a portal to the Lust Ring, to the lounge of the Sin of Lust: Asmodeus.

 

The place was illuminate in that perpetual purple night that was so prevalent in the Lust Ring, with couches in different suggestive forms with a half moon table in the middle of them. The illumination was low, like provided by candlelight and the smells were vanilla and cinnamon mostly.

 

“Lulu!!” said the sin, in his comfortable home clothing going to hug the small man, carrying him to his arms and squishing to then kiss the short king in the forehead.

 

Asmodeus loved Lucifer. For him he was like a father and a brother at the same time: he had respect for him, the king raised him, like he did with the rest of the sins, but also they were confidents and maybe Ozzie was the sin whom the king felt always more akind.

 

“How are you, Lulu?” said Ozzie, passing his thumb over near Lucifer's eyes, in his cheeks. “You been crying, baby? What happened? Is Lily mortifying you again?”

 

“You can say that but... it's more complex...” he went to the hug of the sin and stayed like that for a moment.

 

“Ozzie? Here, I have the tea and the cookies... Oh...” Fizzarolli used his arms to stretch them to the table and leaving there the tray he was carrying. “I... I...”

 

The sin smiled softly.

 

“This is Fizzarolli, my partner” said the sin, smiling softly to the imp performer while releasing the king of Hell to the ground slowly.

 

“Business partner?” asked Lucifer.

 

“Partner, partner... I guess you're not much for gossip these days” said the rooster demon making a gesture for the shy imp to go near them.

 

The king nodded, he wasn't following much of the gossip of Hell or even news those days. In fact, since all of this started with Alastor's vengeance, he wasn't even using his phone that much. He made some searches about asexuality, touch aversion and trans males, some about deers and recommended books for young hellborn for Ankareeda, little more.

 

He knew who Fizzarolli was, he was the face of Mammon's business, his mascot, but he didn't know that they were together, together in that way. In fact, it was the first time that the Sin of Lust had a relationship.

 

“Well, I'm Lucifer Morningstar, it's a pleasure, Fizzarolli” he said, extending his hand to shake the hand of the imp.

 

Imp that was shaking, with his tail coiled around his own legs and not knowing what to do before the... well, Big Boss of Hell. Ozzie, that was behind Lucifer, made a gesture to his partner, encouraging him and he finally shook the monarch's hand.

 

“It's a p-pleasure, your majesty” he lowered his head, so fast that was also comical.

 

Lucifer released a little hissy laugh.

 

“No need, no need” he said.

 

The monarch looked back to the sin before going to sit at the couches, this one was mean to be a great idea. Having a partner and in a different social strata than him, will make Ozzie's advices invaluable for his predicament.

 

“Well, Lulu, start talking, baby” said the sin.

 

“Should I...?” Fizzy made a gesture over is shoulder with the thumb.

 

Ozzie looked back to Lucifer. Of course, for him he could stay but he didn't know if the monarch felt he needed more privacy than that.

 

“No, no, is ok... just... I need to talk, to someone, ask advice and... I don't want my predicament to leave this room” he said.

 

“Don't worry, Lulu, we are very discreet” said Ozzie. “Talk to us.”

 

Fizzarolli moved and sat near his partner and Lucifer sat in front of them, taking a cooking before start talking.

 

“I guess I should start at the beginning” said the king. “Eight years ago, in a party that Lilith organized...”

 

He told the full story, with both men snared into the king's tale. Fizz was all the time in silence but Ozzie sometimes asked things, little doubts... just clarifying things, not judgement or anything yet.

 

“Now he's in St. An, recovering from his surgery, alone...” finished the devil, with a sad semblance in his face.

 

Fizzarolli and Ozzie exchanged a look and the Sin raised to go to the other couch, catching the king in his arms and holding him there, sitting again under the surprised gaze of his partner. Fizzarolli was the first time that saw or met Lucifer, of course was the first time seeing the relationship that Ozzie had with the king. Seeing him taking the small man like a kid and holding him was shocking for him, to say the least.

 

“Oh, Lulu, you fucked up big time” said the huge rooster. “You know that, do you?”

 

Lucifer, who started to cry in that secured arms, sobbed a little and nodded.

 

“I won't chastise you too much because I know your screwups didn't come from evilness but fuck, Lulu, you fucked up” said the sin. “That poor deer man, Lulu... I know you said that Lilith had something to do with what you did in the past but... Things like not respecting his boundries, that's on you.”

 

“I know... I know it well and I fearing he will go and I won't see my daughter again, or see her again when she will be already a woman” he said.

 

“He told you he won't do that...” the rooster demon took the chin of the monarch to look at him. “Lulu, first things first, you'll need to learn to trust him. If you really want a future with this man, you need to trust him. You can't make a life with someone you think is gonna lie or be deceitful with you. And you'll need to learn to respect him, thing, trust me, you aren't doing.”

 

Lucifer didn't say a thing to that, he just sighed. He thought he did but... Two of the sins, two of his closest friends told him the same, any rational person could reach to the same conclusion he was having.

 

“I don't know what I should do, Ozzie, what to do to fix things with him” said the monarch.

 

“First, you really need to understand what you did wrong and the repercussions of your actions” said the sin. “Even if Lily placed a black hand in between now and then... First you started an unbalanced relationship in the power dynamics and you didn't place a single safeguard. That man, you said, is asexual and have aversion to touch, right? He also is in love since he was a teen...”

 

Lucifer nodded.

 

“But back in the day I didn't know” said the monarch. “He presented himself as a woman, he changed his name, I didn't related him with that teen boy I helped. And he never told me he was asexual, he just explained the touch thing, vaguely, and that he sometimes wasn't in the mood for sex, thing I saw like... I don't know, normal... but he was never...”

 

Ozzie moved his hand to make a signal for Lucifer to stop spiraling, because that was he was doing trying to explain himself.

 

“Ok, let me talk instead” said the rooster demon. “Even when you didn't know about the rest, still was a power unbalance and that can hurt, even kill, a relationship. You're the Devil, you're the most powerful being in all of Hell, Lulu... I know your relationship with Lilith ended up bad, worse than I thought with this new information you told me, but you had with her something good. You let her lead, have independance, the dominion of the home... When you have a relationship with such a drastic power dynamic, you need to reasure your partner.”

 

He moved his hand to take Fizzarolli's one, blushing the imp slightly with the soft touch and the idea that Ozzie was about to place themselves as an example.

 

“I'm a deadly sin, Froggy is a performer” like fuck he was about to reduce his life partner as just his origin. “There is a power dynamic there that can create problems. I never wanted for him to do things for me thinking he has to do them, sexually or otherwise. Sexually, I can go whatever he wants, when he wants and we go to his speed, testing new grounds, new things, kinks... In home, the same.”

 

Fizzarolli didn't know if he should talk but he finally did, if that helped the king.

 

“Yeah, I feel at home” said the imp. “I had my highs and my lows, specially when I was working with Mammon. I made a lot of efforts for a bitch that didn't deserve them. But with Ozzie I felt safe and like this space is my space.”

 

“Your deer, for what you explained, is speargunned to love you... obsessed with it in fact” said the sin. “That created a toxic dynamic where he wasn't clear and firm with his limits and boundries and you, inadvertently, abused your position with him. You were the king, his love, he had a pathological necessity to please you, specially after so many years trying to get to that position, and you... took advantage with that. Consensual is not a town on Lust... tho we have a street called that... I digress. Consent is the pillar of every relationship from regular vanilla to the most hardcore dom/sub relationships.”

 

Lucifer looked Ozzie in the face, he was understanding what he was saying (and feeling even shitter, if that's possible, than before) but he didn't know how he could do it better.

 

“You need to talk, a lot, with sincerity and openness on both sides, you need safeguards to shut down any unrequired advance, not only for him, even for you” he sighed. “And this taking you'll have that relationship you want with him, this is wishful thinking.”

 

“That's what I fear, that I can't get there...” said Lucifer, lowering his head, almost sinking over the lap of the huge sin.

 

“In fact is better for you to focus in the present” advised the sin. “You'll need to gain him if you want to have it, Lulu, because, trust me, you didn't earn an ounce of love or even caring from him. The fact that he still talks to you says a lot about him...”

 

Ozzie sighed, releasing the king to his side. The sin poured some tea for the monarch and offered him a colorful cookie.

 

“Thank you” said Lucifer, relaxing a little taking a sip and eating the cookie. “What is your advice, Ozzie?”

 

The rooster demon nodded with his most kind smile.

 

“First, you need to understand, Lulu, that you're the king of Hell, no one is gonna change that” he started to say, with a soft tone. “I know Lilith undermined you most, she told you really dreadful things and sank your ego but you are who you are, you don't need to prove it to your family or your paramour.”

 

Lucifer nooded. He understood that, part of his fury, of his... reactions, were rooted in that... verbal abuse that Lilith showered over him for almost two hundred years. He wanted to prove he wasn't that man that his ex-wife made out to be, the weak man that was nothing without her.

 

But Ozzie was right, there was a place for that.

 

“Then you need to start to show real interest in him” said the sin. “Darling, I know that Belphy is placing these tasks on you, but you need interest from yourself. And not curiosity that move you to do the fuckery you did today... Real interest, in his hobbies, his tastes... Did you have any date with him?”

 

Asked the sin and Lucifer before knew perfectly that the answer was 'no', of course not. Alastor threw himself at him as Milady, when he learned about what happened and new he strill loved him he assume that everything was just talked and sealed. Courtship and dates and knowing Alastor better wasn't something that was in his mind at that moment.

 

“Well, we went together to an overlord reunion with our daughter” he said and even he knew that doesn't count.

 

“Lulu...”

 

“I know, I know! I'm a mess!!” said the king, trying to not spill the tea from his cup in hands. “I'm not ignorant of these concepts but I never...”

 

“Me neither, Lulu!” said the sin with cheery disposition, taking Fizzarolli to his arms, hugging him. “I didn't know how to date but I talked to Fizz... We had our thing hush, hush but here, between these walls, we have dates and went to my club together, we danced... I talked to him, I learned. You can too!”

 

“Yeah, I didn't have dates before...” started to said Fizz, trying to support Ozzie's argument. “From the hospital, to work with Mammon... before I went out with a friend, nothing too much serious... Ozzie and I talked when we started this, what I wanted, what he wanted. We kept it quiet for Ozzie's reputation but... It eneded up being the worst kept secret in Hell.”

 

Lucifer was curious.

 

“Why keeping it secret?” he asked, taking a bit of his tea.

 

The rooster demon and the imp looked to each other.

 

“Well, I'm an imp, he's a deadly sin... a noble with a...” Fizzy shrugged.

 

“I don't see the problem” said the monarch. “Lilith, that harpy could want to think about herself whatever, but she's a sinner. The man I want in my life is a sinner... I don't see the problem and I hope nobody is stupid enough to see a problem with my chosen partners because I won't fucking hesitate.”

 

Ozzie smiled broadly looking to Lucifer.

 

“And that's what I love from you, Lulu... But...” the sin sighed. “I'm Lust, being in a monogamous relationship with love...”

 

“Love is part of Lust, told you before” said the king, reminding the sin of old times, on a moment of crisis where Ozzie had doubts about the very thing he represented. “Heaven be damn but here we have love too and love comes in a lot of formats but when can come with lust. Desire your partner is very normal and sex becomes better if you love the other person...”

 

The Sin nodded, because the sensations he had with Fizzarolli were new for him, like he was discovering pleasure all over again.

 

“In any case, you are right” continued to say Lucifer. “I'm been treating this like I have Alastor in my pocket just because I know he loves me. I was trying to gather information like he was a project and not a person and leaving my curiosity to take the best of me. And you are right... I want to prove I'm not that useless Fallen Angel my wife told me I was, a useless monarch... but I shouldn't be trying to show Alastor that I'm a powerful king or strong and... I need to be sincere with him and talk and... Stop trying to be dominant when I don't have experience in that and I don't know the limits.”

 

Ozzie nodded.

 

“I can help you with that, Lulu, we can” he said, including Fizzarolli.

 

The imp also nodded. The king got into his good graces in record time, not only because he was important for his partner but because the way he talked and behaved.

 

They talked at least for another hour, Fizzarolli and Lucifer exchanged contact info so they could talk via Voxtagram and the monarch decided to return to the hospital to heal Alastor again and see if the deer demon needed something.

 

“He looked really sad, traumatized even” said the clown, sitting in his lover's lap and resting his head over the wide chest of the rooster demon.

 

“Yeah, Lulu suffered a lot, even he doesn't understand how much” Fizzy looked to Ozzie's face with curiosity. “He was King in Heaven, you know? Most people outside some goetia and we sins knows that here in Hell and he was sided from the beginning by his twin Michael. Then he felt in love with the First Woman, he tried to save the Second Woman from Adam... they had a poly, for a time... but Heaven catched up, they learned about Hell... Only his twin brother and a sister, Azrael, took his side and Michael at the end didn't follow through. He was the one to sentence him here, with just Lilith... Then, after so many milenia being the perfect power couple, she got pregnant, Lucifer signed a treaty for the exterminations in Pride Ring and she... He doesn't see it that way, not even today with him hating her guts, but she abused him.”

 

“Really?” asked the performer.

 

Ozzie nodded.

 

“Emotionally, psychologically and physically” he sighed. “I think he doesn't want to admit she abused him to not feel more powerless or because he still loves her a little. I don't know but... He let her even hit him until he exploded and broke her wrist. She tried, again, in occasions but he didn't let her anymore. She even tried to kill him once with an angelic sword.”

 

“Oh, shit, really? Fuck... I didn't know the royal family was that... mess up and less the queen, she seems so... different. I saw interviews of her and I went to a couple of her concerts.”

 

“Yeah, appareances are deceiving, Lucifer in his interviews in magazines and tv always looks prideful and secure of himself, boastful even but it's a mask” said the sin. “You already saw how he is. It's just a Fallen Angel that was forsaken for his family, his queen abused him and, worst, she took their child, Charlie, and Lucifer didn't saw her grow all her childhood and now this, with a complot behind and trying to gain the affections of a man that looks like more damaged emotionally than him. And with a little girl in the middle!”

 

Ozzie sank on the couch and kissed Fizzy, like he needed affection in that moment.

 

“The poor thing will need to make an effort to escape this cicle of abuse” said the rooster.

 

“Cicle of abuse?” questioned the imp with curiosity.

 

“You never heard that?” asked Asmodeus, Fizzarolli denied. “A supervisor screams to a boss, the boss to an employee, the employee to his wife, the wife to the kids and the kids bullying others in school... Hurt and violence is like a virus, trying to infect everyone around. Heaven forced a hateful decree that was just Adam excuse to kill sinners, Lilith frustrated decided to hurt Lucifer in any shape or form and it was easy for her because he loved her and because Lucifer always let her carry the pants of the relationship and the kingdom. She was the one in charge, even when the real power was Lucifer's... He suffered that situation because he loved her and because of his daughter but of course, we all have a breaking point... After Lucifer and Lilith really split, he decided to be far from her shadow. He started to fuck around with any woman that let him, women came to his feet, men too but he was so self-conscious about something new to him that he repressed the desire... He was going out little but he was trying to show himself like this secure and powerful king... Then, eight years ago he just locked himself in his manor and now we know why.”

 

“He meet this guy and, after living that abuse, he tried to be in control all the time” said the clown.

 

“And that hurt his relationship... together with that complot, yes... And now the fruits from that are here and for him is very difficult to deal” said the sin. “I want to help him, Froggy... He deserves happiness but also for my new niece. Niece I need to know yet... Maybe I could persuade Lucifer to throw a party, to see Charlie again and now my niece and this deer demon.”

 

“It's a good idea... Also I can teach sign language to the king” said the clown. “We both can, I still remember how we both learned to communicate instead of going with the notebooks when we meet, with my busted hearing.”

 

Ozzie kissed his lips almost chaste.

 

“For you everything, Froggy, always... I didn't mind to write you, I didn't mind to learn... But hey, now that will serve to communicate with my little niece” he smiled. “We'll help Lulu with this and I'll introduce you to Charlie too.”

 

The imp nodded and snuggle more over his lover.

 

“I'll love that, Ozzie”

 

***

 

When Lucifer returned to Alastor's room in the hospital, the deer was laying over his back with his eyes close but he opened them when he noticed he was inside.

 

“How are you feeling?” asked the monarch, going near the bed.

 

“Good” said Alastor, he wasn't being cold... he was just tired.

 

“You don't look good... is it hurting?” asked Lucifer.

 

The Radio Demon, if he wasn't sad and hurting, could be sarcastic, could be cutting or cunning even with his response but he was tired.

 

“A little” he lied.

 

“I can relieve you, if you want to...” said the king he didn't move, he just stayed there, near the bed, waiting.

 

Alastor looked to the face of the monarch to then look to the ceiling again.

 

“You been crying” it wasn't a question.

 

“I washed my face before coming to the room, how do you know?” asked the devil, who was completelly sure that no one was about to notice that.

 

“You tend to lock on emotions for a time” said the deer. “Your eyes look like they are ready to cry again.”

 

He sighed and then he flinched for a second, he couldn't repress the expression of pain over his face.

 

“I can heal you and also take part of the pain with me, if you want to” Alastor didn't response to him, so Lucifer added. “Well, I'll be out there if you need me.”

 

He moved to go out of the room and when he was about to open the door, the deer demon called for him.

 

“Sire?” he said, turning Lucifer to face him. “I'll appreciate a lot if you can help me.”

 

He said, softly. Lucifer nodded, he didn't smile just nodded and moved to the side of the bed again, moving his hands over the chest of the deer demon and closing his eyes, releasing his angelic healing over the body of the demon. The pain he couldn't erase it but he could take part of him and suffer it himself, so he did.

 

While he was concentrating in his task, Alastor talked again.

 

“What I told you... it's true” started to say the deer. “I won't take my daughter from you, I'm not Lilith. If I go, I won't go far... maybe Cannibal Town, buying a cozy house there. You and Charlie and the rest will be free to visit her. I'll even continue to help Charlie if she asks me.”

 

He sighed, closing his eyes.

 

“Apparently my desire to keep your daughter at arm's lenght was for naught, I sadly got... accostumed to her” he said, with the permanent smile of his face going soft. “I don't want you to think this as a punishment, it's just... I need to center myself in what is important and my child needs me stable and sane, at least as much as I'm now, maybe that ship already sailed time ago...”

 

Lucifer continued with this task, listening to the demon and letting him explain himself. Even when he was the one that trespassed into Alastor's memories, the demon was really trying to explain himself, to show him some care. Ozzie was right, Alastor's actions talked stronger than his words.

 

“What I want to say... I don't want to hurt you, Lucifer but maybe I'm not what you need” said the deer demon. “You need someone that doesn't question your authority, that can... give you pleasure freely and contact. You're very fond of physical contact, shows of affection... You need someone you can hug and kiss whenever you feel like it. I'm not that person, Lucifer, and it's not something I can change. You also need someone without... baggage. You already have your problems, you don't need the problems of others over your head. And then is the... hierarchy.”

 

“What about that?” he knew what the demon was about to say but he asked anyway.

 

“I'm an overlord” said Alastor. “Powerful for some but still miles, leagues under your position. You're a god in this shithole and I'm only a slightly bigger ant.”

 

He denied.

 

“Only a kid could think you would need someone like me for anything” he said and the sadness was permeating over every word he was saying. “Maybe is time to shush my inner child and face my reality.”

 

Lucifer sighed before talking, he didn't stop to heal him, he only flinched a little because he was sharing in the pain of the deer. He didn't look at him, with his golden sclera eyes with red irises fixed, paintfully, to the task.

 

“So... according to you, I need a concubine” started to say the king, not offended, not angry, just serious. “A Goetia, so our social status is similar, that never questions me, always ready to please, with a blank slate as story, nothing important or significant in their life... It sounds depressing. Not a single interesting theme for conversation, nothing interesting to know, sex on demand is also extremelly boring, I don't need legs easy to part, I want the seduction, the dance... not someone that will pump me or, even worse, fake an orgasm for me and my easily to bruise ego.”

 

He said, using Alastor's own words.

 

“And noble demons... goetias...” he scoffed. “I know how they are and taking out rare exceptions, trust me, I prefer to plunge my dick into sulfuric acid. I don't know if we have a future together more than being both fathers for Ankareeda, I don't know if we can have something... But if the answer is 'no', it won't be for you but for me. Not your deficiencies but mine, my fault. But... I refuse to accept that yet.”

 

The monarch finished with the healing and grunted, feeling part of the pain of Alastor over himself, he even coiled a little to feel it less. And that was a part, not completelly... that deer demon was builded like a fucking block. He was really a seasoned motherfucker.

 

“Not without really trying, at least” he said. “Chatting with a friend, something he said made me think: I approched all of this like everything was already in the past. And it's not correct. We... never dated, we never talked, regular conversation just to laugh or have fun or really know more about each other. I was taking this like the time together was the result but we never started!”

 

Alastor moved to sit on the bed, using a button in the very same to have his back supported.

 

“So.. you are saying, you want us to start dating?” he rose a brow. “Like we are two... prepubescent kids going for milkshakes and dancing?”

 

Lucifer raised a brow and a timid smile perched in his face.

 

“Hold in there, Danny Zuko” said the king, joking. “Before you dust out from your closet your T-Birds leather jacket, we adults also date. You told me you were a social bird in your time, you must know. I was thinking... We could go to dinner and dancing. I played music with you when you were a teen but I never danced with you... I don't know if you can catch up with me...”

 

He said, with false pride, placing his hand over his chest and smiling.

 

“Don't be so sure of yourself, your highness” said the demon, also with a soft but playful smile. “When I was alive my dance card was always full and not much of the gals managed to keep up with me. I bet I can outdance you.”

 

The king rested his arms over the bed and layed his head over them, tilting it. Alastor never saw him so handsome as he was in that moment and a little blush came to his cheeks summoned by his thoughts.

 

“I want to see you try, Al” said the monarch, pure charm and sweetness.

 

Alastor didn't like sweets, not in life, not in his afterlife. Bitter was his flavour, like his life, like his choices, like his reality... but... for a moment, the Radio Demon thought he could really like that sweet and even make it his favorite flavour.

Notes:

Next is interesting, a relaxed chapter before we start with some meaty parts, we need calm before the storm.

Chapter 33: Presents

Summary:

Alastor returns from the hospital with a sunnier disposition than before, less gloomy and more joking.

While planning the imminent date between the Radio Demon and the Devil, they receive two visits in the hotel.

Notes:

Not so long or so short of a chapter. I was planning to add here the date itself but that would make it massive so I decided to separed it in two.

“If you want to change things, you're going to have to go out there and change them yourself because there are no fairy godmothers in this world.”

Emma, Once upon a time

 

Alastor, in the end, was just one day and a half on the hospital and the first thing he did when he returned to the hotel, after hugging his little one, was to cook some food.

 

He hated the food from the hospital. Healthy and all they wanted to call it but he thought there were places in Vietnam during the war that had more humanly types of torture than that bland and awful cooking. In fact, boiling vegetables in water with not even a pinch of salt for him wasn't cooking the same way that taking a photo didn't make you a model.

 

And not to talk about the meat... He was famous for his voracity and his iron stomach. He ate everything: humans, sinners, hellborn, every animal that was cooked in the Living World and all the eatable species from Hell, angels... He was always attracted to meat and being rotten wasn't a deterrant for him. One look, one, to the supposed pork from the hospital and he lost completelly his appetite.

 

Luckely, the devil was there to assist so in a secret mission on his own, he managed to hide from the nurses a ham and cheese sandwich from the vending machine in the waiting room and a hot coffee and after a day refusing the food from the hospital, Alastor ate that with such moans of satisfaction that Lucifer had to sit and cross his legs to hide a prominent tent in his pants... When Alastor drank the black coffee and started to lick his lips, Lucifer decided to go to the bathroom to take care of business so he could think again.

 

The Radio Demon was now making those sounds again, sitting in the kitchen partaking in a sirloin that he cooked in a moment, eyes close to enjoy better when he was chewing.

 

“Oh, merciful god, I needed this” he said, cutting another piece of meat.

 

Ankareeda was sitting right by his side, smiling widely and seeing him enjoy the food.

 

In that moment Angel Dust, Husk, Niffty, Charlie and Vaggie were coming to the kitchen. When both men returned, Anka was reading in the lobby and Husk was there too, he offered himself to go fetch the rest so they could greet the overlord after his come back from the hospital.

 

“Al!” Charlie was the first one going to him, hugging him strong when he was about to eat another piece of the meat, so he stood in that posture, with the fork near his mouth. “How are you? Everything ok? Oh, sorry, maybe I'm hurting you...”

 

She moved fast but the demon just sighed and moved his free hand to keep her near, smiling softly at her.

 

“Don't worry for me, darling” said the overlord. “Your father and Belphegor's ministrations healed completelly the scars. Don't hurt at all, there are like the rest I have by now.”

 

“I'm so glad” she hugged him again. “How are you feeling?”

 

“I'm not use to be idle so much time, so I'm restless” said the demon. “And I was hungry but I'm solving that right now.”

 

He said, taking another piece of meat.

 

“Glad you're ok, shitlord” said Vaggie. “We have a couple of things you'll need to look at.”

 

“Yeah, also we need some product” said Husk, point over his shoulder with the thumb. “Angel had a drink off with Cherri and we are low in vodka and tequila.”

 

“And I need more bleach!!” said Niffty, raising her hand. “And one of the washing machines it's making a funny noise... tuk, tuk, pam, pam, tuk, tuk, pam, pam!!”

 

She said, recreating the noise.

 

“My, my... you know how to make a man feel needed” he said with a smirk.

 

Ankareeda touched then his arm to call for his attention and then signed, something about his chest.

 

“Oh, you want to see...” he looked around. His daughter wasn't the only one curious.

 

He sighed, took another piece of steak, rested the cutlery and rose from his seat.

 

“I'm not much for showing my body but I think the occasion is a worthy one” he removed his bowtie, lost the buckles in his crossed suspenders and unbuttoned his shirt, opening it freely to then raise the undershirt.

 

Alastor chest was wide, slightly muscular and definitely masculine and he had a shit ton of scars, including the one under his belly in horizontal and the one that Adam made, from the beginning of his neck to be near his bellybutton. Now, two new scars were in his chest, under his pects, thin and already healed, those two scars were in the shape of...

 

“Antlers?” said Angel, coming closer with the overlord to see them better. “So thin and artistic, damn, Al, Belphegor's an artist.”

 

The Radio Demon nodded.

 

“She told me, when I asked the first time I saw them, that she thought about just making a thin line but taking the quantity of scars I don, she decided to not do something so pedestrian. She knew how important that was for me, so she wanted to make it memorable. I kinda of like them.”

 

Angel Dust chuckle and moved nearer the man.

 

“Ya know, Smiles, those are kinda hot” said the pornstar. “If ya wanna change your taste from shorter lovers to very tall ones, you know in what room I sleep.”

 

He winked. He was joking, that was his way to joke and Alastor knew it and he didn't felt uncomfortable with Angel, specially because even with that seducing routine, he didn't even touch him once.

 

Lucifer, on the other hand, was serious, frowning and growling a little while looking to the spider demon. Alastor ignored the monarch and moved just one step towards Angel, taking his hand, surprising the sinner.

 

“If some day I decide to start with guided visits to my body, you'll be my first tourist, mon ange” he said, kissing his hand.

 

Angel was blushing... fucking Angel Dust was blushing giving his face a hue of peach that for Alastor was extremelly funny. The rest of the group were surprised and Lucifer was... Well, gladly his powers needed a huge dose of intent and will or now all be covering in spider guts and bits for the way he was looking to the pornstar.

 

“Oh, fuck, Alastor...” he said, was almost a moan.

 

He moved the hand from the Radio Demon's, causing huge satisfaction on the deer, with that smile that was wicked and playfull in equal messure.

 

“Cover yourself, mistah!! This is a public area!” said Angel, trying to control the burning sensation in his cheeks while moving his hands to try to hide the wide and muscular chest of the overlord from his sight, trying to close his shirt while not seeing in that direction, like it was the head of the Medussa.

 

Alastor laughing, started to fix his clothes again.

 

“Well, dearies, I need to finish my lunch and ask my daughter about these days without me” said the overlord, adjusting his monocle. “When I finish I'll take care of the little things of the hotel, don't worry.”

 

He said, sitting again to eat.

 

“Sure, on your own time, Al” said Charlie, giving him another quick hug to then all move out of the kitchen except Lucifer and Anka.

 

And the king was still throwing daggers with his eyes to the back of Angel while he was going out of the place, looking to the closed door for a moment like a dare to come back.

 

“My, my, are you jealous, your highness?” asked the demon, savoring his food... and Lucifer's expression.

 

“I'm not” he said, crossing his arms.

 

“Next time school your face before the deed, Father of Lies” said the demon, having fun.

 

Lucifer growled but then he took a good sighed with his eyes closed, opening then with a soft smile.

 

“Well, how about tomorrow?” asked the king.

 

“Tomorrow what?” asked the deer.

 

“Date, remember? Dinner and dancing?” he said, making the gestures for both things.

 

“So soon?” asked the man.

 

The king nodded.

 

“There is no time like the present” responded the monarch. “Also we have a ton of shit to do with the Von Eldritch and what not... maybe a little bit of fun before we start will be good.”

 

Alastor, with a piece of the sirloin in his fork, moved it like he was thinking.

 

“And I thought that maiming, torturing, killing and eating the Von Eldritchs was meant to be my fun” he said, with a wicked smile.

 

“Healthier fun before the 'We ride at dawn' fun?” said the monarch with a smile.

 

Ankareeda signed, looking alternative between both men.

 

“Yes, we are going on a date” that made the girl to close her little fists, smiling widely and almost jumping in her seat.

 

She jumped from the chair and moved to be between both men, signing fast, pointing to both... Lucifer could catch a couple of signs he knew, like about what they were going and what they were about to eat but nothing more.

 

“It's just a date, love” said Alastor, she signed. “Yes, it's a step but just a date. It's not like Lucifer is forgiven for everything.”

 

She nodded to then look at them again, jumped while holding her fists with a huge smile and then... in a improvised move, pure instint, the girl hugged Lucifer and then her father, going out of the kitchen while signing.

 

“I can select my own clothing, little lady!” said Alastor but the girl was just out of reach.

 

The demon sighed to then shook his head but his smile was soft. His daughter was very excited with the idea and that made him happy but he still wasn't so sure in the king, his progress or if a thing like a date could change things.

 

“She hugged me” Alastor looked back to Lucifer, who was very emotional in that moment. “It's the first time she hugs me.”

 

“Don't get used to it” said the deer demon but he didn't added more, seeing the monarch in that moment un pure cloud nine.

 

***

 

Lucifer and Charlie were in the lobby of the hotel, with Ankareeda teaching them new signs and trying to got easy conversation so they could practice to understand her when the Radio Demon, that was supposedly fixing the walls in the third floor, appeared from a shadow with an expression that was a mix between attention and aggression, with his ears pinned down his head.

 

The king knowing that, was in alert too in a moment.

 

“What, Alastor?” he asked.

 

“I'm feeling another overlord near the hotel, still not in the entrance but near” said the deer demon that for Lucifer in that moment, looked like a guardian dog, with his eyes fixed on the door and sniffing the air around him.

 

“You can feel other overlords?” asked the monarch, curious.

 

The Radio Demon nodded.

 

“Yes, when a demon have one or two contracts no but so many contracts as an overlord have and they vibe in certain frequency” explained Alastor. “It's like a radio wave, that helped me a lot when I was hunting them.”

 

He smelled some more and tilted his head. His ears moved up, the king knew he recognized the 'intrussion'. The deer demon moved to the door of the hotel and opened it.

 

“Carmilla, it's a pleasure” he said in the same second, even before seeing the woman, making a bow and pointing to the interior of the hotel.

 

The weapons overlord was there with her daughters and some prettily presented boxes in their hands.

 

“I hope it's not a problem that we decided to visit the hotel” said the woman to then bow when she saw the king. “Your majesty.”

 

Her daughters bowed too and Ankareeda moved near the three women with a smile to then sign and made the same gesture Alastor did, like giving them the welcome.

 

“She says 'Welcome to the Hazbin Hotel'” translated Alastor before the woman asked.

 

“Thank you, Ankareeda” said the weapons dealer, with a huge smile for the girl. “We can't stay much, we have a delivery near here. I brought some things for you, little one.”

 

The girl signed, pointing to herself and the spaniard overlord nodded presenting the packages she and her daughters were carrying.

 

“Also I wanted to talk to Vaggie, is she here?”she asked, while Anka was with Odette and Clara, with the young women helping the girl to open the presents.

 

Alastor didn't response, he looked back to his shadow and Oncle moved to fetch the ex-exorcist. The girl, that was already sitting in the ground with the packages around her and the daughters of Carmilla helping her, signed to the woman.

 

“She said 'Oncle is bringing Vaggie now'” said the deer demon.

 

“Who's Oncle?” she asked, curious, not recognizing the name from the information she previously had of the hotel.

 

“My shadow” responded Alastor.

 

“You named your shadow? First news I have... you were always very impersonal with the creature” commented the woman, alternating a look to Alastor to a gaze to Ankareeda, smiling softly when the girl started to open the presents.

 

“She named him” said the Radio Demon. “And give him pronouns, least thing I can do is use them.”

 

Said the demon, shrugging.

 

In that moment Vaggie was coming with Alastor's shadow and the creature went near Ankareeda while the girl was showing him the dresses Carmilla got for her, a science's set and some books. Oncle was asking the girl using sign and she was responding, with that huge smile in her face that was making the demon smile softly in response.

 

“Carmilla, didn't know you'll be coming 'round here” said the fallen angel. “And you brought things for Anka, I see. You couldn't resist her charm, eh?”

 

Lucifer moved near the two young women, the shadow and his daughter to see the things the weapons expert got for her, centering himself in the titles of the books. One of them was an introduction to spanish for kids, one was a classic of Spain's literature 'The Spanish Sharper' by Francisco de Quevedo and another of the books was another classic, from Bécquer, a recopilation of his Legends.

 

Interesting choices, thought the king. First Quevedo was known for his capacity to words, for his sharp intellect and how good he was at banter. Bécquer had poems and legends, and the legends were the most interesting of both, tho the Devil was almost the protagonist of the majority of those. He didn't know if he liked the idea of his little girl learning all those awful legends about him from the Living World and how the mortals saw him but he didn't commented about it.

 

“She's as charming as her father” said the woman in response to Vaggie, but she didn't say what father she was mentioning. “I got the information you asked me, can we talk in privite?”

 

The ex-exorcist nodded and both women went to the parlor to talk.

 

Charlie also went with Anka, looking to the dresses and the books.

 

“Do you like them?” asked Clara with a soft smile.

 

Ankareeda signed while nodding.

 

“She said she loves to read but she didn't read many classics yet, specially outside US, but she read Don Quixote” translated the Radio Demon.

 

“Don Quijote?” asked Odette. “Mother was right, she likes complicated things. Don Quijote isn't a book for kids.”

 

The girl was beaming with pride, knowing that also that Alastor was feeling equally proudful.

 

“She's very intelligent” said Lucifer with a soft smile.

 

When Vaggie and Carmilla finished to talk, both women returned to the lobby and the overlord explained her selections to Anka, saying those books were her favorites and that she looked bright and maybe she would like to learn spanish too.

 

The girl responded, with the help of Alastor, that she knew french so she thanked her, even gave her a hug and the woman and her daughters went out of the hotel after saying good bye. Not even five minutes passed when the deer demon was again in his position as a guardian dog, looking to the door.

 

“It can't be...” he said.

 

Anka was still looking through her presentes when Alastor opened the door with a tense gesture. On the other side of the door, there was Vox, with the expression of someone that is going to enemy lines with the best intention in the world but knowing he could be capture and kill in any second... With torture sprinkled in the middle and all.

 

“What the fuck are you doing here?” asked Alastor.

 

“If you have more information, the phone is fine, pet” said Lucifer, going near the red demon. “You won't get points for coming to me like a trained labrador.”

 

The demon had two packages in his hands and that made Alastor roll his eyes.

 

“Good day to both of you” said the demon, slightly sarcastic. “I came baring presents, in fact. Can I come in?”

 

“No!” responded both Lucifer and Alastor at the same time.

 

Charlie, that was helping Anka to fold the dresses, came to the door denying with her head in disbelieve looking to both Alastor and Lucifer.

 

“Oh, don't be that way” she said, smiling then to the Tv Demon. “C'mon in, welcome to the Hazbin Hotel, Vox. So... you're bringing gifts? Funny thing, first trying to kill my father then bringing presents to my hotel.”

 

She raised a brow, she was being accomodating and nice but she obviously had a bone to pick with the overlord.

 

“Sorry, princess... That was.. stupid for my part” said the man. “It's an error that I won't repeat any time soon.”

 

“Fucking sure you won't” said Lucifer, scoffing.

 

“I brought something for Ankareeda and... something for Alastor” the deer overlord raised a brow. “A bird told me you were released today from the hospital. And... I'm happy for you, Al.”

 

And... the Radio Demon didn't know how to react to that. For a moment he was not only shocked but also silent, Vox looked really genuine... There were no questions, doubts, asking if he was sure. He was happy for him, because he knew that was something he wanted all his life.

 

Anka moved and signed to the Vee.

 

“You don't need to thank me for your dad, Anka” said the demon. “We are friends but... I admit I wasn't a very good friend for him. I hope now that I'm working for the king, we could be in better terms... If he likes it.”

 

Alastor just sighed, long and deep, to then extend the hand when he saw a gesture of encouragement from his daughter.

 

“For fucks sake, give me the present” said Alastor extending his hand.

 

Ankareeda also extended hers and waited with a huge smile for her present.

 

“This is for you, darling, and this is for you, Al” said the TV Demon. “Hope you like it.”

 

The girl started to removed the cute wrapping paper and then open the box to extract a tactil tablec from it, opening her eyes widely.

 

“Did you really gifted her one of your inventions?” asked the deer demon, with revulsion, looking to the Voxtek logo in the back of the tablet.

 

“It's an old model and isn't link to my services, so you can be sure she won't see the dumbfuckery of Hell” he said, with a smile. “Also, I can't interact with it and you can make sure I can't with your magicks anyway.”

 

The TV demon went down on a knee to show the girl how to power on the tablet and showed to her some of the fundtions.

 

“I invested a couple of hours finding something you could like or you could learn from” said the overlord. “I installed some memory games, logic puzzles, questionnaires about general information and math, specially... Also there are some basics about computers and electronics. And there are books, adventure books!”

 

Ankareeda was very excited over the idea of having something like that. Sure, Alastor didn't want his daughter to be stuck on 1930 but still his introductions to tecnology varied from lacking to nonexistant.

 

“She already have books” said Alastor, that was lazily opening his own present.

 

“These are different” said the tv overlord, to then look at the girl moving his hands like he was making a presentation. “These are 'Follow your own adventure' books. You're the protagonist and you decided what happens from the options the book gives you and read what happens next. Also, I added a cute game that teach kids how to cook and... here... Information on the Vees!”

 

Alastor grunted.

 

“Knowing your papa, sure you doesn't know much about us... and it's good to be informed” he said, with a huge smile.

 

“She only needs useful information of the players of the city” he said, finishing to open the package with his present. “Oh... is this what I think it is?”

 

Vox rose from the floor, with that smirk of security in his face.

 

“Mortlach, 1930, single malt... You said you wanted to taste it” said the overlord. “I paid handsomely to a nice incubus guy to get me a bottle. It's from an auction in the Living World, hope you don't mind how deteriorated is the label.”

 

The smile of Alastor softened considerably, observing the bottle in his hand. He talked about that whiskey almost fifty years ago and Vox still remembered it. Thinking in that, he then notice another thing that was in the box.

 

“What is this?” he asked.

 

“I know you prefer spider lilies or roses and I remember you can't touch them because your shadow magic wither them... but, taking the art of the flowers language, I decided to present you with that one. It's a white tulip encased in crystal... so you can touch it and will be always fresh.”

 

He started to say, taking the single flower and show it to Alastor.

 

“In the language of flowers symbolize rebirth, renewal, hope... and forgiveness” said the tv demon. “I hope for this to be a peace offering so we can bury the hatchet, specially taking we are collaborating now... Together with his majesty, of course.”

 

Said majesty was fuming near them, almost rubbing with the deer overlord like he was marking his territory and he was in a mix of feeling jealous and feeling unfit. Lucifer forgot to gift something to Alastor to celebrate, he never thought about that and he had to admit to himself, he didn't know what to gift either.

 

The bottle of whiskey was one thing but the flower struck a never in him. It was a marvelous detail and that refreshed his memory about how much the man loved, when he was a boy, to work with plants and flowers in his mother's garden. He didn't knew he whitered flowers with his touch.

 

“It's...” the Radio Demon cleared his throat. “It's very nice, Vox... I... I like it. And... we'll see, if you're useful for us, maybe we can fix things, a little. At least to the point of not killing you.”

 

“It's all I'll ask” said the tv overlord.

 

Ankareeda signed thanks to the man to then move to give him a hug and that torn a growl from Lucifer's throat. It was completelly involuntary but that very same day his daughter hugged him for the first time and now he was feeling like that hug wasn't as important as he felt it was.

 

“There is no need, Anka... Hope you enjoy much your present” Vox pointed with his thumb over his shoulder looking to Alastor. “I should go, you know I got anxious when I'm too much time outside home. Enjoy the bottle... and congrats again, Alastor.”

 

The Radio Demon just nodded while the other overlord decided to say goodbye and go. The deer was smiling softly, looking to the bottle while Anka was showing the table to Charlie and Vaggie... Lucifer was fumming, walking like a reflex toe to toe with Alastor.

 

“Are you sulking again?” asked the red demon, looking to the king for a moment. “You know you don't have a reason to be jealous, right?”

 

The Devil nodded.

 

“I know and I trust you know what to do or don't with that sinner” said the monarch. “I trust your judgement... But that doesn't mean I have to like the bitch. Also...”

 

He sighed.

 

“I didn't get you anything as a present...” mulled the king.

 

Alastor raised a brow.

 

“You got me that delicious sandwich that was my salvation and the coffee” said the deer demon. “Trust me that I value that more than a good bottle of rye.”

 

He said, with a soft smile.

 

“By the way” interrupted Vaggie. “I asked Carmilla for some information on the Von Eldritch family.”

 

Both men moved their heads to pay attention to the woman, with Ankareeda, also sitting with her tablet in the couch near them but resting the object in her lap to pay attention too.

 

“What information?” asked the monarch, with the expression of something fearing something that could destroy their plans.

 

He didn't want some leak to reach the Von Eldritch before the time was right to crush them.

 

“You two make your investigations for your side, Charlie and I for ours” said the woman, very proud. “And no, I know what you're thinking. We didn't tell her the full picture. We told her that we knew the Von Eldritch wanted to damage our project and we wanted to protect ourselves.”

 

“Yes, we were talking, with the things you told us, we wanted to know if the Von Eldritch were planning something for the hotel or in general” said the princess to then led her fiancée to talk.

 

“The Von Eldritch tried to buy weapons from Carmilla, in big quantities” said the ex-exorcist. “After Lucifer's chat with her, she was on her toes and the petition was strange for her so she's beating the bushes, stalling them. She said she doesn't want for them to go to the black markets to get their weapons, so she told them she's making a new special consignment and to wait a little.”

 

“Angelic, I deduce” said the deer demon.

 

Vaggie nodded.

 

“We need to move fast before they equip themselves or this is gonna be harder” said the red demon to the monarch.

 

Lucifer sighed.

 

“And you need to be careful” said the king. “Both now and when we'll going to destroy them.”

 

The Radio Demon nodded. Well, the possibility for the Von Eldritchs to fight back was more a pro for him than a hindrance... how good was a hunt if the prey didn't fight back?

 

***

 

The next day, almost at night, Alastor was recently showered, still drying his hair and looking to the bed, where Ankareeda placed the pieces of clothing she wanted him to wear to the king's date.

 

“Are you sure?” he asked.

 

She nodded, the girl was trying to play a game of connenting spheres of the same color and shape in Vox's present.

 

“It's not my style at all...” he protested again.

 

Ankareeda signed.

 

“I don't know why I bought it” said the deer demon. “In any case, without bowtie or a necktie... it's so...”

 

The girl paused the game and rose her eyes, with the type of expression she always made when she was about to be devastatingly sassy. She signed.

 

“Seduce the... You're seven, young lady!! Seduce is a word you shouldn't be knowing!” she smirked to sign again. “No, that word doesn't make it better... Besides, I don't need to seduce Lucifer. He has to earn me, he's already there. I could whistle and he will come and sit at my command... That's not the point of this.”

 

She signed again to then point to the shirt of the outfit she picked.

 

“I should be showing my chest more now that I had it fixed, that's your final argument?” the girl nodded.

 

The Radio Demon took the shirt in his hands. It wasn't so different from his regular one. The different was the neck, that was low and without a bowtie and having, like his daughter suggested, a couple buttons opened he'll be showing more skin that he was used too. But, thinking about, Anka was right, before he has something to hide... not any more.

 

And in fact, he wouldn't mind to be handsome for the king.

 

“Ok, I'll dress like this” the girl jumped to his arms and kissed him in the cheek to then sign, pointing to his hair. “You can do my hair...”

 

***

 

Alastor went to the lobby of the hotel with Ankareeda.

 

The Radio Demon was dressed in a two piece suit in tone of purple so dark that was almost black except near the wrist in the jacket and near the ankles in the trousers. There the fabric fade-out to a more vivid neon violet tone. The shirt was black and he wasn't wearing a bowtie, in fact he had a couple of buttons opened showing a little bit of his chest. He had cufflinks with the form of cathedral radios in silver and with the jacket opened, his belt showed a corky desing in the buckle: the veve for Maman Brigitte, his patron goddess. A heart and a triangle adorned, surrounded with stars.

 

His daughter also combed his hair and tied it into a ponytail, using a black long strip of fabric, so he has a little bow and then the two parts of the strip going down his back.

 

Also he was wearing a different monocle, with purple crystal encased in black metal and with a thin fabric cord, similar to the one on his hair, to connect it to his coat.

 

Lucifer, that was waiting for him, cleaned up nicely too.

 

Charlie helped him, because the king was so nervious with the idea of the date that he ended up going to his daughter's bedroom to sheepishly ask for her help. She chose for him a three piece suit that, like most others, his father purchased back in the day and never weared.

 

It was white but more on champagne color with pinstripes in silver. The vest had six buttons with designs of fleur de lis, symbol of royalty, also in silver.

 

The shirt was pure white and he was wearing a silver necktie with a brooch with the Morningstar coat of arms. Cufflinks with the same symbol also in silver and he wasn't wearing a hat... Tho Nahas was nestling cozily in the frontal pocket of his coat, showing just his head and with no signs of his apple.

 

And talking about apples, Lucifer was carrying his cane but the apple top was now bright in silver.

 

Both men look to each other under the vigilant gazes of their daughters.

 

Charlie and Ankareeda were side by side, admiring the results of their hard work preparing their fathers and seeing how both were rendered speechless.

 

Finally it was Alastor the one that broke the silence.

 

“You look really fine, Lucifer” said the Radio Demon, with a soft smile.

 

“You look amazing, Alastor” said the monarch.

 

Again silence and this time was Charlie the one jumping in the middle of it.

 

“Ok, you're both very handsome!” she said. “Now go and don't worry for us. We'll have takeout for dinner, you two have fun!”

 

Alastor moved to his daughter and kissed in the top of her head.

 

“Be good, ok?” he said softly. “And at least try to have a healthy dinner...”

 

She signed 'No promises'.

 

Lucifer also kissed Charlie in her cheek and say good bye to Ankareeda, going out the door with the taller man, with a nervious but hopeful smile in his face.

 

The princess gave conspiratorial look to her sister.

 

“Wanna dine some pizzas and ice cream, sis?” she asked.

 

The girl nodded with a huge smile.

Notes:

Next one is the date and I have something prepare ^^

Chapter 34: Dating for old men

Summary:

The date has come and the Devil planned a night cater to the taste of the Radio Demon.

From the food to the dancing... but maybe the dance place is too much on Alastor's tastes

Notes:

Well, I went really overboard with the date, sorry, sorry, this is a meaty one, tons of dialogue. Brace yourselves!

“Love can be a dangerous game, especially when played with The Devil.”

~Anonymous

 

One thing Alastor had to admit to himself, is that Lucifer had game.

 

Sure, the Devil never had to seduce before, he never had to put an effort. His wife and Eve almost threw themselves at him to run from Adam and when Lilith and he split, women were making a conga line to suck the king... Sadly, he was one of those women. At least he caused a more permanent impression in him and their thing was more than a night.

 

But... All that wording about him being Temptation incarnated and his silver tongue, for him were exagerations till that date.

 

In fact, the start was very strong, even when initially the devil was looking very nervious, he calmed and dialed up the charm in no time.

 

First things first, he could open a portal or teleport both to their destination but the man called for his limousine, his chauffeur opened the door for them and when they were seated and going to their destination, the man snapped and the music on the vehicle was 30s jazz, setting the mood for Alastor. Pieces from Jelly Roll Morton, Bessie Smith, Kid Ory...

 

That made the man smile and bob his head with the music.

 

“Want to try some?” offered Lucifer, showing the Radio Demon a glass half full of rye.

 

“Oh, your majesty... libations so early... My, my, one could think you want to get me in the mood” said the demon, taking the glass and smelling a little. “But no mind if I do...”

 

Alastor tasted the whiskey and he was stuck, almost a minute, savoring it in his mouth, catching on the flavor, the cadence.

 

“This is... so smooth” admited the red demon. “It's aged but not too much, single malt but doesn't taste like a macallan or any scottish or irish. It's very smooth but deep in flavor, with so many layers... Mmm... I pride myself as a connoisseur of rye and whiskey but I'm perplexed with this one.”

 

Lucifer was also drinking from the same type of whiskey, from the mini-bar of his limo but the bottle wasn't on display as he served both glasses when Alastor was distracted by the music.

 

“I'm not a whiskey guy myself, but I kinda of like this one” said the Devil. “And you have an amazing taste, I have to add... This, my friend, is a Living World's most expensive whiskey. A fifty five years aged one from Japan.”

 

“Japan?” Alastor was surprised. “Are you telling me this amazing dram is from Japan? Color me impressed and surprised, I didn't know that nation dabbled in spirits of this kind.”

 

The king nodded.

 

“They are more known for sake, of course, their main drink but this beauty is rather special” said the monarch. “I was saving the Yamazaki for a special occasion so... Cheer!”

 

They clinked the glasses to then drink.

 

“May I ask how you came across this delicatessen?” asked the Radio Demon.

 

“Fifteen years ago or so, I helped a father to heal his daughter” started to explain the Devil. “He summoned me, desperated. He was rich but his money was amounting to nothing because medics couldn't find the root of the problem in his teenager girl. I made a deal with him, he had to spend forty percent of his fortune in helping children in need, with medical research or helping those without families. He wasn't expecting that from me... I mean, a warlock friend of him made the ritual to invoke me, he wasn't a warlock himself and he was expecting... you know...”

 

“Cunning, evilness, a soul deal, fire and brimstone or something poetic like Hades' punishments, am I right?” said Alastor, bobbing his head with the music and drinking that amazing beverage sip by sip.

 

“Kinda...” Lucifer shrugged. “But he was... glad and impress when he saw it wasn't a trap or something nefarious, so he gifted me two bottles: This Yamazaki whiskey and a bottle of tokkuri sake, from 1930. He told me he didn't drink but brought both in an auction in a whim. Very expensive stuff.”

 

Alastor nodded, surely a whiskey that fine have to worth very good bucks... In fact the king said it was the most expensive.

 

“And the sake? Do you have it still?” asked the demon.

 

Lucifer denied and sighed, his mood dropped a little.

 

“When... when my men didn't come back and I went out to found you and found your blood... Well, I didn't handle it great” he confessed. “I trashed half of the manor and I tried to learn if my impossibility to get drunk was due to quantity... I drank almost everything I had in the manor to no avail. What a waste, because I didn't savor any of it.”

 

The deer demon sighed and nodded.

 

“I understand you better than you think...” but he didn't clarify why.

 

In any case, that was their first date and he didn't want to sour the mood so Alastor moved his hand to take Lucifer's, smiling to him softly.

 

“Just for this night, let rest the past in the past” said the demon, taking the hand to kiss both his palm and over it. “We are on a date and the night is ours, dearest. Let's enjoy ourselves.”

 

He said, raising his glass to drink the rest of the whiskey, making Lucifer smile again and blush a little. Oh, it was a mercy the king didn't know how much cute he found him or he would try to use it.

 

“You're fucking right” he drank too. “Let's burn this fucking town!”

 

“Promises, promises...”

 

***

 

The limousine moved through the streets of Pentagram to the Entertainment District, also called Vees Territory... almost in the border of the zone, far from Vee tower, the vehicle stopped in front of a closed door. No sign over the door or near it, just a huge hellhound dressed nicely acting like a bouncer.

 

Alastor was a seasoned party goer, this type of places were elite ones. No need to advertise, the people that they wanted as clientelle, already knew about the exclusive place and those that not and reach to it by luck or mistake, rarely were going inside unless they have something to offer.

 

The deer demon, when alive, was introductions guy for those types of places, specially the ones that sold bootleg liquour on the side in the middle of prohibition.

 

The demon didn't ask, just waited for Lucifer's driver to open the door and going out of it, adjusting his clothes.

 

The king twirled his cane when he went out, full smile and waited until Alastor, full gentleman, offered his arm to him and both went to the door. The hellhound went from professional to nervious mess in a second, bowing before the king and opening the door without asking a thing to the monarch.

 

As soon as the door was opened, the silent was fill with music, live music, a classic in that moment 'Feeling good' singed by a femenine voice, sensual and talented.

 

The place was a restaurant for the elite, elegant decoration, lavish colors in red and gold, diligent waiters and waitresses moving from table to table. Most in those tables were nobles, rich hellborn and a couple of sinners with dough to spend.

 

A incubus host dressed impecable moved to receive the monarch and the Radio Demon, bowing before the royal.

 

“Your majesty, your table is ready, please gentlemen, follow me” he said, turning around and guiding both men to a table above the rest, in a box to a side with a good view of the stage.

 

They were seated and the man presented some menu to both and moved to a side, waiting for them.

 

“Do we ask for a bottle while we select what we are about to eat?” asked the monarch.

 

“No, darling, it'll be a pity if the wine doesn't pair nice with the food” he started to see the menu and his smile went broadly. “Lucifer... most of these dishes are raw meat or fish.”

 

He wasn't displeased by that, on the contrarie, he looked very surprised, gladly, by the selections he was catching in that menu.

 

“Welcome to 'Skin Deep'” said the Devil, with the smile of someone that knew he was impressing his companion. “This is an elite restaurant, la crème de la crème, you need introduction to be able to dine here and they are specialized in the freshness of their products, all brought daily from the Living World. From ceviche to tartar, they also prepare amazing sushi, poke and carpaccio.”

 

Alastor hummed with the idea presented and with the dishes he was seeing in the menu, in fact, he rose his face to look at Lucifer and presented for him a very soft smile.

 

“I thought you could like something like this” said the monarch.

 

“You didn't have to...” he moved his hand over the table, ready to take the king's but, a look around, and he desisted before trying. “But thank you, sire.”

 

Of course the Devil noticed the gesture and had an idea why it happened but he wasn't about to ruin a moment to ask about that, so he continued to smile to then look through the menu again.

 

“I'll have wagyu beef carpaccio as entrée, a tasting plate of sushi... I don't know if you ate sushi before, Alastor, but you should try it” suggested the king.

 

The demon hummed, thinking.

 

“Raw fish... Sirens from Envy count as such?” he asked, Lucifer raised his gaze with a puzzled look, Alastor laughed. “I was teasing, darling. Mostly... I ate sirens from Envy, also I tasted some sushi here in Hell but was mostly Hell fishes, don't know if the taste is different.”

 

Lucifer, with a smirk, denied with his head. On the other hand, the host that the restaurant placed to serve the king in that night, knowing who was his plus one, gulped involuntary when the deer demon talked so nonchalantly about eating hellborns.

 

“You're terrible” said the monarch, who he wasn't about to chastice the sinner because he knew how he was and the things he did...

 

Also, taking Alastor particular view on killing permanently, those sirens sure were asking for it.

 

“Anyway... yeah, the taste is different” said the king. “Envy marine wildlife is high in sulfur and phosphor, perfectly edible by us but palate isn't the same. And this is pure fresh. I'll also have the yukhoe.”

 

The incubus host nodded and took note of his majesty's order.

 

“Do you want the yukhoe with entrails also or pure beef, your highness?” asked the hellborn.

 

Alastor rose his eyes to look back to Lucifer over that question, catching his attention both that and his partner's response:

 

“With entrails, it's usually more flavorful like that” the hellborn just nooded and took note.

 

The Radio Demon hummed, looking that particular dish in the menu, reading the posibilities of that particular plate Lucifer selected.

 

“I'll want the Mett canape and venison carpaccio as entrées, kitfo as main... I'll get too a sushi platter and I'll get one of those yukhoe with entrails, I'm curious.”

 

Lucifer laughed a moment while raising a brow.

 

“My, my, are you hungry, Alastor?” asked the monarch, with that way of looking at him so charming, with his smile soft but also half a smirk, bedroom eyes and tilting slightly his head.

 

“Every hour, every day, darling” said the Radio Demon. “Mind if I pick the wine?”

 

The king shook his head.

 

“Very well” he looked back to the hellborn host. “A bottle of Chateau Angelus de Saint-Emilion, please.”

 

He closed his menu, Lucifer did the same, both said thank you to the host and then the king looked back to the deer demon.

 

“Angelus... a little on the nose, don't you think?” said the monarch, recognizing a jab when he saw one.

 

“I couldn't resist” said the demon. “Besides, I saw it was a cabernet and those are excellent grapes for red wine, surely it will pair amazing with our raw meat.”

 

Then the man thought for a moment.

 

“Are you sure you are ok eating this type of food?” asked the demon, who didn't want the man to make an effort so great to please him as to dine something he didn't like just trying to surprise or impress him.

 

“Love, I asked for food I like” said the monarch. “Having a menu this big do you think I chose something to impress? Nah, it's not like I'm a vegan or something like that... I won't gain anything with you, lying or pretending, even in something so little. We need to cement this relationship of ours, if we'll have any, in truths.”

 

The host returned with the wine, serving first a degustation cup for each man and when the monarch tasted him, he had to admit that Alastor was right, that was an amazing wine, with strong, savory profile.

 

He nodded so the hellborn started to serve them while the monarch moved his hand to catch the hand of the Radio Demon, smiling softly. The host, a professional, didn't reacted except from his eyes, following the movement almost like it was a charm.

 

“Trust me, darling, I'm here having the same amount of fun that you have” said the man, caressing the hand of the deer demon with his thumb, smiling in that charming way, soft but almost a smirk.

 

Lucifer knew why Alastor didn't took his hand initially. He knew how the deer saw himself, he told him when he was in the hospital, how he saw himself inferior to him because of what Lucifer was and represented. Surely, in that self-loathing head of his, the monarch could feel ashamed of being with him in public, like their posible relationship could be a sordid little thing to keep underwraps, a dirty little secret for the King of Hell.

 

That made him remember the conversation with Fizzarolli and Asmodeus, they kept the relationship on the downlow a lot of time just feeling how the reputation of the Sin of Lust could be tarnished for both being with a commoner and being in love. The Ruler of Hell couldn't care less.

 

He loved that man, he was ready to woo that man and have a life with him and their little daughter, he was ready for that and gossip from others wouldn't dissuade him from his goal. He wasn't ashamed to love Alastor and he wanted to show him that.

 

The deer demon, on the other hand, was thinking that man was a danger.

 

Yes, he was dangerous... He was charming, he was soft with him... so simply a touch and he was almost burning with the idea of that touch, over all his skin, hungry for more... He had to make an effort with all his might to not move to the other side of the round table to catch the lips of the monarch. That Devil was tempting like a bottomless pit and he needed to remember that before doing something as stupid as jump. And his smile... it was bright and had part of his celestial nature, tinted by the sharp razor teeth his infernal essence gave him. It was soft and menacing, a warning and a promise.

 

He didn't know how much time he was looking to the Devil's eyes, drowning in those red irises and thinking in different scenarios to observe them better, but the host took him out of his thoughts when he brought the entrées for the couple.

 

“Did you taste wagyu before?” asked the monarch when his carpaccio was placed on the table.

 

“I know is a type of meat” responded the deer demon. “But nothing more, never tried it.”

 

“Try...” said the king, taking a piece with his fork and extend it to the red demon, with a smile, trying to feed him the piece. “It's a japanese beef, very lazy animals, very well treated. That makes the meat soft, fatty...”

 

Alastor moved and opened his mouth, taking the meat to savor it.

 

“There is even a region in Japan called Kobe were they even massage the cows and give them beer... that meat is even more succulent and fatty... and expensive” Lucifer smiled. “What do you think?”

 

“Very delicious” said the deer. “Maybe I'll have to pull some of my contacts to get some of that kobe meat... Now I'm extremelly curious about what I can cook with it.”

 

“Hot pot” said the Devil, starting with his entrée. “If you never eat it is a type of communal meal, but it can be enjoy alone. It's basicly broth, keeping it hot on the table with a portable stove and you dunk food in it to cook it. When is something like meat, is cut in thin stripes so cooks fast... Very delicious and very fun meal and we can make different broths and sauces. We could prepare one for the hotel.”

 

Alastor nodded, enjoying his Mett canape and his carpaccio.

 

“Capital idea, my lord” said the demon. “Also, it could be fun and healthy for Ankareeda, she needs to eat more meat, I'm afraid.”

 

“You said it was for the shadow magic, right?” asked the king.

 

“Yes” said the Radio Demon. “Normally shadow magic is taught and is something you learn periodically and little by little. My mother taught me around the time I met you but my magic wasn't as strong as it's here and I started with very simple things, like making shadow dance... The singular birth of my daughter affected her forever...”

 

The pinch of guilt stroke Lucifer in that moment.

 

“My shadows saved her, my shadows protect her and helped her to finish her development” started to explain the demon. “Shadows integrated with her, for Anka using them is as natural as breathing... But shadows take a toll, that's why I eat so much when I don't partake in demon meat for a time. She's too small... that's why I didn't allow her to have a living shadow, even when she wants one as a friend. My shadow is extremelly useful but it's a very energy taker for me.”

 

He sighed, looking to his carpaccio meat on the fork for a moment, thinking.

 

“The problem is, that her being a natural, I don't know if she can develop a living shadow even without the ritual and my help” he moved his eyes to Lucifer's face. “And she's seven and the daughter of the angel that invented rebellion... I feel like is just a matter of time.”

 

It was the first time that Alastor allowed himself to talk about Ankareeda expressing his concerns about her, his fears... Talking parent to parent with sincerity. Normally he was around like he had all figured out and it was easy for him but Lucifer was starting to see that wasn't the case. Not in vein, Alastor was a new father, inexperienced dealing not only with a little kid but also with one that was hellborn, half angel and, as he explained, a master of a discipline that has some risks attached to it.

 

The king thought for a moment.

 

“Maybe... I could have a solution for that?” he said, envolving his phrase into a question.

 

“How so?” Alastor didn't forbid him or chastice for suggesting, he was more curious for his idea than anything.

 

Maybe more than once the demon told the devil that he wasn't Anka's father and he didn't want him to act in that position but... If he has something up his sleeve to prevent future damage to his child, he was more than amicable to hear it.

 

“When Charlie was little, she has this horrible nightmares” he started to explain. “I think she felt the tense ambiance that was between her mother and me and that translated to nightmares about being alone in an unknown place without Lilith or me. So I took her stuffed goats that I ordered to be made just for her and with my power I gave them life.”

 

“Razzle and Dazzle, I see” said the demon.

 

“Quite. I linked them to her... They were meant to remain small if everything was alright and protect her as infernal dragons if there was a danger and they were meant to be forever by her side” he sighed. “I felt so sad when I learned that Dazzle died. I will always carry his memory in my heart, he even made possible with that sacrifice for me to intervene against Adam and the exorcist army but... It was a sad moment, nonetheless.”

 

Alastor nodded. Even if those two creatures were originally stuffed animals, they were alive and they were with the royal family for almost two hundred years, it was normal to feel the lost.

 

“So, your suggestion is using your power with Anka's ragdoll to create a shadow partner for her” asked the demon, finishing with his carpaccio.

 

“That's right” said the monarch. “It won't be like your shadow I guess, but it will be loyal to her and keep her company.”

 

The red demon took a sip of the wine.

 

“A sound suggesting” said finally. “But I don't know if that will be a deterrent for Anka... I'll talk to her and see if she will satisfied with just that.”

 

At least, thought the monarch, he didn't brush the idea to a side like if was stupid. He knew the idea has merits... but also it was true that he didn't know Ankareeda enough to be sure that was something that will made the girl to conform with that.

 

The host moved near the table when they finished their entrées.

 

“Do you want your main course now, your majesty?” asked the hellborn.

 

The monarch nodded and the incubus moved to bring the food.

 

“They really want you pleased here” commented the Radio Demon.

 

“Well, King of Hell, ya know? People kissing your ass one cheek at a time comes with the territory” said the monarch.

 

“And you never get tired of it?” asked the deer.

 

“Sometimes... I won't lie and say always” he said, with that prideful and playful smile. “I enjoy adoration in the just amount, loyalty to the crown too, fealty to the king and all that jazz. But there are times when I want to be me, just me, and I can't have that sometimes, can't achieve it. For that I treasure when I get to be treated like a regular joe, just Lucifer and no THE Lucifer.”

 

The host placed in the table two plates of an assamble of different types of sushi and a plate for Alastor, with raw marinated meat, mild cheese and some vegetables lightly cooked. He also presented a set of chopsticks for each men.

 

“I understand you in that” said the demon, continuing with their conversation. “I love my reputation, the effect that cause in people. It was curated with the purpose of being left alone.”

 

“You felt the need to do that?” asked the king, curious, taking one of the fatty tuna nigiri to eat it.

 

“Yes...” he sighed, taking one of the shrimp nigiri with the chopsticks. “You can't blame me. After my life and my experiences and ending up here, without being able to go by your side and acosted by my father as soon as he catched wind of me here, all I wanted was peace. When I finished the overlords, I wanted to get your attention but also used the radio as theatrics... I curated my image to be something terrible, a boogie man, that nobody wanted to cross, that from overlords to hellborn could fear even encounter.”

 

He then took one of the uni sushi, thinking it looked like human tongue and ate it.

 

“There was a time that people really feared me” said the demon. “There was not a single overlord or wannabe that didn't ask for my permission to fight others, to claim terrain, to invade other's turf. I enjoyed the solitude and the quiet, because I didn't want friendships, partners... Just me, alone, my objective... Then I met Vox.”

 

Lucifer this time was the one that sighed. That sinner, even when now they were not in nice terms, at least for Alastor's part, was important back in the day for the Radio Demon, was someone that penetrated those walls, that feared defenses to meet the soft soul that was under the monster.

 

“Was he so new for you?” asked the monarch, trying to get his jealousy in check to not ruin the conversation.

 

“New and refreshing” said the deer. “He wasn't like he is right now. He was conservative to dress, caring, he had good conversation and he wasn't afraid, not because he didn't respect me, because he showed me he respected me but because he was really intrigued by me, genuinely. His company was like a balm for me and I made the mistake of accepting that company in a moment of vulnerability.”

 

He shook his head.

 

“I shouldn't have done that” said the deer demon. “He was in love with me when I wasn't feeling the same, was selfish for my part. I was weak and costed me his friendship.”

 

Lucifer took a sip of his wine while observing the Radio Demon. That night he has his shields down, he was being sincere, not sarcastic or anything and he was open up a little. That was going good, even when he was talking about that stupid square head.

 

“He looks like wanting to recover that friendship” commented the king.

 

“And I don't trust that” said the deer. “He's not the man I knew, he changed, a lot. The man I knew and cared for would never abuse employees or contracts, would never allow abuse like the one he allows Valentino to carry and that man would never use his powers to keep an audience. Vox is not Vox anymore but a mockery of the one I knew, a perverssion of his memory.”

 

He took a piece of maki with the chopsticks and started to look at it, like there were some answers or something.

 

“And I feel my rejection is what transformed him in what he's now” he sighed and ate. “In a way, I killed my friend and created something else entirely.”

 

“It's not your fault, you know that, do you?” said Lucifer. “You can't be accountable of something you have no leg into. Yes, you broke up with him when the relationship runned its course but in what that transformed him is completelly on him.”

 

Alastor had his head low.

 

That demon, thought Lucifer, not only masked his fragility and self-loathing washing in confidence and narcissism but he also thought in himself as the cause of so many maladies... Like his very existence or company was the cause of evils.

 

He knew a few things he blamed himself for... and who know how many more were swimming in his mind.

 

“What is that?” asked the monarch, trying to deviate the conversation to another topic, trying to recover the good mood they had before, pointing to the extra platter the demon had.

 

The red demon raised the eyes.

 

“This? This is a dish called Kitfo” said Alastor. “It's Ethiopian. This variant is called kitfo leb leb, it's when the meat is just seared a little to trap the juices. One of my employees is ethiopian of origin and she cooked this for me with sinner meat. It's very spicy, they used a blend of chili called mitmita... It reminded me to a cajun blend. Very delicious.”

 

Said the demon with a softer smile.

 

“Amazing cook, that woman, she made a deal with me to kill her father” said Alastor like nothing, taking part of the cheese of the plate and some meat to eat them together. “An absolute bastard that man, he forced her to married an old fellah, they mutitaled her parts and after years of abuse, when she decided to take the justice that was denied and killed the fiend, her father tortured her and killed her to make an example.”

 

Lucifer had his eyes wide opened.

 

“That's fucking horrible!” he said. “Please, tell me you were specially Radio demoney with the bastard.”

 

Alastor smiled in a way that could terrify the most valiant of souls... For the King of Hell, that was the most charming smile the deer could muster.

 

“You're starting to know me so well, sire” said the demon, with satisfaction. “I paid a sucubbus friend handsomely to transport me to the Living World with an asmodean crystal and I paid a visit to the family of my employee... I stayed three days, breaking their minds, not only her father, her uncles, her grandfather... Those who were into that brutal practice of marrying little girls and mutilate them... Zâr is what they call to you or demons in general. Zâr... they tried to bribe me with offerings and all. Pathetic. I ended them and then I found them here when they fell.”

 

The Radio Demon locked his hands together and looked to the monarch over them. In that moment, with that way of gazing, with the cruelty of his eyes and that smile so terrible... Yes, Alastor was a monster and very capable of awake the fear of the Devil into mortals, sinners and demons alike. The perfect Fear Embassador.

 

“I forced them to make a contract with me and I placed them to the disposition of my employee... She has a restaurant on Sin City, very famous” said the deer. “I gave her free rein to do with them what she wanted and she didn't dissapoint. Her father was delicious.”

 

“Damn...” was the only thing that said the king, that word was almost extracted from him.

 

The demon chuckled to continue eating and Lucifer did the same. It was... strange but he knew that years ago such a display of pure cruelty would be unpleasant for him, would be just another proof that humans went terrible with free will, another display of evilness... Right now, Alastor's cruel methods produced a different reaction, a fire going to his gut and loins, producing a light blush of golden in his face.

 

The devil was grateful that place had a soft light, specially in the boxes like theirs and that blush wasn't as noticiable as it would be in full illumination but he cleared his throat and tried to think in another thing.

 

They finished the current course and the host brought the last one, with that dish that Lucifer asked for himself and called the curiosity of Alastor: yukhoe.

 

The dish, composed of marinated raw meat topped with raw egg yolk, looked scrumptious for the Radio Demon.

 

“Oh, my, this looks fantastic, sire” he commented.

 

“It's a korean dish” started to explain the monarch. “It can be made with pheasant or horse meat but I found the beef one more appealing. Also, with liver, kidney and heart has a different profile... and the egg is just another layer of flavour.”

 

In fact, Alastor broke the yolk in his plate to let the liquid go down and mix with the meat.

 

“How they marinate the meat?” asked the deer with curiosity.

 

“Salt, sugar, sesame oil, pepper, garlic... In some places I ate this they add korean pear, spring onion, minced garlic or some nuts” he commented. “A korean witch prepared this as banquet when she summoned me to the Living World around thirty years ago... I ate it without knowing what it was but I loved it. The same happened with tartar or carpaccio, they became my favorites.”

 

Alastor hummed, taking a bite of the food and marveling on how soft it was, the flavors, the texture... and not a single note of gamy, signaling very clean entrails.

 

“You know...” started to comment the Radio Demon. “Maybe you have a palate that could benefit from cannibalism. Did you tried sinner or hellborn meat, sire? Or human?”

 

Lucifer denied.

 

“No, never... I was offered in the past but never have the temptation to endulge” said the king. “Trust me when I tell you is not because of some moral ground or something. For me, animals and humans are almost the same in the sense that we, angels, created them. Lamb is my favorite meat and I created them directly... But never have the temptation, like when someone offers you a dish and something tells you that flavor isn't for you? Something like that.”

 

The deer demon thought for a moment.

 

“Maybe I could present you something to try... Raw get more flavor, for my taste, but maybe I could cook you some demon meat to try” said the overlord, catching on the reaction of the monarch.

 

Lucifer thought for a second and nodded.

 

“Why not?” he finally said. “You cooking is terrific and who knows, maybe Hell changing me to this form, with these pricks...”

 

He pointed to his sharp teeth.

 

“...was unto something” he said, with a smile.

 

Alastor smiled but was in a way that again sent signals to Lucifer's lower regions... That smirk, biting his lip a little like the idea was tantalizing for him, was something very hot on the king's eyes.

 

The host returned and they had some dessert, talking about every day things on the hotel to finally get out of the restaurant, taking the limousine again and going to the next location. This place, Alastor knew it. It was in the border of Carmilla's territory and Zestial's one, an old school dancing place called 'Swacked Juke'.

 

That was his stomping ground, so to speak. He used to go dancing there with Rosie and Vox back in the day, he was one of the regulars... And he stopped to dance there when he broke up with the Tv demon, don't wanting questions from the locals or memories of their friendship.

 

He didn't said a thing, he just got of the vehicle and went with the monarch to the door.

 

“Radio Demon, sir” said a huge sinner, with muscle over muscles, with dog attributes and a ridiculous small bowler hat, taking it off before the deer demon. “Oh, your majesty!”

 

His eyes were wide with surprise.

 

“Good night, Tulson” said the red demon, going with Lucifer hangling from his arm to the interior.

 

The swing music catched their ears immediatly, making the deer demon's heart beat with glee, his smile soft and happy.

 

“Greetings, sir” said the girl behind the counter, taking coats and other items from clients.

 

“Good night, boss” said two twin sinners, almost ignoring the king to smile to Alastor.

 

Both were dressed like flapper girls in different colors, having both blue skin and a hair that reminded of black feathers like a crow, winking their eyes to the Radio Demon.

 

“Evening, girls” said the demon, nodding. “Everything ok?”

 

“Marvelous, boss” said one of them.

 

“Better, having you here, boss” said the other.

 

“Are you gonna dance with us tonight?” asked both.

 

The demon denied, smiling in that way that was almost flirtatious.

 

“Sorry, ladies, but tonight my dance card is full with his majesty” he said, presenting the king placing a hand over his shoulder.

 

Both woman bowed a little but was not a curtsy or anything like that, but both were looking better to the monarch like something new and fascinating, almost near to his face.

 

“Oh, so cute” said one of them.

 

“Very handsome indeed” said the other.

 

“Good catch, boss!” said both, very enthusiastic.

 

Lucifer didn't know how to react. Those two girls were clearly sinners, sure they knew before hand who he was, right? Even that, Alastor already said it but they were acting like some friend of theirs got a good hook-up for the night.

 

“Thanks, girls... Now, if you excuse us, we need to burn that dance floor” said the demon, taking the hand of the devil and going with him towards th inner place.

 

“Have fun, boss!” said both of the women.

 

“Friends of yours?” asked the monarch, with Alastor taking him to the dance floor and, without time to breathe, starting to dance with him.

 

“Employees” as in soul owned demons for him. “Those are the Raven Twins, they saveguard my interests in this joint.”

 

“Interests? Are you the owner?” asked the monarch. “Fuck, I wanted to go with you to some place with music you could like and someone talked me about this place, I didn't know you owned it!”

 

He felt really stupid, inviting Alastor to his own club. The Radio Demon, on the other hand, laughed a little.

 

“Co-own” said the demon. “Maybe that's better? Don't torture yourself, cherie, you couldn't possible know and I don't come here since... a lot of time. I let the Raven Twins in charge and I don't see my business partner in a lot of time. I bet she doesn't know I'm here.”

 

They continue to dance, showing mostly Alastor his mastery of swing taking that Lucifer was still feeling a little bad with himself and some people continue to greet the deer demon, call for his attention or even offer him a dance. He rejected all but Lucifer was starting to see that his partner was particularly popular in that establishment. Sure, he never thought in Alastor as some hermit or homebody but now he was seeing that he really was a party animal in certain circles, being even more famous than himself.

 

The music stopped and a woman got to the stage in front of the jazz band and she was a vision. Tall demoness, with a thin waist and huge breast and hips. Her skin was covered in velvety short fur, black as a widow's veil and her green eyes and round small ear at the top of ther head marked her as a panther demon. She had very long straight hair tied on a ponitail on the top and she was dressed in a number to impress, pure violet, tight to her body, with a huge cleavage and two slits, one per side, revealing her sculted legs, thick and slightly muscular.

 

“Are we having fun, darlings?” she asked using the mic. “Oh, my... What a pleasure we have on the Swacked tonight... Long time no see, Alastor.”

 

The deer demon, who was having the king near him using his arm over his shoulders, made a greeting with two fingers, like a mockery of the militar salute, to the woman.

 

“Likewise, Kassandra” he said, using his powers so his voice was heard over the noise of the rest of the clients, the people greeting also the Radio Demon with cheers.

 

“Are you ready to move that ass on my floor or I need to call the geriatric nurses before hand?” laughs in the audience.

 

“I'm fit as a fiddle, deary” said the deer. “Do you still have problems with furballs or drinking cum on daily basics fixed that at last?”

 

Some oohhhhs and laughs raised from the clientelle.

 

“What can I say, Radio Demon, not all have your pipes...” said the woman. “About going down the knees, how was that fight with Adam?”

 

Ohhhhs... a little silence, all the eyes over the deer demon.

 

“Amazing, have a huge scar for my troubles protecting your sorry lot” said the deer. “It will come handy, anyway, when people ask me how daring I am, I can show them the scar and not my massive set of balls... Tho... never bigger than yours, darling.”

 

Laughs in the audience, all the eyes on the panther demoness.

 

“Oh, the deer came to play... We aren't running to hide like seven years ago, right?” said the woman, crossing her arms.

 

Lucifer was seeing that back and forth without know if he should intervine, talk, ask... He was enthralled, specially when he looked to Alastor face. He wasn't angry, he wasn't nervious, he wasn't ashamed. It looked like... he was having fun.

 

“What can I say, Kassandra?” he said, shrugging. “You wanted me to fuck you and I needed time to calm the intrusive thought of sinking my prick in a meatgrinder... for safety reasons, you know.”

 

“Fuck you” she responded.

 

“That's what she said” responded Alastor.

 

Over the laughs in the room, the panther lady pointed to the band to resume the music, she jumped from the stage and went to the Radio Demon and his date.

 

“Kassie” said Alastor at the same time the woman jumped to his arms.

 

“Alastor, babe” she said, hugging him and he reciprocating the hug. “How are you? Fuck, first you stop coming around here, then fucking disappear for seven years... not even Rosie knew where you were and next news I got is you working for the princess. And then Vox shows your ass getting handed to you by that loser Adam...”

 

She took a good look to the demon and hugged him again.

 

“Everything right, sugar?” she asked.

 

“Peachy, Kassie” said the deer demon. “I'm... here on a date. I have a lot to tell you but not here, you know... We can get together other day, take some coffee?”

 

“A date? You?” then she looked to the monarch and her eyes went wide, she bowed immediatly. “Your highness. Sorry to not notice you before, but there was a lot of time I saw my friend here... Oh, my, Ally, baby, are you dancin' the dillinger with the royal? My, your taste became very refined.”

 

“No matter, it's a pleasure to meet you” said the monarch.

 

“Kassandra, your majesty, welcome to the Swacked Juke, an island of good music in this piss infested town” she said, opening her arms. “I hope you enjoy your stay but... well, being here with a hep cat like Alastor, you're in good hands. I'll leave you to your date, honey.”

 

The woman kissed the overlord in the cheek.

 

“Ring the horn for me, babe, we need to talk... You still have my number, sugar?” she asked, turning around to go.

 

“I always have your number, sweetie” said the demon, almost in a flirtatious way, with her smiling over her shoulder to move around the place, losing herself in the mass of people.

 

The band was playing now a foxtrot and the Radio Demon took the shorter man and went with him to the dance floor.

 

“Nice lady... I get that back and forth is normal for you two?” asked the man.

 

“Yes, I know Kassandra since I ended here in Hell, almost” said the deer. “The first person I met and made a connection was Rosie, but Kassie was almost the second, tho my friendship with her is less tight. I trust her, I know she's loyal to me and cares but I can't say I have a close friendship with her.”

 

“She's pretty” commented the king, very awkwardly.

 

“Jealous again, my king?” said the demon, with a smirk. “Will you trust me if I say that we weren't an item, far from it?”

 

“Yeah, you told me that your only relationship was with Vox” said the king. “But she's so pretty and so friendly with you...”

 

“And Kassandra was my father's moll too” replied the deer. “That's how I met her, I saved her from him when I killed and consumed him.”

 

“She was with your father?” asked the devil, surprised.

 

“Yes” said the demon. “Not willingly. For starters, Kassandra doesn't like men.”

 

The king was even more surprised by that.

 

“And what you two said...?” he started to ask.

 

“Banter” said the demon, laughing a little. “Remember that I don't have balls and a prick also. We banter like that all the time, it's our shtick... After I made my father dissapear I got his contracts. Some I kept, some I freed, she was one of the latter. When she wanted to have a club, I added the greens... this is her place, I just put my father's money to good use.”

 

Lucifer smiled to the demon softly, raising his hand to caress his cheek, surprising the Radio Demon.

 

“You're amazing, Alastor” said the monarch. “I wish I could saw that sooner.”

 

The demon blushed before the sweet words of the king and that gesture that made all his body has a shiver, the good kind of shiver.

 

“Not so much... I'm still what I am... and I'm still me” said the demon.

 

“Right you are...” said the king, still that charming, dangerous smile.

 

***

 

They were dancing for hours, returning to the hotel when it was pass the witching hour, both laughing.

 

“...And she was covered in jam, hands, chin, everything... and when I asked: Charlie, dear, did you eat all the tarts? She looked me, right in the eye and told me: No, daddy, a hellmouse did. I could helped but laughed!” was telling the king, holding from the arm of the Radio Demon. “And when I pointed the jam in her face, she told me the mouse ran over her face.”

 

Alastor laughed.

 

“All your daughters are crafted the same way, I see” responded the red demon. “When Anka was four, she did almost the same with chocolate eclairs that Rosie brought for her. She was suppose to eat one per day... suddenly, they were gone. She looked like she had a fight with them, hands, hair, chest, face, all covered in cream and chocolate and when we asked, she just said: Daddy, one of the deer entered the cottage and ate all the sweets.”

 

Lucifer also laughed, trying to imagine their baby girl, four years old, with that beautiful curly hair and her round face all overed in chocolate.

 

“Oh, I wish I could see that... The deja vú could been great” said the monarch.

 

Both took the elevator to the last floor and Alastor accompanied the monarch to his room.

 

“I had a lot of fun this night, your majesty” said the Radio Demon, with a smile. “Thanks for the date.”

 

He said, looking directly to the eyes of the shorter man.

 

“Don't thank me, I had fun too” said the king. “You don't dance half bad...”

 

“You were lucky to follow my steps at all” responded the demon.

 

“We need to repeat this...” said the de devil, taking the hands of the deer.

 

“But next time it's my turn, your majesty” said Alastor.

 

“Please... call me by my name... We were intimate before, we took diner, dance... you can affort call me for my name, right?” asked him, softly.

 

Alastor felt it, that charm, that seduction, that tone of voice that was almost a caress, a sugggestion, almost irresistible. Fire, going to his core.

 

“Lucifer” he said, softly, deliberate.

 

The king couldn't help himself, he took the red demon by his waist with both hands, moved into his space, looking at him through his long lashes and moved to kiss him... just to be stopped by Alastor's hand, placed softly over his lips.

 

“We shouldn't be doing this... yet” he said, almost a whisper. “I want too but... It's too soon.”

 

“I get it” said Lucifer, sighing, stepping back.

 

The Radio Demon took the shorter's man hand instead, kissing it softly like a gentleman.

 

“Sleep well, my sweet king” he said.

 

“You too, my deer” responded Lucifer, entering into his room with that smile in his face that he didn't want to lose.

 

Alastor sighed, turning around to go to his own room, stopping by the door of Anka, opening to see if his daughter was sleeping well... She wasn't there. Well, maybe she decided to sleep on his bed or in the cottage since he wasn't home.

 

He entered in his room and there she was, his baby, sleeping in his bed like a starfish getting all the space in his bed.

 

“Shhhhh...” said a voice, a voice he knew and placed him in alert.

 

Lilith went out of the bathroom, moving to the bed and sitting on it, near the headboard and the head of Ankareeda, changing her gloved hand to a sharp claw in a second, that claw too near his daughter for comfort.

 

“We don't want to wake up the little doe, right?” she said, a dark whisper. “We need to talk, darling.”

 

She said, with her purple eyes glowing in the middle of darkness.

Notes:

Well, next one is... tense... maybe even dark, we'll see.

Chapter 35: A killer fit for a queen

Summary:

Lilith manages to sneak into the hotel for a chat with Alastor and she's ready to threaten his daughter to get it.

Some truths come to the surffice and both the Radio Demon and the Devil get to a wicked accord thanks to the impromptu visit of the Queen of Hell.

Notes:

Well, things are moving... There is a part I really want to narrate, that is torturing me at night almost every day and we are slightly near... is not in the next two chapters but soon and I really want to get to that.

Ps: I had a lot of fun writing Ankareeda in this chapter ^^

“I'm not a man. I have no male pride for you to trick me with, and I am not interested in single combat. That is entirely a weakness of your sex, not mine. I am a woman. I will use any weapon and all weapons to get what I want.”

~Cassandra Clare, City of Fallen Angels

 

Alastor was staying still, with his ruby-like eyes fixed in the claw that was too near his daughter's head to comfort.

 

“Such a beautiful little girl you have... and so good” said the woman. “It's a pity the vile essence of my ex-husband taints her a bit.”

 

The Radio Demon has his fists closed so painfully that he was hurting himself.

 

“What do you want from me, my queen?” asked the deer demon, still without moving from his initial position near the door, looking more to that claw than the woman's face.

 

Lilith sighed.

 

“What I always wanted, Radio Demon” said the queen. “Be the supreme ruler of this shithole, protect my people and have a worthy king by my side... a real man that is ready to do what is necessary, not a sniveling coward always ready to bend the knee to Heaven.”

 

She moved her three inches index claw, almost like tapping, over the head of Ankareeda.

 

“And I thought we could understand each other” she said. “That impish little man abused you, mistreated you and raped you... if it wasn't for me, eventually he would kill you and your daughter.”

 

“For you?” asked the demon, his mind going a mile a minute trying to find a way to separate his daughter from that demoness.

 

“Yes... Remember that key you found and the note?” said the queen. “If I remember correctly 'Now, use the key to the back door of the kitchen, run straight to the outer gate, it will be opened. Don't stop, the king won't be pleased', rings a bell?”

 

Alastor moved near the hearth on his room, taking one of the armchairs and sitting in it. The light of the fire made his shadow bigger, extending in the direction of the bed.

 

“So you planted the note and the key... and you told the guards to seek me” said the demon. “Or better say, your hellhound captain lapdog.”

 

The woman faked a surprise look, like she was about to deny that, but she smirked.

 

“Guilty as charged” said the queen. “I needed to motivate you, it was a mercy, showing you your future.”

 

“I almost die” said, his face devoided of fury or emotion, going to an assentient state. “And my girl was hurt for that, a silence in my life that shouldn't exist.”

 

“But a necessary one...” replied the queen. “I saved you from him and you were the perfect instrument to his doom... A pity he can't be kill by regular angelic means, but... He can be kill.”

 

She said, moving the blond hair of the little one from her face with the sharp claw.

 

“And I thought you wanted that, after all he did to you” said the woman, continuing with her speech. “We could do this together, Alastor. We could be unstoppable together, rulling Hell like Dark Sovereigns without dispute... You, me and your lovely daughter.”

 

The demon, with his hands intertwined over his lap, just raised a brow.

 

“And what about Charlie?” he asked.

 

“If she accepts Seviathan and his advances, she can be useful” said the woman. “If not, she's no longer needed. I can have more children if I became sentimental.”

 

That had a connotation that Alastor didn't like at all... For starters, a mother that brushes aside a daughter in that way would do really terrible things to other person's children and one of those things, if she felt she needed the Von Eldritch so desperated, could be even trying to marry to that family.

 

Not only he didn't trust that woman, not only he wanted to actively kill her but now he was fearing, more than any moment previous in his afterlife as a father, for his little one.

 

“You know... that I'm only a regular sinner, right?” asked the demon.

 

“There is nothing regular about you, Alastor” said the demoness, again she was moving Ankareeda's locks. “You're key for my plans, I want you by my side and I'm ready to give you everything... Think about it. I can manage to give you the body you always craved to have, I can give you love, passion, power... and I can be a mother for your little one.”

 

“A mother that is so ready to brush aside her own flesh and blood like it's nothing...” said the deer demon. “Sorry, your majesty, but that fact doesn't reassure me to follow your plan... whatever that plan is. In fact, why should I risk my neck taking your side when I know Lucifer can't be kill? He wants me, desperately so, why I should pick you and not him?”

 

She growled and moved her hand making a scissors sound.

 

“Because he's useless and he can really be kill... you can kill him, Alastor” she said. “You'll not only have your vengeance, you will rule Hell. He'll never make you his consort, Alastor, he'll never make Ankareeda a princess... You'll risk everything placing your beautiful daughter next to him.”

 

Lilith moved his index over Anka's face, over her cheek and then to her throat, with Alastor looking back at her through a thin line in his eyes.

 

“He will do worse than this” she said, moving the sharp dangerous tip over the scar of the girl. “He's manipulating you, Alastor, lying to you. In fact, it will be a mercy to finish your daughter here before she goes through that particular vicious future...”

 

She made a little pressure, a droplet of red blood escaped the skin of the little girl and she stirred in sleep.

 

“I'll warn you, Lilith” he said, his voice full of static when he pronounced her name. “Trying to gain me threatening my love ones is very ill-advised. I don't become complacent, my queen, I become feral... and trust me, even the Queen of Hell doesn't want me to center all my focus in my afterlife into getting her demise.”

 

And Lilith blushed, licking her lip like Alastor's statement was the most erotic thing someone told her in her life.

 

“I'm very tempted to finish the job on her throat just to see what you can do, Alastor” said the woman, almost in a whisper, like a vow between lovers in the candlelight of the bedroom. “I want to see the monster that lurks under your perfect surface, that eldritch beast you keep under lock and key...”

 

Alastor's eyes went full radio dials, his shoulders and arms cracked with the sound of old wood, threatening to enlarge himself.

 

“Trust me, that could be the last thing you'll see” he said, biting the words, raising from the armchair, the shadows of the room growing with him, dinning on the little light that was in the room, looming Alastor's form over the woman.

 

Lilith moved fast, her other hand grabbed Ankareeda's throat, awaking the girl suddenly, her transformed hand with the sharp tips over her small chest.

 

“Ah, ah, ah... don't move, Radio Demon” she warned the man, holding Ankareeda in place even when the girl started to kick and tried to fight back, clawing the arm of the woman. “I'm tired of trying to get you see reason, I'm trying to be sympathetic with the dumb mute bastard or you. Let me tell you what is gonna happen now... You are... stay still, stupid kid!!”

 

She screamed but Ankareeda wasn't having it... She was clawing her arm, she was kicking her feet and she was trying to bite and sure Lilith made something to limit the girl's powers because she wasn't calling her tendrils or the shadows... or escaping through them.

 

“That won't make you any good...” said the queen, biting the words, trying to retain the girl... in the end, she moved her elongated hand and slapped Anka in the face, hard. “Stay still, you animal!”

 

Alastor growled and his form started to elongate while tears were going out his daughter's eyes.

 

“Stop! That's what is going to happen” said the queen. “You will give me your soul, Alastor, now! And you will obey every fucking command I made of you. You will be mine, forever... And your daughter will live. If you say no, she's hellborn, so if I made pressure here...”

 

And she did, pressing with the tip of her claws into Anka's chest and the crying expression of the girl tranformed into pain, she reduced the attempts to free herself from that woman and she... was starting to scream. In her, with no vocal cords, it was low, rasp, but she did.

 

Alastor was half transformed, his fury palpable for the reaction of the lights in the room and probably around the hotel. The woods from the floor and door were crackling under the pressure of his emotions and the shadows were starting to became suffocating.

 

“Make the deal, Alastor!” she ordered, still making pressure.

 

In that moment the door blew up in splinters and Lucifer was there, in full devil form showing a gaze that could scare the strongest and more resolute man in the world. Lilith was surprised for the sudden entry of the monarch in that moment, enough for her to soften a little her pressure over the girl...

 

Ankareeda's horns grew in her forehead and her tail elongated, stopping being like a doe tail and more like a lioness one and her little natural claws also grew... She turned around and clawed Lilith's face, leaving a long and deep bloody mark, four lines, from temple to chin. Lilith screamed, holding to her face with both hands.

 

“Fucking bitch, I'm gonna kill you for this!” She yelped her threat.

 

“Like fuck you're gonna do that!” said the monarch, moving so fast that he was light for a second, taking the woman from her arm and slamming her to the ground.

 

Ankareeda, still crying and bloody, moved towards Alastor. He, in his rage, placed his daughter behind him and was prepared to demolish the queen but as soon as her back cracked for the impact, she envolved herself in a rose colored mist and disappeared.

 

“Fuck!!” growled the king.

 

Charlie and Vaggie were at the destroyed door just in the moment to see the queen do her withdrawal, to see Anka panting behind the Radio Demon in his demon form and the fury of Alastor represented when he launched to where she was, punching the ground.

 

“Anka, are you all right?”asked Charlie, running towards the girl and hugging her, checking on her wounds.

 

The girl was crying and she held to Charlie like she was an raft in the middle of a storm, sobbing and shivering.

 

“I want her dead!” said Alastor, his voice overtook by static, raising his monstruos face to see Lucifer. “I want her fucking head on a pike, I want to eat her enthrails... I want to hunt her down, Lucifer!”

 

Alastor's shadow was over the shoulder of the king, growling or at least bearing his teeth too.

 

“We will hunt her down like the rabid bitch she is” he was angry, his mouth was flaring with hellfire when he spoke and he was consuming the light that the shadows of the room didn't take.

 

***

 

Ankareeda was curled in Lucifer's bed, sleeping.

 

The girl had little tears in the border of her eyes because she started to sleep when she was still crying. Charlie and Vaggie cared for her, dressing her wounds that, luckily, weren't very deep or damaging, more of the skin deep variaty and both the Radio Demon and the Devil explained to them what happened.

 

Alastor told his part, how he used the fire of the hearth to expand his shadow so Oncle could sneak pass the queen and go to warn Lucifer and the monarch also said how the shadow woke him up and alerted him of the pressence of the woman in his master's room.

 

They decided that night Ankareeda would sleep with Lucifer for protection and next day both Alastor and Lucifer would place barriers and wards specially for the woman.

 

“I can't believe she did something like this” said Charlie, trying to not raise her voice to not wake up the little girl.

 

“She's desperated” said the deer demon, how was still tense and slightly angry. “Even when I stalled with the dinner and telling her that I was about to think in her proposal, there is something that is pressing her to act now... I don't know if is my closeness with Lucifer or another thing.”

 

“Maybe her allies in Heaven are pressing her for results” said Vaggie, thinking, maintaining Charlie's hand on hers.

 

Of course Charlie didn't took well the news that her mother, her own mother, was so ready to sacrify her to get her objectives, being directly or to an abusive marriage. She cried... a little, but now the princess was resolute. She wasn't the only affected party on that debacle and she knew her mother must be stopped.

 

One thing was trying to use her but learning what she did to her father, to Alastor and Ankareeda... She was ready to stop the woman and protect her little sister.

 

“It's possible” said Charlie to Vaggie. “If she made a deal to remove or replace dad...”

 

She looked back to her father and he was centered in what he was doing.

 

The king wasn't speaking, he was sitting in the stool of his workbench, using his small tools and his angelic power on Ankareeda's shadow ragdoll... He was doing that after the girl was healed, as soon as she was sleeping, focus in that with not a single word uttered since he began with that.

 

Alastor and the girls let him with his own devices... He was pissed, royally, pissed off, so much that even the hotel was trembling for a moment after Lilith's departure. Lucifer was too powerful, he needed to calm himself before his power could do something he could regret.

 

And create things make him relax, so that what he was doing.

 

“The thing I don't get” continued Vaggie “is why she's so adamant on having you by her side, Alastor. Sure, she looks like she has the hots for you but I don't get it.”

 

“Didn't you say that she mentioned you can kill my dad?” asked Charlie, to then move her hand to her chin.

 

Alastor know that expression, the girl was analizing what he told them about the encounter with the Queen of Hell.

 

“Are you thinking in something concrete, my dear?” he asked.

 

“Just a theory but... I'm remembering what you told me about your abilities and what I saw about them till now since we know each other” said the woman. “You told me, you can devour souls and get their power, you did it with your father and others.”

 

Vaggie opened her eyes, looking to her fiancée to then look back to both Alastor and Lucifer.

 

“You think she wants...”

 

“But that's not how my power works” said the deer demon. “First I need a soul deal, then I can trap the soul in radio waves after killing them and from there I can devour them. I can't do that with Lucifer...”

 

“You never explained to anyone how your power works, right?” asked Vaggie, Alastor denied. “There you have it... She knows you have it, but not how it works. And I don't know, if you can make a deal with Lucifer, you could....”

 

Alastor denied.

 

“Let's not ignore the elephant in the room” said the red demon. “Lucifer is too powerful, I can't coerse a deal with him... and even if I could, if the rumors are true, he can break deals... and I'll need to kill him to store his soul... Not to mention that an ancient soul of his caliber will be too much for my radio waves, like trying to store Nat King Cole complete discography into a single vinyl. So is a fools errand.”

 

“But my mother doesn't know... and she seems desperated” said Charlie. “I don't know if it's because Heaven placed a timetable with her or for another thing but she wants to move this along and she thinks you can facilitate things in a easier way.”

 

The Radio Demon crossed his arms.

 

“Funny thing she burned the only bridge she had to get me to her side” said the demon. “The only way that I could betray your father and the hotel for that extend is to protect my daughter and she showed me this night that she's ready to kill my little one. I won't give her another chance to try, that I can asure you.”

 

Lucifer was still in silence, fiddeling with his tools over the ragdoll.

 

“Alastor, can you...” he talked after minutes, he thought for a moment, still he was laser focused in his task. “I need something from Anka, the fast thing could be blood but I don't want to.. not today... can you give me a lock of her hair?”

 

The deer demon understanding the type of magicks the monarch wanted to invoke in his daughter's future companion just nodded and went to his sleeping girl. He moved a little her hair near the nape and with his own claw he took a small lock of hair, moving near the king and presenting it in his hand.

 

“Is this enough, my king?” he asked.

 

Lucifer nooded and took it... He place it over his palm and covered it with the other hand and when he opened again, the lock of hair was pure light that he used to transform in thread to start to sew over the ragdoll, that now was covered in elohim, the language of angels, runes.

 

He continued to apply the light, to use his angelic power with the doll levitating over his hands, then over his head... then he jumped from his stool, walking towards Ankareeda, linking the light to her arm softly... As soon as the light touched the girl, it turned black and the doll started to change, elongate and move. Soon it took the form of a shadow, small like the little girl, with small horns like she had when she was angry and a golden low light coming from its eyes and mouth.

 

Oncle moved to see Anka's shadow nearer and moved his hand to tap the head of the young shadow.

 

“She will name you when she wakes up in the morning” said the king, softly, to the creature, that nodded, flied around Alastor's shadow with almost glee to then sunk into the shadow of the little one sleeping soundly in bed. “She will protect our daughter...”

 

Alastor didn't correct the king, he could still feel the tension on the monarch, like a metalic taste in his mouth product of the Devil's power. He was angry, like him, he was angry beyond meassure when he saw Ankareeda hurt... Alastor didn't chastice him when he hugged her in that moment, he won't say a word now.

 

Rosie always told him: Words mean nothing, facts and acts is where truth is. Alastor had in that moment almost zero doubts that the king loved his daughter.

 

“I even added a little something so no one can block her power again” said the monarch, turning around to face Alastor... his eyes were still overcome by red. “And first thing in the morning we are going to find that friend of the Von Eldritchs on Cannibal Town.”

 

Vaggie looked to the king.

 

“Aren't you going after that puta?” asked the ex-exorcist.

 

Lucifer denied.

 

“I bet she isn't stupid enough to remain in her manor in Lust and I don't want to go there and level half the block, I can't do that to Asmodeus” said the monarch. “We'll hunt her down, no more delays... but first things first. If she needs so much the Von Eldritch family, so much to try to sell Charlie to them, we'll gonna remove them from the equation.”

 

He was being cruel, his words cut like a knife and his tone was charged by darkness, like the growling of a beast at the end of a dark tunnel. Alastor felt a shiver, a delicious shiver all over his body.

 

“We'll extract every single bit of information they'll have and we'll destroy them without hesitation or mercy” said the monarch. “I won't allow traitors to me in Hell. I'll asphyxiate all Lilith's efforts and when she's alone and desperate, I'll strike like a cobra. No more mercy... no more seeking for information. After this night, all I want from her throat is a final gasp.”

 

Lucifer was radiating heat, being easy to feel the hellfire that was living under his skin, the power that was claiming to be release and destroy everything in its path.

 

“I...” Charlie sighed. “It's a lost hope for some.. resolve in this that doesn't have her dead, right?”

 

The monarch looked back to his daughter and some of his gaze softened a little.

 

“Sorry, applepie” said the devil. “But your mother is in a point of no return. She's no longer your mother even but a conniving demoness trying to take Hell from my hands, to kill me, you and your sister. She can't be allowed to continue breathing and I won't be sure just imprisoning her.”

 

Charlie lowered her head.

 

Even with all, that woman was her mother.

 

“I understand” said the princess.

 

Lucifer nodded and then sighed.

 

“We should be sleeping” said the monarch. “Alastor, you're gonna sleep here tonight too, right?”

 

The demon looked back to the bed of the Devil. They said that Anka was more secured with Lucifer for the night but they didn't talk about himself.

 

“I'll do, sire, if you have me” said the deer, nodding.

 

“Good, we should be sleeping... Good night, applepie” he said, kissing softly the cheek of the young woman. “Good night, Vaggie.”

 

“Good night, dad, Alastor” said Charlie, going out with Vaggie who just nodded to both men.

 

Both women weren't about to sleep just yet, there was too much in so little time and they needed to talk about that.

 

The deer demon snapped his fingers and changed his clothes for his sleeping ones and both men, in absolute silence, went to the bed, with the monarch resting in one side of his daughter and the demon in the other. Lucifer snapped so the covers and the duvet moved over them without awaking Ankareeda and both men went near the girl, hugging her... Both glad in silence that she was ok and fearing how this could affect the little one.

 

***

 

Anka woke up first light in the morning, sitting on the bed and yawning to then flinch a little for a small pain on her bandaged chest. She then, rubbing her eyes to remove some crust from them, looked back to both sides of her, seeing her fathers sleeping still.

 

A soft smile showed up in her face and she started to move very slowly, moving slightly the arms of both men, one near the other... and she covered her mouth happy when they hugged by reflex in their sleep.

 

She entered into a shadow to appear near the bed, contemplating her work... just to be surprised by a shadow in her image, her size, going from her own shadow to greet her. She had her eyes and mouth opened, pointing to the shadow.

 

She signed and the shadow nodded, Lucifer coded in the shadow the knowledge of Ankareeda about sign language, so there could be communication from the beginning. The girl hugged her shadow and jumped happy while the shadow was twirling around her, to then stop and made the silence sign over her mouth. Her shadow nodded.

 

Alastor's shadow appeared from the nearby wall, the demon tasked him to make sure Charlie and Vaggie weren't attack in the night and now that they were awake so he was returning... He signed to the little girl and the little shadow and both nodded.

 

The girl moved to Lucifer's workbench and took his notepad to write 'Dad, Lucifer, I woke up early, I went with Oncle and my new friend to bathe and eat breakfast. Kisses, Anka.'

 

She was satisfied with the note but then she thought for a moment and added: 'Ps: You should sleep together more, you're so cute' and she drew both man in a funny way, chibi style, sleeping while hugging. Happy with her work of art, she used a small shadow to afix the note to the chest of the pajama of the Radio Demon and entered into a shadow with Oncle and her shadow following her.

 

Ankareeda went to her room and took clean clothes, her pink cathedral radio and moved to the bathroom, ready to bathe. First things first, she undressed and removed the bandages... Lilith's claw marks were completelly healed, not a single scar in her flesh but the memory of pain was still there, the same of the sensation of being held by the neck. She brushed the sensation shaking her head and, after Oncle prepared the water to the right temperature, filling the tub, she entered... She was moving her head to the music and while Oncle washed her hair, she was cleaning the rest.

 

Her shadow was sitting over the closed toilet, also moving the head with the music... Ankareeda, while bathing, was talking to the shadow and she was responding with signs of her own.

 

The girl finished and while Oncle was covering her with the towel and she was using her tendrils to release the water and leave the bathroom in order, her little shadow presented her with the clothes and helped her to dress. She said thank you to both and Oncle started to brush her hair after drying it with the towel.

 

They went to the kitchen and there wasn't a soul in there that early, even when Alastor's shadow knew that Vaggie and Charlie were already up. Oncle pointed to the chair and the girl sat with her shadow taking the chair next to her, trying to imitate her movements of good girl waiting, with both hands over the table.

 

Oncle took a bowl and started to prepare chocolate pancakes for the girl with cacao powder.

 

When he was in the middle of that, Charlie and Vaggie went to the kitchen, being surprised by the little girl, her little shadowy companion and Alastor's shadow cooking.

 

“Good morning, Anka” said the princess, going to the little girl and hugging her. “How are you?”

 

Ankareeda signed 'I'm fine' and pointed to her chest, showing a little the skin near the neck so her sister could see there were no marks there.

 

“I'm so glad” said the woman.

 

“You were very brave last night” said Vaggie, ruffling her hair a little.

 

She signed, but them she knew they weren't understanting her so she snapped... or try, because she didn't learned to snap yet so her snaps were complete silent too... and in her hands a notepad appear with a ballpen. She wrote something.

 

“Let me see” said Charlie, taking the object in her hands. “Wow, Anka...”

 

“What she said?” asked Vaggie, smiling and curious. Charlie showed her the note. “Ok... 'Next time my claw will go to her neck' Wow! Little aggressive there.”

 

The girl frowned and wrote another note.

 

'Nobody threatens my dad' she wrote.

 

Both women thought the girl maybe was still scared, maybe she was even traumatized... Ankareeda was just seven and being threatened by a full blown adult at that age was trauma inducing. But that girl was Alastor's daughter and it was obvious she inhereted from the Radio Demon the capacity to hold grudges even against people stronger than her.

 

She wasn't traumatized, she was pissed off, even her new shadow looked like wanting a fight, cracking her ghostly knuckles.

 

Oncle placed a plate with chocolate pancakes and syrup in front of her and she started to eat voraciously, like she was still slightly mad for what happened the night before.

 

***

 

Alastor woke up first and, like always, he was already on alert. All his life and afterlife feeling unsafe made that to him... He never woke up sleepy or unready.

 

And when he didn't saw Ankareeda, the way he moved in the bed, woke up Lucifer too.

 

“What? What happened?” asked the monarch, who has half his brain still sleeping.

 

“Where is Anka?” asked the demon.

 

Lucifer looked at him and the bright yellow note in his red pajamas called his attention, taking it and read it with a smile, to then show it to the Radio Demon. Alastor's eyes moved over the letters and he finally sighed with the postdata, dropping to the bed again.

 

“Ankareeda...” he said, closing his eyes.

 

The monarch moved near him, placing a hand over his arms and smiling playfully.

 

“Good morning, Alastor” he said.

 

“Good morning, your highness” responded the demon, moving in the bed to face the devil.

 

“What I told you last night?” he said, raising his brow.

 

“That was last night, not now” said the red demon. “It's too early for me to be complacent. I need a hot shower and coffee.”

 

“Maybe we can shower together to save water and be faster...” he said, moving his hand up and down the arm of Alastor.

 

One of the overlord's tentacles moved out of his back to stop the hand, holding him by the wrist, with the Radio Demon looking to the monarch directly in the eyes.

 

“I was joking...” said the king with a sigh.

 

“Yeah, tell that to your penis, who was raising its head with real hope in its only eye...” the man entered into a shadow and re-appeared at the feet of the bed. “Besides, I want to get clean after that shower, not dirtier... I'll go first.”

 

Lucifer looked to Alastor moving to the bathroom, driving his eyes around the broad shoulders, the thin waist, that deliciously grabable thin waist and those amazing hips... resting a second in his perky ass and that tail...He dropped on the bed.

 

He shouldn't be doing that, he knew... But after last night, after the fear he felt for Alastor and Ankareeda, for losing both at the hands of that three times cursed harpy... He wanted both near him, he wanted to love them, show them love and care and make them feel safe. Sadly, because he was like that, with Alastor that was also sprinkled with a side of sexual attraction and high libido, a bad combination taking that the Radio Demon didn't want a thing with the Devil in that front.

 

The monarch took a look of his crotch and his erection and he knew he had two options: let it pass or solve it.

 

His hand was inside his pajama pants and boxers before his brain could make an educate guess or really take a decission.

 

It took Lucifer nothing of time to project in his mind the image of Alastor, between his legs, undressing him, releasing him, taking his hardness in his hand... He imagined how the demon would lick him, passing that long strong tongue, marking his veins, coiling around his shaft to then kiss the tip, taking the pre-cum, enclosing his erection between his thin lips while looking at him with those beautiful pink irises.

 

He bit a moan, he moved his hand near his mouth to bite it down to contain the need to grunt the name of the deer demon... He was near, really near, his fantasy giving him all what he need while he was moving frantically his hand with the expertise of someone that knows very well their own body. The idea of Alastor, pleasuring him was enough to turn his mind outside down, to fire his gut and turn it to ashes.

 

He came, biting down his own hand so hard the he drew blood, panting... out of breath for a moment to then snap and clean himself.

 

Lucifer was still recovering his normal breathing when Alastor came out of the bathroom, immaculately dressed with his usual attire, dry hair brushed to perfection and cleaning his monocle.

 

He hummed locking to the man.

 

“At least you could say 'Thank you'” said the demon, raising a brow.

 

“For... what for?” Lucifer rose from the bed, ready to go to the bathroom.

 

“The orgasm” said Alastor, making him stop in his tracks. “My educated guess is that I was casted as the protagonist of a really good fucking in your mind. You're welcome.”

 

“Wha...”

 

“Even if you clean with magic, the smell of your fluids reached me while in the shower” said the demon. “And I'm saying fluids and not semen because I smelt the blood too. In fact...”

 

Alastor moved his hand and took a droplet of golden blood from the edge of the mouth of the monarch, looking at it in his thumb to then suck it, slowly, soft and closing his eyes.

 

Oh, fuck! Thought Lucifer when he notice he was becoming hard again.

 

“You left behind a delicious drop” said the demon, opening his eyes, with a gaze that was bright, playful... He knew!! He knew what he was doing, the effect that he was causing and he was enjoying it! Enjoying the king making an effort to not do something untold!

 

Bastard... How much he loved him!

 

“Oh, you love this so much!” said the king, with a smirk, licking his own lips.

 

“Maybe... I must say, the idea of you getting a hard on or a heat with the idea of hunting and being cruel is of much appealing for me” commented the demon.

 

“It wasn't for that... Tho the idea of take Lilith by her mane and drag her all around Pentagram until she's nothing more than bone and blood is kinda of alluring” he said, with a vicious smile that produced a good shiver on Alastor. “No, I'm... You said it, I'm touch starved and my love tents to be physical. Last night I was in pure tension, that fucking she-devil could hurt you, she hurt our child! And I...”

 

“You need to reasure your mind that we are here and we are ok” said the demon and Lucifer nodded slowly. “But you're wrong in something, sire. She isn't a she-devil. There is only one devil in Hell and is you and only you. And you'll need to claim that, own that title, if we are going to fulfill our righteous vengeance.”

 

The demon moved his hand, first he placed it over the head of the monarch, then he moved it slowly, passing it softly for his cheek to then go to the chin, raise his head to look him in the eye.

 

“She dared to touch our daughter” said the demon, with his eyes going to radio dials. “I want her tortured and dead... and I want to feast in her corpse.”

 

Lucifer took the hand and kiss it, almost fiercely.

 

“And I'll feast with you” said the king. “Don't worry, I'll show you my love for you and Anka with my cruelty.”

 

They stood like that, almost a minute, seeing each other, with their breath becoming on sync, both eyes with the cruelty that they'd destined for others.

 

“Now, I need a shower...” he released the hand of the Radio Demon and moved to the door of the bathroom, holding in there for a second before looking back with a smirk. “Thank you.”

 

Alastor raised a brow.

 

“What for?” he asked.

 

“For the amazing handjob I'm about to get in the shower, in your honor” he said, moving his hand like he was making a cheers with a glass.

 

The red demon rolled his eyes.

 

“Crass and insatiable, virtues of being the Devil, I guess” both men laughed and when Lucifer closed the door of the bathroom, Alastor teleported via shadows to the kitchen.

 

***

 

Ankareeda was signing very fast near her father at the door of the hotel.

 

“You can't come” said the demon. “First, we aren't going for the queen just yet, we need to consult something with your auntie Rosie and second, even if we were, you won't be allowed to come with us.”

 

The girl stomped her hoof strong and began to gesticule and sign fast again, with almost rage and her shadowy friend to her side nodding and signing too.

 

“No and no” said the demon, to his daughter and the shadow of his daughter. “You and...”

 

He sighed, remembering the name his daughter gave to her shadow companion.

 

“Goldie... I still think is a dog name, not dignify whatsoever for a shadow” he shook his head. “You and Goldie will remain here with Charlie and Vaggie. You are seven and you aren't strong enough to exercise a serious business like vengeance.”

 

Ankareeda stomped twice and signed.

 

“No, you're my daughter” he said. “As we know it right now, you didn't inherited a single power from your other father except the capacity to release your horns and tail, so stop saying you're the Devil's daughter.”

 

Because in that discussion that was twice she tried to use that card.

 

The girl bared her teeth in a way that for Alastor was more cute than threatening.

 

“Is she still trying to go with us?” asked Lucifer, coming from the elevator while adjusting his hat and coat.

 

“Yes, she's very persistant” said the deer demon. “Know that I made you fully responsable for this behaviour. She was never like this before.”

 

“If you're gonna blame me for something that I took no part of, whatsoever, you'll need to pick a number or get in line” said Lucifer, turning to Anka. “Sweetheart, I'm glad you aren't affected, in a way, for what that aspid did but you have to know your limitations.”

 

He started to say to the girl, taking her for her shoulders softly, smiling to her all the time.

 

“I don't have any doubt in my mind that you'll be a very powerful demoness when you're older” he said. “But now you're a little girl and you have to do things for little girls.... You'll stay here with your big sister, study a little like your father told you and play with your new friend Goldie.”

 

She signed, softly, Lucifer knew the signs and smiled.

 

“I'll protect your father” said the king. “And your father is crazy strong, either way. If you're a safe, he can take in anyone... Do you trust me?”

 

Ankareeda mulled it for a moment to then nod.

 

“Good girl” said the king, kissing the girl between her ears. “Now run along, your sis is in the parlor with your homework.”

 

The girl signed 'You promised' while looking first to the king and then to the Radio Demon, to look at the king again. She raised her eyebrows twice to then move to the parlor with her shadow friend.

 

“She listening to you more than me, doesn't sit well with me at all” confessed the deer demon. “Feels like losing her a little.”

 

Lucifer smiled with compassion, he knew that feeling and, in the case of Alastor, was all in his head.

 

“She does in this because she didn't agree with you” said the monarch. “A pure spitfire, our little doe and she loves you very, very much. She listened to me because I'm just another voice, giving her the same reason.”

 

The king snapped to create a portal to Cannibal Town and both men went through it.

 

“I'm still unconvinced...” said the deer demon but he was losing force in his voice when he saw the scene on the town square of the place.

 

The cannibals were reunited there. There were signs of fighting in the place and some wounded.

 

Alastor moved near one of the cannibals that was attending to another how had some nasty cuts in their face.

 

“Sorry, my good lady, what happened?” he asked.

 

“Tamirah, one of the girls of Missus Dunahaim, the flower vendor? We don't know but attacked Rosie with an angelic blade” Alastor opened his eyes widely.

 

“Where is Rosie?” his eyes going into radio dials.

 

“At... at her emporium, sir” she pointed.

 

Alastor entered into shadow to move faster and Lucifer went behind him transformed in light, both arriving to the place, like always filled with people, at the same time. The Radio Demon was afraid of the worst, afraid of losing his best friend, his confident, his family... The people moved to gave him space and he told to one of Rosie's shopgirls, pointing to her apartment over the shop.

 

The king and the deer demon took the stairs and when they arrived, they saw Rosie, without her iconic hat, tying up with an old rope a cannibal young woman. The woman looked really battered out, with several bruises and cuts while Rosie only had a small cut in her cheek and another in the arm... or both could feel it was there, because the woman covered with a yellow tied up handkerchief.

 

“If you continue to squirm, I'll start to cut nerves, lass” said the cannibal overlord, securing the last knots.

 

“Rosie?” asked Alastor.

 

“Ah, Alastor, his majesty, you there... I was about to call for you” said the woman.

 

Alastor runned and hugged and she, with a soft smile, returned the hug.

 

“Oh, drama of a man, surely you weren't worry about lil' old me” she said.

 

“I saw the town square” said Alastor.

 

“Are you hurt, Miss Rosie?” asked the king.

 

“Evidently, my king” she said, pointing with her head to the dressed arm. “I got worst in my life and afterlife, don't worry your little blondie head. The same goes for you, mister.”

 

She said, separating a little from Alastor.

 

“Like you don't know how tough I am to worry about me” she scolded him. “Or how many tricks I have. I catched on her looks when I was buying flowers to make one of my perfumes and I felt the guard over her... Taking I know and respect her mother, I tried to talk to her and she decided to try to deliver an angelic blade to my ribs... I'm sorry, but this number is pure mulberry silk with real corrupt politician bone as adorments, like heck I was about to let her ruin it... Still is a pity for the sleeve.”

 

She clicked her tongue, looking at her hurt arm and moving the cut fabric to one side and the other.

 

“Maybe I'll remove the sleeves and change a little the bossom...” she sighed. “In any case, we fought, I reduced her, muzzled her and tied her. Like I said, I was about to call you... I guess this is the one you told me.”

 

“Yes, darling... We need to take information from her” said the deer demon.

 

“And we need to tell you what happened last night, so you can be on your guard” added the king.

 

Rosie moved her eyes from one man to the other and crossed her arms.

 

“I have the impression I'm gonna get mad... so start talking” she ordered.

Notes:

Bets are open: How is about to react Rosie to the news about Lilith? How she's about to react when she learns that Anka was hurt by her? Make your bets, make your bets!

Chapter 36: Can be called Apocalypse if starts in Hell?

Summary:

Rosie learns about what transpired the night before and there is no fury like the one from a patient woman. Specially if that woman considered herself a mother.

The Cannibal Overlord starts to move threads while the King of Hell and the Radio Demon interrogate Rosie's assailant.

Notes:

This is a short chapter, I know it but there is a good moment to end this one and start the next one.

“Granny Weatherwax was often angry. She considered it one of her strong points. Genuine anger was one of the world's greatest creative forces. But you had to learn how to control it. That didn't mean you let it trickle away. It meant you dammed it, carefully, let it develop a working head, let it drown whole valleys of the mind and then, just when the whole structure was about to collapse, opened a tiny pipeline at the base and let the iron-hard stream of wrath power the turbines of revenge.”

~Terry Pratchett, Wyrd Sisters

 

Alastor decided first to explain to his friend about the date with the king.

 

He didn't add his impressions or thoughts about it, like he would normally do with her, because Lucifer was before them but he was giving all the last detail and the woman was smiling, giving sometimes some approving gaze to the monarch, like telling him without telling that he did well... or at least, according to her standarts.

 

Then Alastor recounted what happened when he returned to the room after that no-kiss in the door of Lucifer's bed chamber, how he found his daughter sleeping in his bed... and Lilith coming out of his bathroom like she owned the place.

 

The deer demon started to talk about Lilith's aspirations, her trying to gain him to her side.

 

Rosie had to sit, from the beginning when Alastor told her about the claw, so near his daughter, she was already serious with her arms crossed... now seated, she was holding to the edge of the table, her black insect-like eyes centered in the Radio Demon... and when he told her about how she brushed Charlie off like nothing, how she said she could have more kids and, finally, how she took Anka from the throat... with all the words about finishing the job, after reveling she was the one that gave the order to persue Alastor when he ran from Magne Manor...

 

The cannibal overlord growled at the same time that she made pressure over the table, taking out a chunck of the thick wood like it was styrofoam.

 

“That fuckin' bitch!” yelled the woman, throwing the wood to a side.

 

She took the low part of her dress with both hands to move faster, going to the door that lead down to the store.

 

“Mel... Bring me my contact book!” she said.

 

“Rosalyn, what are you going to do?” asked the Radio Demon, raising a brow.

 

The gaze the woman returned to the demon was enough to make him sit straight in the chair, adjusting his coat and shutting up like a charm. Funny thing, Rosie wasn't looking towards Lucifer and he reacted exactly the same way.

 

“Show that bitch how to be a real mother, taking she's an unnatural trollop in heat with so little finesse that she threatened a little girl trying to get her father into bed, so she could feel something between her cold legs or in her fish-smelly cunt!” she said, closing her fist and discharging it to the nearby wall.

 

“Damn...” said Lucifer, surprised, satisfied, scared, all in between.

 

“I don't think she just wanted me in bed, Rosie, darling” said the deer demon, slowly, like trying to talk to a soon to be rampant elephant.

 

The cannibal looked back at him, her mouth was in pure tension.

 

“That frigid fucking bitch wants to feel something between her legs because I'm pretty sure there is not amount of contraptions powered by electricity or batteries that can get her on... and surely not amount of lube into that crust infested gash to make it useful or pleasurable” both men opened their eyes widely... not even Alastor expected that language from his friend. “Cold, heartless beast... daring to threaten you and touch my baby...”

 

She stuck out her head through the door.

 

“Mel, is that fuckin' book coming any time soon??!!” she yelled.

 

The woman ran up the stairs and gave the contact book to Rosie apologizing but the overlord wasn't having it and she just closed the door almost in the young woman's face.

 

“By the way, I'm taking Ankareeda shopping...” said, resolute and that wasn't a petition, the woman was saying something that was about to happen. “For what you told me, she acted wonderfully. I want to release her in town and buy for her whatever she wants from every store, she earned it.”

 

She was passing the pages furiously, trying to find a phone number, taking her rotary phone when she found the one she was looking.

 

“Whom are you gonna call, darling?” asked the demon.

 

“Oh... people, that owe me favors, I'm cashin' in” said the woman. “If that gauche tabby pigeon-livered bitch thinks she can do whatever she wants with my family, she's gonna have a wake up call... Hello, Carmilla, darling. Do you have a moment? I have a favor to ask.”

 

The monarch leaned to the demon.

 

“Why is she calling Carmilla of all people?” asked, whispering. “Angelic weapons?”

 

Alastor denied.

 

“I don't think so, her cannibals decided to retain the ones we entrusted to them after the last extermination attemp” commented the Radio Demon, in the same tone of voice. “She is served in angelic steel.”

 

“Yes, yes... Remember when I got that book for you? I'm cashing in, I have a pest I want exterminated” continued talking the woman. “The fucking Queen of Hell herself... Yeah, yeah, I know, big target, big whoop, but that bitch touched my baby and I want her fucking head in my town square. Alastor's baby, Anka? She hurt her and tried to kill her. Alastor wants her dead, the King wants her dead, and they will move their resources, but I feel that baby like mine, so I'm about to let Hell lose on her even if I have to cash every favor people owe me in this hellhole since I dropped here.”

 

She changed the phone from one ear to the other.

 

“I need your list of contractors” she said. “I want every last one of them, I'm about to place a bounty not a single contractor will resist. Yeah, I knew you could understand the feeling... I don't want to let that bitch a single second of respite. Thank you, I'll wait for your daughters. See you around, Carmilla.”

 

She hanged but she wasn't finish, apparently, trying to find another number in the book.

 

“You two!” she said suddenly.

 

“Yes?” they responded at the same.

 

“You should be interrogating our guest while I'm trying to transform Hell into a 'No Lilith' zone” she said, pointing to the woman, still gagged and tied to a chair. “Be useful, darlings. Zestial? Oh, yes, so much time, my lord... Remember those components, so rare, that I got for you? I need to pick your brain in return for a couple of spells I intent to cast...”

 

And she continued talking with the ancient overlord while the two men moved to the tied woman.

 

“I'll first remove the seal so she can talk” said the monarch.

 

Lucifer removed the gag and the cannibal woman tried to bite him... The king, showing amazing reflexes, moved the hand out of range and then hit her with the back of her hand. That hit didn't look hard but it was, the cannibal ended up coughing sharp teeth while bleeding black.

 

“Don't even try that, you're before the King of Hell” said the monarch. “Help me here, opening her mouth.”

 

Alastor took the woman with strong hand over her cheeks, forcing her to open the mouth to then move some small tendrils of shadow to keep it opened. The devil moved his hand, taking the tongue, forcing it out to then place the thumb over the magic seal impressed in her soft muscle. Sizzling sound, the smell of burning flesh and her trying to scream, moving in the chair, trying to free herself in the middle of pain.

 

With no avail... Lucifer finished with the seal and the woman ended up with tears of pain and panting.

 

“Well, now let's talk, shall we?” said the Radio Demon.

 

“I won't say a fucking thing!” she said, with rage slightly tinted by pain and fear.

 

Both men looked to each other.

 

“Bad cop, worse cop, my liege?” asked the demon, making his cane dissapear, ready for the torture.

 

Lucifer just smiled, in a way that could produce terror in very powerful beings... let's not talk about a regular cannibal hellborn tied up in an apartment with two cannibal overlords, one of them with terrible reputation, and the literal king of the only world that woman knew.

 

“Oh, no, no need, dear” said the monarch. “Who needs cops, when you have the Devil?”

 

Like a serpent, the king struck with his hand over the face of the woman, holding her like Alastor did to open her mouth, making pressure with his fingers over her cheeks... But he was more brutal, piercing the skin with his sharp nails and holding her face so hard bones started to sound crunchy.

 

The Devil released all his diabolic attributes, with his horns pointing high, his tail moving nerviously behind him and his nails stepping up to the claw department. Fire was dancing between the horns and Nahas was taking his place as the terrible corrupted halo of the monarch.

 

“You will respond to every single question we'll ask” he said, with a... different type of voice.

 

It was raspy, serpentine, with his tongue going out of his mouth while he was talking. The tone was... tempting, the deer demon knew that tone was talking to very primary parts of her being because he was almost tasting that power.

 

The woman nodded. The last time Alastor saw someone acting like that, it was thanks to Vox's hypnosis.

 

“So that's the famous silver tongue of the Devil...” said the deer demon.

 

Lucifer nodded.

 

“Devil's tongue... I can't chain her because she doesn't have a soul” he started to explain, releasing his hand. “And I normally don't use that party trick because goes against my idea of free will but... Well, she's involved with my enemies, so fuck her. What was exactly your mission on Cannibal Town?”

 

The woman, in that complacent state, staring to nothingness, started to talk in a monotone voice:

 

“My friend Helsa asked me to dig for information on Miss Rosie” she said. “She wanted information on the weaknesses of the Radio Demon and a way to create a riff between Rosie and him. The Queen wants the demon as a plaything but Helsa was thinking in killing him.”

 

Alastor rose an eyebrow with impecable form.

 

“That Helsa girl...” said the demon. “You said it was Charlie's rival?”

 

Lucifer nodded.

 

“That young woman can't hold a candle to our princess” he commented. “Surely Charlie is not so naive or stupid to think my weaknesses... if there were any... would be so easily learned. Let's not talk about the idea of killing me... Like I can't handle a posh girl with pretensions of importance or greatness. I had desserts that presented me more of a challenge. Do you know exactly what the queen is getting from her deal with the Von Eldritch family?”

 

He asked the hypnotized woman while Lucifer was smiling towards Alastor. First he praised his daughter and then he brushed Helsa aside like the child she was.

 

“No, I don't know” she responded.

 

“Do you know who has that information?” asked the king.

 

“Helsa's father” said the cannibal. “Or her mother. Both made the deal and the rest of the family don't know the details. Helsa complained about that, about him keeping that information under wraps from the rest of the family.”

 

“And all the family is in the loop about this alliance?” asked the deer demon.

 

“Yes” she responded. “They had a reunion. They are afraid, they are losing control of their magic, is not responding to them like it used to. Even some of the oldest hellborn started to... grow and rot.”

 

The king was surprised. Yes, not all hellborn were immortal, not all have very long lives. Sirens, sucubbi, goat demons, imps, hellhounds, were in the side of human type of length of life. Goetia could live a lot more... Von Eldritch were or sinners or hellborn and, until this moment, their hellborn if they weren't killed, they lived forever... at least until that point.

 

If what the woman was saying was true, and Lucifer knew it was, ast least from her point of view or what she knew, that meant that really the Von Eldritch were losing their connection to Hell since seven years ago.

 

“Any other symptom of the lack of power on the Von Eldritch?” asked the monarch.

 

“Some of their older wards were broken, their old spells and Helsa told me that some of family that mingled with other hellborns and formed families, lost their power” said the woman in her trance. “She said it was for the best.”

 

Alastor delivered a glance to Lucifer.

 

“Looks like the Von Eldritch are desperated but... Why are they so desperated to mix with your family?” said the deer demon. “It's not like that can fix their connection to Hell.”

 

The monarch thought for a moment, moving his hand to his chin.

 

“Maybe they think they can trigger something similar to the effect I have on my queen” said Lucifer. “We don't know yet if Charlie will give the same effect, because she isn't married yet... But let's assume is true and any consort she picks will be powered by the infernal realm. That could only fix the thing for Seviathan, not the rest of them.”

 

Alastor also thought about it and his knowledge of magicks... His expertise was in Vodou and in shadow magicks, not in abyssal, but some concepts, he knew, were universal by all the types of magicks a user could practice.

 

“There is a practice that my people used in their communities in the Old Continent” started to explain the demon. “It was called the 'all for one', had another names but... The concept is linking your destiny or your health or even your strength to your family. I think Witches Covens use the same concept, correct me if I'm wrong, about linking themselves for a big magic effect.”

 

Lucifer thought about it and nodded.

 

“Yes... sometimes they are weak individually and they combine their strength” said the monarch. “Are you suggesting they want to test if Charlie produce my very same effect with Seviathan or that awful idea of a forced bastard?”

 

Still talking about what they suggested in doing to Charlie made the Devil really mad.

 

“Why, yes” said Alastor. “That could explain their plans, what they want to do with Charlie and why they are helping the queen. If someone knows about that borrowed strength, is her.”

 

The king growled.

 

Alastor was right, maybe that was they were after and Lilith was helping them like her own fucking daughter was nothing for her. He lowered his head a little... Since when that woman that only wanted to be a mother and love a child, that loved him so much became that monster? It was... disheartening thinking she was so ready to sacrify Charlie for... whatever thing she wanted from that family to conserve her power.

 

She was even ready to kill him and replace him... That wasn't for the exterminations, there was more and he didn't know and... He didn't care. That woman, the same that the Von Eldritch family, made an enemy of him and his kingdom. And he wasn't about to be compassionate with them.

 

The king turned around, his claw cut with pression the neck of the woman and she snapped out of her trance at the same time she was drowning in her own black blood.

 

“She uplived her usefulness” said with cruelty the monarch, invoking a handkerchief to clean his hand. “We'll learn more when we decimate the Von Eldritch.”

 

“Vox? Yeah, is Rosie” the cannibal overlord continued with the calling train and now apparently she was communicating with the tv demon.

 

Alastor frowned but didn't stop her.

 

“I have a problem and I want your help, for old times sake” she smiled. “Oh, I bet you gonna like even love to help. Queen Lilith attacked Alastor last night, she tried to kill his daughter and wanted him to surrender his soul to be her little plaything both in bed and out... No, I don't know why but she always had the hots for Alastor and now, apparently, his crab infested cunt must be really itchy or something... Of course I'm mad! You know how much I love Alastor and I love even more that little girl! Yes, yes, Anka is ok, she hurt her but she bounced back, tought as her father, that girl... I want to use your media power. Announce that, by decree of the King, Lilith is no longer to be considered a Queen of Hell anymore, denounce her for commiting high treason, no specifics... She is persona non grata in all the Rings of Hell. Yes, the typical, any accomplice will get the same end, yadda, yadda... Also, announce the King, the Radio Demon and the Cannibal Town Overlord are offering a juicy, extremelly juicy bounty for information or direct capture of the ex-monarch. Yes, yes... I knew I could count on you, old friend. Call me if there is any... Yes, yes, he's here, in fact.”

 

After she telling him that and, apparently, the overlord hanging on her, one of Vox's voyeur-scopes went near the window of the apartment, tapping in the crystal.

 

Rosie hanged the phone and moved, opening for the contraption to approach and from it, in electricity form, Vox materialized in the space, running towards Alastor.

 

“Are you really ok?” he asked, he looked... nervious.

 

“Yes” was the only response from the Radio Demon, surprised for the arrival of the tv demon.

 

“Oh, fuck... Anka's also ok? Rosie told me that bitch hurt her” he asked, he looked really worried for the girl.

 

“My daughter is fine, Lilith hurt her but she inherited from Lucifer a rapid regeneration, this morning she was like nothing” said the demon, still analizing his old partner and his behaviour.

 

“Is she scared?” he asked.

 

“More pissed than scared” said Alastor.

 

“Don't worry, Alastor and I raised that girl” said Rosie, placing a hand over the very genuinely nervious overlord. “Tough as a wall, twice as headstrong... and according to them, the queeny has now to deal with a nasty wound in her slappable face.”

 

The TV Overlord looked like if a heavy weight was moving from his shoulders, he breathed and smiled softly.

 

“I'm glad... And I'm glad you're a ok, Al” he said.

 

After analizing his gestures and voice, his screen facial expression, the deer demon accepted he was being genuine. He wasn't trying to get something from this, he was really glad he was ok and his daughter was safe.

 

“Your highness” he turned to the king. “Rosie told me... what do you desire to be done?”

 

He asked.

 

Lucifer didn't have to think for much, because he really thought the fury of the Cannibal Overlord was on the money.

 

“What she said” he responded. “I'll offer a generous bounty to anyone that bring me my ex-wife alive and I'll pay any good tip that brought me to her. Alastor and Rosie will pay for that also... Not a single mention about Ankareeda but let it be clear that she's a traitor to Hell, not just me.”

 

“With pleasure, your highness” he said, nodding. “We, the Vees, will provide a hot line for people to call and I'll filter the information personally. Don't worry, Al...”

 

He said, smirking to his old friend.

 

“That bitch is gonna pay for touching your daughter” said the overlord. “You'll have your pound of flesh soon.”

 

He was ready to go to the window to use his voyeur-scopes to use it to return to his tower when the Radio Demon stopped him, holding him softly from his arm.

 

“Do this for me” he said to the tv demon. “And maybe... you know... we can return to an space in time before you living with me.”

 

Vox thought in that for a second, surprised but gratefully so.

 

“I'll love that, old friend” he gave two pats on the arm to the deer demon and transformed into electricity to return to his tower.

 

Rosie closed the window at the same time one of her employees knocked on the door.

 

“Miss Rosie” said the girl with a book in her hand. “A spider demon came to bring you this.”

 

The woman took it with a huge smile.

 

“Amazing... Zestial, as always, so much reliable” she said, going to the table and opening the book by the marked page with a piece of patchment, a note left by the ancient overlord. “Perfect.”

 

Lucifer went near her to observe.

 

“What are you going to do?” asked the shorter man.

 

“A spell... Isn't extremelly harmful but a reminder for that bitch” she made a gesture and with a puff of black smoke, a metallic bowl appared in her hand. “I need a drop of blood from both.”

 

“From us?” said Alastor, who was asking but knowing there was nothing to deter than woman, he was already piercing one of his fingers with the sharp nail of the other.

 

“Yes... I need Ankareeda's blood but my baby isn't here and you two made her, so...” she looked back to the monarch. “Oh, you're gonna love this, your majesty.”

 

She said, raising a brow, smirking in a way that was charming and terrible and luckily not terrible for the king, but for something that now both have in common: Hate for the ex-Queen of Hell.

 

Lucifer prickled his finger with one of his sharp teeth and both men let a drop of blood fall at the same time over the metallic little bowl.

 

Rosie moved her hands over it and some black smoke was starting to source.

 

“Let's have some fun...” she said.

 

***

 

Envy Ring, Tartarus Hall (Royal Family residency in the ring, now abandoned)...

 

Lilith was trying to heal the claw mark in his face since the night before but the wound refused to surrender to her magicks. No matter what spell she used, what magic object... that mark refused to close.

 

“This is something I never saw before, my queen” said the siren witch that was playing as her attendant in that abandoned mansion.

 

There were more than one hundred years since someone stepped on Tartarus Hall and the place had all the marks of being left to the dust and time. Covered furniture, cobwebs in every place... and, at the same time because that was Envy, splashes of black mold in some walls product of the humidity of the place.

 

“It refuses to heal” said the siren. “And I'm feeling a faint sulfuric smell, like brimstone, from it...”

 

The queen, furious, pushed the woman far from her.

 

“I know that already!!” he screamed. “That fucking bastard, I'll kill her for this!! I will tear her apart and bathe in her fucking blood and I'll turn her fucking daddy into my pet!!”

 

And then she started to scream, scream with all her lungs let her, holding to her face, dropping to the ground and contorting and moving... Black smoke was coming from her face and a sizzling sound accompaning all the lot. The witch didn't know what to do, how to help... she tried to get near the queen and the only pay she received for her worries was a claw to her throat, a swift motion and her neck broke, droping to the ground.

 

Lilith was still suffering, her claws marking the old gold colored marble of the floor with deep gaps, her mouth was full of black saliva, coughing part of it to the ground. Her eyes full of tears... the pain, excruciating. Terrible... prolongued.

 

It took her at least an hour to return to normal, to be able to move from the floor. All her bones cracked soundly with pain, her face, she felt it, like fiery coals resting in it.

 

The Queen found a hand mirror and looked to herself in it.

 

The four gashes that Ankareeda made her now were wide, like a tiger claw and were glowing in green, disfiguring her, in other time, perfect face. A voice came to her ears, female voice: There is no place to hide, Lamia.

 

She screamed while breaking the mirror.

 

“Oh, the all powerful Queen of Hell is suffering” said a voice near her.

 

Lute came out of the darkness. Her uniform was very different from the last time Lilith saw the woman: she was now sporting the gear of a general of Heaven, not so different in form, but in color, taking the colors of the deceased Adam. Even her halo was now golden, the same as the mechanical arm formed with angelic light she had instead of her missing one.

 

“Rise and shine, queeny” said the woman with a cruel smile when she saw the green claw mark. “My boss wants to have a talk with you to know your... progress.”

 

The last word came with a lot of sass, making sure for the monarch, if it was any doubt, that her “partners” in Heaven knew of her resounding failure.

 

Grinding her teeth, Lilith decided to follow the ex-lieutenant to the place where they all could talk.

 

***

 

Rosie cleaned her hands with a towel and returned with the two men.

 

“Well, with my message delivered, what's our next move?” asked the overlord.

 

“Our, Rosie, dear?” asked Alastor.

 

She crossed her arms.

 

“Of course, our” said the woman, resolute. “When I said I want to raise all Hell against her, it wasn't an euphemism. That bitch is dead and I'm about to make it as painful as possible. So what is our next move? The Von Eldritch?”

 

Lucifer nodded. Something was telling him that it will be impossible to make that woman back down now. No, he will have a better result trying to change the curse of the River Nile with his bare hands.

 

“Yes, we need to question both Frederick and Bethesda but we want to eliminate all that family from the face of Hell, like they never existed to begin with” said the monarch with cruelty.

 

“We can do that...” said Rosie. “I have a town of cannibals, both hellborn and sinners. I can sent them to the rest of residencies of the Von Eldritch to make a fantastic cleaning and we three can go to Eldritch Castle and transform the place into a parking lot.”

 

Alastor thought for a second.

 

“A multi-attack in all the fronts is a very sound strategy” said the Radio Demon. “If we can hit all the manors and places of power of the Von Eldritch, they won't help one another. We will have an easier time with Eldritch Castle even. I can mobilize my contracts to help your cannibals.”

 

Lucifer then smiled wickedly.

 

“Well, I can mobilize the Sins” said the king.

 

“The what now?” asked the deer demon.

 

“The Von Eldritch have branches of the family in different rings... Sure, Rosie could send her hellborn cannibals but will be more efficient if I contact the Sins and tell them I banned Von Eldritch members in MY Hell” said the monarch, to then catch on the looks from both Alastor and Rosie.

 

He smirked, very pleased with himself.

 

“King of Hell, baby!” he said, taking out his phone. “We only need to decide when we are gonna do this.”

 

“We decided to hit the Queen, we shouldn't let the Von Eldritch to catch up” said Alastor.

 

“Make the calls, your highness, I'll go to the town square to reunite my cannibals” said the woman.

 

Alastor took Rosie's umbrella and lend it to her.

 

“Ready for some mayhem, my dear?” asked the deer demon.

 

“Like if you have to ask” said the cannibal overlord.

Notes:

Next one will be full of action, information, revelations... We'll see what kind of destruction and mayhem two overlords and the King of Hell can raise.

Chapter 37: Assault on Castle Eldritch

Summary:

The King of Hell is on the offensive! And he isn't ready to show mercy for anyone.

The Sins are mobilized in their Rings and Alastor, Lucifer and Rosie march over Castle Eldritch in the Royal Circle.

Notes:

Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry!! I know it took me a lot and this isn't even long, I'm telling you isn't for lack of inspiration because is rushing out of me. But between the Alastor Mom Week and the stupid heat in my islands, I can't think, less write.

But again, sorry, and I'll try to be more constant.

“Watch your tongue or have it cut from your head

Save your life by keeping whispers unsaid

Children roam in the streets now orphans of war

Bodies hanging in the streets to adore

Royal flames will carve a path in chaos

Bringing daylight to the night

Death is riding into town with armor

They come to take all your rights

 

Hail to the king.”

 

 

Channel 666, news segment...

 

“Breaking news!!” said very known news archon woman's voice while moving her head to a side in an unnatural angle making a breaking sound. “I'm Katie Killjoy!”

 

“And I'm Tom Trench!” said the male co-presenter of the news.

 

“News from the Royal Palace of Pandaemonium and the Crown of Hell” continued the woman. “Our own Head Honcho, Lucifer Morningstar had declare our now former Queen Lilith as persona non grata in all of Hell... That means our esteemed queen has been sacked from the Palace and is royaly fucked!”

 

“I could give her some place to sleep between my legs” said Trench.

 

“I doubt it, Tom, unless you want the fury of our powerhouse of a king kicking your gonads until they go to your throat” said Katie with her cheerful venenous tone. “Also, our royal big shot, the sweet Cannibal Town's very own overlord Rosie, the, get this!, The Radio Demon himself and our beloved Vox from Voxtek, leader of the Vees, offered huge rewards for any information or the capture of the... I'm quoting Rosie here... 'That bitch'.”

 

“Who knows what that bitch did to piss off so many powerplayers on Hell” said the anchor.

 

“Yeah, who knows? But you can call to the number on the screen to provide any information that could lead these very serious and dangerous individuals to fuck Lilith ten times over” said Tom Trench.

 

“Also, Mr. Vox wanted to add this 'Any sinner that makes us lose time, will be fed to the Radio Demon'. Such a direct and valiant statement” said the woman. “We'll talk more about this new development for Hell after ads for shit you don't fuckin' need.”

 

***

 

Charlie pushed the button from the remote control of the Tv after the news segment, sighing and lowering her head. She looked like the weight of the world was over her and she wasn't unable to do anything about it.

 

She didn't feel like that since the last extermination, before the deal with Alastor, after the visit to Heaven, after learning that Vaggie was an angel.

 

That was her mother, she knew she couldn't do anything to help her, to save her... the moment she saw Ankareeda hurt, she knew her mother crossed a very dangerous line. She sighed again, her only hope it was that her mother stopped trying to go with her plans, whatever those be, go on hidding and never return again.

 

The moment she...

 

“Sorry, hon, this must be difficult for you” said the ex-exorcist, massaging both arms from Charlie and placing her chin over her girlfriend's shoulder.

 

“It is but I know I can't do anything” said the princess. “I don't know what happened with mom, but I know she isn't ok. I know she... I want to think she always loved me. This looks like she's desperate for something.”

 

Charlie lowered her head between her hands.

 

“I want to know her reasons but... I know I can't” said the woman. “I can't do anything, again.”

 

Ankareeda, who was finishing with the math problems her father prepared for her and was expending time seeing a very interesting documentary about sharks that Vox left in her tablet, left the object in the couch and moved to Charlie, touching her softly in the hands so the woman could see in her direction.

 

The girl closed her fist over her chest and made a circular motion.

 

“Oh, Anka, you don't need to say sorry” said the princess, taking her little sister to sat her in her lap. “My mother is the one who should feel sorry, she should apologize...”

 

But Charlie knew that didn't mattered now if Lilith showed a real apology, even real regret. She hurt Anka, Alastor wasn't gonna forgive her and Lucifer wanted to kill her for trying to use or discard Charlie like nothing.

 

The girl signed but Charlie was just catching like one word from every five.

 

“She says...” said Husk, who was in that moment going for the parlor with Angel and some drinks for the group “that she hates Lilith but doesn't wants you sad. That she's bad and said horrible things.”

 

Anka nodded to Husk to then sign a little more.

 

“And she was trying to steal her dad from Lucifer” said the bartender. “You talk like you don't mind she hurt you, Anka.”

 

The girl denied to then sign, poiting to her chest.

 

“What she said?” asked Angel, seeing the smile raising from the cat demon.

 

“That she hurt her bad and she can take her” responded Husk, giving the girl a glass of hot milk with cinnamon and plenty of sugar. “Good fire, there, kid but don't burn yourself with it. You're too little to find fights.”

 

The barman gave the princess a Cosmopolitan.

 

“Thanks, Husk” she said, starting to sip her drink while thinking.

 

Sighing, Charlie took the remote and turned on the TV again. Maybe it was best to be informed than to be completelly on the dark, specially if Alastor and her father were abount to march over the Von Eldritch.

 

***

 

Lust Ring...

 

“It will be fast, don't worry, Froggy” said Asmodeus, preparing to go with a security intel of his ring that was placed outside his palace, ready to go. “The Von Eldritch only have a hotel and manor in Lust, we only need to evacuate the hotel.”

 

Fizzarolli grunted, moving his robotic arms to hold on Ozzie's neck.

 

“But why do you have to go?” he asked.

 

“Because Lucifer wants this done and now he's... very sensitive with the things he has over his head, you listened to the man” said the Sin.

 

“You think he could hurt you?” asked the imp, worried.

 

“Lucifer is my friend, that won't happen” said the rooster demon, completelly sure. “But he could get... disgrunted with me if I fuck this up. He could place limitations on the Ring or fuck us in taxes, he could even place stronger customs for moving our merchandising to other rings. Shit, a huge chunck of our profits come from his Ring, Froggy... Also, again, my friend. If he says the Von Eldritch are traitors to Hell and mean harm to his family, what kind of friend, almost family, could I be to not respond?”

 

The man thought in that for a moment.

 

“Also, when this is finished, we should be trying to see if Lilith is in this Ring” said the Sin. “That woman went too far... She not only abused Lucifer, now she hurt his little kid? I wanted to slap the bitch since she started to change and treat Lucifer bad but now? She better not step in my home...”

 

He sighed to smile to his partner, kissing him.

 

“Don't worry for me, ok? The Von Eldritch are no match, I'll be at home before you know it” they kissed again.

 

Ozzie went out of his palace to meet his security detail and moved with them to the properties of the Von Eldritch in the Ring, with the idea of evacuate the hotel first.

 

***

 

Greed Ring...

 

“Why we have to do this shit?” asked a goon while surrounding a huge mansion in the skirts of Ransom Town.

 

“Because I said so” said Crimson, making the gesture of almost striking the imp.

 

Around him were only his men but the thugs of various families collaborating under the orders of Mammon.

 

The don didn't know much for why now they were attacking with huge prejudice the Von Eldritch family when previous orders... no, orders, but suggestions made by Mammon to his denizens claimed for them to be let in peace.

 

Sure, he heard some rumour about orders from high but the only one higher than the Sin of Greed was the king. Interesting... First he chastice his woman and declare her enemy number one of Hell and now he wanted the Von Eldritch erradicated from the face of, maybe, every Ring.

 

Interesting indeed. Maybe he could try to find a way to gain something from all of that.

 

But first things first.

 

“Let's go, boys” said the imp boss. “I want this job nice, fast and clean. And that mansion like a slice of swiss cheese.”

 

He laughed marching with his men and the other mafia boys towards the only manor the Von Eldritch had in Greed.

 

***

 

Envy Ring...

 

“Why are you doing this, Leviathan?!!” said Gabriel Von Eldritch, patriarch of his side of the family, on his knees, with his family, in front of the huge man with attributes of a marine dragon. “You know... The king will know this! We are friends of the Royal Crown! When Lucifer...”

 

The guards of the Sin of Envy moved their tridents to the neck of the man, making him silent.

 

“It's the king the one that ordered this” said, resolute and regal the King of Hell's Seas. “Your treason against the Crown and your collaboration with his perfidious ex-wife was revealed. In the orders of our king, you will be executed and the same will happen with other branches of the family Von Eldritch in my Ring.”

 

“That... That can't be!! We... W-we are loyals to the Crown!” said Gabriel. “We... dine together, talk, laugh... you can't brush all that aside. Levi... Give me mercy, to me and my direct family and kill the rest. For old times...”

 

The Sin, that was turned around, looked over his shoulder.

 

“I won't disobey a direct order from Lucifer and I won't have traitorous filth in my Ring” he made a gesture with his hand and six heads went rolling near his feet.

 

***

 

Wrath Ring...

 

Satan was like a god for his people, so when the Sin of Wrath appared in every TV and radio on his ring, everyone saw and listen.

 

“Today I offer you, my people, somethin' special” started to say the huge sin, a mix between a cowboy and a red dragon, with muscles over muscles. “The King of Hell has a task for us and we will be do that task damn good and hard. The Von Eldritch overstay their welcome on our side of Hell and King Lucifer wants them clean from the face of the Ring. You can do it in the way you want, you can loot, you can massacre at your leisure.”

 

The Sin looked fixed to the camera.

 

“And don't got any ideas about giving the assylum or making a deal” he warned. “They are traitors to the Crown and I'll fuckin' end you before Lucifer even finds out. The hellborn part of their family can be kill normally and if you don't have a angelic weapon, I'll pay handsomely for their delivery for execution on Los Satanio to those sinners. Hellspeed, my people, we have a monarch to make proud.”

 

***

 

Sloth Ring...

 

“So tell me, there is more information you can give me about Lilith or the main Von Eldritch branch?” asked Belphegor.

 

In a hospital stretcher near the Sin of Sloth, there was a woman from the Von Eldritch family, with a venous catheter injecting something directly to her veins under the supervision of the Sin, dressed impecable in her surgery outfit.

 

“No, I don't know more” said the woman, in a tone devoid of emotion, with her glassy eyes looking to the ceiling.

 

“Excelent” said the goat demon. “It's not much, but is something. Don't worry.”

 

She was using an injector to a liquid to the catheter.

 

“You'll sleep and you don't suffer, we're not monsters” said the woman, moving to a table with surgical material and picking a scalpel made from angelic steel.

 

Without thinking, with the precise movement that only one can get for thousand over thoudand operations and practice, Belphegor sliced the throat of the woman. Going to another one of the stretchers, this time with a young male sinner, around twenty years in appareance.

 

“Good evening” said the Sin. “My name is Belphegor and I'm about to make you some questions. What's your name?”

 

“Jule Von Eldritch” said the man, again the same glassy eyes and lost sight.

 

“Excelent” said the Sin while controling the intravenous drip. “What do you know about the relation of Frederick Von Eldritch and Lilith Morningstar?”

 

The Sin looked arround before the man could respond. That will take her all the day, there were at least four branches of the Von Eldritch in her Ring and several that were taking benefits from her spats and therapeutic hotels. The hellborn members were already elimintaed but the sinners she has still breathing over her care were about thirty. It will take her a lot to interrogate them and apply to them the capital punishment but that was a task she couldn't delegate. This was too important.

 

***

 

Gluttony Ring...

 

“Yo, Bee!!” said Vortex, returning to the palace of the Sin. “We dealed with the ones we found. Some in a restaurant and there was a bitch of those trying to hide in Ducky Pancakes Waterpark.”

 

The sin was... nervious.

 

Her mother led her in change of the Ring millenia ago and this was the first time she had to deal with a crisis and a direct order from the King of Hell. She loved Uncle Lucifer, of course, she did but... He looked so serious through the phone, so commanding.

 

She understood, of course, her uncle was protecting his family but she was so nervious she started to bite her nails and her chronic stutter, that she has to go to pedagogues on Sloth to control from her first years of life, was coming back with a vengeance.

 

Of course, Lucifer seeing that tried to defuse the bomb, saying the young Sin she was doing amazing, that she will do good for him and even he talked a little about his new daughter Ankareeda. That brought a smile to the woman's face and she relaxed a little. The idea of meeting in the future the little one was amazing for her.

 

But now, she was nervious again, not so much, but something.

 

“Go-ood” she said, trying to breath to control her speech impediment. “Very good, Tex, love, thank you. You s-sure they were the only ones?”

 

“We sure” he went to the woman, taking her by the waist and kissing her cheek softly. “Don't worry, babe, we'll make another scanning with the best noses we have and we make sure. Did you already thought what you want to cook for your new niece?”

 

Queen Bee's eyes were almost bright with the idea.

 

“Uncle Lucifer made for me some specialty caramel apples when I was little, all different” said the Sin. “He gifted me one every time I did something remarkable. With my studies, with the pedagogue, even when mom left me the Ring in my charge to retire, he brought me one made by himself, yellow with two wings made of brownie and covered in butter caramel with sprinkles to form a wolf face! Was beautiful, I have a portrait they made of the moment... I want to do something special. I'll consult Oz, sure he knows more of the little one, from the Sins he's the one that talks more with my uncle.”

 

The hellhound smiled, happier seeing the woman more relaxed.

 

“Sure you'll make something amazing, Bee” said the man. “Your niece is gonna love you.”

 

She squeaked and hugged the man.

 

“Ok, send my bitches for another time and I'll prepare a motherfucking party to celebrate!”

 

***

 

Imp City, IMP Office...

 

“Ok, we have fuckin' everything?” asked Blitz, reopening his emergency backpack.

 

“Everything is there, Blitz” said Moxxie. “I checked twice. Can you please tell us already what is this in situ job?”

 

“Yeah, Blitz, you have been very mysterious” said Millie, with her prominent wrathian accent.

 

The imp rose his head to look to his employees.

 

“Where is the fucking carmine-crafted rifle we got from that bitch Striker?” asked the boss.

 

“Why we need it?” asked Moxxie.

 

Blitz took some air to then look to his employees.

 

“We have a commission placed by Overlord Rosie from Cannibal Town on Pentagram City” started to explain the imp. “Through Carmilla Carmine, I say. Apparently that family of pompous rich sinners, the Von Eldritch, done fuckin' up and now the King of Hell himself wants them to find out. So we and every fucking contract killer from the Pentagram to the Royal Circle are trying to get some cash.”

 

Said the imp, taking the backpack and tending it to Loona, who was looking to her phone.

 

“They are paying three thousand per head, ten grand for every fucking Von Eldritch alive” said the imp. “If we play this good, we are gonna end up rich as fuck!”

 

“It's gonna be difficult, Blitz” said Moxxie, thinking. “I don't know what they did to displease our King but that family was friends with the Morningstars and they have money and position, they have some power. For all I know, not all are sinners, they have some hellborn between them.”

 

Millie placed a hand over the shoulder of her boss.

 

“And with so many bounty hunters and what not, how we are gonna place our leg in that?” asked the woman.

 

The imp smiled wickedly.

 

“Going directly to the place where I know there are a lot of those bitches.”

 

***

 

The Royal Circle, Pride Ring...

 

Castle Eldritch was a gothic castle in the Royal Circle. One could say that was pretty near to Pandaemonium, the royal palace but taking that palace was a monstruosity that was the center of the Circle and taking almost fifty percent of it so everything in there was neighboring the palace.

 

The stone from what the castle was made was black and it had an archaid castle moat with a dawnbridge that, obviously, wasn't open in that moment.

 

Lucifer, Alastor and Rosie were in front of the moat and the closed dawnbridge like a three of valiants in the Old West facing a group of bandings, only needing a whistled theme song to make it more western.

 

“I guess is my turn to knock at the door” said the Radio Demon, ready to take his eldritch form to lower that bridge.

 

“No, dear” said Lucifer, tending to him his cane and his hat. “I won't be a proper king and gentleman if I didn't open a door now and then.”

 

The King of Hell made his wings appear and he flew to the bridge that, being close, was making the functions of a gigantic door. He dug his claws in the wood and made force and he, apparently, needed to use all his strength because soon the dawnbridge started not only to move, but the chains that were tied to it, over the tension, were broken leaving the bridge like a big plank of wood that he threw without ceremonies over the moat of the castle.

 

“Radio demons and ladies first” said the king over the bridge, bowing a little.

 

“What a little gentleman you are” said the Cannibal Overlord.

 

Alastor returned his cane and hat.

 

“Well, my dears...” the red demon cracking his neck to a side when he started to see the Von Eldritch family and their servants running around the courtyard of the castle. “It's showtime.”

 

And a powerful Radio Demon, in his eldritch form launched over the sinners and hellborn alike, he was in no plans to kill the servants if he could avoid it. Luckily, the members of that family were very distinguishable from other demons... but he wasn't planning on sparing anyone that dare to protect them or attack him or Rosie.

 

Lucifer never saw Rosie fighting before. He knew the woman was an old practicioner of magicks, he even knew that her and other witches and warlocks decided to take life by the horns and they usually summoner his sister Azrael when they felt their lives were coming to an end, going voluntarely to Heaven or Hell before dying for natural causes. Because, of course, summoning him or the Sins, or the Goetia, didn't mean shit about what was their final destination. And some, he knew, even chose Hell on purpose because they had family there.

 

He didn't know in what part exactly was Rosie, but he knew she was a skillful woman and a loved leader... What he wasn't expecting is that the woman was also a skilled combatant, slightly berserker, moving with hunger and fury, biting hard with her powerful sharp teeth and using a fighting style more similar of a tavern brawler than a refine lady like she looked to be.

 

“Remember we need Bethesda and Frederick alive!!” screamed the king over the sound of carnage, death and destruction.

 

Lucifer sighed and decided his duty will be clean up services.

 

He was going slow, looking around... Everytime someone escaped from Alastor or Rosie, everytime one tried to escape, it was in that moment neutralized by the monarch.

 

The Devil transformed into light to move, going from one place to the other in the time a person took to snap the fingers, catching a Von Eldritch by the face to simply close his fist destroying the head to then appear before a servant, clawing to the neck with such speed and precision that the head started to drop from the neck far later, when the Devil was already moving towards another victim.

 

Alastor could be trying to avoid killing the servants but Lucifer wasn't on the mood to do that, he was transformed, leaving fire going from his fists and body in general behind him, his fury almost an entity on itself, palpable and terrible.

 

The Von Eldritch were friends, he thought them as such, he gave them so many privileges, so many trust... They could go through the Rings thanks to him, the Sins were not to bother them thanks to him... and in the hour of truth, they took the side of his wife instead of his. That.. angered him but also those vids from Vox were helping to calm his bloodlust.

 

The words from Frederick were still sounding in his head and after all the useful information was recovered from his head, he was ready to make him pay for his transgression, him and his stupid son and daughter.

 

Alastor was crushing and eating the hellborns present, being from the family or those that attacked him and he was beating senseless the sinners... but he wasn't leaving them alive, oh, no. The same that Rosie has her trusted angelic knife and she was double tapping the sinners to make sure, Oncle was also making sure the Von Eldritch wouldn't escape using a death and regeneration.

 

It was almost poetic, the shadow using the Morningstar Sword that almost killed him and left his daughter mute. Alastor asked the monarch for the return of that blade for this task and he was glad to do it, presenting the weapon on Cannibal Town before coming to the castle like if he was arming a knight.

 

Soon the courtyark was the scenario of a bloodbath, with the huge spots and splashes, full pools of red and black blood.

 

Alastor returned to his normal form and together with Rosie and Lucifer they entered the castle itself.

 

They didn't lose time, they wanted their preys as soon as possible.

 

“Go, find them” said Alastor to Oncle.

 

At the same time, Lucifer took his snake halo from around his horns.

 

“Go, Nahas, find me the traitors” asked the king.

 

The shadow and the snake moved in different ways, showing a lot the nature of their masters.

 

Oncle was moving in shadows, using his subterfuge, the way he blended to almost dissapear to move from room to room. Every time he found a Von Eldritch, he created tendrils to hold them and a shadow imp to point the place to Alastor.

 

Nahas, on the other hand, moved like a light mote, fast, from room to room and when he found someone of the family to deal with, he coiled around them, pressing them like a boa constrictor to then dislog his mandibles and “vomit” a Lucifer clone. Wasn't a beautiful picture but was efficient.

 

With that, Alastor, Lucifer and Rosie cleaning the castle with efficiency... even more, to prevent the Von Eldritch from running with their magicks, atrophied even if they were, when they started to move around, he snapped his fingers and over the castle in the sky, was the sigil of the King of Hell circling like a bad omen and preventing ways of escaping.

 

After a time, curling around two docent members of the family, the monarch and the Radio Demon found Seviathan and Helsa, trying to open a door with no avail.

 

“Your majesty...” tried the man, smiling nerviously, afraid and sweating.

 

Lucifer made a gesture and Nahas jumped to coil around the head of the demon, silencing like a gag.

 

“Hold your lying tongue!” hissed the monarch.

 

Helsa decided she wanted to live, looking to the cruel and terrible expression that Lucifer had in his face and tried to run, going for the first opened door she gazed nearer her, just for the door frame to be envolved in shadows... and like a trick, the shadows devoured her to then spit them to the same place she entered.

 

“It's useless to run, my dear” said the Radio Demon.

 

“I just want to know one thing and one thing only: where are your parents?” asked the Devil.

 

“Please, your highness, we didn't do...”

 

Tried to said Helsa and was in vain. She was just raising the fury of the monarch degree by degree like an oven... And that oven was rigged to explote in any moment. Alastor decided to intervine, stopping the monarch when he was starting to advance to towards the young woman, placing softly his hand over his shoulder.

 

“Let me, my liege” said the Radio Demon. “We were never properly introduce but you know who I am... And that's you know how I deal with obstacles in my way. Speak, fast and direct, because our gracious Lucifer isn't here in the position of king, he's here in the role as a father, that heard, clear as day, how much fun you had tormenting his precious rainbow and how your father wanted your brother to rape said rainbow... Speak.”

 

The eyes of the woman were like to platters, surprised and with the fear raising in her. She could start to run again, she could piss herself... all the paths were opened.

 

“In the roof!!” said in a scream. “They have a special portal there to the Living World, they closed the door and leave us here to make their escape sure!”

 

Lucifer made a gesture toward the closed door and the wood exploded after contract first, blowing to smitterings like a bomb was planted.

 

“Let's go!” said the king. “Rosie, dear...”

 

“Yes, your highness?” asked the cannibal overlord.

 

The Devil turned around for a moment and his expression could make even the most valiant and firm soul to bend the knees. Even Rosie left a little gasp going out of her, even when she knew she was safe.

 

She was starting to understand Alastor more... Not like she didn't understand before, but wasn't the same be told about that evilness lurking under that small frame akind similar to a porcelain doll, that seeing it in person.

 

“They are all yours” said the monarch. “Consider them as my donation for the Cannibal Town's soup kitchen.”

 

“Thank you, your highness” said the woman while both men ran to reach to the roof of the castle. “Well, darlings...”

 

Both Helsa and Seviathan were afraid, specially when they saw her using magic when theirs was limited by Lucifer's seal decree. Rosie conjured some straight jackets to immobilize them and some gags to made them silenct and she started to move them out of the castle. She'll have to use one of her crows to call for assistance to transport the new meat but the needy from her town were about to have a feast tonight.

 

***

 

Both the Radio Demon and the King were running as fast as they could, in their cases, with Alastor jumping through shadows while Lucifer was light, taking the lead and opening the door that was going for the superior part of the castle.

 

There, over one of the towers, Frederick and Bethesda Von Eldritch just ready to activate an ancient magic portal to go to the Living World.

 

“Your sigil could stop that?” asked Alastor.

 

“No and if they run to the Living World, is gonna be a problem to get to them” responded the king, holding to his hat because the patriarch of the Eldritch clan created a huge gale around the tower they were climbing with a build in wall ladder.

 

“We need to hurry, then” said the deer demon.

 

The Radio Demon concentrated in his knowledge of ancient magic, with the veve symbols in red appeared around him. He couldn't cancel the magicks from Frederick but he could create an equal gale to cancel with atmospheric forces the one that was protecting the tower.

 

“Be ready to fly, my king” said Alastor, with his eyes closed.

 

Suddenly, from the frame of the deer, a black gale was raised, a wind made in darkness that was fighting for supremacy over the gale of the Von Eldritch. The man, already up in the tower waiting for his wife, tried to add more of his power to the gale, making it a storm, fighting the winds of darkness from Alastor.

 

The Radio Demon didn't know if it was for the debilitation of their power, because Hell was not longer favoring them or he was always more powerful than them, but Alastor power overcame the other's and the wind was nulified just when both lovers were ready to active the magic sigil.

 

“Fuck!” screamed Lucifer flying as fast as he could... Just to stop when a couple of shots came from another one of the towers, sniper shots, impacting with precision in the lines of the pentagram in the tower disrupting his power and making it completelly useless.

 

“Fucking yeah!!” screamed Blitz.

 

In the other tower was a image for memory: A Hellhound raising a huge imp, that was raising a small woman imp, to then raise a small male imp with a sniper rifle in a very bizarre version of a Catalonian Human Castells in Spain.

 

“I know if we waited here some of these bitches was about to use the fucking 'Get out of jail' card” repeated the bigger imp, moving slightly and jeopardizing the stability of the structure.

 

“You were right, sir... but we need the boleadoras already!!” said the imp with the sniper.

 

The hellhound woman moved the three imps down, taking from a backpack a rope with some balls added to it and started to make them spin around her taking the rope... fast, faster and she jumped really high to then release.

 

The object flew towards both Frederick and Bethesda and before they could do anything, the rope was around them and they were trapped, with the King of Hell in his devil form already over them, taking them by the rope to carry them down the roof.

 

The strange group of the three imps and the hellhound went down the mounted ladder of the second tower and went near the monarch, recognizing him immediatly, going down their knees.

 

Lucifer, after an agressive look to the Von Eldritch, moved his crimson filled eyes towards the group.

 

“Who are you, my good chums?” asked the Radio Demon, near the monarch and resting over his cane, with Oncle over one shoulder and several of his shadow imps around the couple to make sure they weren't using another trick to try to escape royal justice.

 

“Jeez!” exclaimed the bigger imp when the rest almost pinched to talk for them. “I'm Blitz, the o is silent. I'm the leader of IMP... we are IMP, contractors? We were tasked by the Cannibal Town Overlord, Miss Rosie?”

 

There was a silence that lasted a second, finally Lucifer retracted all his diabolic attributes and rested over his apple toppled cane.

 

“Raise” said the monarch. “Someone so useful for the Crown of Hell and someone that bought me my enemies to my feet doesn't deserve to be on their knees.”

 

He said, with a soft smile.

 

The monarch took his time to look back to Alastor and it was obvios that Radio Demon approved that, so he was felling even better for his idea to give that treatment to the strange group of contractors.

 

They rose from the floor with doubt but they did.

 

“Thanks... ehm... your highness” said Millie with her thick wrathian accent.

 

“What are your names, darling?” asked Alastor with a smile more candit that the one he usually used with unknown sinners.

 

“Ehm... I'm Millie, is a pleasure, sir” she then point to the rest, one by one. “This is my husband Moxxie, that... he already said he's Blitz and she's his daughter Loona.”

 

“Pleasure to be meeting you and your co-workers, darling, quite a pleasure” said the deer. “My name is Alastor, the Radio Demon. We are very grateful to have your assistance and I think I'll include a big bonus for this job.”

 

He said and... he noticed the reactions not to his name, but to his title.... but Blitz changed apprehension and fear for interest as soon as the bonus was mentioned.

 

“Do you have business cards, darling?” asked the demon.

 

Moxxie took one from his jacket.. he was the one that had them because he was the only one that thought it was a good idea to make them... and he paid them from his salary and he extended one to the overlord.

 

“Excelent” said Alastor. “I'll contact you in a couple of days for your extra payment and...”

 

He looked towards the monarch and cleared his throat. Lucifer reacted, smiling.

 

“Yes...” he snapped, a golden paper and a fountain pen and he wrote something fast in the air, to then snap again and the paper was flying towards Blitz to be taken. “Go to Pandaemonium, to the office of Demon Affairs and deliver that, they will pay you in the moment.”

 

Alastor nodded in agreement to then look back to the group.

 

“Run along now, darlings” said the Radio Demon. “We have some things to discuss with this lovely couple and you are in the splash zone.”

 

“You don't have to tell us twice... Your royal big shot, Radio Demon sir” said Blitz to just move from there, going towards the door that lead to the interior of the castle.

 

Both Lucifer and Alastor turned around to face the Von Eldritch and both have similar expressions in their faces. The sadism was almost dancing around them, with the ideas that both men had in their heads about the things they were ready to do to that couple to make them talk.

 

“Long time no see, Bethesda, Freddy... You're going to talk, a lot... or we are going to have so much fun taking out every word from your mouths” said the monarch.

 

“Like a sadist dentist, darling” said Alastor.

 

“Exactly...so let the game begin...”

 

Outside of Castle Eldritch, the first heartbreaking scream was heard.

Notes:

Yeah, first, my father had a stutter problem when he was young. He learned to control it very well (he was a very intimidating soldier, bodyguard and security and not a single word out of its place) and I thought it could be a nice detail that Bee (being a bee, you know, like the spelling bees?) had the same problem when younger... Also for me she's the youngest of the Sin and I wanted to reflect that a little.

Also, yeah, Al has predilection from people fucked by life making a life nonetheless and he liked the IMP group on arrival... in fact, Millie reminds him of his mother for the accent, so his smile there was sincere.

Next one is a hard one, torture and blah, blah, you can expect that. Also, some revelations, some answers to some of the mysteries! We are going, chapter by chapter, near the end... still some ones to go (don't know how many) and... I wanted to have my Ankareeda drawing around this time but the artist I commisioned had problems with the pc and then with the tablet and I'm not a monster to reclaim anything, so wait I will... at this rate I'll post the image when I finish it ; __ ;

Chapter 38: Hell is a capricious mistress

Summary:

Alastor and Lucifer have Bethesda and Frederick Von Eldritch in their claws, now they need to tenderize them to add some humility.

Torture is a language that Alastor speaks fluently but in this venture, not only his sadism is showing.

Notes:

Tags changed, mind the tags!

My flavour of Alastor goes from extremelly sweet for the people he loves to a sadistic cruel bastard with people he thinks deserve it. Guess in what slot land both Von Eldritch.

Also, I know I promised to have updates sooner but... Let's say I started with my AU and the first chapter is uploaded already? Because I can't hold myself when I'm fixing on an idea? Anyway, this fic is still my priority, so I'll try again to upload sooner.

“Sonny, I've got a whole theme park full of red delights for you.”

~The Devil, Constantine

 

Before the first insolence from the couple, Alastor pierced them with his shadow tendrils but Lucifer wasn't idle either. He used his cane like it was a sword, impaling the patriarch of the Von Eldritch family so viciously that, being in their knees as they were, he was forced over his back, needling him to the floor like a butterfly for study.

 

“If I were you, I'll think twice to make us lose time” said the monarch, leaving the cane stabbing the man. “I made a simple question: What is exactly the deal with my ex-wife? And I want an answer now.”

 

Bethesda spat some blood to the side, still looking very challenging to the King of Hell and the Radio Demon.

 

“You won't force us to talk” said the woman, with a smirk full of security. “We won't talk for the love of it to betray the Queen and you can't damage us because we'll dematerialize and reconstitute far from here, escaping. So we're in at impasse.”

 

Frederick tried to move to talk, but it was impossible. Lucifer nailed him to the floor with all the potency he had and he wasn't going to move from there.

 

“M-my... spouse is right” he said, gargling his words, his throat full of his blood. “You won't take a thing from us but... w-we c-an make a deal.”

 

Both the Devil and the Overlord exchanged a look, both raising a brow.

 

“Are they really offering us a deal in their current predicament?” asked Alastor.

 

“Yes, dearest, the nerve...” said Lucifer, clicking his tongue in disapproval. “See, I wanted to do this in the most painless way possible due to our years of friendship... At least for my part, now that I think on it. But you had to push.”

 

Lucifer grabbed the apple top from his cane and started to twist it inside the sinner, taking from him a crude gasp of pure pain and a cof that made him spit blood around his own cheeks.

 

“I don't have time for this and you aren't dealing with Pathetic Lucifer, wanting friends and his wife happy at all costs” said the monarch with cruelty, taking the attention of Alastor for the demeaner change in the shorter man. “You're talking to the Devil and I don't have patience or mercy for the likes of you.”

 

Frederick coughed a little more and smiled again, trying to look to the monarch from his position.

 

“Oh, c'mon, Lucifer, we both know this isn't you” said the Von Eldritch patriarch. “You can be hot headed and impulsive, even aggressive but you aren't cruel and you aren't a sadist. You can't intimidate us with promises of torture we know you can't accomplish.”

 

And the smile the sinner got in return was something only a terror writer in the levels of Stephen King could think of. Sharp teeth, wide and with his eyes going into the red coloring in the sclera... A shadow almost covering his factions except that smile and those eyes.

 

“You don't know me at all...” said the Devil with this voice full of dark power. “I can be cruel, that's why I brought a sadist with me, with free range to do whatever he pleases to do to you... And trust me, he wants to hurt you, badly. You didn't want my mercy... have my cruelty. Alastor, they are all yours.”

 

Said the king, extracting his cane from the chest of Frederick and moving around them, draging the cane with the blood through the floor, making a circle surrounding them. He tapped his cane when he finished and the power from the king extended to the blood, turning it in a mix of gold and red, to then form the complex symbol of Lucifer. Not his regular sigil, that looked supposedly like a chalice but for Alastor always resembled the man with his hat over his head but the complex one, the circle with the pentagram and the demonic alphabet lettering.

 

“And don't worry, if you kill them, they will reconstitute inside the symbol, so you're free to do as you please, enjoy it, Al” said the monarch, resting with both hands over his hand, still dirty with the blood of the Von Eldritch.

 

The Radio Demon made a very elegant bow and moved to be in front of the couple while Lucifer decided to take the sidelines, just watching him work.

 

“Apparently is my turn” said the deer demon with an amused smile.

 

“You don't scare us, sinner” said Bethesda, trying to present a semblance of disgust mixed with bravery.

 

Alastor just wided his smile, the stitches were visible in the corners of his lips.

 

“We're all sinners here, madame” said the demon. “And it's better if you aren't afraid, it gives me more margin to work.”

 

The man tried to move, to test his holdings... Lucifer made a gesture and the boleadoras were tighter and took a golden hue, marking them active with angelic powers. There was no escape from them, there was no escape in general.

 

“Not the first sadist I deal with, you don't know how much pain I can endure” said Frederick with a smile.

 

“I don't deal in pleasurable pain, my dear” said the Radio Demon. “And trust me, it's not the same.”

 

He moved his right hand, showing the palm and some shadows started to move in it, tendrils coming out of the sleeves of his coat but soon they separated, broke, becomming small, very small... insect-like. Alastor just waited there, waiting for one of them to talk again and when the woman opened her mouth, he moved his hand fast and placed over it like he was trying to shut her up. But the small shadows moved, entering in through the lips and going and going, down her throat.

 

When Alastor retired his hand, she tried to cough the shadows out but nothing was coming to her.

 

“Insects... people understimate little innocent looking things” started to say the demon. “People, demons and mortals alike, tend to think that if they are bigger than something, they don't need to be afraid. But there are a lot of very small things that can hurt pretty badly...”

 

He refrained the intrusssive thought of mocking Lucifer's height. In private was well and good, but now in front of the Von Eldritch, both were allies respecting each other very much.

 

“My good mother was always very attentive with my health and she was very afraid that I dealed with insects... they can be dangerous” he continue talking. “And you could think that in ingesting them won't happen a thing but those are my shadows, my shadows know where they are suppose to go.”

 

Showing how much the demon had that calculated, Bethesda was feeling the lack of air, the sensation of suffocation like she had something obstructing her pipes.

 

“Don't worry, that sensation will go away, they are just crossing to go to the trachea, down to the lungs” said the demon, with that smile, leaning over his cane with one hand and looking to his nails in the free hand. “When the sensation of being without air diminished, you'll have a moment of peace, then my shadows will start to feast on your lungs, growing with every punch of putrid meat they consume. For what I saw in other victims, the pain is exquisite...”

 

And he waited. He was a patient man when he wanted to get something, so he waited years to try to get vengeance on Lucifer, he could wait to get the answers about the ex-queen.

 

Bethesda took a deep breath of air, coughing and recovering from the asfixiation, looking to the demon's face with pure unadulterated hate.

 

“When we are free from this...” she started her bravado but Alastor just stood there, leaning over his cane, waiting.

 

“After you betrayed the king, after you husband suggesting your son to rape and forcefully inpregnate Charlie, after you got in cahoots with the traitorous ex Queen of Hell... you really think you are leaving this castle alive?” Alastor laughed. “Just only for helping Lilith threaten my daughter, you would have a capital penalty over your heads. Not that you could understand, of course, you left your daughter and son to rot so you could escape, you can't understand the things I could do for my daughter.”

 

The Von Eldritch woman was about to talk again when something stopped, her eyes were wide opened, tears going to them... and then she vomited blood, al over her chin and chest and she started to gasp for air.

 

“Ah, there are my little beasties...” said Alastor, with jolly disposition. “Peculiar sensation, right? It's a huge pain being devoured little by little. For all I know, it's a sensation very akind to being drowned... you feel the liquid in your lungs, the pain, you feel you have no air to get but here is where mother nature works in my favour: You have air, but you'll have all the pain from drowning but not the release of fainting, because your brain knows air is still circulating.”

 

She started gasping for air, she tried to scream but there were no sound, she wanted to move her hands to her own throat, to cut there with her own nails as a desperated meassure to get some air inside her but she couldn't... Bethesda then started to convulse, to salivate a mix of liquid and blood like foam in her mouth.

 

Alastor moved, but not near her but near Frederick, who was seeing everything with a horrified expression in his face.

 

“This...” said the red demon, leaning towards the man “....is not a torture for your wife, it's for you. I don't know how much you love her, I won't presuppose with a man like you or the affections between your marriage but even if you don't care for her, this is just a teaser, a window to what's about to happen to you if you don't respond the inquiries of my king. If you don't respond, I'll torture you and ask her while her lungs regenerate. I can extend this for days, we can return to our lives leaving you in a pocket dimension and check on you just to replentish my shadow bugs... And when we'll get tired of this entertainment, I'll step up a notch with another thing.”

 

He said, leaving the silence to compliment his words, the vision of that woman wanted to scream her pure agony without a means to do it. Squirming like a fish out of water.

 

“What's the deal with the Queen?” asked Alastor, softly. “What are the terms?”

 

Frederick Von Eldritch was alternating his gaze from the Radio Demon to his wife, horror plastered in his face to then move his eyes towards Lucifer. The coldness that received him, the cruelty, was something he never thought in all of his long years of life that he could see on the face of the monarch of Hell.

 

He was right, he wasn't Lucifer, he was the Devil in that moment.

 

The convulsion from the woman stopped and her body started to make the sound of a very hissy respiration, very tortuous and worrisome. From her opened mouth, bugs started to emerge... when they were introduced, they were around the size of an ant, now they looked like beetles, fat and round, going to the feet of the demon and losing themselves entering through the trousers.

 

“I guess this means it's your turn” said the Radio Demon, moving again his hand to fill it with shadows.

 

“I won't...” Frederick started to talk. “I won't talk. To Hells with you too! I WON'T TALK!! I just hope Queen Lilith avenge us, I hope she takes the throne of Hell so our realm could have a real ruler and not a unstable child clown...”

 

Lucifer was unmoved but Alastor was starting to become furious, with his eyes becoming radio dials and his body starting to distorn and elongated.

 

“And I hope the Queen will kill your bastard child and will slave you fore...ahhhhhhhhhhhggggggggggggggggggg!!!!” the Devil only reacted when Ankareeda and Alastor were mentioned.

 

He didn't mind that Frederick insulted him, he didn't mind even the mention of Lilith or those desires of her getting what she wanted but the idea of his child getting hurt, the idea of Alastor being slaved removed something in his interior, moved something in his core, the fire he always held inside, controlled, reduced... With his transformation showing his devil form, the fire the monarch containted was liberated around him like an explosion. Everything around the king started to burn, to be consumed by his hellfire, even the stone... while Alastor, his shadow and Bethesda were unscathed, the patriarch of the Von Eldritch family started to burn, to be consume... his screams of agony surely were heard around all the Royal Circle.

 

The process wasn't fast for the man, was agonic, slow, painful, losing his skin, to then lose the connecting tissue to the muscles, the internal organs... only the bones remained and Alastor knew that hellfire acted like angelic steel. There was no regeneration from that, there was no salvation, no new body.

 

The King of all the Seven Circles of Hell, the Fallen Angel, had issued his verdict and Frederick Von Eldritch, a man that existed since the Wars of the Nephilim, since the Tower of Babyl, was being erased from all planes of existence by the displeasure of the monarch.

 

“Pick her, we'll finish this in my palace, this place is about to be consumed” said Lucifer, still in his devil form, his voice still laced with power and darkness, snapping to opening a portal to his throne room on Pandaemonium.

 

Alastor didn't retort, he didn't opened his mouth. He was surrounded by fire and he wasn't burning but all his instincts were telling him to run from there, run from the hellish fire. He controlled himself and used his tentacles to carry with the woman, following the Devil, both him and Oncle, through the portal.

 

As soon as they were in the throne room, the devil moved towards the Seat of the Realm, walking the steps that separated the ground floor from the platform in where the throne was seated and he sat. Regal, powerful... with his white and crimson wings behing his back, his tail moving to a side, his gaze, powerful, unmoving... divine.

 

The Radio Demon sighed before he could control it. He felt his knees weak, the compulsion to kneel and grovel in the presence of his sovereign. He released the woman without care or compassion and he just stood there, gazing to the unholy power of the Ruler of Bárathron, as the greeks called the Inferno.

 

“Bethesda” Lucifer voice took him out of his trance and the demon looked back to the woman. “What were the terms of the deal with my ex wife?”

 

He asked, powerful in his voice, but calm.

 

She was recovering, coming into a sitting position. The sadness and the terror were mixing in her face and she still felt the pain of the previous torture.

 

“If you don't respond to me, I'll let Alastor to eat you alive” said the Devil. “Little by little, bite by bite... and you will reappear here and we'll begin a new from the beginning. You know my capabilities, Bethesda, my power... You know I can chain any sinner in Hell and force any demon, sinner or hellborn to do my bidding. Care to adventure why I'm not doing this with you?”

 

The woman looked back at the shorter man, Alastor kept silent and waited for her to talk or for Lucifer to continued.

 

“Not in a mood to talk, I see” said the king. “I won't use my dominion with you for the simple reason that traitors doesn't deserve an easy way out. You betrayed me and put both my daughters in danger for your stupid machinations, you are going to pay and, eitherway, I'll get my due... because, don't mistake this sadism with a very universal truth: The Devil always gets his due. Alastor.”

 

He commanded him and the red demon just bowed.

 

“Hope you're hungry. Start by the arms, she always valued those” he said with a smile perfect for a poem about the king or for a terror tale.

 

“As you wish, my sire” said the demon, going near the woman.

 

“Stop!! Stop!! This is enough!!” she started to cry, full of fear and sadness. “I'll talk, please...”

 

Alastor didn't stop going towards her until Lucifer raised a hand.

 

“Very well, talk” said Lucifer.

 

The woman sat in the cold floor of the throne room, still trapped by the boleadoras now full of angelic power and her chest was still aching. She exchanged a look between the Radio Demon and the monarch and started to talk.

 

“To name the terms, first I need to tell you what was the situation for my family, why we did what we did” he said, maybe thinking in trying to stir some sympathy in the Devil. “Seven years ago, my family suffered a convulsion in our power, it was felt by all the Von Eldritch in Hell at the same time, like a ripple extending from an underminated point, like something stired in the bowels of Hell. Frederick was worried and when we started to see the results, he was proven right.”

 

She took some air, feeling the pressure under the gazes of both men.

 

“The potency of our guards diminished, our rituals stopped working and our magick reserve started to dwindle” he continued. “For us sinners it wasn't a problem but our hellborns started to grow and... wither. As more power was used, more they aged and some started to die. We were desperated and then the Queen approached us.”

 

Lucifer was sitting in his throne, still in his devil form, with his arms on the armrests of the seat. Alastor was leaning in his cane with both hands, waiting for the confession.

 

“She told Frederick and I that she knew of our predicament, she told us there was an imbalance in the power of Hell” she moving a little, noticing her arms to become numb. “Hell has favorites, she said and with a new royal in the mix, the font of our power decided to give favor to the new princess instead of us.”

 

Alastor opened his eyes wide, looking from the woman to the king, who wasn't surprised like him, like he knew.

 

“You...?” he didn't finish the question.

 

“I had my suspicions” said the monarch. “I felt infernal energy in Anka, aside from the shadow magick so prominent in her. She didn't tap in that power completelly but she used it when she defended herself against Lilith. What I didn't know was that Hell decided to close the open bar to the Von Eldritchs.”

 

Bethesda coughed some very dark blood, coagulated, to continue talking.

 

“Well, it happened” said the woman, annoyed. “Lilith told us she tried to correct the imbalance before it was born but she couldn't do it and even now, that was out of the question.”

 

“That imbalance has a name and it's my daughter” growled the red demon.

 

The woman scoffed.

 

“Lilith said this beast” she was obviously refering to Alastor. “Was needed for her plans, that he has a particular unique power, in all of Hell, useful for all of us. Frederick thought it was all baloney, how a regular sinner could be that important?”

 

Lucifer raised an eyebrow, he knew Alastor was anything but regular, but he didn't interrupt the confesion, nor interrupted the Radio Demon.

 

“In any case, we made a deal” said the woman. “She told us how to continue syphoning Hell's power and we help her with her plans and teach her our type of magic.”

 

The king now was curious, moving his hand to his chin, thinking.

 

“Why on Hells she wanted to learn Abyssal Magick?” said the monarch. “She already syphons Hell, it's not like she needs a store brand version of that. And what are those plans, sweetheart?”

 

The woman grunted while trying to move.

 

“What do you think? She wants your throne and you out of the picture” said the woman to then smirk like a lunatic. “She was contented before with just ruin you enough so you recluse yourself but now... taking you want the same consort she wants, she wants your head and I hope she'll get it. Hell deserves a proper ruler and this whore, this half man, deserves to be with a collar aroun....”

 

She couldn't finish.

 

Alastor transformed to his demonic form and was already biting hard on one of her shoulders, so viciously with so big jaws that he torned apart half her torso to then gulp it, moving to devour the rest of her. One scream, no more...

 

And the sounds of gulping, gnawing and biting were all that it was in the throne room. Lucifer moved from his seat slowly, going near the monster he loved and placed a complacent hand over his back. Soon there was little from the sinner and soon the power embeded in souls in Hell started to reconstitute her, forming a new body in front of both men.

 

“Nobody tames the Radio Demon, Bethesda” said the king. “Not even me... But he's willing to hear my suggestions from time to time. Remember what you told me about your special power? What will you tell me about a little boost in your potential, my love?”

 

The deer demon was elated. Not only Lucifer was ok with him devouring a prey in front of him but also he showed respect for him, deference even when in that moment, for him, the Fallen looked more like a God than a lover.

 

“I won't say no, my king” said the demon with his voice laced with static.

 

The monarch moved to the recently recomposed woman and hold her by the arm.

 

“Make a deal, give him your soul and this will end soon” said the man, making a little pressure, starting to break her bone. “Refuse and we'll take turns to torture you for the next decade. Your choice.”

 

And he waited, but not for long.

 

“Finish with me already...” she said, with low voice. Beat, defeated and with nothing more to live for, Bethesda moved her hand towards Alastor and the demon took ownership of her soul.

 

“Now, we need to kill her, yes?” asked the monarch, with a glint in his eye that took Alastor for a spin, coming completelly out of the blue.

 

It was... desire, vicious... Before Alastor could respond or even move his head in affirmation, the Devil bit strong on the woman's neck, trashing then his head until he dislogged a piece of her flesh and, looking directly into Alastor's eyes, he chewed it slowly, to then swallow, passing his tongue, bloodied, over his even bloodier lips.

 

The woman screamed in pain, but not for long. Alastor launched towards her and also bit, in his regular form, Lucifer joining him in his devil form soon after.

 

Both men were out of their seams, almost beasts, enjoying the pound in flesh the woman was paying for her defiance... almost an hour devouring her alive so Alastor, in the end, could make his microphone cane appear to capture the last scream and gasp of the woman, as a green energy with the form of a radio wave, storing it in his mic. Later, alone and with time, he could extract her power to add to his own, a fitting punishment for insulting both his lover and his daughter.

 

Alastor and Lucifer were in front of the other, sodden in blood... panting, looking to each other in the eye. The brutality, the cruelty, the sadism awoken something in both. The monarch was hard, Alastor was wet and both wanted to kiss... more than kiss.

 

They moved, just to press forehead against forehead, their own breathing erratic but somewhat syncronized to one another.

 

They had to use all their will to stay just like that, all their will to not fuck each other over a pool of blood and viscera. No matter how much both wanted that, both knew it was an error and none of them wanted to disrupt the good advances they were doing those days.

 

The end, both concluded without the need for words, was more important that the animalistic necessities of a moment.

Notes:

Yeah, this almost ended in porn... Sorry to be a cockblocker but they need their shits together if they gonna start to fuck again.

In other order of things, next chapter is gonna be fun and relaxed, promise ;)

Chapter 39: Musical Interlude

Summary:

After the events on Castle Eldritch and the Throne Room on Pandaemonium, Alastor and Lucifer return to the Hazbin Hotel, covered in blood and with their instints pulsing in their veins.

Music is something that unite all the people, all towns and cities and countries. Music was everywhere... even in the souls of the damned.

Notes:

Well, every series has a musical episode (or should have one, in my humble opinion), here is mine ;)

“But this didn't feel like magic. It felt a lot older than that. It felt like music.”

~Terry Pratchett, Soul Music

 

Both Alastor and Lucifer returned to the hotel without even trying to clean themselves and without talking. The sensations were too much, their most inner beasts, that Alastor normally had under control and Lucifer discovered in that moment to have one, were roaring for them to mate, to make good in the sensations they felt and they were smelling in the other.

 

It was too much to try to hold that on check, to center on minuscule things like cleaning or talking.

 

The men went to their respective rooms to take a long, prolongued shower and both were out just when they felt they were calmed enough.

 

Lucifer was first, Alastor was last for almost fifteen minutes.

 

Both sat in the kitchen, in silence, without looking to each other... Luck was on their side and they didn't need to break the uncomfortable silence because Vaggie and Charlie entered the kitchen.

 

“You returned covered in blood, not a single word to us...” started the ex-exorcist, gazing from the Devil to the Radio Demon. “Qué carajo... What happened?”

 

Lucifer decided to break the ice and start talking, so he cleared his throat.

 

“Ok, we went to Rosie's and she was already attacked by Helsa's friend” Charlie gasped and the king made a gesture with the hand downplaying the importance. “Rosie is a beast, applepie, not a single scratch but she became furious when she learned what happened with Ankareeda and Lilith.”

 

Alastor sighed.

 

“Rosie is the only mother my baby knows, Anka is the only child Rosie had in her very long life and afterlife” said the Radio Demon, raising to prepare some coffee, feeling is gonna be appreciated soon. “It was a small mercy she didn't try to go after Lilith or the Von Eldritch alone.”

 

Charlie smiled softly and she understood perfectly the cannibal overlord. She was very motherly, at least with her she was and she didn't know her at all. Loving like she loved Alastor as her best friend and taking care of Anka since her birth, her connection, even not driven by blood, was strong between them.

 

“Yeah, I don't have any problem imagining Rosie going all in” said the princess.

 

“Oh, she went there, sweety, but with a more leveled head” said the monarch. “She asked all the favors she was owning and all her contacts and she unleashed everything: magicks, contract killers, even Vox joined the party in his way.”

 

The woman sighed and Vaggie, after hugging her from the side, nodded.

 

“Yeah, we saw the news” said the fallen angel. “You placed a huge bounty over Lilith.”

 

“She isn't stupid” said the king. “She won't be going and getting capture by regular folk, she's gonna lay low. But, in this way, we are limiting her supports and her movements.”

 

“So this is more a way to control what she does than a way to get to her, right?” asked Charlie.

 

Lucifer just nodded, taking the hand of his daughter with a lovely smile. He knew the thoughts of her daughter, it was innevitable taking that was her mother, the person that raised her, even if he didn't like that thought.

 

“That's right” said the monarch. “I bet we won't get to her until she makes her next move. Let's hope we can catch her in time before she does something stupid or harmful.”

 

“Well, what happened after Rosie?” asked Vaggie.

 

“Lucifer contacted the Sins to clean the existence of the Von Eldritch from their Rings” said Alastor, waiting for the italian coffeemaker leaning with his back over the counter. “And, at the same time, Rosie, your father and I assaulted Eldritch castle.”

 

Charlie was horrified and was normal. That was an erradication in a scale she never saw in Hell... not because erradications of that scale were rare or never happened, but because she was too young to remember some older scarier and darker times of the Realm.

 

“But... the Von Eldritch is a gigantic family, you couldn't...” she started to say.

 

“They were all in this, applepie” said the monarch. “Before doing the assault we learned they were all in this, they had a reunion and made an accord.”

 

Vaggie frowned.

 

“And the kids? Because Charlie told me that family can have hellborns” asked the woman.

 

“None existed at the moment” said the Devil. “That's one of the things we learned. The Von Eldritch entered into a deal with Lilith because their abyssal magic was failing, their power was getting dry and their rituals stopped working and taking they needed one to have hellborns... hellborns that, by the way, were becoming mortal.”

 

“Mortal?” asked the princess. “Then Seviathan...?”

 

Lucifer sighed, with the hand of his daughter between his smaller ones.

 

“Even if he didn't participated in this conspiracy, he was condemned eitherway” said the monarch, softly. “If he didn't try to use his powers, maybe he could stay alive a couple of years but he was two hundred years old, humans, with a ton of luck, good healthcare and genetics, can live mostly to one hundred.”

 

Charlie lowered her head. Even when Seviathan was a jerk, he was her boyfriend for a time, she loved him time ago and he has his sweet side, she was sure of it. She blamed mostly the influence of his family because everytime she saw something in him when they were together, everytime he looked like a decent kind of guy, a chat with his parents or his sister changed him immediatly.

 

“So he's...” she said, sad.

 

“Gone, sweetie, I'm sorry” said the king, because of course he couldn't say to her he was the new octopus flavoured Cannibal Chow. One thing was knowing he was dead, the other was to tell her that. “The same as Helsa. Their parents left them behind trying to dodge us.”

 

“Fuckin' cowards” spat the latina woman. “So they wanted to regain their power but... Why they were losing it and what wanted la puta in return?”

 

Alastor finished serving the coffee and went with a mug for everyone, just exactly how they liked it, even Vaggie's even when it was the first time he prepared a coffee for her.

 

“Lilith told them why and how with the condition they teach her abyssal magicks” the Radio Demon took a sip from his black coffee. “We don't know why she wanted that when is technically useless for her.”

 

“Useless... maybe she was preparing to lose her current power” said Lucifer. “Think about it, according to Bethesda, she was ready to just let me rot in my manor alone while she ruled Hell. Then she decided to kill me, using you for that. Without me there is no power, no connection to Hell to extract it.”

 

“And why they were losing theirs?” asked Charlie. “They had that connection since... almost the beginning of time.”

 

“Apparently” a little smile showed in the deer demon's face “Hell decided to give its favors to another from the bloodline of the Morning Star. When Ankareeda was born, the Realm stopped to feed them.”

 

Charlie and Vaggie exchanged a look to then move their heads to look directly to both men, specially Lucifer, who, they knew, was more informed about that topic.

 

“She has the same potential as you have” said the Devil. “I bet her power is more suppressed because her birth linked her more to shadows, so she uses that as a primary source... And not a bad source, you can see it in Alastor, the potencial for those magicks. But Hell recognized her as royalty and decided to cut an old time generational family of leeches to nurture her properly.”

 

Alastor then clicked his tongue.

 

“But we didn't learn how they wanted to recover that power, what Lilith told them” said the Radio Demon.

 

Lucifer, smiling, shrugged.

 

“Isn't it obvious?” said the king. “They were adamant to link their family to mine through Charlie, via a marriage or... a child.”

 

His eyes were full red in the sclera but he wasn't the only one annoyed. Even when all were dead, the deer demon's eyes went full radio dials and Vaggie growled, placing a overprotective possessive arm around Charlie's shoulders.

 

“They were gambling on that” said the shorter man. “It isn't sure Charlie gives the same boon with marriage that I can give. They were prepare to bet on that and linking magicks, like the ones we learn about they wanted to use? To achieve that. That was Lilith's advice.”

 

They thought for a moment in all of that until the king started to receive some messages in his hellphone, checking and responding with agile fingers.

 

“Some of the sins are reporting” said the monarch. “Good news all around but like I was predicting, not a single news about Lilith.”

 

“Well, in any case... is becoming late” said the deer demon. “I want to expend some time with my daughter before dinner, so if you excuse me...”

 

And, without thinking, the Radio Demon moved near the monarch and placing softly his hand over the shorter man's neck, he placed a soft and caring kiss over his head. Fast but caring, he also booped Charlie's nose to enter into a shadow to go to Ankareeda's room.

 

“Uuhhhhhhh.....” said Charlie, placing her hands together and with a delighted expression in her face. “Dad, that was... very cute! Did something happened in that fight?”

 

She asked and Lucifer, slightly blush in reds and goldens, made a gesture.

 

“Nothing, nothing... is... It's all the emotions of the day, that's all” said the monarch. “Sure tomorrow he will return to his usual jackass self.”

 

***

 

Alastor didn't return to his usual jackass self.

 

In fact, next morning he raised from the bed in high spirits, showered and dressed in his usual with some changes... or one change, he wasn't wearing his gloves. His way of walking was also more vivid, less rigid, more happy, one could say.

 

He went to the kitchen immediatly and after removing his coat and leaving his cane together with it in a chair, he rolled his sleeves to cook breakfast. And all the time he was humming very happy tunes and love songs, not a single lyric yet but he was moving in the kitchen with that good mood so alien in him.

 

In fact, when Charlie and Vaggie entered, they remained in silence, they didn't even say 'good morning' just to observe the very rare sight of a Radio Demon cheerful without a carnage or destruction on the horizon.

 

In that moment, Ankareeda was entering the kitchen, rubbing an eye and half sleep, until she saw her papa humming, visibly happy. Her face was bright in an instant and she made a gesture to Vaggie and Charlie to remain in silence and she started to sneak near the demon.

 

To muffle the sounds of her bare hooves, she was raising from the floor a dark tendril to encounter her little hoofie feet. She was near, so near, she was ready to jump, her hands ready to hold to the Radio Demon...

 

When she jumped, Alastor turned at the same moment around, catching her in the air with one tentacle coming from his back.

 

“Tch, tch, tch” Alastor tutted, moving his index finger to say 'no'. “I was hearing you since you were near the door and I still could listen to the steps over your tentacles, like a squishy sound. My love, I taught you to be a better hunter than this.”

 

She crossed her arms over her father's tendril, looking at him seriously... to then smile and sign for him.

 

“Yes, I slept well” said the Radio Demon. “And this is a nice morning, why I shouldn't be in good spirits?”

 

The demon kissed the head of his daughter to them released her with care on the floor.

 

Anka moved near her father to catch on what he was cooking, widening her eyes when she recognized the particular type of breakfast. She moved, like a good girl, greeting both her sister and Vaggie to sat on a chair and wait.

 

Alastor continued cooking, this time his humming moved to song.

 

“We dream a while and then you smile,

So tempting...

Your fingertip caress my lips,

So tempting...

You hold my hand, my heart begins

to beat a little quicker...”

 

In that moment Lucifer was arriving to the kitchen, in the same fashion that Ankareeda, in his pajamas, rubbing an eye, half sleep... and the voice, singing beautifully, of the Radio Demon catched his pointy ears immediatly.

 

Alastor, that was mixing warm water, flour, vanilla, evaporated milk and eggs in a big bowl, continued to smile softly, continued to sing, releasing two tentacles from his back to continue with the mix while he approached the stunned Devil, completelly shocked by the sudden... happiness? From the Radio Demon.

 

The taller man took him and continued mixing with his tendrils while he was dancing softly with Lucifer.

 

“And when we kiss, I feel a little flame

began to flicker...

A sudden thrill, I have no will,

You're tempting...”

 

He sang, caressing the king's cheek with his bare hand, that soft smile, dancing in the kitchen like they were only by themselves.

 

“Our shadows meet,

the flames repeat that you're mine.

When you say 'Don't go away from me'

It's pass believing,

I never dreamt that I'll tempt...

Tempting you...”

 

The demon, shocking even more the king, kissed him softly in the top of his blond hair like he did with his daughter and moved humming to continue making breakfast for everyone, with that good disposition and demeanor.

 

“Ehmm... Good Morning, Alastor” adventured to say the monarch.

 

“Good morning, Lucifer” he said, almost singsonging... Not 'sire' or 'my king' or 'your highness' or 'my liege' or some other royal bullshit. His name and just his name and his name from his lips sounded... so good. It made him feel something warm inside his chest.

 

“You seem cheerful this morning” said the monarch. “I should accompany you to some mayhem and carnage more often if this delicious attitude is the result.”

 

And Alastor laughed... Not his demonic laugh, no his sarcastic laugh, not his ironic laugh... not even his sardonic one. It was a genuine, good intentioned, laugh that was so musical in the ears of the monarch that he cursed himself for not recording it in his phone.

 

“Oh, Lucifer, don't offer me entertainment, I'll end taking your word for it” said the demon. “Ok, sit down, please... I'll finish the breakfast soon. Do you want your coffee in the meanwhile? And you, girls?”

 

He asked the women and the ex-exorcist and the princess exchange a look.

 

“Sure, Al, thanks” said Charlie.

 

“Yeah, coffee is good” said the monarch.

 

He was debating with himself if ask the deer demon why he was so happy that morning or at least, not happy but a good predisposition that was so rare in him that it was like seeing a unicorn... not even a regular one, a pink one with wings, rainbows, shitting diamonds or something like that. But, in the other hand, he didn't want to ruin the moment so he decided to enjoy this not knowing how much it was about to last.

 

“And... what are you cooking?” asked Lucifer.

 

He was preparing the mix with a rolling pin, to then cut it in rectangles.

 

“After the day we had yesterday, I thought something slightly sweet was in order, something special” he said, preparing a pot with oil. “I'm cooking beignets, like my mother used to do. Everytime that I achieved something, she made this for me the next day... So I thought it was fitting.”

 

He said, returning to the counter to prepare the three cups of coffee in the taste of the different people and humming again to return to fry the beignets.

 

Ankareeda used a tendril to call for his attention and signed for him.

 

“You can't have coffee” said the demon, she protested in that sassy way she had, signing not only with her hands, but also with her tendrils. “No, I don't care if Vaggie told you that in the Living World in Colombia is normal for kids to sip milk and coffee or other combinations.”

 

The latin fallen angel was starting to sip her cup really hard while lowering her head, smiling slightly.

 

“Cocoa, I can do...” said the demon, Anka signed. “We aren't two overlords according a truce, this is not up for debate. Cocoa or juice...”

 

She tried to protest again.

 

“Cocoa going once... going twice...” the little girl rolled her eyes and raised a hand. “Cocoa for the beautiful little lady in the front row!!”

 

He said, like he was in an auction, making Ankareeda first cross her arms but then laugh.

 

She couldn't be mad, her father was happy! He always smiled, he always had beautiful words for her and hugs and played with her, but she knew her father wasn't happy, she knew he missed the king and was suffering, having nightmares.

 

Seeing him in that way, with that happy predisposition, singing without being ask, being kind with her other father, her sister and sister-in-law... That made her very happy in exchange and she could only smile vividly to that.

 

***

 

Alastor cooked the beignets, used powder sugar generously over them and joined them to eat breakfast, joking not only with Ankareeda, that wasn't new, but also with Lucifer, blowing sugar in his direction and even cleaning his lips with a thumb to then suck it not in a fully lewd way but enough for Lucifer to blush in goldens and reds and to dispense himself saying he needed to pick something from his room.

 

After the lunch, that Alastor offered to prepare too, making his gumbo, people divided in different tasks.

 

The overlord decided to help Husk to catalogue the bar, trying to figure out what other spirits they could bring to the hotel and Lucifer decided, or better say, Alastor suggested, to have some time with Anka and they were in the parlor teaching the king some pieces of music to the girl, both playing the violin and later, the king made a piano appear to accompany the girl without overshadowing her.

 

The deer demon after a couple of hours, hearing from afar to his daughter and his love laughing and joking and playing together, went with a sincere smile to fetch the little one.

 

“I know you're having fun but you have to do your homework” said the red demon. “I prepared a test about Hell's flora with some dried flowers Rosie gave me. When you're finished, you'll have to dress nicely, you're going to pass the evening with your auntie... She wants to go shopping with you, so off you go because if that test isn't finished, you are not going.”

 

She moved, kissed Lucifer in the cheek and gave him thanks for the music lesson and for playing with her, kissed her father and entered into a shadow to go faster to her room, smiling vividly.

 

“I love seeing her so happy” said the deer demon.

 

Lucifer was sitting at the piano, without his coat or hat and he has his bowtie undone and hanging.

 

“Yes, me too” said the monarch. “I just want her happy, you know? And safe and I'm glad she seems un-affected by these awful experiences.”

 

“My daughter is resilient, she makes me proud” said the demon, looking then to the king turning arround in the stool and play some notes at the piano. “I didn't know you also played the piano, Lucifer. Your fingers are too small to be the fingers of a piano player.”

 

Said the demon, smirking at him.

 

“Ha! Well, one works with one has... Beside, my body shift at my complete will but that comes with a side of immutability: My body didn't grow from a baby state, so doesn't change per sé... isn't programmed for that. Doesn't matter how much piano I practice or how many hops I play at basketball, my fingers won't change and I won't be taller” he said, playing another notes... still nothing that Alastor could recognize. “You have pianist's fingers, I notice the first time I saw you without gloves.”

 

Alastor remembered that, the first night together in Magne manor, the king removing Milady's gloves with his teeth... He shivered and tried to ignore the memory to just lean to the piano trying to maintain the soft smile.

 

“Any request, Al?” asked the monarch.

 

He noticed the reaction of the deer and wasn't stupid to know what memory that brought to his mind... Not a bad memory, but he knew that remembering those good times, were a open door for the bad memories to crawl back and he didn't wanted that.

 

Lucifer smiled softly back to Alastor.

 

“Mmm...” the deer demon moved a hand to his chin. “I don't know... Surprise me, Lucifer. Woo me with the piano.”

 

He said, resting his arm and waiting.

 

The way the king smiled back to him was bringing shivers down his spine... the good kind. It was playful, it was seductive and a pinch of the sadism he saw yesterday in him, was there.

 

Without a single word, he started to play and Alastor knew the song, it was I put a spell on you. A song after his time but he loved it the first time he listened to it.

 

But the lyrics that Lucifer sang were very different from the ones he knew.

 

“You put a spell on me

I'm losing my mind

You better stop these things

It's a matter of time.”

 

The king looked back to the deer demon and Alastor had to pass his tongue over his lips, feeling them suddenly dry.

 

“Before I hunt you down

grab your chin

and kiss your lips

You bring me back

I lay you down

and grab your hips

and we lose all control

and before you know it

I put a spell on you.”

 

Alastor sighed, Lucifer's eyes were starting to cover in red, little by little like a painter was applying their last touches. Those eyes normally showed the fury of the king so people that wasn't intimate with him could thought it was just that... But he knew, his red sclera wasn't only fury, it was also desire.

 

“Now you are mine

I've got a hold on you

At least for the night.”

 

The Devil was starting to show his horns, his tail was already out moving near the leg of the Radio Demon, coiling slightly around his ankle... still without touching but going to position.

 

“You know I can't help myself

when you ask, tenderly,

If I'd dim the lights

as you hand brushes me

and the floor swallows your clothes

and your silhouette puts on a show.”

 

From looking up front and sometimes to the deer demon, now he was just looking to Alastor when he was playing. Horns in full display, his tail going up inch by inch slowly over the leg of the demon and his playful tongue making an appareance just for a second between verses to wet his superior lip.

 

The Radio Demon was starting to feel like the air was thin, feeling his chest moving with heavy breathing and his heart pumping, acting like a puppy whos mater was calling. All his life was music, all his power were sound waves, he was THE Radio Demon and music was something that always was a direct way to his soul, to his very being... He knew he was weak to it the same as he was strong when it has malicious intent.

 

And Lucifer was pounding that weakness relentlessly.

 

“You put a spell on me

I'm losing my mind

you better stop these games

It's a matter of time.

 

And before you know...

you give me fever...

And drive me insane.

You keep me going

in circles

with potions and bottles

And I... can't escape”

 

A couple more notes and he finished the song, smiling, showing all his devilish looks, with the eyes of someone wanting to devour another. Alastor was breathing heavy, feeling the tail of his love coiling up in his thigh, caressing but not going to any particular sensible place.

 

Lucifer closed the piano and rested his elbow over the piano lid and his chin over his closed hand. He was breathtaking, with his blond hair slightly disheveled and that smile...

 

“What, my deer, Devil got your tongue?” he said, playfully, seductively.

 

Alastor laughed low while closing his eyes. If that was a game, he wasn't about to lose.

 

He moved near Lucifer, taking him abruply by his shirt lapels and moving him up, forcing him to raise and be on his feet and the same time he lowered his torso to be eye to eye and when it looks like they were close enough, face against face, ready to kiss, parting Lucifer his lips and ready for the moment, the man smiled wickedly.

 

“Oh, the little mouse wants to play” he said, with a dark undertone. “Good, but not good enough, Little Apple. Don't forget you are not the hunter, you are the prey... And the prey didn't earn my attention yet.”

 

And with his most malicious laughter, the Radio Demon fused with his shadows, leaving the king there, in his devil form and with a huge case of blue balls.

 

“Shit...” he murmured.

 

***

 

Alastor, also with a considerable case of self-cockblocking, moved in shadows to the room of Angel, wanting to have a chat with the pornstar about a thing he was thinking, not finding him there. He made a fast scanning with his magic and he wasn't at the hotel.

 

The deer demon materialized in front of Husk.

 

“Husker, where is our effeminate fellow?” asked the demon, leaning over the counter.

 

“Angel?” the bartender raised a brow. “Why you ask?”

 

The Radio Demon gave his employee a look, direct and serious.

 

“I asked for a direction, not a question, Husker” said the demon.

 

“Yeah, but it's what ya got” said the barman, cleaning the counter with a rag. “Again, why you ask?”

 

Alastor was getting annoyed.

 

“You know, Husker, better than anyone, that I work like a old 1926 Packard: I only have three speeds” said the demon, his radio dials were showing in his eyes. “Charming disposition, threatening and 'the other'... I'm in the second transmission, want me to jump to 'the other', my friend?”

 

The barman looked back to the other demon and he knew he wanted Angel for something important because the man usually tolarated his grumpiness a little more. Still he hoped it wasn't something bad for the spider demon.

 

“Shit... Ok” said the cat demon. “Valentino called him, last hour job at the studio. He didn't want to go but yeah... apparently that goes 'round today.”

 

Alastor sighed.

 

“Since when?” asked the deer demon.

 

“Half hour ago?” said the barman. “Seriously boss, why you want the kid for? If he did somethin'...”

 

The deer demon growled.

 

“Talk, Husker, I wanted to talk... hmmmmm...” he hummed and smiled mischeviously. “And maybe I can spare the poor lad from a drooling experience today.”

 

“Are ya goin' to Vees turf?” asked the man, intrigued.

 

“I think I will... See? If you answered me sooner, I'll be already there” he clicked his tongue with a sarcastic smile. “This mistrust of your old pal Al... It's unbecoming, darling. Well, ta-tá! I'll bring our aracnic star home.”

 

And he fused with his shadow to dissapear.

 

“The fuck...?” said the surprised bartender.

 

***

 

At Valentino's studio...

 

“Bukkake again, Val?” said Angel, yawning. “Today I don't have the bod for that.”

 

He said, stretching to a point his backbone made a sound.

 

“Also, I always waste a lot of shampoo to get it all out” he complained but the moth overlord moved behind him, placing two hands over his waist.

 

“I know, babycakes but there is a boom now for bukkake videos and we must catch on the trend, according to Velvette” said the moth with his honey filled voice. “And sure you want to make papito happy, right?”

 

Angel sighed. No, he didn't want to make Valentino happy, at least not for the sake of the moth overlord... He just didn't want his mood to go to the other side.

 

“Yeah, I guess...” he started to removed the pink dressing gown he was wearing to cover his naked body while moving for the big bed.

 

Valentino returned to his directorial chair to sit comfortable, with the smile of someone that loves getting his way with people.

 

The pornstar, very far from a good mood, raised his gaze to catch... something familiar coming out of the wall near the door, opening his eyes widely, surprised. To then look around the studio to see if someone else catched on the shadow.

 

What the fuck was doing Alastor there?

 

“My, my, your star doesn't seem very happy, my dear” said the overlord, coming out of the shadow getting a huge reaction around the studio.

 

Everyone knew who the Radio Demon was and the reactions were going from pure, unadulterated fear, to curiosity and surprise.

 

“The fuck are you doing in my territory, Radio cunt?” Valentino jumped from the chair and become on guard, ready for a fight with his archenemy. “Security!!”

 

He called and soon two very big, very muscular and very afraid sinners with ram attributes came near the deer demon, ready to stop him. Two tentacles moved fast, grabbing the sinners by the neck and breaking them cleanly, tossing them aside. They'll take a time to put themselves together.

 

“Oh, relax, my good man” said the red demon. “Today I won't kill you... unless you annoy me.”

 

Alastor was looking to his nails. Valentino, reluctanly, moved to his chair and sat.

 

“What the fuck you want, Radio Demon?” asked the overlord.

 

The man moved, looking around the studio with curiosity to then turn around to look to the moth.

 

“That's easy! I came to fetch good Angel!” he said, with his cheerful disposition, going near the spider demon, closing his dressing gown with a gesture to then turn around. “So, we'll be now in our merry way.”

 

And he took the hand of the pornstar.

 

“That's not gonna happen” said the lust overlord. “Angel needs to work in a very long scene, so he ain't moving from here, venadito.”

 

Alastor raised an eyebrow looking directly to the overlord.

 

“But you can wait for him to finish...” he presented a predatorial smile. “Or an orgy is too much for your virginal self?”

 

The deer demon responded laughing, hard, releasing the hand of Angel to move near Valentino, who was raising from his chair again fearing an attack.

 

“Val, darling... I have a daughter” said the demon, twirling his cane in hand. “And not only I had fun doing her, I fuck so spectacularly that if I text Lucifer that I'm horny, he will come on his knees from the Hazbin hotel to here to fuck me hard over that bed. Try to guess how I conquered the seat of the Realm. Your shit? It's too vanilla for me, mite.”

 

He broaded his smile after calling him moth in french, the same he called him little deer in spanish. Valentino was... shocked. He never expected, with what he knew of the guy, that he responded in that way. Vox told him Alastor was asexual, so he expected a fucking total virgin repugned about sex... not this completelly secure man boasting over his ability in bed and... with such an aura of stallion that had him even reacting to it.

 

Damn, he thought.

 

“But... let's be gentlemen about this” said the demon. “I don't want to kill you, not now that Voxxy and I are fixing things thanks to Lucifer. So, I'll do this instead.”

 

He snapped and a checkbook appeared with a pen and he opened to write something to then tear a check and give it to Valentino.

 

“I'll have dear Angel's services for a week, in exclusivity” said the deer demon while the moth took the check to see it, opening widely his eyes after discerning the number written... Alastor's caligraphy was perfect but the moth was blind as a porcelain cat. “So no phone calls or shootings. You can keep the change, darling.”

 

And twirling his cane again, he turned around, snapped to dress Angel Dust in his regular clothes and presented his arm to him.

 

“C'mon, darling” said the Radio Demon. “Let me show you the real treatment of a gentleman. Ta-tá, Val, my best to Voxxy!”

 

And the shadows swallowed them both to return to the hotel, to Angel Dust's room.

 

The pornstar didn't know what to think. Alastor really wanted to...? No, that couldn't be, right.

 

“Ehmmm... Al?” the deer was distracted looking around the room of the spider demon. “Why you bought my time?”

 

He asked, slowly.

 

“Ah, yes!” he made his cane dissappear, to then sit on the bed and make a gesture for the man to sit by his side. “I need your invaluable help, for a surprise I want to give to Lucifer. I got... mostly the idea but I need your expertise and maybe some private practice, if you're up to it.”

 

The spider demon swalled hard and he was blushing violently.

 

“Sure, baby, but are you sure? My mom always said “You don't lend things ya mount” and I don't know if da shortstuff is the lending kinda of guy” he said with a coy smile. “Not that I'm not attracted, 'cause let me tell ya...”

 

Alastor laughed.

 

“A song, mon ange!!” he laughed again. “I want to prepare a date for Lucifer and I want to sing for him. I need a song, in my taste, but something I never sang before, something modern to... surprise him and woo him and... setting him on fire. Fucking I have it more than covered, what I told Val is partially true: I only need to part my legs slightly and I'm opened for business.”

 

Angel, with some type of pressure releasing from his shoulders, relaxed and laughed too.

 

“Ok, ok, mistah sexy man” said the spider. “You want me to find you a song for you to sing and practice here, with me...”

 

“Exactly. I want Lucifer on fire, hard as a flag pole, drooling for me... I want to rail him up so badly that he doesn't have a head to snap my clothes away, only rip them with his teeth” said the demon. “I want the perfect date... and then the perfect ending to it.”

 

The spider demon sighed softly.

 

“So... you want to go on full swing with him” asked to man. “No more waiting... Fuck, that carnage on Castle Eldritch had to be a good one.”

 

Alastor sighed too. In that moment Fat Nuggets moved to go to the deer demon and jumped to rest on the deer's lap, with the red demon petting him softly.

 

“He... really saw me for what I am and he... backed me” said the demon. “He saw the worst of me, my more savage part and he matched it. Maybe he's ready to be there for me, in all situations. And I want to be there for him, for everything. His wars, my wars, his worries, mine to resolve, his enemies, mine to crush. I... I want him, Angel. I'm ready to advance with him by my side, by my... our daughter's side.”

 

The spider smiled softly and passed an arm over the shoulders of the demon.

 

“Ok, big boy” said the pornstar. “Let's find a song to seduce the Devil himself.”

 

Alastor smiled back to the man.

 

“Thanks, mon ange” he said softly.

Notes:

Yes, next one is another date... we need the calm, trust me, we need it. Also, the chapter 40 must be a special one... it will mark the beginning of the end!

Btw, I saw that the song Alastor sang in the kitchen is difficult to find, so is this one.

Chapter 40: Dating for old men, Vol. 2

Summary:

Alastor has some time with Angel Dust to find a song he could like for his date with Lucifer.

The demon isn't only taking help from the spider but also he prepares things with the rest.

In the middle of that, Lucifer is starting to spiral with the idea that Alastor is distant with him but then the date happens.

Notes:

Nice big chapter, special 40 chapter. Hope you like it, guys!

“You gather pieces of happiness, precious and fragile, only to lose them. Then start again.”

~Meteion, Final Fantasy XIV

 

Both Alastor and Angel were in the room of the spider demon, the next day after the studio situation and after the lunch, both men sitting in the bed listening to music, vibing to it.

 

Angel expended the day before for a time with Husk, getting every day close with the cat demon and enjoying his company, stories and takes but also he was using Charlie's computer to download songs that he thought could be on the side of Alastor's taste: mosly jazzy, swing, blues, R&B and even some old school ballads. All sexy themes or romantic with a spicy side, taking what the deer demon was trying to get.

 

“I always thought or been told that people stopped to like blues decades ago” he said, without his shoes, hooves over the bed while he was resting his back to the wall, vibing his head to the music and snapping his fingers.

 

“Nah, ol' shit always makes a comeback, babe” said the spider demon, pampering Fat Nuggets, with his butt over his pillow and resting his back on the headboard of the bed. “Even in fashion. Flared pants was the shit on the seventies, they made a comeback recently. I just needed to dust a little mine.”

 

“Still isn't the point I want to make with the song but I'm discovering a lot of modern music I won't mind to broadcast in my station” said the demon with a soft smile, still his eyes closed and enjoying the music. “By the way, when we finish here you'll still have some days to yourself free from the moth, are you planning something with Husker?”

 

He opened an eye to look back to the spider demon, smirking playfully to Angel.

 

“Oh, jeez, I didn't peg the big scary Radio Demon for a gossip girl” said the spider, also playfully. “Want the tea, sugar?”

 

Alastor didn't respond in words, he just made a gesture like he was inviting Angel Dust in.

 

“Ok, mistah” he moved near the red demon, sitting right beside him. “I was plannin' to drag his furry ass to a club in a coupla of days, ya know? Showin' the good nortunal life, some of my propietary dance moves, one of my tight dresses... We're goin' slow, better that way I think but I want for him to make some moves or somethin'”.

 

The Radio Demon hummed to then move his hand to his chin, thinking.

 

“I know the man since a lot of time, decades” said Alastor. “Want some advice from an old deer that knows well the old cat?”

 

“Yeah, of course, shot me!” said Angel, moving to sit over his knees, excite to have some info on the elusive bartender.

 

“Disregard the clubbing and the scampy dress” said the deer. “He had a lot of that in his life and afterlife, specially when he was the Casino Overlord, that was his life. You want to surprise him? You don't need to doll yourself up, you can of course, or something like that. Find a good restaurant, cozy, invite him or let him invite you to a nice dinner, have a calm night. You're gonna get more from him in that way that just clubbing.”

 

Angel Dust thought a little in what Alastor told him. If he were sincere with himself, and by Hells he was really working on that, that plan sounded rather nicely for him. He loved music and he loved to dance but a calm night in the town, just talking and eating something homely sounded... very good for the spider demon.

 

And in that moment a thought came to him.

 

“And... don't take this the wrong way, Smiles, but... Husky has his own money to invite me?” he asked, curiosly.

 

Valentino wasn't giving money to Angel, no matter how many movies he made, how many interviews or photoshots he took for him, for promoting his own work and others from the studio of the Vee... Or even how many commercials he filmed for the Vees. Sure, he had all the drugs he wanted but never a single green and taking that Husk was also soul-binding, he had the doubt.

 

Alastor wasn't annoyed, in fact, he laughed.

 

“Don't worry, darling” he said. “I get from where you're coming. I bet that Valentino isn't in sharing mood of his profits. And to answer your question, I seized all his assets when I took his soul, at least the ones he still had. But I give both to Niffty and him an assignation of money every two weeks, in fact, I pay all my employees but not always directly. I mean, some have shops and their own ways to make money but when I want something extra, I pay for it.”

 

Telling that Angel was surprised, was certainly correct.

 

“In fact, I bet my employees knew I wasn't dead when I was hidding at Rosie's when I gave birth: I didn't stop the payments” said the Radio Demon, with a prideful smile because he was always prideful to be different from the majority of overlords.

 

Not all, he knew that Carmilla, Zeezi, Zestial and Rosie worked in the same parameters, taking their soul-binding contracts more than an iron clad one than one of complete servitude. For Alastor, that didn't make them good, but certainly made them better.

 

“Jeez, Smiles, you sure are a special type of block” said the spider with a soft smile.

 

“Not really, but I have my priorities and morals” said the deer. “Of course, there are a couple that I got under contract more as a punishment, that I rule over them the same way as Valentino does with you... maybe worst, I'm not a kind master. But...”

 

He sighed and closed his eyes, a new song was in the air.

 

“This is Hell, but doesn't mean we need to make it as such for everyone” said the deer demon. “The system is rigged, not everyone down here deserves to be and not all the angels deserve their cozy little lives in Heaven. Don't let me start in names like calling themselves 'winners'... I know what is to be born in the worst moment, the worst time, with the wrong body, having everything stacked against. I know injustice and Lucifer did something nice for us giving us a choice, even when he doesn't see it. I got a choice: Be part of the problem or apply some of the solutions.”

 

Angel was surprised with the demon but he then thought for a moment on what he knew from the guy. As a serial killer he went for scum, he dropped here and he killed his abusive father and all the overlords that were his associates. He helped Charlie, protected the hotel and he seem fair with Niff and Husk. Also, as a father he was very good, full effort. Even with him. He didn't need to help him with Val and this was the second time he did.

 

Thinking in it, his ideas weren't so surprising coming from him.

 

“You're amazing, Al” he said, moving his arm and passing it over the shoulders of the man and Alastor let him, smiling.

 

“Thanks, mon ange” said the deer with that soft smile. “Mmm... this song I like but it sounds more like a falling out of love type.”

 

The spider demon moved, going out of the bed to his musical system, seeing the title in the screen.

 

“Yeah, it is” he said. “This one slipped in, I love the songs from this guy and I get I just downloaded his whole album... Mmmm... but it had some that maybe are what you're lookin' for.”

 

He started to find those songs and he played the next one to then move to Fat Nuggets bed and take something from a slit on the fabric, directly from the stuffed part. It was a small transparent bag with some white powder in it, very little of it.

 

“Really, Angel?” asked Alastor, raising a brow.

 

“Hey, it the last of my stashes... one of the last ones” said the spider demon. “And see, is only good for one time. It's just to relax, ya know?”

 

“You know I'll have to report to Vaggie about that little hiddy hole, right?” said the demon, making a gesture to point to the animal's bed.

 

“Oh, Smiles, don't be a rat on me!” he said. “Sometimes I need to relax and this shit helps.”

 

Alastor made a gesture with the hand and a tentacle raised from the floor to tap on Angel's back, he turned surprised and in that moment the little bag was taken by one of the tendrils coming from the deer's back, placing the drugs in his hand.

 

“I know your job with Val is stressful, I won't chastice you much for endulging when you're dealing with his shit” said the Radio Demon. “But we're relaxed already, listening to good music... and, eventually, if you want any chance both with Charlie's project or with Husker, you'll need your head in the game.”

 

The pornstar growled, first raising his head and then lower it.

 

“Fuck, I know, Al, I know it pretty well” said the demon, trying to explain himself. “Sometimes I can't help it. I just... need to...”

 

He was seeing how the demon opened the bag while he was talking, trying to explain his addiction and how it came to the point in what he was those days and he saw, surprised as... well, never as surprised in his life or afterlife, how the red demon took the last of his emergency stash of coke into his pinky finger's nail, took said nail to his nose and sniffed out the coke like nothing, rubbing then his nose.

 

“What the fuck?!” said the demon, going near Alastor, still surprised like he saw something really messed up, like a real nuns' orgy or something.

 

Alastor just laughed.

 

“Oh, please, you think this is new for me?” he laughed more. “Did I need to remind you from what time I am? Cough syrup had heroin in my time, Angel. Coke had... well, coke. Kids were taking opium to work in mines and with prohibition we made moonshine in bathtubs so strong that it was just one step removed from being categorized as battery acid. I indulged in this shit when I was alive.”

 

He laughed again, closing his eyes and moving his head to the music like nothing, making the plastic bag to dissapear.

 

“Jesus fucking Christ on a stick, Smiles, when I think you can't be more hardcore, you go 'round and fuck with my brain” said the spider demon, too shocked for what he was learning from the overlord to even lament the lost of his beloved special powder. “So... you used when alive but then you just... stopped?”

 

Alastor hummed.

 

“I used what I needed to hit on all sixes as radio host, a popular egg in the clubs and gin mills of the city and cleaner at night” said the demon. “I slept little and I worked too hard. And yes, I stopped when I dropped in Hell. Not only with the coke, I smoked too and I still drink but I control myself to not become inebriate.”

 

Something was telling Angel that there was more than just him deciding to go clean after his death. He moved near the deer demon and sat again to his side.

 

“And why?” he asked.

 

Alastor looked back to the man.

 

“I learned the hard way before dying... and here... dangers everywhere, people wanting to hurt or tangle you into a contract. Or worse things” he denied. “I needed my head on the game, the same as you need yours, mon ange, if you want out of this hole or you want some normality with my employee. I saw you two, I saw you starting to dance around each other.”

 

The red demon didn't know if that was the coke making effect on him or he simply reached that level of friendship with the spider demon without notice, but he turned to him and placed a hand over his fluffy shoulder.

 

“Angel, finding someone, specially in here, the Cunt of Creation, is rare” said Alastor. “Someone that got you for you, not for an idea of you, someone that is willing to be on your corner no matter the odds... You know what? When I wanted to talk to you about the song, I asked him where you were. He knows me, the stupid mutt knows me and knows deep down I won't hurt him, not really but he also knows my temper and how I am with disrespect and he was ready to protect your ass, even against the fucking guy that has his soul.”

 

The pornstar was.. without words, looking directly to Alastor being this direct with him, wanting him, HIM! To be better, to do an effort, believing for sure he could and telling him he must because there was someone that was also ready to take his corner and fight with him.

 

“Don't let your head fuck you over something good happening to you and don't let your body to decide who you are” he said. “It's gonna be tough, it's gonna be hard as fuck, your body will be coming after you with a vengeance and Charlie isn't equiped to help you. She doesn't know how to deal with something like addiction because, bless her soul, she never dealed with that or knew someone going through that before. She thinks is just saying 'no' and that's that... But I know and I'm here. I know all the things your body is gonna throw at you and I know the shit your head is gonna whisper.”

 

Angel... felt it, the tears going to his eyes, his facade of unworried tough ex mafia boy, hardened by the worst in life, crumbled like a tower of cards. He couldn't help it, he reached for Alastor's arm and rested his head over his chest, crying.

 

“You're so sweet, Al” said the spider demon.

 

Alastor was just rubbing his head, leaving him release some of his pain.

 

“Mo konmprann, mon ange” he said 'I understand' in creole. “To san bon, mon cher.”

 

He was using creole to soothe him for instint. It was the language his mother used to do such things and it came natural to him to do so. Angel was in that position for a time, to then move and start to clean the tears from himself.

 

“But... now I think of it, why you took my last line?” asked the spider demon. “You won't go...?”

 

Alastor denied.

 

“First, I won't be going out today, so I'm not worry about much” said the deer demon. “Second... In my time we barely cut coke so this was like sniffing yeast. Better in my system than yours.”

 

Angel laughed hard, almost holding to his stomach.

 

“You're terrible, mistad Radio Demon” said the spider.

 

“That I am... wait...” he pointed to the sound system. “That song...”

 

“Yeah, it's from the same guy as the another, the heartbreak one” said the pornstar.

 

Alastor widened his smile.

 

“I just found my song, I think” he said, almost giggling while Angel Dust was placing the song on repeat.

 

***

 

The next day, Charlie and Vaggie were heads deep into ideas about the princess' talent show and how they could present it, promote it... Lucifer offered Vox to do the promotion now that the overlord was in a soul contract with the monarch but she was a little uncomfortable using the man in that way. Also, she still needed a presenter for the event and normally Alastor could be his first choice but the overlord already told her he wanted to participate so she needed another.

 

Both thinking, they didn't notice the deer demon approching them in the parlor, with a wicker basket in one hand, covered by a cloth.

 

“Good afternoon, ladies” he said, removing the cloth with elegance. “I came baring gifts.”

 

The heat from the basket hit them and then the smells.

 

“Those are...” said Vaggie, with her eyes with an emotion people only saw in her when she was seeing to Charlie. “Those are arepas?”

 

She asked and, proudly, the demon nodded.

 

“Not colombian, but venezuelan arepas” said the deer. “I remembered I have an employee that came from those parts and I asked her. She said they are different but I guessed you could like them too. She gave me the recipe. I made cheese ones and these ones with a type of meat... it's called...”

 

“Carne mechada” said Vaggie, picking one like it was the Holy Grail of Food, with both hands, moving it near her like she was expecting gregorian chanting or something similar.

 

“That! I didn't know how to pronounced it, dear” he said with his trademark smile.

 

“This is amazing, Alastor!! Thanks!” Charlie hugged the overlord for a moment.

 

“It was nothing, darling, you two have been working so hard... Tho I maybe need a favor in return” he said, with the smile going playful.

 

Vaggie had already half arepa demolished and was chewing with delight, she talked with her mouth half full.

 

“If you want a soul deal, you're half way there, shitlord” she said, enjoying the food a lot.

 

Alastor laughed and made a gesture with the hand.

 

“Not something like that, my dear, no...” said the demon. “I need you to do an errant for me. I want to surprise Lucifer with a date and I thought that maybe new clothes were in order so I want you to take, discreetly, your father's sizing and go to my personal tailor. They already know what I want and they has my sizing already. I don't want Lucifer to know or notice, I left him these days with Ankareeda so he's distracted and not so attached to me but I don't know if he has guards over his room... And frankly I'm not comfortable inviding his chambers even for a good cause so...”

 

He widened his smile and leaned his head.

 

“Can you do this favor for me, my dears?” asked the demon.

 

Vaggie, who was for her second arepa, chew fast and swallow fast to talk.

 

“Tell you what, Alastor” said the ex-exorcist. “You promise to got for me some horchata, rice or tiger nut, I don't care... And I'm ready to knock out cold my suegro and take his measurements myself if necessary.”

 

The Radio Demon laughed to that.

 

“Ok, ok... I wish that won't be necessary” said the demon. “With the sizing of one of his suits I think is enough. I'll see what I can do with your... food, drink?”

 

“Drink” corrected Vaggie.

 

“Drink and if I don't get a recipe, I'll place an order to one of my succubi contacts to get some delivered from the Living World” he said. “Sounds fair?”

 

Vaggie was attacking her third arepa, so she just thumbed up.

 

“Good, this is the address of my tailor, they will be waiting for you, my dears” said the demon, giving the piece of paper he made appear to Charlie.

 

“Don't worry, Al, we won't fail you” said Charlie, sure of herself.

 

***

 

Alastor was in his room at night sewing and listening to some music very low when two knocks on the door called his attention.

 

“It's open” he responded.

 

Lucifer opened the door to let Ankareeda to enter while the deer demon was hiding was he was sewing moments ago. The king entered the room just behind the girl, with her jumping over her father hugging him.

 

“Did you have fun with your father, love?” he asked and the girl signed, explaining a little what they were doing after the dinner. “I see... Ok, now brush your teeth and to the bed you go.”

 

She said good night to Alastor and to Lucifer, gave a kiss for every men and runned through the door that separated her bedroom from Alastor's.

 

“Thanks for giving me time with her” said the monarch with a soft smile.

 

“Of course, dear, she appears to have fun with you” said the deer demon.

 

Lucifer was turning around to go to the door but he stopped and returned to go nearer the red demon, smiling softly and almost sheepishly.

 

“Hmmm... we're good, right, Al?” asked the king.

 

“Sure, dearest” he said. “I wasn't neglecting you, right? I was busy these days but I was kind with you, yes?”

 

Lucifer sighed.

 

“Yeah, yeah, sure but... you know, I saw you chubby with Angel and you giving me time with Anka and... After Castle Eldritch I don't want to fuck this, I don't think I fucked this?” he said, pointing to both him and Alastor.

 

The overlord also sighed and made a gesture for the king to approch him.

 

“Come here, dear” Lucifer, almost like a child ready to be scolded, went near the man in his armchair. Alastor placed both hands over his shoulders. “You didn't sour our advances. I just needed time to solve some things for Charlie and helped Angel to escape Valentino for a couple of days and in exchange he was showing me modern music but in my style. You'll start to listen soon some of those songs on my broadcast.”

 

Because Alastor knew that those days, the king wasn't losing a single broadcast from the deer demon, like a very avid listener.

 

“I'm sorry if I sound jealous, needy or clingy but... I'm so afraid of losing you...” he moved a hand, slowly, going near the face of the deer demon and Alastor saw it and nodded, not minding the touch, caressing Lucifer his cheek slowly.

 

“Lucifer...” he took the hand to kiss it. “The only way you'll lose me at this point it's returning to your terrible self with me or refusing me yourself. So...”

 

He kissed the top of the head of the king.

 

“Don't worry your little head about it” said the demon. “Now, the same as with Anka, move alone, brush your teeth and put on your pajamas and go to sleep, Oncle will tend to your sleep so you don't have a thing to worry about it. He's been doing it for a time now.”

 

Lucifer looked around but he didn't see the shadow so maybe he was already in his room, waiting for him to nurse him to sleep.

 

“Thanks, Al... You won't lose me also, you know?” said the king and Alastor just nodded. “Good night, my deer.”

 

“Good night, Lucifer” said the man, seeing how the monarch closed the door after leaving his quarters with a smile.

 

He sighed again... How insecure could be a man that was almost a god? But maybe, thought the red demon, it was the thing that made Lucifer so deserving of his devotion.

 

He took from behind his back the thing he was sewing and continued on it.

 

***

 

A week later, Alastor was finishing fixing the walls and the floor of the third floor of the hotel, thanks to Cherri and “an accident” and he went to the lobby of the hotel without his coat and with his sleeves rolled up. He stopped at the stairs, observing his daughter playing a board game with Lucifer, both very enthralled with it.

 

“I thought you were about to teach her to play chess” said the demon, approaching them.

 

Lucifer nodded.

 

“I did, she's good” said the monarch, taking a dice to roll it.

 

Anka signed, saying she was more than good, she won their third match and Lucifer didn't want to play more.

 

“Sore loser...” said the Radio Demon, smirking.

 

“Anyway...” said the king growling a little. “Snakes and ladders is a classic and very fun for someone her age.”

 

The girl said with signs that she was winning either way, making the red demon laugh with that.

 

“If after this humillation you try to find another game to compete with our daughter, my advice is that you dodge playing cards with her” adviced the Radio Demon. “Draft poker, texas hold 'em, Bridge, Old maid and Cribbage are things nor Rosie or I can't win over her since we teached her to play. Husker also made the error and he lost at poker and blackjack... But that also can be his patological bad luck when he plays as the House.”

 

Lucifer looked back to the demon and then to his daughter. It wasn't like he felt bad to lose to Anka, of course not, she was his daughter and he loved her but... Every parent want to be strong, surprising, intelligent and rather perfect to their offspring and losing at games with her was making him feel less impressing and more clumsy and he didn't like it. He wanted to impress his daughter, he wanted to see her marveled at the things he could do.

 

“Mmm... maybe some videogames are in order” he murmured.

 

“With the easiness she had with Vox's tablet, you're in for another crushing defeat, love” he laughed. “Anyway...”

 

And instead of talking, he signed for his child. Lucifer raised a brow, he was learning more and more these days but still he didn't catch on everything and also the speed of the signs were a problem for him.

 

“What's this with the secrets?” he asked, annoyed.

 

Alastor and Ankareeda just laughed.

 

“You're talking about me” and he crossed his arms.

 

“Yes, we were... pick this up and store it, darling” and without warning, the deer demon passed his arm around the waist of the monarch and rose him to his shoulder, carring him over it like a lumberjack carrying a piece of wood. “And go with Charlie after it.”

 

The girl nodded and said bye with the hand to Lucifer while the deer demon was starting to go up the stairs.

 

“You know I can walk, right?” said the king, crossing his arms. “I'm not a kid.”

 

“Yes, beloved, I know that” but he didn't make any gesture to release him.

 

Alastor called the elevator to ride it. He wasn't using his powers to move around, thing that he normally do, showing he was having such fun manhandling the royal and Lucifer catched on that, still thinking what was the intention of the Radio Demon for doing this, what he wanted.

 

His doubts were short lived because as soon as the demon reached their floor, where their rooms were, he released softly the man and then the deer went on one knee to take the hands of the monarch.

 

“Lucifer, will you make me the honor of having this night with me?” he said, smiling softly.

 

The king opened his eyes wide and a little blush was showing in his cheeks.

 

“Mmm... night, night or...?” he wanted to ask.

 

“A date, Lucifer” said Alastor, raising a brow.

 

The monarch smiled and nodded, slightly ashame of thinking first in sex than in this outcome.

 

“A date! Yeah, yeah...” he massaged a little his neck. “Sure, do you have a plan for the night?”

 

The deer nodded and made a gesture with both hands in front of the Devil and a package neatly adorned with a crimson blow appared over his hands with a puff of green smoke.

 

“First things first, refresh yourself a little and dress up in this number I got for you” Lucifer was moving his fingers to open the box from a side to take a pick and Alastor chasticed for it. “Ah, ah, ah, no peeking until you're ready to be dressed. In one hour I'll go to your room to pick you up. Sounds good, dearest?”

 

Lucifer nodded, very happy, taking the package.

 

“I'll be ready!” without thinking, he kissed the deer demon on the cheek and went to his room almost running and when he entered and closed the door, he jumped a la Mario style, punching the air over him. “Hell fucking yeah!!”

 

A date! Proposed by Alastor no less!! And there he was mulling all the week if the sinner had decided to place space between them. A little flicker of fear started to raise inside him, maybe Alastor wanted to stop trying to be with him, accepting him as father for Ankareeda but taking the determination of just being friends.

 

And sure, he could go for friends, he loved to be able at last to be a father for Anka but he wanted more, he wanted all and he was fearing a door closing because he couldn't get his dick on his pants and he almost jumped the overlord on his throne room after devouring Bethesda with him.

 

But no! He wanted a date, he was planning a date! Lucifer removed all his clothes like they were on fire and moved to the bathroom to have a shower, scrubbing thoroughly every inch of his body with his apple scented bodywash. He washed his hair, applied the conditioner... When he went out, he was making sure his nails were perfect, he cut a little the bush around his manhood because you never know. He made sure his ears were clean, his pointy teeth were perfect.

 

Lucifer decided to go for his underwear and discarted the boxers, going for some sexy briefs he had in red with an inverse cross upfront in golden. He found them funny when he bought them and then he saw how good they were on him and how big they made him look.

 

Well, it was time to see the present from the Radio Demon so he removed the bow and opened the rectangular white box to see... Oh... It wasn't a suit or even a dress, thing he was expecting. No, it was a royal suit, modern and elegant in reds and goldens.

 

The coat was long, designed to not close in the front and had beautiful desings on the fabric. Near the shoulders a very stylish version of an apple and near the cuff a desing of two intertwined snakes. The lappels were adorned with vines and in both sides of his waist were symbolic wings, three for side representing his own. The vest had a singular chain again with the motif of two snakes. The shirt and pants were simple, in black, but amazing texture on the fabric and quality on the sewing work.

 

After admiring the work and the softness of the fabric, he started to dress. The clothes came with a set of marvelous cufflinks in golden with the symbol of his house but no shoes or bowtie, so he decided to use some black elegant shoes with a little heel and still wasn't decided on the bowtie.

 

He was revisiting his drawer of ties when two knocks catched his attention. It was an hour already?

 

“You can come in” he said, still undecided.

 

Alastor entered the room of the monarch and he smiled softly when he saw how he was still undecided in the tie or bowtie to wear.

 

“Maybe I can help with that, dearest” he offered.

 

When Lucifer turned to face him... all the air from his lungs was stolen by the vision. The Radio Demon was dressed modern but elegant, in a color he never expected in him: white. Perfectly pearly white trousers and coat, with a redish pink shirt. No vest but with the chain of a pocket watch visible from the pocket of the jacket to the interior. His cufflinks were little cathedral radios in black and he was wearing a ribbon tie in black with the Morningstar coat of arms as a brooch.

 

He combed his hair leaving his forehead on display, with all his hair pushed back and finishing in a ponytail. Instead of the monocle, he was wearing his oval red glasses.

 

“You're magnificent” said the king, almost in a whisper. “White suits you rather well, Al.”

 

“Not as much as red suits you, my king” he said, moving near the man and sitting in his bed. “Come here, I have something for you.”

 

Lucifer did, moving so near that was almost between Alastor's legs, the man made a gesture a presented the monarch with a ribbon tie, like the one he was wearing. But while Alastor was elegant but simple, Lucifer's wasn't. It had small apple motives on the border of the fabric in golden thread and a central desing of a snake in the middle of the fabric.

 

As a brooch, a cathedral radio with antlers to the side, made in white wood the radio and black wood the antlers. It was a beautiful work of craftmanship.

 

“I made this for you, I hope it is in your taste” said the demon.

 

The Devil raised his eyes with surprise.

 

“You did?” he asked.

 

“Yes, I woorcarved the brooch from sitka wood and the antlers are made with east indian rosewood... the fabric is pure indian silk and I sewed it and I embroided the desings” he started to help the monarch to don the tie, making sure it was perfectly placed. “I wanted to give you something special for this night, something that everyone can see and know you're mine... The same...”

 

He touched his own tie.

 

“I'm yours” he said, with that smile that Lucifer was starting to adore.

 

“I love it, Alastor, thanks” said the monarch. “The clothes too. How do I look?”

 

Lucifer made a spin around himself.

 

“Like I could fall in love all over again, dearest” said the deer.

 

The king was... shocked and happy but Alastor didn't let him time to react, because he rose from the bed and offered the arm to the monarch.

 

“Let's go, my dear, I have a reservation in a very special place” said the demon and when the monarch took his arm, both were engulfed by the shadows.

 

***

 

Both men appeared not in a restaurant, not in a place that Lucifer was expecting to be for a date... they were both at the top of the hotel, with the view of all Pentagram City in the night under them. There it was a table prepared, round and intimate with a perfect white tablecloth. Over the table and around them there were candles illuminating the place and near them an long piano.

 

Over the table there were prepared the cutlery and two empty plates.

 

“Are we going to dine here, Al?” asked the king with a smile, catching in all the details.

 

“Yes, my dear” said the demon. “I prepared a course for dinning that I think you could enjoy. You won't be able to select what you're about to eat, I just hope you like it.”

 

Lucifer was surprised, going to the table with Alastor moving the chair like a gentleman so he could sit.

 

“How you managed to cook without me noticing?” asked the monarch.

 

“I coocked at Rosie's” said the demon, acomodating the king. “And I prepared this with the help of Vaggie and Charlie. They made some errands for me for the clothes and they prepared the table for me. Angel selected the music...”

 

Alastor snapped and several of his shadow imps appeared near the piano. Two of them started to play the keys, while other two were using the pedals. Two others were playing a cello, two playing a guitar, a couple with trumpets. The music was jazzy but was modern the same way, vivid, romantic but animated.

 

“Husker selected our drinks for the night to pair nicely with the food and Anka...” The demon reached under the table and extracted a crystal jar, big, like the type of jar for pickled eggs or something.

 

Inside there was something, like liquid but not quite, golden mixed with purple and some motes of bright, almost white, like glitter.

 

“Our daughter prepared this” he opened the jar and soon the energy went out, making infernal flowers to bloom around them, climbing over the backside of the name of the hotel. Over their heads, some fireflies but with a purple like color, almost white, making the effect of stars over them.

 

Lucifer again was feeling like he has no air in the lungs, for second time in the night, first his lover, then his daughter, they were taking his breath away.

 

“Alastor, this is stunnishing!” he said, seeing the false stars and the beautiful flowers.

 

“This is Rosie's decorative spell, Anka learned fast for this, she mastered it in a week” said the Radio Demon, going to his own seat. “It will only last a day but it's a gorgeous ambiance for dinning. Do you like it, beloved?”

 

The man didn't know what to say, he was still immersed in that sea of candlelight, beautiful flowers, stars and music, seeing the face, with a soft smile, of the man he loved. He sighed, pure happiness and that sensation of being where he was suppose to be, of belonging.

 

“It's so... beautiful, my love” he said. “I can't believe you made all this effort for me...”

 

He felt a tear running out of his eye, a couple in fact and he tried to clean them before the deer could see them.

 

Alastor took his hand and kissed it.

 

“Don't cry, Lucifer” said the demon. “Your tears are precious, specially the ones from happiness. I want to see you smile... always.”

 

And smile he did, vividly, with his hand over the hand of the deer demon, in a moment that was so perfect that Lucifer desired to stop the flow of time and have that moment extended for decades to come.

 

They started to eat at the sound of the music.

 

Alastor prepared garlic bread, onion soup, roasted leg of lamb and he made his crème brûlée as a desert and Lucifer found everything so delicious that he couldn't avoid to compliment the overlord over every dish or the delicious bread.

 

They talked a little, specially about Charlie's next projects, the talent show... Lucifer asked him if he wanted to make a number with him but Alastor said no, telling him he wanted him in the audience, enjoying his music, telling him that he will sing just for him. They talked about Ankareeda and her progresses and then... when the monarch was still enjoy the last part of his dessert, the demon cleaned his mouth to go to the piano, with his minions leaving space for him.

 

“I thought I could play a piece for you this night, my love, just for you” said the deer, placing his hands over the piano.

 

Lucifer, with bright eyes, waited for the music, still finishing his crème. Alastor started to play, with his eyes closed. And then, to sing:

 

“Something's got a hold of me lately

No, I don't know myself anymore

Feels like the walls are all closing in

And the Devil's knocking at my door.”

 

And he opened his eyes to look directly to Lucifer.

 

“Outta my mind, how many times

Did I tell you I'm not good at being alone?

Yeah, it's taking a toll on me

Trying my best to keep

from tearing the skin off my bones, don't you know...”

 

Alastor's voice was perfect for the song, the emotions convey by the lyrics also matched his current situation after the debacle of Castle Eldritch and the Throne Room on Pandaemonium, all that he wanted was crawling inside Lucifer in a way or another, be with him, skin over skin.

 

“I lose control

When you're not next to me

I'm falling apart right in front of you

can't you see?

I lose control

when you're not next o me

Yeah, you're breaking my heart, baby

You make a mess of me.”

 

With a fast gesture, the deer demon removed his ribbon tie to leave it over the piano and opened his shirt a little, like if he really was feeling hot.

 

“Problematic, problem is

I want your body like a fiend, like a bad habit

Bad habit's hard to break when I'm with you

Yeah, I know, I could do it on my own, but I want

that real full moon black magic and it takes two.”

 

The overlord's eyes were bright, hungry, looking to Lucifer and he wasn't the only one in that problematic, because the king was starting to feel really bothered and hot, not only removing his tie too but also freeing himself from the coat.

 

“Problematic, problem is

when I'm with you I'm an addict

And I need some relief,

Your skin in my teeth

can't see the forest through the trees

got me down on my knees, darling please.”

 

The voice of Alastor was doing something to the very core of Lucifer, he was starting to feel like he felt on his throne room, that primary urge to kiss him, to devour him, to ravage every inch of skin in his body.

 

“I lose control

When you're not next to me

I'm fallin' apart right in front of you, can't you see?

I lose control

When you're not next to me,

Yeah, you're breakin' my heart, baby

You make a mess of me.”

 

Lucifer moved from his seat, going to the piano, leaning over it with an elbow, licking his lips and with his eyes fixed on Alastor.

 

After a solo for a moment, both him on the piano and his minions on the guitar, he sang again, this time his voice lower, his eyes closed initially to then open to see the shorter man.

 

“I lose control

When you're not here with me

I'm fallin' apart right in front of you, can't you see?

I lose control

When you're not next to me

Yeah, you're breakin' my heart, baby

You make a mess of me...”

 

He finished the song and his ruby-like eyes were fixing on Lucifer, the king was also showing arousal, the golden sclera giving way to the red coming from the borders of his eyes. His mouth slightly open, his breath starting to hike. Alastor turned slightly in his seat, the monarch came close to him... and first, the first contact, as in the throne room, were their foreheads.

 

It was a stop, the customs on their minds asking if they were ready to pay the price, if they were sure of crossing that border. Alastor felt the scent of apples in his nostrils, Lucifer was drunk on the smell of petrichor, sandalwood and aged rum from the overlord. The mouths of both opened, making a gesture, like catching air with them, like oxigen wasn't reaching the noses... or the beginning of a dance both wanted to start.

 

The king moved his hand slowly to his partner's face, caressing the skin. Alastor moved his hands to hold the shorter man... both opened their eyes and with a common sigh, both closed them again fuse their lips in a kiss that was desire, yearning, memories and wishes all mixed together. Those lips were carrying their souls, wanting the closeness of the other and was just chaste for a little, just a little.

 

The fire both were feeling, the sexual tension they were not denying but controlling, boiled to a point of no return. The dams were opened and couldn't be close again, the passion running free between them.

 

They parted their lips to get access to the other's mouth, to let their tongues dancing vividly in a concerto of their own, intertwining and wanting more in a vals that was pure heat, taking the taste of the other and savouring every ounce of it. Alastor moved a hand over Lucifer's nape, the other was feeling over the clothes the muscular chest the short man was hidding.

 

The king had soon a hand over the demon's waist, the other was on his hair, first just passing his fingers over the crimson threads, combing it but then he closed the hand, he pulled a little taking a moan from the throat of Alastor that tasted like ambrosia in his lips.

 

They were a moment like that, a moment sharing that kiss, the steam and the repressed desire finally free and they only broke the kiss when the necessity to breath was bigger than their urges.

 

Panting, they looked to each other, lost in the other's eyes.

 

“Your room” said Alastor.

 

“Good idea” said Lucifer, before snapping his fingers and transporting both to the apple shaped tower room of the hotel.

Notes:

This week there is a trend on Twitter of presenting kisses of Radioapple to fight the haters of the ship, this was going to happen anyway but I feel this is my contribution ^^ Next chapter is... a steamy one, smut filled but will be also something interesting in the end ;)

Chapter 41: Like you mean it

Summary:

Passion raise and the King of Hell and the Radio Demon have a night of love, releasing the tension both were gathering.

Maybe they can advance together, as a family, supporting each other.

Notes:

Smut, delicious smut... Tags are changed and all that jazz. If you don't want to read them doing the horizontal tango, go to the first asterisks.

Ps: Also, if you came here from my other fanfic "She began to really live in Hell of all places", I made a drawing of Lucia with the trend of Radioapple fankids there is now (and I'll draw Ammit too soon). Here is the art if you're curious. I'll update the fanfic to also link it there. Also, if you didn't read it and you want to or you have it bookmarked for another time or you didn't finish, the text in the image has spoilers for the fanfic.

“Love me like you need it, like you need it

'cause I can feel it, I can feel it

Take it higher, show me why.”

 

 

As soon as they appear in Lucifer's suite, his cathedral radio, a present from the Radio Demon, came to live. The music, according to the mood of both combine, was sensual, almost erotic, with a touch of the seventies that was moving something in Lucifer being his favorite era of music.

 

They were standing, looking to each other... The king snapped and the illumination of his room changed to a soft one with a touch of violet, remembering, with effort because his brain was thinking on other things with the little blood it had flowing, that it was the favorite color of the man.

 

Alastor moved towards the monarch, placing his hand over his chest and resting it there, just there, looking to each other, their breathing still erratic but, like it happend on Castle Eldritch days ago, they were somewhat in tune.

 

After biting his own lower lip, the demon pressed his hand, forcing the monarch towards the bed, dropping in it. The deer demon started to remove his jacket, then shirt... slowly, not because he didn't have the desire, not because he wanted to torture Lucifer, hard as a pole, having to touch his own manhood over the pant to hold in place, but because he wanted all the passion, raised, gathered and furious.

 

He removed the cufflinks to then start removing his glasses and to unbutton the shirt, reveling his masculine chest full of scars and Lucifer felt his mouth watering, he wanted to touch them, to feel them, to kiss them, erasing for that man the memories of those. Alastor released the shirt to the floor and bridged the distance with the monarch, placing a knee over the bed and moving his hand to catch him from the nape, moving him to a steamy kiss while with his other hand he was losing the king's ribbon tie, helping him then to remove the coat and then... Again, manhandling the Devil, Alastor forced him to broke the kiss and to be still in bed, laying over his back, climbing over him, resting over his stomach with the perverse gesture of not leaving his crotch to touch him.

 

Smiling wickedly, moving with the sound of the music, the red demon started, button by button, to open the shirt of the devil, looking at him painfully slow, looking at him with desire, with passion, something he wanted... he desired, he dreamed about it and he remembered. But it was different, Milady wanted to please him, wanted to make him feel desired. Alastor was taking lust at his own pace, by his own desire, he was feeling his own sensations and even in an ego-infused way, he was feeling more desired than ever, he felt the heat coming from him, genuine, the tension appropiate and strong.

 

He was desired not in a play to please him, but because that gorgeous man was really desiring him.

 

Alastor moved, placing himself in a good position between the monarch's legs to have access to the new parcel of skin he liberated from the fabric, being extra jackass or tempting rubbing himself over the king's bulge while moving, forcing him to arch his back and moan, his starvation for touch making itself noted.

 

The demon opened even more the shirt of the monarch and soon his mouth descended over the skin, passing his tongue over it first. Alastor's tongue as long, unnaturally long, thick and very strong, the deer could use it in a prehensile way, coiling around with ease and strong enough to move objects... one could imagine what he could do with it and in that moment, the monarch didn't have to imagine anything at all.

 

The red demon first tasted the skin, but soon he centered in the zones he noticed were extracting the prettiest of noices from the monarch. He licked the nipples, taking them between his lips, sucking a little on them to then move his tongue again, around, tagging from them with it coiling around.

 

Lucifer didn't have a bellybutton but the zone was sensible for the king either way so Alastor was there for a moment, with kisses that led way to the feeling of his teeth, taking a hiss from the Devil like he was expecting those pricks to take blood in any second. But Alastor didn't bite, not yet...

 

His hands weren't lazy either... With one he had both hands from the monarch pressed together over his head by the wrists, the other was moving, feeling the delicious skin, so incredible inhumanly soft, not a single imperfection, not a single scar, not a single mole to overshadow his heavenly beauty. The deer demon notice how the monarch reacted to being touched in his sides, moaning escaping his mouth over the sensibility. He was very passive when they lived together, he learned so little over that body because he was rarely the dominant part of the coupling but now... He was getting a treasure trove of knowledge about how to unravel and turn the king into putty in his hands, how to ruin him.

 

“Alastor...” said Lucifer, panting and with his voice slightly coarse by his own desire.

 

The deer smiled wide, his ego satiated. That was the first word since they dropped on the room and being his name made him feel something at his core.

 

“Al, please.. I... I want to touch you too” said the monarch, moving his hands but he wasn't making an effort to free himself. He could, he was stronger than the deer demon by ridiculous amounts but he was being... obedient.

 

Alastor dashed with his tongue, from the position in where should be his bellybutton to his ear, biting a little the lobe without drawing blood.

 

“Be a lamb, love” he said in his ear, his voice raspy with static. “And I'll give you a treat if you behave.”

 

He said, the king feeling his own lips suddenly dry, specially observing the taller man over him, kissing, softbiting his chest without drawing blood, the promise of those pricks piercing his alabaster skin... He continued, stoping at Lucifer's hips, kissing them repeatly.

 

“You'll get what I give you, right, Lucifer?” asked Alastor, in a soft, purring voice.

 

The monarch nodded.

 

The deer demon released one of his tentacles to bind Lucifer's hands, he held him by those hips and turned him around, touching his thighs to instruct him to raise his ass, unbuckling him and downing both pants and undergarments.

 

“What a beautiful sight” he said, delivering bites and kiss on those asscheeks. “I'll need a handle for this, love, release your tail.”

 

And without thinking, the king obeyed, with his long appendage trying to going around Alastor's neck. The Radio Demon moved a hand to grab it by the base and for the long moan of the king, he knew his theory was correct.

 

“I was thinking if this little beauty as sensitive as mine... I love being right” said the deer, continuing with this ministrations, this time licking, with his tongue sometimes going to the base of the tail or over its extension.

 

“What are you going to do?” asked Lucifer, fully blushed, looking back to the demon with his cheek resting over the pillow.

 

Alastor widened his smile.

 

“It's your first time with a man, don't worry, I'll make it enjoyable” he said and with no preambles at all, without letting him retort, he grabbed the base of the tail strongly and started to lick the king over his tight brim.

 

The moan was followed by others, in a symphony of sounds that was in crecendo, specially when the red demon started to pull the tail and moving his tongue, tensing the tension of the brim, entering little by little, provoking stars to shine on Lucifer's eyes.

 

“It's too much, A... Alastor!” said the king between grunts and moans.

 

“Shhhh...” Alastor retired his tongue for a second. “If you really want me to stop, say 'apples', if not, don't interrupt your beautiful moans with words.”

 

A long lick in Lucifer's crack was followed for the tongue doubling its efforts to enter him, using the demon its long length to go further, to try to found a point, a concrete point...

 

“Shi....shit!” and he found it.

 

The demon was delighted, sucking and moving his tongue inside, pressing viciously in that point that was tearing such beautiful moans from the king's throat, hearing how he was more a more unravel, more a more over the edge near his climax.

 

“Al... I'm abo...about to...” and that was his queue.

 

He removed his attention and ministrations all at once, taking a frustrated groan from the Devil, who was with his cheek in the pilllow, drooling over it and his claws starting to tear the fabric.

 

Panting, the king looked back to the demon, seeing him licking his own lips with delight, making him feel his dick twitching in protest.

 

Alastor snapped his fingers and both were naked, with their clothes being now on the armchair neatly folded. He moved to the top of the bed and sat there, over the pillow after making the king move slightly, taking him then by his hair for another long and steamy kiss.

 

“It's too soon to finish already, my love” said the deer. “And I don't know how much time you take to recover... Go on... make me feel good, take your treat.”

 

He said, lowering Lucifer's head with a hand.

 

Like he was a desert traveler and between those folds were the last drops of water in the world, the king submerged himself. Showing the ability that keep Lilith so much time sexually pleased, the monarch started using his tongue with a long lick to then start exploring the folds, reserving the attention to the clit for the last.

 

His black tongue was equally as long as Alastor's but it was biforked, wide but thin. It wasn't strong as Alastor's but surely it was flexible and Lucifer had experience enough to start tearing some moans from the deer demon, taking a little payback for himself.

 

He licked, he took his attention to his folds to suck on them, he tease his entrance and when he was satisfied with Alastor's noises, he went for his clit, relentless, without mercy.

 

“Hmm... hmmm...” Alastor has both his hands over the king's head, his eyes closed most of the time except when he tried to force himself to look to his lover between his legs.

 

A long lick and the monarch stopped, to look at him but without moving from his position.

 

“Say my name, Al” asked the king. “Love the way you say it.”

 

And he returned to his task, his tongue taking the wetness coming from the folds, drinking on it like a dog on summer, to then explore his entrance, sucking at the same time, his small nose brushing on the clit. All the sensations, all at once, from a man so, so experienced.

 

“Luc... Lucifer... Lucifer...” he started almost chanting his name between moans, like worshipping the very name, like a devotee... music for the ears of the Devil that was giving his all and in difference from Alastor, he left the deer come to his climax.

 

The red demon held to the golden locks almost painfully, almost clawing his head. He arched his back to a point of almost breaking and his hooves curled with the sensation. The last time he outered the name of his lover was almost a scream, the radio in the room malfunctioned for some seconds and the lights blinked.

 

“Al, how much I love my name in your lips” said the king, moving to steal a kiss from the panting demon, a kiss responded with almost equal passion.

 

Lucifer was still painfully hard but he stay in the arms of the deer demon for a moment while he was catching his breath, smelling the delicious aroma of petrichor, sandalwood and aged rum mixing with his own scent of apples, a delicious combination that he knew he wouldn't never be tired of.

 

But soon, he started to kiss Alastor's neck, to pass his hands over his wide chest, to rub his hardness over his cunt.

 

“Al, I'm so hard... I need release...” he was almost begging.

 

“Hmmm...” the deer demon hummed, presenting a smirk in his face.

 

He returned the kiss in passion, with his tongue exploring Lucifer's mouth, his hands keeping him close. Eventually they turned, with Lucifer again over his back, Alastor over him, positioning to rub delightfully against him.

 

“Let me take care of you, my love” said the demon, moving his hand down to hold on the erect member, raising his hips the just amount to line up and positioning himself.

 

He didn't lose time, wanting it with the same intensity the king wanted it. He impaled himself and had to arch his back with the sensation. Oh, how much he missed that, how much memories he had of that and how much he wanted it since they started this dance. Lucifer moved his hands to hold Alastor but he found his hands instead.

 

And when they joined hands, intertwining their fingers, it's when both started to move. The same cadence, the same speed... Alastor was rolling his hips to encounter the ascended pelvis of the monarch.

 

All the passion of the beginning, all the tension released, what they were doing now wasn't just fucking, wasn't just sex, it was making love. Slow, caring, drinking on the sensations of the other, moving at the rhythm of a tune only they could listen. They were looking to each other, with Alastor starting to sweat while the Devil was pristine, not because he wasn't in the same state of mind and desire as the deer, it was because he couldn't.

 

And it was a pity, according to Alastor. He thought that previously when they lived together and for that Alastor loved to see him out of the shower, taking it was the most similar thing he could get to a fully sweaty body.

 

The deer demon went down for a kiss, deep, meassured... his hips still moving, his hands still intertwined with the hands of his lover. When the kiss was broken Lucifer look directly to Alastor, losing himself in his beautiful eyes.

 

“Your eyes... rubies over a sea of blood” he said between moaning, their breathing syncronized. “Alastor... please... Bite me, make me... feel you, in the way you like.”

 

First he talked about his eyes... The first time, when he was Milady, he talked about a lake with a red moon, now, knowing him better, he compared his eyes with blood and by Heavens, that touched his heart. And then... He didn't have to beg much longer, their copuling was soft and caring but Lucifer was right: biting, drinking blood and eating flesh were primary things for him.

 

He started with his tongue over the sensitive skin were the shoulder and the neck met, he let the presence of his teeth be noted... and he bit, enough to tear the skin and let some blood flow free but not enough to pierce the muscle or tear even flesh is Lucifer moved a little. And was the best, because the king couldn't hold the huge whimper of pleasure, uttered at the same time he arched his back. His masochist side showing in a way that Alastor only saw little brushes before.

 

Before Lucifer was dominant in their unions, now that Alastor wanted to lead, maybe he could dig in that, maybe they could explore pleasures that sated his sadism and the king's masochism.

 

The thought lived little in his mind because he started to feel his pleasure raising, with Lucifer thrusting more vigorously, catching his own release. The king could see the eyes of the deer demon, how the dials were making their presence known in flashes but not staying completelly over Alastor's vision.

 

Himself, on the other hand, has his scleras overcome by red, his claws appared while still interlocking the fingers with his lover and his horns were visible, the same as his tail, going to circle around the thing waist of Alastor.

 

“I'm.. almost... almost” said the monarch.

 

“Me too” and they kissed, they kissed catching each other release, chanting each other names when they needed to breath.

 

The deer demon dropped over the king and Lucifer hugged him, both trying to return to normality, coming down from their high.

 

Alastor smile to Lucifer and, softly, try to find his lips again.

 

***

 

They repeated more that night, every time they hugged to sleep one or the other started something that both wanted, like they were making amends for seven years without sex. In the end, they ended up exhausted and sleeping just a couple of hours before the deer felt the day beginning in Hell.

 

Lucifer was still sleeping with his head over Alastor's shoulder and hugging him from the side of his body. The red demon sighed and entered into his own shadow slowly to let him rest.

 

He moved to the bathroom and decided to take a shower, with his thoughts now in the past night and now, with the lust satiated and his mind calm, the deer demon was starting to think in how the things could go from now on.

 

Alastor knew well what he wanted but for the part of the monarch the doubts were still plaguing him. Sure, he proved himself, he showed he could be in his corner even if that corner was bloody, dirty and dark... And he knew he loved Anka, he wanted a relationship with his daughter. But, what he wanted from him? Ocassional sex? Just company? Or was he really in the same page as Alastor and wanted a serious relationship?

 

That's what he wanted and now he wasn't as sure that the king could provide him with that. Even with the effort he put in place, even with the passion he showed, the deer wasn't sure.

 

He went out of the shower, drying himsef a little before placing a towel around his waist, stopping by the mirror to see to his reflexion, thinking.

 

“Penny for your thoughts” said the Devil, going naked near him.

 

He didn't touched and waited for Alastor to initiate touch, if he wanted it.

 

“I was just thinking...” said the deer demon, placing a hand over the shoulder of the monarch to attrack him nearer. “On us. Are we really gonna do this?”

 

He asked, looking to the mirror. He first wanted to know what 'this' was for Lucifer, to then move from that.

 

“What? Us, together?” asked Lucifer with a soft smile. “That's my intention. Is it yours?”

 

Alastor sighed, he tried to hide his relief at the words of the shorter man.

 

“Yes, mine too, Lucifer” said the deer.

 

Lucifer was huging from his waist, the humidity that was still in his skin passing to the blond and his head leaned to touch him too, seeing both their reflexion on the mirror.

 

“I want to go serious about this” said the king. “I love you, I love you so much and I love Anka the same I love my Charlie. I know that I still have a path to traverse and I still need to improve myself but I think we can do it together.”

 

Happy together... For a second Alastor was dreading this one was another dream, a crueler way for his brain to torture him and he would wake up, alone, in his bed, in the dark and nothing of this happened, no what happened on the throne room, not Lucifer signing to him, not the date. He took some air and let it go slowly, he couldn't let his mind to fuck him everytime something good happened to him. By universal laws, something good had to happen to him eventually again, because last time was when he had his daughter in his arms and it wasn't good completelly.

 

He half smiled.

 

“Having sex again also helps, hmmmm?” said the deer, joking.

 

The king bumped the deer with his hip.

 

“You say it like I'm the only one that enjoyed last night” said the monarch. “A couple of times I was really ready to sleep when someone with delicious long fingers started to touch and not precisely to get comfy.”

 

Alastor took the towel and started to finish drying his skin.

 

“If you don't want my touch and my ridiculous long fingers...” said the taller man, dodging the hands of the monarch.

 

“Hey, never said that...” he said, moving near the deer and hugging him, looking up to his face. “In fact, I'm been thinking that, if you're up to it, we can purchase a couple of toys...”

 

The Radio Demon raised a brow to then use his index finger to raise Lucifer by his chin.

 

“I'm so boring already that you want to introduce artificial spice to the bed?” he asked, curious for the response, more than offended.

 

Lucifer laughed.

 

“Unholy hells, no!” said the monarch. “I could be all the rest of eternity submerged between your legs and I'll find it enticing but I guessed you could love to also... be on top.”

 

He kissed the demon in the stomach, near his chest.

 

“The things you did to me last night, I enjoyed them, so...” and it was his time to raise a brow. “Until you decide if you want to change down there, you can still take me, with help.”

 

Alastor took pause for a second. He never thought about that, about the idea of him using, as so elocuently Lucifer put it, help to take a more dominant part on the bed. In fact, he knew there were sex toys, he wasn't ignorant in that part but a little 30s part of him thought all of them were... more receive that give, so to speak. In plain, all his knowledge was that dildos exist.

 

“And... how that will work?” asked the man. “It's just for the act or I'll feel something too?”

 

Lucifer laughed hissedly, Alastor asked the question in a disinterested way but it was obvious the thing piked his curiosity.

 

“Well, there are harnesses just for pegging” Alastor rolled his eyes to the crass language but he continued to listen. “Others goes both ways and some even have vibration. Tell you what... Why don't we pick a day and we go to Lust? I could introduce you to Ozzie and we can shop for a couple of things.”

 

Alastor started to look to a side. He wasn't a coy demon but any extent but Lucifer knew he has problems with intimacy and after Charlie's talks to him and him reading on his phone on the side, he could understood better the deer.

 

“I don't know if I'm comfortable with the idea of people knowing we partake...” he started to say and Lucifer cut him with a kiss.

 

He then smiled softly.

 

“If you don't want people to know, I can make the purchases myself” said the monarch. “I can even purchase with my phone... but... Thinking in this. I didn't ask: you want to keep this a secret? I mean, besides from our family and the people of the hotel. Because, for my part, I don't want to, I want people to know that we're together, that I'm yours, you're mine. And I want to introduce you to my kinda of family.”

 

“The sins... Ozzie... That's the Sin of Lust, right?” asked the demon.

 

“Yes! From the sins, I have a better relationship with him but all are my family so...” he sighed. “But I don't want to make you do something you're uncomfortable with. If you prefer some privacy in this, I'm happy to oblige.”

 

Alastor thought for a moment.

 

He knew quite a deal about the sins for the information he has to learn to, in turn, teach his daughter. He didn't care for them before that because being a sinner, he was trapped on Pride but his daughter was a hellborn, she could go to other rings, she needed to learn. And he knew they were in Hell since the beginning with Lucifer.

 

The monarch said they were important to him, family, and he was ready to leave to him the choice of being public, to even meet them in his hands.

 

The deer demon turned around to look directly to thos crimson eyes, kissing him softly.

 

“It will be my greatest pleasure to meet your family” said the red demon. “And... we'll see about those purchases. For the moment I want to enjoy this...”

 

He kissed again, to then vocalize a doubt that was raising for moments.

 

“And... you don't mind if I change...?” he said, looking down.

 

Lucifer just smiled.

 

“No, it's your body and again... I enjoyed last night a great deal” he said, smirking. “If your fingers felt so good, I can only imagine. Also, I didn't tell you but your chest is fucking hot now, so wide, so strong and those scars in the form of antlers are sexy as Hell.”

 

He wasn't decided yet about the surgery but the words from the shorter man, in way, were a balm for his doubts. He kissed again the man, noticing how his hands were over his butt.

 

“Sexy indeed” he said, starting to kiss over the skin and said scars.

 

“Behave” said the deer, noticing how the man was going hard almost with no provocation. “It's not so rare you are chubby with the Sin of Lust, taking you're always ready to go. But I have to wake up my daughter and I have to correct yesterday's homework. I have to cook her breakfast too...”

 

Lucifer denied.

 

“You wake up Anka and see to that homework but let me in charge of breakfast today” said the monarch. “I'll take a fast shower and I'll do that. I promise the breakfast will be good for her and in your taste. Are you game?”

 

Alastor laughed.

 

“Ok, you'll get the breakfast” he kissed him again to snap and dress himself, taking his clothes for the night and going to his room while the king took the shower.

 

***

 

Alastor appared in this room and while he was going to his wardrobe to store his clothes, he saw his bed was unmade and something was sleeping in it. After leaving the clothes and with a soft smile, the deer demon moved to the bed just to see his daughter under the covers, hugging her shadow and sleeping soundly.

 

“Anka, my love” said the man softly, moving the girl slightly. “It's early in the morning, mon princesse.”

 

The little girl opened one eye to then close it, she was moving her mouth like savoring something to then open fast both eyes and sit on the bed, like she remembered something, signing fast.

 

“Ok, ok, one thing at a time” said the demon, sitting at the bed.

 

The girl's shadow moved, stretching in the air.

 

“He loved your decoration” started to tell the man. “The date was amazing and yes, yes, I sang for him.”

 

The little girl asked a question, to then join her hands and make a gesture like kissing with her eyes closed to then look to her father raising both eyebrows.

 

“Ankareeda!!” said the demon, falsely shocked. “You're too little to ask those details...”

 

He crossed his arms and moved his head to a side in an exagerated way... to then smile playfully, look at her and talk in a whisper.

 

“But we totally kissed!” The girl closed her fists and started to jump on the bed, full of happiness and energy. “Ok, ok, ok...”

 

She jumped to his arms as soon as the demon rose from the bed.

 

“Now he wants to cook some special breakfast for us” said the deer. “So go to your room, shower fast and go to the kitchen with him. I'll stay here to check your homework.”

 

The man let the girl go and she was ready to run to her room but she stopped by the door and turned around, asking another thing to her dad.

 

“Well... yes, we could say we are together” said the man. “But still! He still has to do a lot of things, to better himself! He isn't out of the woods yet.”

 

The girl nodded in a gesture that looked like she approved that to then sign again.

 

“Yes, we'll go out of the woods together” the demon sighed, satisfied, he loved to see his daughter so happy. “Now go.”

 

With that vivid smile, she entered in her room while Alastor sat at his desk.

 

“Well, let's see these exercises...”

 

***

 

Alastor took at least half an hour to correct the exercises he left for Anka and he was really satisfied with them. Still she adorned some pages with drawings and the deer demon was starting to see a correlation: when something was very easy for her, she added drawings, like bored with the subject or wanting to add something more that just words to enphasize her knowledge.

 

Maybe, now they were both ready to navigate that relationship, he could consult the monarch. It was obvious his daughter was craving a challenge that he, with his limitations, couldn't give her and maybe the king had a solution to that.

 

With that idea and ready to eat his breakfast (he was ravenous after a night of... exercise), he went to the lobby just to hear... Music? Coming from the kitchen. If that could be called music, it was.

 

When he entered, he saw Charlie and Vaggie waiting to eat and moving their heads to the music, the king and three of his clones doing different things in the kitchen and Anka helping her other father, also dancing.

 

“What's that song?” asked the demon, going to sit himself.

 

“It's hip hop, old school hip hop... you know, rap music?” Alastor rolled his eyes. “Hey, some rap songs are very funny and very danceable, like this one. It's called 'Jump Around'.”

 

The origin of the music was from a very small cathedral radio that the demon recognized as his daughter's radio.

 

Pack it up, pack it in. Let me begin

I came to win, battle me. That's a sin

I won't ever slack up, punk, you better back up.

Try and play the role and yo, the whole crew'll act up

 

Alastor rolled his eyes again with the lyrics. He denied with his head, seeing how his girl was having fun. Well, he could brave the atrociuos music just for her, couldn't he?

 

“This is almost ready” said the monarch.

 

The song reached its chorus and while the clones were cooking, dress like kitchen stuff and smiling, the monarch started to jump with Anka.

 

Jump around! Jump around!

Jump up, jump up and get down!

 

“When you said you wanted to make breakfast, I thought it was... manually” said the deer demon.

 

Without stopping to jump with his daughter, the devil responded:

 

“Well, started like that” he confessed. “But Anka wanted to listen to music, she asked me for the type of music I like and I thought on this song. It's a funny one, to just... dance without care. Right, Anka?”

 

The girl nodded. He denied but he wasn't annoyed, in fact, seeing his daughter in that way always made marvels for his mood... but he won't be Alastor if he wasn't finicky with music in particular.

 

With the help of the clones and Ankareeda, the king finished with the breakfast, serving a full english one with a variation, taking out the beans to add hash browns. To Alastor plate he even added one juicy venison cut uncooked, fresh and bloody that made the delight of the man.

 

“So you're now together, together?” asked Charlie while everyone was eating.

 

“Yes, you can say that” responded the king with a soft smile.

 

“So the date was that good?” she asked.

 

“Yes, dear, it was magnificent” said the deer demon. “Thanks to you and Vaggie... and also to you, Angel. The music selection was perfect.”

 

The spider demon made a gesture.

 

“Jeez, Smiles, no need, my ass was free for a week thanks to ya” said the pornstar with a playfull smile. “If the short king wasn't up to it, I was ready to do you myself.”

 

They both laughed... still was a little surprising how that friendship developed but there they were, joking like nothing.

 

In that moment, the phone of the monarch rang and he picked up.

 

“Yes... Oh, Azy, how's goin'?” asked the king, to then say 'My sister' with ASL placing the phone between his ear and shoulder. “Really? Good, so, after tomorrow? Cool, you know where to find me, I bet. Yeah, yeah, I'll remember my part of the deal, they will be here. Bye, sis, owe you one.”

 

Charlie, Vaggie and Alastor were waiting for his explanation.

 

“That was Azrael, my sister, is the one that is snooping in Heaven for me” said the monarch. “She said she has some info.”

 

The demon rose a brow.

 

“And what about a deal?” he asked, because it was the first news he had that the Devil was making a deal with the Angel of Death for information. In fact, Lucifer could perceive that Alastor wasn't comfortable with that.

 

“Ah, that's nothing” he said, continuing with his own breakfast. “She wanted to meet you and Anka and Charlie... Vaggie too. I mean, she's family, the only family I have from upstairs that didn't forgot my ass. So I promise to present you in exchange for her detective work. So after tomorrow... Say, talking about family, what do you think if tomorrow I'll invite Ozzie and Bee to meet you and Anka here? If they can, of course... Love the rest of the sins too but Ozzie I told you is the one I talk more and Bee is like a niece to me. And they don't see Charlie in so many decades... What do you think, applepie?”

 

He asked Charlie and she smiled widely.

 

“Uncle Oz is coming? Yeah, it's too much time, I kinda miss him” she nodded. “It's perfect for me and, Vaggie?”

 

The ex-exorcist nodded.

 

“Yeah, with pleasure I meet more of your family, babe.”

 

“Al?” asked the king.

 

The deer thought about a moment to then sigh and nod.

 

“Ok, I don't mind to meet two of the sins but...” he added, looking seriously to the monarch. “We need to talk what is off topic or inappropiate to talk, sounds good?”

 

Lucifer, very happy, started to text to the sins to invite them the next day to the hotel.

 

Notes:

So next are the sins visit... I don't know if including in the same chapter also the visit from Azrael. We are going to another pivotal point in the story... Yeah, I know, this bitch is long but I don't want to rush it ^^

Chapter 42: A ritual with the Devil

Summary:

Alastor and Lucifer are in the middle of a second honeymoon state where they only want to recover the time lost and be together in more ways than the usual.

The Radio Demon decides to use his ritual to consume the soul of Bethesda and the Devil offers his help.

Notes:

I know, I know, this chapter was the visit of the sins and hey, they appear in the end. Next chapter is fully them but this one I went overboard with the ritual and this was becoming a beast of a chapter.

“Are we human because we gaze at the stars, or do we gaze at the stars because we are human? Pointless, really... Do the stars gaze back? Now, that's the question.”

~Neil Gaiman, Stardust

 

Both Alastor and Lucifer were in the bed of the monarch, contemplating each other, still panting and recuperating from letting their passions run wild for the last few hours.

 

The deer demon was passing the back of his hand, just the fingers, softly through the king's cheek while drowning in his beautiful ruby eyes. And the Devil was smiling, one hand over the wrist of his lover, the other over his chest.

 

“How is that now the sex is even better?” asked the monarch.

 

Alastor laughed, kissing the shorter man, chaste, in his lips.

 

“Well, I'm myself”started to say the deer demon. “I'm not trying just to please you and the idea that if I don't feel it, we don't have to do anything makes me more relaxed.”

 

Lucifer made an expression, like he was thinking about it, to then nod and smile.

 

“Yeah, I bet is that” he replied, dispensing some kisses over the jaw of the demon, soft, caring. “We should sleep, I promised Anka that I'll go with her to Magne Manor to peruse my library. Oh... I didn't ask you but she said she did.”

 

Alastor nodded, moving to hug tighter the monarch, making him rest his head over his chest.

 

“Yes, she did” the deer demon sighed. “I was slightly unsure to let her go to that place but... I don't want her to inheret my trauma. Also, is good she's out a couple of hours. Tomorrow I'll consume the soul of Bethesda and I'm... very out of myself when I do that.”

 

The king moved his eyes, looking to the face of the demon from his secure place resting over his chest.

 

“How so?” he asked, curious.

 

“It's a very profane act, Lucifer” he said, with the irony of explaying profane and unholy acts to the Devil himself, making him half smile. “Every single living or afterliving being has a frequency, a wave of sound deep inside them. When an overlord takes soul-pacts, the frequency becomes a loud sound, I told you I can hear it... But everyone has one and that wavelenght is what exist in my radiowaves when I trap a soul. Think in this as... taking a orchestra and adding a new instrument, not a second fiddle or a third trombone but a new instrument that sounds like nothing existing in that orchestra.”

 

He turned a little to rest completelly over his back, holding to the smaller man with his arm.

 

“My being is the orchestra and I'm also the conductor and as such, I'll have to make sure the new instrument adapts to the group, play well its parts...” he cracked his neck. “Also, my soul feels how I'm tearing another apart and consume it and it's partially hurt by that act, like empathy between souls.”

 

Lucifer was enthralled by the explanation of the man but also was worried by the last part.

 

“So it hurts you to consume a soul? It damages you?” he asked, moving his head from a rested position to a more active one, raising the head.

 

“No, no... but my soul acts like it is” said the demon, kissing the blonde over the hair. “And I'm very primal in my core, an eldritch beast and my soul will use that to show unpleasantness. So a couple of hours after the consumption, I'll be very beast-like, irritable...”

 

The Devil, smiling, raised a brow.

 

“Irritable-er” corrected the deer. “The souls in my air-waves still have their uses, so I didn't want to consume any with my daughter near me. The last time was after the battle with Adam, I used a couple I have stored to fix my microphone cane and another to replentish my power sooner so I could go on while I tried to heal the wound, enough to re-open the entrance to my bayou. I closed it before the battle, to make sure my girl was safe.”

 

Lucifer thought for a second, then he moved to kiss the huge scar over Alastor's chest.

 

“I wish I could prevent this but my hands were tied by the deal” said the monarch. “I wish I could have kill Adam before he could hurt you, my love.”

 

While the shorter man was kissing his bigger scar, the deer demon was kissing him over his head.

 

“The past is in the past” he said. “We need to center ourselves in the future, making sure that Heaven will stop to intervine in our affairs.”

 

“We'll do” said the king. “I won't allow more aggression from Heaven in my kingdom and they'll face fire and brimstone if they even try.”

 

Alastor hummed approvingly, finding the lips of the monarch and kissing him.

 

“Let's sleep, darling, tomorrow is a very busy day”

 

***

 

Alastor was in his radio tower just after breakfast and making sure his daughter was properly dress to go with Lucifer to Magne Manor.

 

He prepare the profane paste for the symbol. It was a mix of three different demon bloods: sacrificed (his own), freely offered (Rosie's) and stolen (it wasn't difficult to find a sinner that attacked him out of the blue on the streets). It had a mix of New Orleans soil and dirt from the garden of the hotel (as a show of his past and his present). The herbs he used were mistletoe, yew tree bark and desert rose to symbolize magic, eternal life and power. And as a brush he was using feathers of a black rooster tied together.

 

The deer demon made the symbol in the floor slowly, knowing it by heart, a mix of the symbol from Maman Brigitte, the patron saint of his family, as a carrier of souls, the power in between life and death.... mix with the symbol of The Baron, all-knowing on spirits and retribution magicks.

 

When it was finished, he took out his shirt leaving his arms and chest bare and he was ready to start with the symbols on his body when he heard two knocks at the door.

 

“There is a beautiful sign out there that says I'm busy” he singsonged but there were two more knocks. “If I go out there and isn't important, I'll start a broadcast about manners with your mangy corpse.”

 

He opened the door and Lucifer was in the other side with a huge playfull smile.

 

“You said you'll be moody after the ritual, not before” said the monarch. “Can I come in?”

 

Alastor let him but he was surprised.

 

“Weren't you suppose to be with my daughter in your manor?” asked the demon.

 

Lucifer nodded while he was inspecting the symbol in the floor.

 

“Charlie wanted to pick some things from her old room for Anka and we talked and finally she and Vaggie offered to go instead of me” said the king. “So I thought I could see you in action with your magicks. Mmmm... This symbol's energy is very well balanced, I'm impressed.”

 

The Radio Demon raised a brow at his short lover, crossing his arms.

 

“Thanks for the compliment, Lucifer” he said, lashing just a tip bit of sarcasm. “Now, I told you the ritual is gonna make me... strange and feral.”

 

“I remember, dear” said the monarch. “But I want to be with you anyway. I don't want you to hide any part of you from me, the same I don't want to hide things from you. I want to see the worst in you, so I can love it equally to the good stuff.”

 

The deer demon sighed, looking to the monarch like he was valuing what he said.

 

“It's a very sweet sentiment” said the red demon, to then go on his knees in front of the symbol, picking up the wood bowl with the mix and the brush made from feathers and started to draw the veves over his arms. “But I warn you, isn't a beautiful view and there will be no backsies. As soon as I start with the ritual, it can't be stop or I could end up really hurt. So no matter what you see, no matter how much I scream, you can't intervene.”

 

The monarch nodded and he went farther from Alastor but with a good view of him and the symbol, to then snap and create a chair, sitting in it.

 

“I'll be in my best behaviour” said the king with a smile.

 

“I hope so... Commanding these energies is dangerous and tiresome enough, I don't want errors consuming part of this power” said the deer.

 

“Only part?” asked the Devil, curiously.

 

Alastor nodded.

 

“I can only completelly absorb the power of someone I share blood with” explain the demon. “Also I can't get knowledge with this ritual, just potency. It will be a boost to my current abilities but in the big scheme of things, won't be a great change for me.”

 

Lucifer thought in that for a moment while Alastor was finishing with the symbols on his arms and starting to draw the symbols in his stomach.

 

“And what will you tell me if I say I can amplify the potency of the ritual and you can consume her completelly?” asked the monarch, still with his hand over his chin.

 

Alastor looked back to the man, curious but, at the same time, apprehensive of the idea.

 

“How?” asked the demon. “Because this ritual is complex, already very difficult to traverse, a minimal error could...”

 

The Devil made a gesture while raising from the chair.

 

“These magicks and its symbology are rooted in the language of my people: elohim” he said. “It takes energy from Heaven and Hell, and in between. From nature and the user... You can add my blood to increment the potency, my sigil to channel it into your body and I can use my power to preserve your essense, minimazing the risks. Normally including my sigil won't work in this type of rituals because they need my approval, but you have it.”

 

Alastor thought for a moment in that. With his knowledge he knew that was more than possible, having Lucifer like a Loa, giving power directly, will make his ritual complete, taking it was a punishment ritual for undeserving members of the family, like his father, and he adapted it to get power from other demons.

 

Still, that won't stop the side effects to manifest but that will give him more power from that soul.

 

“Very well, what we need to modify?” asked the deer.

 

Lucifer clapped, happy to be able to help and he went to the symbol while biting on his own middle finger, leaving a drop of blood in key points over the two combined veves. Then he turned to the bowl and let go some drops of blood, mixing it himself with the brush.

 

“Can I?” he asked and Alastor nodded.

 

He started to make his symbol over Alastor's chest, slowly, centered in the task as hand. The demon was observing him, the way he was centered in that, giving everything to the task, the easiness of the brush in his hands showing his artesanal dedication and ability. Alastor had to admit it to himself, he loved seeing the monarch in that way, present, interested and showing his talents, both for art and magic.

 

Lucifer finished and sighed, satisfied with himself.

 

“There... now...” he rose from the floor and went to the chair, removing his bowtie, vest and shirt. “I can help you in two ways: I'll move my body in contact with yours and vowen our power together or we can use tantric sex.”

 

And he was smiling as wide as possible while Alastor was rolling his eyes as far as he could go.

 

“Of course... Creation forbids you wanting to help me without the hope of having your dick wet” he growled and then sighed. “The fuck is tantric sex?”

 

The king laughed and went near the deer demon, sitting by his side in the floor.

 

“It's a practice of closeness similar to meditation” he started to explain. “Requieres synchronize breath, slow movement... orgasm is secondary but can be really potent. As is more about being together, feel connection and love, isn't strenuous and you could concentrate on the ritual with no problem.”

 

He kissed Alastor twice in the neck before speaking with his mouth near his ear, holding to his shoulders to be closer to him.

 

“The slowness and closeness, combined with the magicks we are about to pull around us, will create a very amazing orgasm in the end” He then moved to look the demon directly in the eyes. “Tell me you aren't curious.”

 

Alastor was as serious as someone with a permanent smile could be, it was obvious, more than obvious if he moved his gaze down a little, that Lucifer was really enthusiastic with the idea. Still he thought it was just an excuse to have sex... in the middle of a very dangerous ritual, nonetheless showing that Lucifer's dick was a daredevil and that was funny but he was ready to not admit found it funny even to save his afterlife, but still he was curious about that tantric sex and how the king describe it so... He sighed.

 

He knew he has more agency in their relationship, he needed that extra agency, but still was very difficult for him to negate something to the monarch.

 

“Ok, let's say I want to try...” Lucifer, with an agility he only has for combat and sex, jumped to be on his hooves and he started to unbuckle his belt and downing his zipper. “How are we gonna do it?”

 

The king was jumping over one of his feet just to release his unruly pants.

 

“Taking the symbology, you only need to chant, right?” he said, Alastor nodded... his knowledge of real magic was superb but hey, he was the Devil. “Then we start, with me sitting on the floor, you over me... First we'll need to syncronize our breathing and you can start the chant. I'll use the contact with you to extend my demonic power to protect your body and you could absorb more power.”

 

It sounded easy enough, Alastor knew it wasn't. Maybe for the Devil, he had to make a mental effort all the time to remember that short man he loved with all his rotten heart, that loved him in return, was none other than the first star, first creation and the second most powerful being in existence. For Alastor his own knowledge was vast, no only in his type of magicks, but also in others he had to counter or fight in Hell. Rosie was an amazing source of information for that... But for Lucifer surely his efforts were the equivalent of a child showing a card trick to a very worldy magician.

 

He was glad that at least his lover weren't joking about that, sinking his ego.

 

“You need to be oriented towards the sigil, right?” asked Lucifer.

 

Alastor rose from his position and let him place himself, siting in the floor with his legs closed but his member poking looking high between his thighs. The demon removed his pants and boxers to fold them neatly and let them over his radio host chair, where his coat and shirt were already.

 

He returned to Lucifer and after making a gesture to make his cane appear, leaving it over the veve symbol, he sighed and move to sit over Lucifer, noticing his hardness pressing against his folds. He sighed, maybe too prolongued, almost sounding like a poorly disguised moan.

 

“Easy” said Lucifer with a sultry soft voice that for Alastor was talking directly to his core, not relaxing him, no. “Do you need your cane for this?”

 

The deer demon nodded.

 

“Yes” he said. “It's a conduit for my power, not a base or a source but makes easier for me to conduct my abilities.”

 

The king nodded and he made a gesture to the door, snapping then his fingers, creating a barrier so no one could bother them.

 

“Ok, first, we need to center in ourselves” said the monarch, speak low and intimate. “Look into my eyes, don't think in the ritual for now, don't think in our bodies. Just look to my eyes, lost yourself in them as I'll lost myself in yours.”

 

The red demon nodded and both stared into each other eyes, long, very long. Alastor never felt so near the Devil like he was feeling in that moment, looking to his eyes, memorizing his irises, looking how the red was in the border of his golden sclera showing the beginning of excitation for him.

 

“Now, breathing...” He placed softly one hand over the back of the demon, the other over his shoulder, the deer imitated him. “Breathe with me, see how I'm doing it, try to catch up and follow the beat I'm leading. Very good, veeery good. Focus on me, focus on my breathing, let yourself go and accompany me, trust in me... let us become one in this.”

 

Again they took their time, they stay like that, just breathing, skin over skin. Lucifer then lowered a hand to place it under Alastor's butt, raising him without problem just the right amount so they could align.

 

“Now we'll join and we'll mark the rhythm” And he started to enter in him, slowly, making teh deer demon to moan. “Easy, easy, remember, breathe with me... We are one now, we are mixed together. And this is the rhythm, slow, relaxed. The release will come, no need to catch it. Very good... that's it, breathe with me, my love.”

 

He moved his head to be in full contact with Alastor, resting it over his wide chest. He was listening to his heart and he was trying to slow his own to the same beating. When the breathing become synchronized again, he rose his head to look to his lover.

 

“Now, we are intertwined, we are one... Start your chanting, my love” Alastor nodded and did.

 

First was low, very low, his voice almost free from radio effect, the creole rolling on his tongue with ease. After a moment he moved his right hand over the veves with his cane over them and the cane moved, surrounded by a green aura, levitanting a mid distance between the floor and his hand.

 

He continued the chant and Lucifer, seeing it was a repetition, started to chant with him.

 

Alastor was starting to feel it, the energies combined, the incredible power of the King of Hell caressing his own, like a lover's guide not a suffocation. It was like their coupling, soft, slow, mixing the energies... The soul of Bethesda made herself noticed, a scream frozen in time, her imagen on tones of green, not defined, over his hand.

 

He clawed the facade of the woman and started to absorve her essence, noticing how the changes were starting in his body. His mouth going wide with stitches in the corners of the lips, his eyes in full radio dial, his powerful claws ready to tear apart and the tentacles coming out from his back, trashing in their wake.

 

The Radio Demon tried to contain his changes a little but Lucifer spoke to him, with coarse voice full of desire.

 

“Don't, love... let your beast go out” he said, from the embrace and their synchronized waist movements. “Release it. You can't hurt me, you can't scare me... release your inner monster.”

 

It took everything from Alastor to obey the words of Lucifer. There was still a part of him that didn't want to show his most grotesque side to the monarch, his beast in pure state but he did... His form grew, his limbs went elongated with both claws with fingers like tree branches holding to Lucifer's back, almost enveloping him completely. Grunts, animalistic, buck like grunts started to escape his throat while still moving in the pace the Devil marked.

 

The king has over him an Alastor like he never saw really before. He saw him in his demon form, he saw him in his eldritch one but the monster that was ruting against him, that was cradling his dick between his folds, was anything but those forms.

 

His size was the double, almost the triple of his regular one. His skin, soft except for his multiple scars was now fur-like, with a hirsute kind of fur covering his body, more soft and long in his shoulders, chest and the internal side of his thighs. His face was more animalistic, like the factions of a carnivorous vicious deer were mixed with a person, not wendigo adjacent like he hear some residents of the hotel to describe Alastor.

 

No, he wasn't a wendigo... he was a monstruos, powerful deer mixed with an eldritch horror like the world didn't saw in at least some milenia.

 

Lucifer felt the energies around them both, felt how Alastor was taking that soul to incorporate it to his power and he conducted the energy, filtering it over his body to pass it on the one of his love, little by little, like feeding him a spoonful at a time.

 

The movement, the combination of energies, the closeness, reached a point where both felt their gut clentch and the orgasm washing over them like a strong and prolongued wave of pure energy and passion, him with his devil attributes showing all at once while the beast that was Alastor growled a sound that could ice the blood on someone's veins. They stayed there, riding their own high until Alastor moved, getting far from the king.

 

He was on his fours, panting, with his irises filled with green energy, still his body assimilating still the new power taking purchase in his own being.

 

“Easy...” said Lucifer, moving towards him, receiving a growl in response. “Don't worry, darling. I'll stay with you until you are calm enough to take a good bath, sounds good?”

 

Despise the growls, the warning signs, despise the grunting and the powerful claws marking the floor with every movement, the king moved towards the demon deer and, slowly, hugged him, laying both together on the floor for all the time Alastor needed.

 

***

 

“Oh, this feels nice” said Alastor after entering into the bathtub of the monarch, after the king filled it with hot water.

 

They took two hours on the radio tower until Alastor reverted to a more manageable form, not entirely himself but he was talking, even with little grunts or growling added, and his body was in a more normal size, however still has some animalistic traits like a thin coat of fur, his irises were still lime green and his antlers were still big over his head.

 

“Mmmm... now to select some bubble bath...” Lucifer was looking to the bottles he had for that. “I'm partial to this one, smells like apples and cinnamon. I also have one that smells like vanilla, and...”

 

“Do you mind if we use one of mine?” asked Alastor, that had his eyes closed for a moment, now open and looking directly to the monarch. He started to move a hand over the hot water, smiling playfully. “I want you to smell like me...”

 

He said, going near the Ruler of Hell while biting his lip, taking his arm and start to kiss it in a very possessive way.

 

“My, my, Alastor...” said Lucifer, sitting in the edge of the bathtub. “I didn't know that ritual could make you so... clingy. You'll force me to find you more undesirables for you to devour if this is the result.”

 

He tilted his head while smiling.

 

“Ok, sweetheart, we can use one of yours” he said, finding the lips of the deer demon.

 

Alastor smiled cocky and made a gesture, soon an elaborate crystal bottle was in his hands, with a thick browniesh golden liquid inside it. He poured a little and soon the smell of sandalwood, aged rum and jasmine started to fill the room, the same as the bubbles started to form.

 

Lucifer entered in the bathtub at last, looking curiously to the bottle.

 

“That doesn't look like a comercial brand” said the monarch.

 

“Because it isn't” said Alastor. “I made this. I made all my bath supplies. My mom taught me to make perfume and aftershave and Rosie, well, she's a perfumer extraordinary and she taught me to make soap. Sometimes meals come with too much grease and making soap and aromatic candles is a very good way to not waste a thing. It's basicly the motto of Cannibal Town: Waste not.”

 

Another person could feel horrified but for the King of Hell, that was a sensible policy to have. If you're gonna go for all the trouble to eat another demon, the least you can do is use every part of them. Also, being pragmatic, sinners couldn't die for being eaten, they would also re-appear unless angelic steel or powers like Alastor's soul consuming were involve and Alastor's power, even powerful at it was, it has its rules to function.

 

“Sensible policy” he said, allowing Alastor to move him between his legs and made another bottle to appear. That one was light blue and smelled like sea breeze, combining very good with the other aromas, giving a sensation of tropical paradise, almost caribbean.

 

The Radio Demon started to wash the monarch's hair, smelling sometimes like he wanted to make sure the aroma sticked to him. Lucifer also helped the demon to wash, smiling when the deer started to make noises that one could only catalogue as purring.

 

***

 

“Put on some shoes” Alastor was pointing down, to Ankareeda's hooves, that girl wasn't happy about it.

 

She signed.

 

“I don't care if you're more comfortable” said the demon. “You're about to meet two of the Sins of Hell, that coincidentally, are also part of your other father's family. You gotta give a good impression, I don't want them to think you're a savage.”

 

The little girl pouted and started to sign with both hands and tentacles.

 

“No! Go find appropiate foodwear, on the double, missy” he ordered.

 

Anka bared her teeth and entered into a shadow at the same time that Lucifer was coming from his talk with Charlie.

 

“What she said?” asked the king.

 

Alastor sighed.

 

“That she's the Radio Demon's savage daughter and she's proud of it” he denied, adjusting his bowtie for the Nth time, showing some unrest. “Apparently Cherri Bomb, our explosive dumbdora, showed my daughter a video on her portable phone about a song called Savage Daughter and she took it as her anthem.”

 

Lucifer laughed a little, Alastor grunted.

 

“Well, having great intelligent just means she will enter into her rebelious phase sooner” said the monarch with a soft smile.

 

“She was born in that rebellious phase” grunted the deer demon.

 

The king laughed.

 

“Well, the apple didn't fall far from the tree, it seems” he said, proudfully, to them find the lips of the overlord when he started to grumble an insult. “Don't worry, Ozzie and Bee are very laid back and casual and they are about to love Anka.”

 

Alastor sighed, again, he was making sure his bowtie, monocle and coat were impecable.

 

“I just want to make a good impression” said the demon.

 

“Relax, you and Anka will make an amazing impression” said the monarch, hugging the overlord, looking directly to his eyes.

 

“I can't help it” said the deer demon. “For one side, I want your family to love my child, for the other, I don't want to weaken your position as king, having a... whatever I'm to you, as a sinner.”

 

Lucifer raised a hand to pick Alastor by his chin.

 

“My love, my partner” he said. “And I don't mind what you are, as soon as you are mine.”

 

Alastor blushed, just a little, a tiny part of his cheeks but he did and that phrase, Lucifer didn't know it but he was touching in one of his favorite songs from a musical.

 

“And just for this moment

As long as you're mine

I've lost all resistance

And crossed some border line

And if it turns out

It's over too fast

I'll make every last moment last

As long as you're mine.”

 

The deer demon started to sing, carrying the man to dance with him, smiling softly. Lucifer knew his voice was perfect, but it was the first time he listened to him singing a ballad and he was divine to his ears.

 

“What's that song?” asked the king, his cheeks fully fill with golden blush while his older daughter, Vaggie and the rest of the crew moved to the lobby to receive the Sins, all looking at them with smiles, even Husk.

 

“It's from a musical, called Wicked, kinda of liked it” said the deer. “It's based on the Wizard of Oz, it's the story of the Wicked Witch of the West.”

 

The king smiled widely.

 

“Good to know...” he said, just to see Ankareeda return.

 

The girl was wearing a white dress with butterflies in red and pink and she decided to use white shoes with a little butterfly made from silver jewels on the side. The monarch moved from the embrace of the Radio Demon to look better to his daughter.

 

“I don't know how you hate shoes so much when you're so good at combining them with your clothes, love” he said to his daughter.

 

The girl took some air and then signed, she looked slightly annoyed. Lucifer looked back to Alastor for translation.

 

“She says that shoes are oppression, she has hooves that are perfect for walking and wearing shoes is just a social norm, a discrimination of people with natural hoof-feet” the king.. and the rest of the gang, for that matter, were impressed, Alastor just sighed while caressing his own temple. “This is entirely my fault. I should left the fight of classes and the civil rights movement as lessons for the future. I wanted to teach her about our creole and black roots but now I'm seeing that she's too little for that.”

 

She pouted and crossed her arms, dismissing with her attitude that she was too young for the subject.

 

Lucifer thought in that for a moment.

 

“Anka, you're really against shoes, right?” he asked, the girl closed her fist and move it like she was revering a motorcycle, that meant yes. “And you think you should be able to walk with just your hooves, right?”

 

The girl repeated the gesture and signed some more and he understood her. 'Shoes just hurt, I don't like them' she said to the monarch.

 

“Ok, you can go without your shoes” he said and immediactly, the girl jumped, hugged the king, kissed him in his cheek, took out her shoes and created a shadow portal to throw them inside to then clean her own hands.

 

“You're enabling her” chastice the Radio Demon.

 

“But she's right” said the king. “Hooves in fact are to walk with them, we insist in using shoes as human social convention.”

 

Alastor rose a brow.

 

“What do you prefer? A girl following all the rules or a girl fighting for what she thinks is right?” asked the Devil, raising a brow too, just more cocky.

 

“You two are a menace” and that was the closest thing they will get as a 'You're right' from the Radio Demon.

 

In that moment Alastor felt something outside of the hotel and sent his shadow to open the door.

 

“Lulu!” said Asmodeus, entering through the door after making himself smaller.

 

“Uncle Lu!!” and Bee just jumped to the arms of the monarch just in time to both being scooped by the Sin of Lust.

 

Lucifer laughed.

 

“Good to see you, guys!” said the king.

 

Behind the Sins, two more demons entered the space: a hellhound and an imp. Lucifer just knew the imp, Fizzarolli, but he was lost in who was that other one. Bee catched on the feelings and, when Asmodeus left them on the ground, she pointed to her partner.

 

“He's Vortex, he's my boyfriend” said the sin, slightly timid in front of her uncle.

 

“Tex to friends, your highness” said the hellhound bowing.

 

“And you remember my partner, yes, Lulu?” asked Ozzie.

 

“Of course, Fizzarolli” said the king, to then place his hand softly behind the back of the deer demon. “This is my partner: Alastor.”

 

“It's a pleasure to be meeting you, quite a pleasure” said the red demon.

 

“And this is our...” he couldn't finish, because Anka moved, energetic and curious, happy to meet demons so important and that she read so much about.

 

The girl signed and Lucifer recognized her name, his own name and the word 'father'.

 

“It's a pleasure to meet you, Ankareeda” said the Sin of Lust, picking the girl to hug her and keep her in his arms like the sin knew her all her life. “And how old are you?”

 

She signed, fascinated for seeing how the rooster demon also knew sign language, understanding her perfectly.

 

“Only? Wow, I could swear you were older, you're so tall!!” he laughed, looking then to Alastor, who was delighted for the happiness of his child. “You picked your father's height, not Lulu's.”

 

“Hey!” said the monarch, placing his arms akimbo.

 

“You're so cute!!” said Bee moving near the sin and the girl. “I'm your auntie Bee and he's your uncle Ozzie.”

 

Anka nodded and signed, making the Sin of Lust and Fizzarolli to laugh.

 

“She's a sponky house!” said the sin. “She's saying she knew about us, her deer papa taugh her about Hell and she read a lot about us.”

 

The girl nodded to then enter into a shadow to appear near the imp and the hellhound, with a huge smile, she presented herself again.

 

“You can call me Fizzy” said the imp with a huge smile. “Oh, she's saying her name is Ankareeda and she's asking if we are family too.”

 

He explained to Tex. The hellhound smiled softly, that girl with bright eyes was stealing his heart by the minute.

 

Being a hellhound he suffered all the flavours of discrimination, specially being the partner of the Sin of Gluttony. Specially from blue bloods but also from any fucking demon from every fucking ring that thought to be better than hellhounds. For them, they were the botton of the barrel.

 

But there was a bonifie Princess of Hell, also daughter of a powerful sinner because even he knew who the Radio Demon was, and she wasn't doubting their presence, she wasn't being dismissive. Even asking if they were family there was... hope in those pink irises.

 

“Sure, kid” said the hellhound, passing his hand over her hair. “I'm uncle Tex for you, if you want.”

 

Queen Bee squeaked, all the energies coming from this first encounter were so soft, so friendly, so loving, she was starting to be even emotional.

 

“You adore her” said the king in confidence to the bee-fox demon.

 

“I'm already thinking on making her a room in my palace for future visits” she admited.

 

The monarch looked back to the Radio Demon, who was also happy seeing his daughter interacting with people that were loving her at first sight. The gaze of the king was almost a 'I told you so', and Alastor just nodded to it.

Notes:

Again, Sins and the Hazbin crew next chapter!

Chapter 43: Uncles and aunties

Summary:

The Hazbin Hotel receives the visit from Asmodeus, Beelzebub and their respective partners: Fizzarolli and Vortex. And soon they are enchanted with little Anka and her way of just being her.

Asmodeus decides to have a little chat with Alastor in private over something he thinks is important.

Notes:

This is a chuncky boy of a chapter, hope you like it... very dialogue dense but you know me, I'm more of a theater writer than anything.

“Families are messy. Immortal families are eternally messy. Sometimes the best we can do is to remind each other that we're related for better or for worse... and try to keep the maiming and killing to a minimum.”

~Rick Riordan, The Sea of Monsters

 

After greeting also Charlie and her presenting Vaggie to the two sins, to then present the rest of the members of the hotel, the conversation moved to the parlor, with Asmodeus carrying Ankareeda in his arms like he wasn't ready to release the little one so soon.

 

He asked her about her hobbies and the girl started, very vividly and happy, to relate with sign language her love for painting, for reading, for magic and for puzzles, with Fizzarolli making as translator for Bee, who was looking at the girl fascinated, specially when she started to talk about the type of books she liked and how she made with Charlie a jigsaw one thousand pieces puzzle the princess purchased for her on Gluttony.

 

“You're so smart, Anka!” said the rooster, more and more enchanted with his little niece. “And you're studying, yes? What's your favorite topic?”

 

The girl thought for a moment, with that theatrical Alastor coded way she had to do it, hand on her chin and playful eyes.

 

“She says she loves maths and history” started to say Fizzarolli, mostly for Queen Bee and Tex. “Her father was teaching her human history too but also Hell's history. But also she loves nature, she says... What's a bayou?”

 

Lucifer laughed.

 

“A Louisiana's swamp” he knew what he was getting, both his daughter and the Radio Demon, who wasn't sitting just standing near the couch of Lucifer with his hands over his microphone cane, looked back at him slightly closing their eyes. “But I have to admit is very beautiful.”

 

Alastor hummed, appreciative.

 

“Well, her father has one in his room” said the imp. “She also says that there are deer, alligators, bunnies, fishes, frogs, birds and fireflies there.”

 

“A complete swamp... sorry, bayou” said the Sin when Anka was starting to spealing the word bayou slowly “in the room of your father? Wow, amazing. I guess it's like a pocket dimension?”

 

He looked back to Alastor for an explanation because it was interesting that a sinner, even a powerful one, could do something like that, specially because for the description that Anka gave and all the animals she said were inside, that place wasn't small.

 

But it was the girl the one that explained.

 

“She says that her papa made it with shadow magic but she doesn't know exactly how is done” said Fizzy. “She has a theory but her father didn't want her to learn that yet. That she learned the dangers of two pocket dimensions too near each other and she doesn't want to create one by accident.”

 

“Very intelligent” said Bee. “I know two goetias that lived in my Ring, they tried to make their manor bigger inside and they didn't use one single space, but two and swiiiisss, glup! The house with them inside was reduce to the size of a marble.”

 

Said the Sin, with a funny smile but also a pained expression, making Anka laugh in the silent way she had to do it. In that moment Bee widened her smile.

 

“Ah, yes! I almost forgot!” said the fox demon. “I didn't know what you like but I was cooking and...”

 

She made a gesture over the low tea table between the couches on the parlor and the rectangular furniture was fill the edges on food, mostly, sugary infused food.

 

There were several caramel apples, cotton candy, artesanal candy with fruit forms, peach cobbler, ice cream in different flavours, a bowl with nachos with pico de gallo, some smoothies in colorful glasses, funnel cake, cinnamon churros, fluffy pancakes, mazapan in different colors, cheese cake with apple syrup on top and some different sweets here and there filling the empty spaces.

 

Ankareeda's eyes were widely open, the little girl was moving her hands to her mouth, the smile was little by little appearing in her face.

 

“Oh, mon Dieu...” exclamed Alastor.

 

The girl jumped, raising her fists closed looking at the food to then sign to the Sin of Gluttony.

 

“She asked if everything is for her” translated Fizzarolli with a smile on his face.

 

Bee squeaked seeing Anka so happy and she nodded.

 

“I hope you like it, I didn't know what to make, so I make my favorites and...” she was suddenly interrupted by a very small child jumping to her arms with a delighted smile on her face, hugging the sin to then sign to her. “What does this mean?”

 

She asked, repeating the sings, first touching the chin with all the hand to move it forward to then move the closed fist near her ear in a rotary manner and then place index and thumb in her cheek to then make a stop motion.

 

“That means 'Thank you, Auntie Bee'” said Ozzie.

 

The sin squeaked again and hugged the girl in return, delighted for her acceptance and for her liking what she brought for her.

 

“Ahhh... you're so cute!!” said the sin.

 

Anka then entered into a shadow to appear near the border of the table, with her hands ready but still not knowing from what to start.

 

“Ankareeda” said the Radio Demon. “I hope I don't have to tell you that you can't down all in one seating, right?”

 

Ozzie laughed.

 

“Oh, she's such a small thing that she'll be full in no time” said the sin.

 

Lucifer laughed.

 

“You don't know her yet” said the monarch. “She eats like a big girl, her type of magic ask her for nutrients and she loves sweets, she takes after me in that. But your father is right, Anka, darling, you can't eat everything today. Don't worry, we'll keep everything for the next days but you have to moderate yourself or you'll end up with a stomach ache.”

 

The girl sighed to then pout, finally she moved and picked a candy apple to then ask something to his father.

 

“Ok, just a tad of funnel cake, with no much sugar” said the deer demon. The girl tore up a little piece and gave him.

 

She then moved near Lucifer, making a sing he recognized with huge emotion in his face.

 

“What is it?” asked Queen Bee curious, with Tex deducing the meaning of the sing because the girl used before, for the Radio Demon.

 

Lucifer was smiling, but also in the border of tears.

 

“This means...” he repeated the sign, his thumb pressing over his forehead to then separate the hand “...dad. She's calling me dad. It's the first time she does.”

 

The girl tilted her head and signed.

 

“She's asking if you don't like it” translated the red demon, with a soft gaze to the emotional monarch.

 

“Oh, no, no, I love it, Anka” he rose from his seat to hug the little one, kissing her over the hair between her deer ears. “It's a surprise but it's a good surprise. These are happy tears.”

 

The girl smiled again and repeated the signs, Lucifer didn't know some but he deduced.

 

“Mmm... a caramel apple, if you want to spare one for me” he responded, cleaning his tears while the little girl was catching on the variaty of apples covered with different types of caramel and other sweets and she selected one with a ducky made from toffe up top of it, with yellow sprinkles all around.

 

“Thank you, love” said the king taking it from the hands of the girl.

 

But she didn't stop there, she offered to Charlie, to Vaggie, even the Sins and Fizzarolli and Tex, with a smile and even saving some telling her aunt and uncles she was saving them for Angel, Cherri, Uncle Husk and Auntie Niffty, the ones that weren't there after the initial presentation leaving the family to deal between themselves.

 

“She likes to share” said Ozzie, not surprised per sé but grateful.

 

Alastor was beaming with pride, but also was Lucifer even when he didn't have a hand raising her until now.

 

“It's in her nature” said the Radio Demon. “My little star is charitable, she knows blessings in life must be share with deserving people.”

 

“I see that” said the Sin, looking to the deer demon with a soft smile.

 

“Yeah, Anka is really good and sweet” said Charlie with also pride as a sister. “She helps me everytime she can and she helps Al to cook too.”

 

The sin of Lust looked back to the deer demon.

 

“So you cook?” he asked.

 

“Yeah!” said Lucifer with a huge smile. “He's an amazing chef but some of his dishes aren't for the easy palatte, he loves his spicy.”

 

Alastor raised a brow.

 

“Low tolerance is your problem, not ours” said the deer demon, pointing to him and Ankareeda. “A Jambalaya without a little kick isn't a Jambalaya at all.”

 

“What he calls a kick it's a bomb” said the monarch.

 

Queen Bee was delighted, seeing Anka enjoying her caramel apple but also talking to them, learning the partner of his uncle was a good cook.

 

“I love spicy food” said the Sin. “I will love to taste your cooking with such glowing reviews!”

 

Anka released a tentacle to catch his apple to be able to sign better.

 

“She said she invite us to dinner” translated Fizzy. “Oh, I don't know, little one, if your dads...”

 

She denied with the head.

 

“Oh, so you'll cook for us” Ozzie laughed. “Are you sure you can cook?”

 

Anka was sassy, they were seeing she was, with two tendrils coming from her back to sing alongside her hands and that way of gazing, secure and funny.

 

“What she said?” asked Bee, with a smile in her face.

 

“She said that she learned from her papa to cook some dishes” translated Ozzie. “If they don't want to cook for us, she can. That she knows how to cook gumbo and jambalaya.”

 

Alastor laughed.

 

“No need to go to such extremes, young lady” said the demon. “I'll be delighted to invite your aunt and uncles to dinner, if they want to.”

 

“We don't want to impose” responded Tex.

 

“Nonsense” said the demon. “I can whip a jambalaya with my eyes closed and I'm a Louisina's boy through and through, we repay kindness.”

 

“We accept!” said Bee. “I'm dying to try your cooking.”

 

***

 

The rest of the afternoon they were talking with the girl, playing with her some board games, she presented to then her shadow companion and, in the end before dinner, she wanted to show her the bayou and her cottage.

 

Asmodeus asked Fizzarolli to go without him when they moved from Alastor's room to the bayou and when Lucifer gazed back at him with a questioning face, he just soft smiled.

 

“Go with your daughter and them, I want to talk for a second with Alastor, if he's amicable to it” he said, looking to the demon.

 

“Of course” he responded, looking back to Lucifer, who wasn't moving yet. “Go with them, beloved, it will be only a moment.”

 

The king wasn't so sure to let those two to talk. Sure, he trusted them both but he knew that Ozzie was very protective of him and he didn't want the sin to annoy Alastor or worse. Reluctanly, he moved behind the group entering to the bayou, looking a couple of times behind him until the trees blocked the vision of his lover and the Sin of Lust.

 

“I bet this conversation catches you a little off guard” started to say the sin.

 

“Not at all” said the red demon, with both hands over his microphone cane and very relaxed, in appareance at least. “I was expecting something like this eventually. You care for Lucifer, you want to make sure he isn't making a mistake taking a commoner, a sinner, as partner. Making sure I'm genuine and not doing it for power and ambition. I can asure you, Lord Asmodeus, that my...”

 

Ozzie interrupted the man with a gesture.

 

“Baby, don't get me wrong” said the sin. “If Lucifer is something, is an adult, a big man to know what he feels and when or to whom lay his heart open. No, baby, this ain't that. I worry for Lucifer for other reasons but not for this, I'm worry more about you.”

 

Alastor raised a brow.

 

“About me?” he asked, now he was really off-guard.

 

“Yes, about you” and he asked permission with a gesture to sit in one of Alastor's armchairs, sitting the demon, almost reluctanly in the other. “Lucifer told us, Fizzy and I, about you, about your story with him and about Anka.”

 

The deer demon sighed.

 

“Of course he did” said the demon, not amused with the idea of Lucifer running his mouth talking about them to other people.

 

Asmodeus smiled.

 

“Don't hold this to him, he needed to talk and we are like brothers” said the sin. “And he was desperated. He wanted to make you happy, to be there for you and fix things and he didn't know how because he only had one relationship and didn't start in a regular sense, like you can imagine. Also... he doesn't have friends, not outside of us the sins, he doesn't know how to deal with people.”

 

Alastor sighed again, this time less annoyed, more... concerned.

 

“I know, I noticed” said the deer.

 

“But he cares about you, very much” said Ozzie. “But also he told us a little, all the things you have to live, to endure. I... I don't know how to express this well, but I want this to work, not only for Lucifer, not only for that ball of energy and joy you two made, but also for you, baby. You endured enough...”

 

Alastor smirked.

 

“Some could say I didn't, that was karma or something” said the deer demon. “I am not a good person, never was.”

 

Asmodeus denied.

 

“You can tell that to yourself and sure, for mortal standarts, you aren't but fuck mortal standarts, we are demons in Hell, you deserve your happiness” said the Sin. “And since you're the papa of that beautiful niece I have, you're family too. Even if you never ended up with Lucifer to begin with. I want you to know, we're here, for Lucifer, for Anka and for you.”

 

The deer demon had to think about it for a moment. He looked to the face of the rooster demon with intensity, his permanent smile plastered on his face but also his eyes were talking about curiosity, doubt and some other emotions.

 

After a moment, the demon lowered his penetrating gaze with an expression that touched something inside the Sin of Lust, it was the weight of a hard life and all the baggage it brought.

 

“Even when this is... all that I wanted, I still have my reservations” said Alastor, without looking to the sin.

 

Something in Asmodeus called him to trust him, maybe because he saw how he was loving his daughter just on arrival, how good he was with her but also his recent words. But still, for someone like the deer demon, trust was complex and uncomfortable. And for Asmodeus part, he let the deer demon go to his own speed... it wasn't the first time he dealed with someone with trauma. Lucifer, Fizzy... everyone in their way, different brands of shitty cards dealed by Creation but he knew being patient was a must to help heal people shattered at their core.

 

“It was me the one that wanted to advance at last but I have this creeping feeling that I'm making a mistake” confessed the man. “Lilith is still out there, she's colluding with Heaven and we don't know their plans or what they plan to do. Charlie needs us with this project of hers and Lucifer is... Lucifer. I still think is an error for him to take a consort so low from his station but...”

 

“You wanted to be happy” said Ozzie when he saw how the words were failing the demon.

 

“Happiness is such a big word...” he shook his head. “I yearned him, I remembered the good times, how... correct he made me feel. But at the same time, that wasn't me and I wanted... My girl wanted this, everytime we made an advance, she was so happy.”

 

Ozzie smiled to him softly.

 

“You know, baby, you're allowed to want to be happy too” said the Sin. “Sure Anka could be happy with you two together but... It's what you wanted too.”

 

Alastor nodded.

 

“Yes” he tapped the ground with his cane, resting his hands over it, slightly cruched forward, almost resting his own chin over his hands. “But is it the right thing? I felt like it, after Castle Eldritch. He saw a terrible part of my nature, something only enemies of mine saw. My... taste for pain, for blood, for meat. My cruelty for the wicked and he wasn't appalled, he basked in it, he was by my side when I was the purest version of me. Today he did the same, with a ritual I had to perform.”

 

Sighing, the demon moved to rest all his back in the armchair, raising his head.

 

“He saw my darkest part, he saw my most primal one and he stood by me” said Alastor, to then look back to Asmodeus. “Why I still feel this is maybe an error? Why I'm feeling I'm returning over my own steps to a place where the pain will start again? And if this doesn't work or... worst, it's my daughter the one that will suffer for my error of judgement.”

 

He shook his head.

 

“I'm trying to push down those thoughts but as soon as my mind isn't calm, they...” he shook his head again.

 

“You're not use to be happy” said the sin. “You took your time, you made a decission but you aren't use to things going your way and you now are waiting for something happening. I can get that, but baby, if these eons taught me something is that you can't let fear to reing over you, specially if the danger is only in your head. Sure, there are never guarantees that is smooth sailing from here but you can't let your after-life be reing by the fear of living.”

 

Alastor knew that Asmodeus was right, he was. All his life and after-life was a pain after the other. Trials and tribulations that rarely went his way and when something nice happened to him, like his radio carreer, something tragic happened to shatter his happiness. And the rest were just a chain of bad things from the death of his mother, to his own death, Lucifer refusal of his very existence, his loneliness, his relationship with Vox, his friendship with him and then he, refusing all he was just to taste what he wanted all along.

 

Much he said to himself he just wanted to serve Lucifer, that he didn't want to be by his side in a romantic way, just a faithful servant but... He wanted it. He wanted him, what all he wanted since he was a teen and even when all his time in Magne Manor he thought Lucifer didn't love him back, even before the bad things started to happen, he was happy or at least, content. Now he was thinking it was very possible that he was loved back and that made his heart move but his head to spin too.

 

“How can I stop to feel this way?” said the deer, almost feeling beaten. “I don't want to think in... I just want to enjoy it, to traverse it, Hell or high waters... And specially I don't want my sourness to affect this, to be the thing that tears this apart before its expiration date.”

 

“This doesn't need to have an expiration date” said Ozzie. “And only you can control how you feel about this, about him. If you let him return to your arms, it's because you thought you were ready, he was ready. When Lulu talked to me about you, I made some digging, I'm not informed in things out of my ring. You're a fucking beast in a good way, baby, not only a fucking survivor, you placed this ring in order, you protected people. I was surprise when I have at least two dozen testimonies of succubi and incubi from my Ring being protected by you here.”

 

Alastor smiled more sincerely and less tense. He was proudful, yes, but sometimes his pride came from knowing people he defended were still around and grateful. Sure, now and then he cashed on those favors but never for power or malice, that wasn't his thing.

 

“Well, being sincere I don't care for people but I care for abusers” said the demon. “Nobody should fear death or punishment for doing their job or for simply existing. I was born almost a crime in my time, my existence itself was a sin and God decided to place me in a body that wasn't my own. I know abusers, I know how is to be powerless in front of them. Nobody deserves that fate, specially not for being born in this cesspoll.”

 

Asmodeus rose from his armchair to be nearer the demon, landing with one knee of the floor near him and talking like a friend talks to other in a bad place mentally.

 

“Sweetheart, that's caring” said the rooster demon. “You can try to disguise it in anyway you like, you aren't less powerful for caring or trust me, you won't be less feared by the right... or wrong people. You took your fucking life by the balls, you ended here because you wanted to be here, you became a protector and a father and after trials and tribulations, you are reclaiming your body and your man. You have power, besides the magic, you conquered fear before, you can do it again. But it's true, you need help to avoid this going to shit, for your part or his part.”

 

Alastor was thinking but also smiling most sincerily. He appreciated the care, the words, feeling kinship with the last sin he could think he could feel that with.

 

“What should I do?” he finally asked, after nibbling in his own finger nerviously.

 

“First, forget Lilith for the moment and when she shows up again with her heavenly bitches, we all will deal with her” started to say the sin, showing part of the hate he had for that woman, bowling inside him for some time. “Center on your relationship for the moment. First, you need to know, that thing with the social levels and what not, it's bullshit. Telling you from someone living the example: I'm way more happy now that is in the open with Fizzy and me that I was hidding it like our love was a dirty and mess up kink. We can now go to dates outside the palace or my club, he can be more active managing my factories and the only bad thing that happened was that Mammoth is being a bitch with a tantrum, he worked... or overworked for the moron, and people gossiping and people will always gossip, better if they gossip the truth.”

 

That was true. The Sins were the most powerful and influential demons in Hell under Lucifer, kings and queens of their own rings. And both Asmodeus and Beelzebub were with commoners, with a imp and a hellhound, two types of demon some consider the bottom of the barrel and they were happy, he talked little seeing them interacting with his daughter but he could notice for the looks, the little touches, the sweet words.

 

“Second, not only you have skeletons in the closet, so does Lucifer” said the demon. “Trust me, the relationship with Lilith in these last two hundred years was way worse that he tells. And no, not my story to tell but trust me, he's damaged too but you can heal yourselves, together. But you need to stop to consider him your king, your responsability or your promise. He's your partner and you have to set boundries, to plan your feet when you are not in agreement with him, to say 'no'. You need to treat him like your man, not the Devil.”

 

He wanted to know more about that period with Lilith. Sure, he thought that himself, being observant as he was, that the woman was more cruel and evil with him than what he left out but he also respected his love's wishes. Alastor has things he didn't want questions about, at least not yet and he respected that Lucifer had the same boundries.

 

For other things...

 

“I know, I still have the compulsion of saying 'yes' to make him happy” commented the deer demon.

 

“That won't do, baby” said the rooster demon. “Specially you being ace... asexual.”

 

He corrrected himself noticing he didn't catch on the term, Alastor just sighed again. Of course Lucifer talked about that too.

 

“He's very... touch oriented, touch starved even” said the Radio Demon. “I don't want to refuse him all the time, I don't want him to feel less loved by me, because this cursed body came with extra problems and defects...”

 

Ozzie moved his hand to Alastor's mouth, not touching, but the gesture was enough to stop his rambling on self-hate.

 

“Shhh... Baby, that ain't rare, that ain't a problem or a defect” he said, softly. “Some people just doesn't feel attraction to others based on sex or wanting to fuck with them. Some doesn't want sex at all, others see sex with their chosen partner as something to share, a moment together that is like any other regular thing. Some people enjoy casual sex but don't want attachment and others just desire a person, just one person they made a connection to it. Also the same applies to romance, some don't feel the appeal, some were never in love, some need to know deeply the other person to feel something. And is as normal as wanting to fuck everything that moves or wanting a passional romance like the ones in movies. People, demons, mortals, even winners, every one of us is a single unique universe with little things that make us... well, us. Not only are other people in your same boat but doesn't matter if they weren't... People doesn't become valuable just because they are like the rest, we have value in being us, baby. Exactly as we are.”

 

Alastor felt it, like something pulling him from the chest, like his wound was reopen and closed at the same time. He felt the emotion, the singular perfect time when someone makes you feel seen and valuable. He knew in his core he didn't need validation, he didn't, he never sought it or thought he wanted it. But there was something specially in seeing desire himself telling you he saw you normal, that you mattered to him and was under his wing even when you weren't 'the norm'.

 

“And trust me and this is comming from Lust myself, but sex isn't the base of a relationship” said the demon. “Caring, companionship, protection, understanding... Those are pillars. Sex is nice, trust me, very nice in so many ways and when you're in love and you like sex, you'll have the best sex but don't fear to say him 'no' if you aren't in the mood, still show him love, talk to him. Trust me, he likes sex, a lot, but his soul will feel very loved if you just treat him well, if you show it in other ways. The same with touch, if you aren't up for it, just tell him. He's learning, he only have one partner and they discovered everything together but his everything, isn't everyone's everything and he knows that already. He fucked up and he's a work in progress...”

 

They were hearing the voices from the group, returning from the deep part of the bayou.

 

“But he needs direction but he's worth it” Alastor rose from the armchair and Ozzie rose too. “You just need to find your center as couple together, baby. And, as I said, you also have us.”

 

Alastor sighed, trying to return to his regular composed and unalterated self.

 

“Thank you, Lord Asmodeus” said the deer demon, extending his hand to shake the hand of the other.

 

“Oh, baby, just Ozzie is good” said the sin. “And you mind if we trade this for a hug? You'll learn, Lulu's family, we're huggers.”

 

The Radio Demon thought it and finally, with a laugh, he nodded.

 

When Anka, Fizzarolli, Tex, Lucifer, Charlie, Vaggie and Bee returned, they found the Sin of Lust hugging the overlord, both with some very sweet smiles, very friendly.

 

Anka signed to her father, tilting her head.

 

“Nothing, love, don't worry” said the deer demon. “Your uncle and I were talking, he gives very good advice actually.”

 

The girl was still suspicious. Her father wasn't a physical person by definition, she knew he even have some periods of time where he couldn't bare the idea of even hugging her. He explained that his skin sometimes didn't want to be touched, even from her... So seeing her papa so candid and chubby with her uncle was suspicious for her, like they were talking very serious stuff.

 

But her father looked happy and that was enough for her.

 

They returned to the kitchen and while the rest were talking, joining the rest of the hotel to the group, Alastor with the help of Lucifer and Anka, cooked some of his jambalaya, baked some sourdough bread and Lucifer made cheesecake with apple syrup.

 

The spice level was notable for Fizzarolli, that has to ask for a glass of milk, but he also love the flavours and the texture of the dish when his tongue wasn't on fire. Asmodeus was also making compliments to the chef but Bee... Bee and Tex were enjoying it so much that the woman asked for the recipe, almost begging specially when Alastor said it was a family recipe. He ended up sharing it, saying that nonetheless she was family too and the conversation was around southern cooking and creole dishes.

 

And at the end, when saying the goodbyes, Anka was took by Lucifer from Bee's arms half sleep. The sin didn't want to part from her niece, the same as Ozzie but they both said their goodbyes, promising more visits and inviting the group, everyone, to visit their rings, promising special permits and all for it.

 

Alastor and the king went to put their girl to bed, kissing both her head and Goldie's, her shadow and they moved to Lucifer's room to sleep.

 

When both were in the bed, the monarch started to kiss the deer's neck.

 

“Today was a long day but worth it” said the king. “Did you like the visit, love?”

 

Alastor sighed.

 

“Yes, a great deal actually” he turned around, caresing Lucifer's face. “Seeing Anka so loved is... well, special, to say the least.”

 

The monarch found his lips, chaste kissing him by going in crecendo.

 

“Love...” said softly the deer. “Do you mind if this night we don't do anything? We did a lot on that front today, with the ritual and all and just prefer for you to hold me and just sleep.”

 

Lucifer stopped but then he smiled.

 

“Sure, of course” he moved his strong arms around the thin waist of the overlord. “Too many emotions today, hmmm?”

 

He kissed the man, when he turned around to be spooned, in the middle of his back.

 

“Yes, so many” said the deer.

 

“Sleep well, my love”

 

“Nighty night, my king”

 

***

 

They were susppose to receive the visit from the Angel of Death in the morning, so after breakfast and his broadcast, Alastor was ready in the lobby, with Ankareeda nose deep in one of the books that Carmilla gifted her, the one with Legends from Bécquer.

 

Charlie and Vaggie were also there, as Lucifer promised his sister to present his whole family to her.

 

“I'm noticing you're tense” said the monarch, speaking in confidence.

 

“Well, the visit from your other part of the family went well, this is another thing entirely” said the deer demon. “Also, she brings news from Heaven. I'm... apprehensive about what the doves are gonna do after your deal was broken.”

 

Lucifer nodded.

 

“What ever they will do, we manage it” said with security. “I said I won't allow more exterminations on my realm and I plan to fight for it if it's necessary.”

 

Alastor sighed, lowering a tad his head.

 

“I don't want a war near my daughter” said the demon.

 

“Me neither but if Heaven isn't ready to respect my sovereignty, I'll have to make them” said the Devil. “I won't go to war unless they force my hand but I'll make them regret if they do. And don't worry, we'll keep our daughters and family safe.”

 

It was a reassurance in a way the security that Lucifer was emanating. Alastor knew he was powerful, he knew it but he couldn't stop his head for making terrible scenaries where the king wasn't victorious.

 

He was about to comment something else when, out of the blue, Azrael was presented like she always was there.

 

“Big bro” she hugged Lucifer.

 

“How are you, sis?” asked the monarch.

 

The dark skinned woman separated herself from her brother and sighed.

 

“First of all, I want you to know that I didn't want to bring him here but he... well, I have to”

 

Lucifer didn't understand at first, until he saw the angelic portal manifesting in the lobby and he felt the energy comming from said portal even before the user was manifested. The Devil became on guard, his fists closed and ready.

 

From the portal, a mirror replica of the monarch stepped out. Same blond hair but this was long and in a braid over one of his shoulders.

 

Same rosie cheeks but the teeth inside the mouth those marks were custoding were regular human ones. Same eyes but the iris was pure blue sky with white sclera and golden round pupil. The tone of the skin was also almost human but perfect, like a perfect porcelain doll and he was dressed in blues, white and golden with a basque armor with a sigil of a flaming heart pierce from top to botton by a sword.

 

Also, said sword was in his waist, he had a hand over the pommel while looking around twice and then stop on the figure of Hell's Ruler.

 

“Michael” said the Devil, surprised, tensed and ready to fight if it was needed.

 

“Brother” said the archangel of justice, twin brother of the Morning Star and King of Heaven.

Notes:

Well, this escalated quickly. What's doing the King of Heaven at the hotel? Did he catched wind of what Azrael was doing for Lucifer? We'll see next chapter ;)

Chapter 44: Divine Intervention

Summary:

The King of Hell and the Radio Demon received the visit they were waiting for with the adding visit they weren't.

What is the deal of the King of Heaven? Why the Archangel of Justice decides to visit his twin brother?

Notes:

Ok, ok, first things first, sorry for the delay but... I'M DRAWING AGAIN! I made this drawing of Alastor and this drawing of Lucifer. Hope you like them because I'm very proud to managed even this much. For my illness my hands aren't very cooperative with me and being able to draw again makes me really happy. Also, they are more based in my other long fic 'She began to live in Hell' but there! I hope I can draw more in the coming days, so don't frat to bother me on twitter :P

Also, also, the amazing Peony (@imhereforit101 on twitter) made this amazing, really, really amazing Ankareeda fan-art and I'm love on how cute she ended up to be. Many, many thanks for this one!! My first fan-art!

And now... Let's go with the chapter!!

“When your twin is the Lightbringer, turns out you have no choice but to live in the shadows”

~Michael, Lucifer (series)

 

The ambiance of the hotel's lobby changed drastically. Lucifer before was happy, ready to present his sister to his daughters and his paramour, even when he was also slightly anxious to know the news from Heaven, fearing in the back of his mind how those news could go.

 

Now, he was tense, ready to fight and feeling both the rage and the fear creeping on inside him. He was fearing for his partner to be hurt, for his daughters and the rest of the hotel. A fight between the two kings could easily level half of Pentagram City.

 

“I'm warning you, lil' bro” said the Devil, showing the attributes that marked as such. “Here are my partner and my daughters. A single misguided move, a word poorly aimed to them, and I won't hesitate to end you here and now, don't forget this is my house.”

 

While Alastor was on guard, holding his microphone cane with both hands and both Vaggie and Ankareeda seem ready to throw hands, with the ex-exorcist holding her spear the same way as the overlord with his cane, Michael was still in the same posture, with one hand over the pommel of his sword, tilting slightly his head after the threatening statement of the King of Hell.

 

“So it's true you and Lilith are no longer together and that you have two daughters: one from her and one from your new partner” the archangel said that in a monotone cadence, like if he was reading the news... not particular interesting ones.

 

“The aspid left me and betrayed me” said the monarch. “You can gloat now with my failed marriage with the woman that had my ass sacked from Heaven.”

 

He said, biting the words and fighting with all his being to not show despair, to not show he was hurt. Lilith not only left him and betrayed him, she hurt him with all she could muster to do it: phycally, mentally, emotionally... There was not a single abuse she didn't try and for a being so ancient as him, something happening since two hundred years ago, was still raw and painful, even when he was starting something new and marvelous with Alastor.

 

But he was ready to be fallen twice over that to admit he was hurting still, so he projected desdain and anger, pretty sure that his twin brother was about to make a hurtful mockery of his life, a cruel remark aimed at his core.

 

“I'm sorry to hear that, brother” but the answer from the archangel took everyone in the room, except Azrael, by surprise.

 

Even Lucifer lost all his devil attributes while opening widely his eyes. That phrase looked so... genuine.

 

“And I didn't come here to fight” said the monarch from Heaven. “In fact, I want to help.”

 

“Said what now?” asked Charlie, who was, not because she wanted, behind Vaggie.

 

“You must be Charlotte” said the archangel. “I guess the polite thing to do is introduce myself: I'm Michael, the twin brother of your father and your uncle.”

 

The girl moved from the cover that her girlfriend was providing with her body and angelic spear to go near the angel.

 

“Yeah, I deduced that” said the princess. “And people tend to call me Charlie and this is my girlfriend, Vaggie.”

 

The monarch nodded.

 

“For the reports I got from Sera, I knew your fiancee was an exorcist” said the monarch, how was being kind but he wasn't smiling, just serious in his demeanor. “Adam's lieutenant made half a dozen requests after his death for extradition and retribution. She's very relentless.”

 

He sighed.

 

Ankareeda, that was being cautious until she saw her fathers relaxing themselves or at least less tense, moved near Charlie and started to sign to present herself.

 

“And this is my little sister, Ankareeda” said the princess, smiling softly. “She's saying you and dad are identical.”

 

Michael was curious for the young demoness and that reflected perfectly in his expression, that was serene until now.

 

“Why she moves her hands like that? It's a code, a game?” asked the angel curious.

 

Lucifer growled even when Anka just smiled to her uncle. The King of Hell moved to be by the side of his little girl.

 

“Anka can't talk by regular means” he pointed to her neck, with the girl raising her head to show her scar in the form of a wavelenght. “So she talks with sign language. Fucks, it's like you don't have deaf people on Heaven.”

 

Michael felt a little ashamed for a moment.

 

“We have, I guess...” he looked back to Azrael, that was having way too much fun seeing her big brother out of his element, like he was trying to find a confirmation. She nodded. “But I don't deal with winners. In fact I don't usually step on the First High Circle unless I have a reunion with Sera. In fact that was the case. That's why I catched Azrael and on what she was doing.”

 

Alastor decided to intervine at last, seeing that Lucifer was still too baffled to ask the right questions.

 

“Your majesty” said the overlord. “It's a pleasure to be meeting you, quite a pleasure. My name is Alastor and, as my sire vehement said, I'm his partner and the father of this beautiful little one. And far from me to be mistrustful of the benevolent King of Heaven but what the fuck are you doing here when we were expecting just the Angel of Death?”

 

He said, with his enormous and unsettleling big smile, tilting slightly his head.

 

The monarch of the angels wasn't impressed or at least he wasn't intimidated. He was calm still and other emotion he showed until that moment was just curiosity... It was like basic feelings were far from him or he was so secure in his power that was difficult to tear a real emotion out of him.

 

“Charmed” said the king to then turn to his twin. “How am I suppose to call you, brother? I guess you don't want to be call Samael again and Lucifer it's a name I don't like.”

 

The King of Hell rose a brow.

 

“It's the name I have now, tough luck” said the Devil. “In fact, I fucking fond of it.”

 

“But it's a perversion of your original purpose” said Michael. “For me it's like an insult.”

 

Lucifer growled.

 

“Lucifer, Luzbel, Hêlel, Phosphorus, Heosphoros, Venus... take your pick” said the monarch of Hell, annoyed with his twin already.

 

All the time he was in Hell, since his Fall, Lucifer thought about his brother in two different terms: nostalgia, from before the Garden, how tight they were, how much they loved each other and cared for each other. How his twin always took his side, even when Sera asked him not to intervine in the project of Eden, Michael always defended him. He was rightful, calm and dutiful to a fault but he was his baby brother nonetheless. Other times he remembered just the moment of the Fall, the judgment of his siblings.

 

Azrael was always by his side, Michael was too until the thing derived to a fight that Lucifer won... Hurting a lot of his siblings in the process. In that moment, the archangel of Justice decided to make honor of his name, and judge the rebellious angel. In the moments he remembered that, he leaving his side, deciding to exile him with his wife, he hated his twin with passion, remembering he was always in that way, emotionally unavailable, cold and calm.

 

He hated when he was like that and he was starting to be annoyed by it.

 

“I prefer Luzbel, brother” he said, immutable under the raising rage from his twin brother.

 

Azrael already had enough fun with the ackwardness of Michael to social interactions, specially seeing how the anger of Lucifer was raising like the waters over a monsoon, so she decided to intervine before something could happen.

 

“Ok, ok... We are here to talk about something important and after we can make a very ackward family meeting” said the angel. “So, big bro, if you can provide coffee and a place to talk with no ears and...”

 

She looked around, facing with the multiple eyes that were normal into Hell's decoration.

 

“Or eyes, that could be peachy” he said, with a half smile.

 

The Radio Demon and the King of Hell exchanged a look.

 

“We have two places like that” said the deer demon. “Magne Manor and my bayou and taking my bayou is already at the hotel... Anka, be a dear and guide your uncle and aunt to our cottage. Charlie, Vaghata, could you accompany them, please? We'll be there in a jiffy, as soon as we prepare some coffee and hors d'oeuvre.”

 

He placed a soft hand over Lucifer's back and he hinted the monarch to go with him to the kitchen. The red demon didn't need the monarch but he was sure the king needed some time free from the presence of his twin brother. Lucifer looked back to him with a questioning expression.

 

“Help me in the kitchen, beloved” he said, softly.

 

***

 

“I don't fucking know what the shit he's doing here!!” Lucifer was pacing in the kitchen while the Radio Demon was preparing the coffee, a cocoa for his daughter and some snacks to eat with the coffee, mostly cookies and some mini ham and cheese sandwiches (or what was the same: a sandwich cut in half and then every half in another half).

 

“He said it himself, he catched on what your sister was doing” said the deer demon. “And my guess is they talked about it and his majesty decided to come here to talk. I doubt this is to resume the exterminations, he could do that without comming here, the same as if his intention was to declare war against Hell. Also... mmmmm...”

 

He didn't continued, returning to what he was doing.

 

“What? Also what?” he took some air. “Ok, I admit, you're a more observer than I am, surely you saw something I didn't.”

 

The overlord hummed again while cutting the sandwiches.

 

“You're blind by your trauma” said the deer demon. “It's not rare but if you want to be that monarch you desire to be, you need to be able to leave your bad experiences aside, store your feelings to not trumple over them to have your head always in the game. That's how I survived this marvelous cesspoll you call realm, memories and feelings get in the way of getting things done and observation is key.”

 

He said, like that was a lesson and Lucifer had to admit it was. If he wanted to be respected by all the denizens of Hell, if he wanted to keep his family secure, he needed to learn and who better to teach him than Alastor.

 

The demon showed him he could be what he needed in every single moment: charming, intimidating, calculated, terrifying, manipulative and very destructive. One mask of Alastor for every situation and he reserved his real self for his family and friends. And he needed to learn, he needed to stop to carry his heart on his sleeve and be more... cold, more like the Devil the mortals feared so much but without the vile intent.

 

“Ok, I admit that” said the monarch, trying to sound more calm and relaxed. “Tell me your impressions, please.”

 

Alastor hummed, this time it was a sound more like approval.

 

“For what your twin brother said, Heaven is divided into Rings, like Hell?” he asked first.

 

Lucifer just nodded.

 

“They're called circles, like we call the parts of Pride here, also, funny thing, there are nine circles in Heaven, the same that here in Pride there are nine circles or craters” said the monarch. “Winners aren't trapped in the First like sinners here, they can freely go to live to other circles but it's rare because the First is very catered to them. The First is administrated by Sera, then the Heavenly Virtues control one circle each and the last one, the 9^th is where my siblings recide.”

 

Alastor thought for a moment.

 

“You told us you created the Rings with was left of your scepter as King of Heaven, right?” he asked.

 

Lucifer growled.

 

“Are we playing twenty questions now?” the Radio Demon gave him a severe look and he sighed. “Yes, that's correct.”

 

And the red demon gave him a mini sandwich like he was rewarding complacement, like he was traning him. Of course he thought that was a behaviour you have with a fucking dog, not your lover... but that didn't stop him to take the sandwich and eat it like a petulant child.

 

“You based the design on Heaven?”

 

Lucifer finished with the appetizer and nodded.

 

“Part of it, yes” said the monarch. “And they copied me and placed the Virtues to govern in every circle as I did with my sins. Why?”

 

“Just meassuring if my observations are correct to this point” said the deer demon. “According to your brother, he said he rarely goes to the First, unless he has a reunion. My guess is that Sera presented a conundrum that needed the opinion or maybe the autorization of the King of Heaven himself and that it's linked with the thing your sister learned. I don't know your twin to know if he cares for you or not...”

 

“He doesn't” said the Devil, crossing his arms. “We were... fuck! And when I needed him most, he decided to left me to rot. As soon as I defended myself, he condemned me here with Lilith, leaving Eve behind to return to Adam. He doesn't care.”

 

Alastor just hummed while serving the coffee.

 

“In any case, he cares for Heaven” said the deer, presenting everything in a platter. “And this plot your ex-wife is knitting could be also a problem for the High Realm. This could be very beneficial for us, my king, if you manage to get your temper in order and behave like the king I know you can be.”

 

He balanced the platter in one hand while caresing the face of his lover with the other.

 

“I need you ruthless, I need cold, I need you manipulative... You need to navigate social interactions, to listen attentively and to deduce truths” said the deer demon. “I know you can do it and dealing with your traitorous twin will be an amazing exercise. Come, my love, we have a lot to learn.”

 

***

 

“Thank you” said Michael while taking the cup with coffee, adding just a single cube of sugar and no milk.

 

“Two sugars, no milk for me” asked Azrael, taking the cup from the Radio Demon with a soft smile. “Byen mersi.”

 

She said in creole, making the demon to perk his ears and look back to the Angel of Death with a curious gaze.

 

“To pale kreyol?” he asked if she spoke the language in creole because he wasn't sure if she learned it and why or if she was like Lucifer, proficient in all languages by osmosis.

 

“Wi, mo pale kreyol” responded the angel with that soft smile. “I learned a lot of languages around the years, specially from people that use to be devote to the concept of death. But we better talk langle for these two cuties and Mich's sake.”

 

She said, pointing to Vaggie and Charlie, assuming that Ankareeda talked creole like her father.

 

“Anka also doesn't speaks complete creole, I wanted to teach her french first, thinking it was more important” and he was slightly ashame of that idea.

 

Creole was his roots, an important part of him, his culture and essence and the same he wanted to teach his daughter about the injustices his people had to overcome so she could understand from where she came so her vast Morningstar power wouldn't go to her head, he should have prioritize his traditions and language. Well, she was still seven, he could center himself in doing that.

 

“She's in time to learn, she's young” said the angel, like she was reading the thoughts of the deer demon. “Your family, little one, has a rich tradition behind them, one of the oldest bloods, from the Old Continent. I know them really well.”

 

“You...” Alastor was about to ask if she did then his mind make the click of thinking that woman was Death, personified. “Oh, I see... Mo konmprann, Maman Brigitte.”

 

He lowered his head, showing a respect that surprised the Devil, the ex-exorcist and the princess. Sure, Alastor could be a gentleman, could be charming, now that they were knowing him in a familiar level, he could be even lovely and friendly if he decided you deserve it but rarely they saw him showing respect that wasn't with a huge dosis of sass, irony or sarcasm. Sometimes an impressive mix of the three.

 

“Anyway, there will be time for that, even in future visits” said the Angel of Death. “I plan for this to be more often. Bet you want to know who from our little happy flock is trying to fuck you over with your ex-wife?”

 

Lucifer placed al elbow over the table to rest his face over the closed fist.

 

“Surprise me” because for him, every single one of his siblings could be the one, or several. In fact, if it wasn't for Alastor's words in the kitchen, he will still be suspecting of Michael.

 

“Uriel” responded Azrael without beating the bushes.

 

“Ok, not surprised” said the Devil. “He was always a bitch with me, oh, so high and mighty. He was this close to suck his own dick.”

 

“You shouldn't talk about our sibling in that way, specially because I think the term is 'They'” said Michael, still with that assentient tone. “They are misguided but our sibling surely doesn't hold any animosity towards you, Luzbel.”

 

The king moved his eyes to look at his younger twin and he twisted the mouth with disgust. He knew that was part of the personality of Michael, he loved all of them with blind faith and that made him... well, blind to the worst things from their siblings. Heck, he even thought the same until he started to relate some bad behaviours from sinners to things his siblings did in Heaven.

 

“I distinctly remember our marvelous so innocent sibling screaming their fucking lungs for you to kill me when I had to defend myself in my trial” he growled. “And how fucking fast my ex-wife forgets the only reason I stopped was because said fucking sibling placed a blade on her neck.”

 

Michael didn't know what to say about that, so he didn't say a thing and let his sister to continue.

 

“I catched Uriel and Lute talking about Lilith” said the angel. “They were talking she wasn't doing her part of the bargain even when they gave her their trumpet for it.”

 

Lucifer was surprise and he and Alastor exchanged a look.

 

“Since fucking when the trumpet of our sibling can control minds?” asked the monarch.

 

The King of Heaven rested his cup over the little plate to look back to his twin.

 

“Technically, it can't” said the angel. “That isn't its function. All the objects of power Creation gifted us were with three objectives in mind: the act of creation, the betterment of Heaven and to go to war if the Root of Evils managed to found way to the High Realm. You should know that, you had yor scepter.”

 

Lucifer gave his twin a cold gaze.

 

“The one you broke with your sword” he said, but then he breathed deeply, trying to not be antagonic with his brother. “I don't remember what the other objects did, not all. I know Raphael's staff healed, Gabe's lantern has the power of communications able to send messages both written and in voice to everyone...”

 

Alastor raised a brow.

 

“A holier than thou telephone...” he murmured, Lucifer had to hold a laugh.

 

“In any case, we're a shit ton of archangels, the fuck I know what the others' objects does?” he said, annoyed, crossing his arms.

 

Michael, showing that patience that was starting to be both notable and unerving for the Radio Demon, continue to speak.

 

“Uriel's trumpet is called Guidance and its purpose was to call us to arms” said the archangel. “It was meant to give us hope and motivate us in a war against the Root.”

 

Alastor thought about that but his train of thought was interrupted by his lover.

 

“That doesn't sound like the things she managed to do with it... in the case that was the object” he said, to then look back to his sister. “Are you sure they are the only one of our siblings that is colluding with that bitch?”

 

The Angel of Death nodded.

 

“Pretty sure” said the woman. “When I heard those two talking, I already expend some time catching over the rest of the family. Most, the same as Michael, don't usually come down to the First Circle and most won't be seem dead with Adam's angry second in command.”

 

Charlie, who was more attentive than talkative, looked back to both her uncle and aunt.

 

“And that trumpet, what is exactly its function? Detailed, not the name and such” she asked, politely.

 

Michael looked directly to her.

 

“It suppose to helps us enter into battle, giving us courage and strength” started to explain the monarch. “We angels aren't violent by nature...”

 

“Objection” whispered the King of Hell but everyone in the table heard it.

 

“Sustained, continue, your highness, if you please” said the Radio Demon.

 

“So Creation gave us that object to help us fight” he said. “With the sound of that trumpet, all angels could enter battle with their will resolute, without fear in their hearts.”

 

Charlie was thinking and Alastor was curious. The girl proven time and again that despise being sheltered and some times naive, her sunny disposition wasn't detrimental to her intelligence, both emotional and realistic.

 

“What are you thinking, cher?” asked softly the Radio Demon.

 

“I think...” she wasn't sure to say what she was thinking but both Vaggie's silent encouragement and Alastor confidence gaze remove partially her fear of saying something stupid. “Maybe the trumpet doesn't really gives valor but remove inhibitions? I mean, in case of dad maybe is badly used courage but in my case isn't. But talking with Vaggie these days, I reached the conclussion that I started with Seviathan for a call of attention, I knew he was bad news but...”

 

She looked bad to her father and sighed.

 

“I was sad and frustrated with the situation at home and between you and mom and...”

 

Lucifer interrupted her, with a soft smile.

 

“So you wanted to punish me” said the monarch. “Well, I thought that in the past. Don't worry, applepie. I understand.”

 

He then sighed himself, thinking in what his daughter said and he finally nodded.

 

“Could be” said the king. “Not the first time I see something with one description doing another different thing and, let's be real here, Creation isn't the most forthcoming entity. Removing the inhibitions, Charlie returned to Seviathan because a part of her was still a little mad with Vaggie and she still wanted to hurt me...”

 

Charlie became completelly blushed and mortified but Vaggie just pressed her forehead to her and kiss her softly.

 

“Don't worry, babe, I understand” said the ex-exorcist.

 

“And with me” he sighed, looking back to Alastor. “I didn't want a marriage or being a couple like the one I had the last two centuries with Lilith, I didn't want being hurt and... I was afraid that everything I had with Alastor was just... you know, smoke and mirrors, a plan moved by ambitions because... Because I knew he was hidding something, that he wasn't completelly comfortable with me, that he wasn't being himself. Maybe, if I have talked my impressions, what my intuition was telling me about him, maybe everything could have been avoided. Maybe Anka could talk...”

 

The little girl opened her eyes widely when the Devil started to cry into his own hands, touching him softly to call his attention. She was confused and surprised, but also everyone could see she was worried for the king too, being very soft with him. She signed when he looked back at her.

 

“She's asking...” said the Radio Demon translating, with his permanent smile faltering. “What happened to her, because I never told her the full story. She's too little so I told her she was was hurt when little and that it was your fault, I never...”

 

Lucifer for a moment looked mortified. Talking about just his issues he forgot his little daughter was also present and, to certain extend, Alastor always wanted to spare her the knowledge of their very fucked relationship.

 

“I'm... I'm sorry, Alastor, I didn't...” the demon didn't return his gaze, even when he wasn't showing annoyance or wrath, Lucifer knew he fucked up, specially because Anka insisted in asking.

 

“My love, this is...” she interrupted her father, she was starting to become angry and signaling so strong that her hands were making noises on contact. “Ok. Your other father was, let's say acting strange, don't ask me, I won't give you details. I had to run, I was pregnant with you and I was attack by a group of guards. I thought... your father, angry at me, sent them. Recently we learned that Lilith was the one that sent them.”

 

Anka opened her eyes widely to then sign again.

 

“What is she saying, Al?” asked Charlie, worried, because the surprise in the girl was giving way to a very angry expression.

 

“She's asking if Lilith is to blame for her being mute” translated Alastor.

 

“Oh, Anka...” said Charlie while the girl was repeating her question this time looking directly to Lucifer, wanting the truth coming out from him.

 

The king still had tears in his eyes, it was his fault that Ankareeda was affected for that information that she shouldn't have. Seeing his normally sweet daughter so angry was almost disheartening, like if he killed without knowing a part of her innocence.

 

“Sorry, Anka, my doe but... yes, Lilith sent the guards to kill your papa and you inside him” said the monarch.

 

The little girl was pissed but also... sad. Really sad, with real tears coming out of her eyes. She entered a shadow to dissappear and Alastor was about to raise to find her until Charlie placed a soft hand over the shoulder of the overlord.

 

“I'll go... we'll go” she said, including Vaggie and after thinking about it a moment, the Radio Demon nodded.

 

Charlie and Vaggie decided to go find the little girl in her room, thinking she moved to there, going out of the bayou and taking the door Alastor had between both rooms.

 

Alastor wasn't looking to Lucifer, in fact, he laser focused on Michael and Azrael.

 

“So, your majesty, ma'am, I take it wasn't a coincidence that you catch each other on Heaven” said the deer demon.

 

The Angel of Death denied.

 

“No, it fuckin' wasn't” she said. “I was picking on Uriel and Lute and they said they have a council reunion with Sera and the rest of the elders. Michael catched on my trying to enter the hall, he asked why I was interested and we talked.”

 

The King of Heaven nodded, drinking a little of his coffee, still devoided of feelings before talking.

 

“Initially, the reunion was to ask Sera for explanations about the exterminations and why she kept them a secret from the councel, our siblings and me” said the monarch. “News went slow to the higher circles and we learned recently about this and the deal she made with you. Also about the petitions from Lute to extradite the exorcist called Vaggie to be place on trial in Heaven for the death of Adam.”

 

He said, looking back to Lucifer, who was still affected and thinking in his daughter.

 

“They never informed you about the exorcist army and the deal?” asked the King of Hell, incredulous.

 

Michael denied.

 

“The army, we knew, but Adam was suppose to form those warriors to protect Heaven in case of attack, not to attack Hell or the sinners” said the monarch. “And we never knew they made a pact with you or that Adam broke it. In fact, in the reunion, they were trying to sell the deal as something you broke.”

 

Alastor now was curious.

 

“And how you learned about them doing the deed?” asked the demon.

 

“The young seraphine Emily brought us an eye witness” said the monarch. “A redeemed sinner called Pentious.”

 

Alastor and Lucifer looked to each other, surprised and even confused.

 

“Sir Pentious redeemed himself?” asked Alastor, incredulous.

 

“The hotel works?” asked Lucifer, with equivalent expression.

 

Azrael, smiling, nodded.

 

“Yes, sweet kid that Pentious” said the Angel of Death. “Emily testified also, she was present when Charlie was in the reunion of Heaven to present the hotel and she heard the threats Adam made to the princess.”

 

Lucifer's eyes went full red in no time and his horns poked from his forehead.

 

“He dared to threaten my daughter?” said the king, growling and with his powerful voice.

 

“Relax, big bro, the bitch is dead” said his sister. “He can't try again and that's the problem, the problem is others trying.”

 

Alastor looked back to the dark-skinned woman.

 

“What do you mean?” asked the deer, almost seeing the rute of the conversation.

 

“Uriel and Lute presented a plan to erradicate great part of the denizens of Hell” said the monarch, with his impassivity. “They said you were taking the reins of your kingdom and preparing an army to retaliate against Heaven in vengeance for Adam targetting your daughter.”

 

“But I'm not doing that!!” said the king, with his eyes widely opened.

 

“I know it” responded his twin. “I catched them in several lies. For starters, they kept the exterminations hidden, they made a deal with you without my consent or approval. A matter between kings should be resolved by kings. Also, they lied to my face about the deal and who broke it and now this. I refused to allow Heaven's armies into Hell again and I said the councel I'll find the truth and a solution.”

 

Lucifer was susprised. At least his brother didn't think the worst in him and believe what Uriel and Lute were planning with Lilith.

 

“Thank you” he said, softly.

 

“No need, Luzbel” said the monarch. “Even if you were preparing a full scale retaliation for the offence over your dominion, I'll be trying to get a peaceful resolution. I'm not ignorant on the power you possess as King of the Damned, if you wanted to attack the High Realm, you'll be doing it already.”

 

“But I'm not, I just want peace and for my people to be respected and...” again tears were picking out his eyes. “And now that I know, with evidences, that my daughter is right, that redemption is possible. Fuck, all I want is for this to work.”

 

Michael nodded.

 

“Me too, brother” said the monarch. “I think also is the will of Creation. Your wayward sinner appeared in the private councel of the seraphines. Something... or someone wanted Sera to see him.”

 

Alastor looked back to the twin of his beloved.

 

“And even with that this... Sera wants to attack us?” asked the deer demon.

 

“Sera ain't bad” said the Angel of Death. “But she's afraid. She saw what Lucifer could do when his sins were starting to wake up inside him, she saw his power and how hurt ended up some of our siblings. And she knows every single soul in Hell gives him power, like a super-fed overlord, so you can understand. And... well, her circle is nearest to Hell, the blunt of a frontal assault will torn the Pearly Gates and her circle. That's how Adam managed to sell her the exterminations.”

 

The static from the Radio Demon moved around the table, moving the demon his ears against his hair.

 

“So we were targeted and killed by the fear of one woman” he said, annoyed.

 

“But that ended” said the King of Heaven, vehement.

 

“Frugal consolation for those already dead by angelic steel” said the demon. “In any case, what was the result of the reunion, your majesty?”

 

“No intervention in Hell and future talks to see how the Hazbin Hotel and Heaven could collaborate” said the king.

 

“And Uriel's trumpet and my ex-wife?” asked Lucifer.

 

“I questioned our sibling about their object of power and their implication with the Ex-Queen of Hell but they were deceitful with me again” said the monarch. “Uriel presented a decoy, convincing one but I couldn't feel any real power coming from it and he and Lute said not having deals with the Queen of Hell.”

 

Lucifer was angry but not to Michael. Sure, he could call them on their bullshit but that wasn't how things worked in Heaven, they needed more proof, maybe for that he was here.

 

“So, your highness, what's the plan?” said the deer demon. “Because you won't let that insult to you pass and I'm sure you don't want a war with us just for the actions of one of your siblings.”

 

The archangel denied.

 

“I won't but I don't govern by myself in Heaven, there is the councel on the First Circle and then our siblings” said the monarch. “For both I need irrefutable proof of the conspiracy or I can't discipline our sibling for it. Azrael also told me that Lilith was in Heaven, hidden for seven years and I need proof of that too.”

 

The King of Hell growled, taking the rest of his coffee in a big gulp.

 

“So we can't do shit” he said, crossing his arms.

 

“Well, you are informed, you can be in alert” said the Angel of Death. “Also, we can start collaborating, making redemption possible. Bet you my niece is gonna explode from happiness when she learns about it.”

 

The monarch of Hell thought in that for a moment and he smiled softly.

 

“Charlie cried a lot for Sir Pentious” said the king slightly sad, slightly happy. “She wasn't taking it very well. After that and having her old hotel destroyed, she deserves a win, some peace of mind and a clear objective.”

 

Alastor diverted his gaze to a side.

 

His complot trying to get her to hate Lucifer, to isolate the king and kill him in vengeance wasn't also kind for the young woman. The demon was sincerely regretful about his actions, specially when in the end Lucifer was just guilty of a little part of everything... Now, thinking in that, if he had achieve sucess, he could kill a man that was also a victim.

 

Even Ozzie's words returned to his mind, about how Lucifer was a worse situation with Lilith that the one he was ready to talk about.

 

“Yes, young Charlotte deserves the news” said the demon. “But... later, when she talks with my daughter.”

 

He wasn't about to invade their moment as sisters but the Radio Demon was sure that conversation wasn't an easy one.

Notes:

I decided to separate the chat with Ankareeda aside or the chapter was meant to be gigantic. Next one, that chat and Michael and Azrael really meeting the family.

Btw, about Michael's behaviour... If you read my other fic, both Michael and Azrael are identical and it's because I use some things I liked when I was crafting my other fic, and in the other fanfic I never digged on Michael too much but my Michael, apart from being aro/ace sex repulsed, he has a condition called Alexithymia that make almost impossible for him to express emotions and most of the times he doesn't recognize them. Lucifer is very pasional and emotional and Michael is his complete opposite, I wanted the trope of the identical twins being the complete opposites even in every detail. It's not like he doesn't love his brother, he doesn't express emotions and even has a hard time feeling them. He's always calm and knows to read people but he isn't empathetic in any extend.

Well, we'll see more about him next chapter! Ta-ta, lovelies!

Chapter 45: The curse of the Queen of Avernus

Summary:

Charlie and Vaggie have a very difficult conversation with Ankareeda.

Meanwhile, someone visits Vox to give him information and make a proposition.

Notes:

I know, I know, I'm taking my sweet time... I'm sorry. But I'm drawing again. In fact, I made a very strange Halloween drawing of Radioapple, like a fantasy battle nun and a sucubbus familiar. I swear I was trying to draw Arzael but the tablet slipped XD

Anyway, let's go with the chapter

“May I say before you go, I think perhaps you are one of the most powerful mages that I've ever had the pleasure to be in the presence of. And for this, I would offer you a gift. I think it has been a long time since anyone has pointed out to you that you are a fool. Pain doesn't make people; it's love that makes people. The pain is inconsequential; it's love that saves them. And you would know that, but you have none around you. You said so yourself, you surround yourself with lies and deception. And I wish for you in the future to find someone who will mourn you when you are gone. Respectfully.”

~Cadeceus Clay, Critical Role (Campaing 2: The Mighty Nein)

 

 

Charlie knocked in the room of the little girl but she didn't come to open, she insisted again to then sigh.

 

“I don't want to enter without her permission but we need to talk to her, Vaggie” said the princess, still worried for her little sister, for the way in what she ran from that reunion with their uncle and aunt.

 

The ex-exorcist nodded and moved her own hand to knock, maybe more assertive that her fianceé.

 

“Anka, we want to talk to you” said the latina woman, waiting then for a response from the interior of the room.

 

A minute passed before the door opened with a creepy noise, opening slowly revealing a room in complete darkness and Goldie, the shadow of Ankareeda, holding to the wood after opening.

 

“Thanks, Goldie” said Charlie, entering in the room of the girl.

 

In moments like those, the hellborn wished to have his father's unique physique. Lucifer was part snake or at least he has similar attributes to one and he could see perfectly in pitch black places and his tongue had the unique sense of ophidian creatures, catching vibrations and smells to add new senses to guide himself.

 

Charlie and Vaggie entered the room of the little girl but they only had the illumination from the opened door and when she closed it, she couldn't see a thing.

 

“Anka, we're turning on the light, ok?” said the fallen angel, trying to find the switch with not so much success.

 

Finally the light was on before Vaggie could do a thing and they saw Ankareeda, in her bed, hugging her legs with one arm and pointing to the switch with the other, with a tendril switching the light for her.

 

'I don't want to talk' she said with signs.

 

“I get that, sis, I do” said Charlie, sitting in the bed and extending an arm to move her sister close, hugging her. “I know learning these things is hard and I'm sorry my mom caused you pain. You have all the right in Hell to be angry at her.”

 

The little girl moved a little to sign, slightly fast. Her face was a pure revelation of pain and anger, mixed together.

 

“I... can't understand completelly, Anka, sorry” said Charlie.

 

They learned so much sign language with the girl, Husk and Alastor but still Lucifer, Charlie and Vaggie were learning slowly. Niffty, for example, learned much faster and was more proeficient to understand the girl.

 

The little one made a little notepad appear and she started to write in it with a pencil.

 

'Why the Queen did something like that?' asked the girl.

 

“Oh, Anka...” said Charlie, not knowing what to say, just holding to the girl.

 

'Papa did nothing to her, I did nothing. Why she hurt us?' asked the little girl, writing again.

 

Vaggie, that also read what the girl was writing, sighed deeply.

 

“We don't know, we have our theories, sure but we don't know for sure why she did something so horrible” said the ex-exorcist.

 

The girl thought for a moment to then write some more, looking directly at Vaggie.

 

'What theories?' she asked, puntuating the last word.

 

Both women looked to each other, not knowing if was good talking about those things. Not only they had little to no experience with someone so young, but also Anka made it more difficult because she was more mature than her age. In the other hand, also it was the thing that Alastor tried to shelter her from all of this and they didn't know if they were right talking these things with her.

 

“Well” Vaggie started to talk. “We aren't sure if our theories have any weight but... Jealousy could be one, for both parts.”

 

Lilith was Lucifer ex wife and maybe still, deep, very deep down, she felt she was the only one for him but also, in the other hand, she had the hots for the Radio Demon.

 

Ankareeda was waiting for the rest of the theories.

 

“Then she wanted to isolate my father” said Charlie. “And he being in a relationship was the opposite to that. Or maybe because, we already know, your birth was gonna strip powers from the Von Eldritch and maybe she thought from her too. We learned that being married to my dad gives her extra power from the connection to Hell and the Von Eldritch had that connection for other means and they started to lose it when you were born. Hell favored you.”

 

'Me?' she asked with signs.

 

Charlie nodded and Anka thought for a moment and wrote again.

 

'So we don't know exactly why but she did. I don't have a voice because of her' she stopped writing to think and then she added. 'And thanks to my other father. What Lucifer did to scare papa, carrying me in his belly, out of the manor?'

 

Again the women looked to each other and this time their expressions were easily read but Ankareeda.

 

'Is that bad?' she asked. 'Papa told me the evil king, as he called him, hurt him and wanted to hurt me but he never explained and I didn't know I wasn't born. What Lucifer did?'

 

“Sis...” Charlie tried to explain. “That's something complicated and adult and we don't know if you should know about it...”

 

Anka was writing while the princess was still trying to explain herself.

 

'I want to know' she wrote and she underlined the words. 'I want to know and papa and Lucifer won't tell me.'

 

“Maybe is for the best, peque” said Vaggie with sweetness, passing softly her hand over the hair of the girl. “Some things are too hard to comprehend, even if you're an adult, which you aren't.”

 

The girl denied with the head and wrote again, this time faster, angrier and with tears appearing in the corner of her eyes.

 

'I need to know' she wrote. 'I need a reason why my papa suffered, why I am like this. Why I can't sing. Papa and Auntie Rosie sing and they have beautiful voices and I can't sing with them and I can't tell papa because he'll be sad and I don't want him sad.'

 

She wanted to write more but she simply started to cry, holding to Charlie like a refuge in the middle of a storm, without emiting a single sound but showing her pain with the tears that were running down her cheeks, directly to the clothes of her sister.

 

“There, there” said Charlie, not knowing what more they could do.

 

And telling her the real truth was out of the question.

 

***

 

V-tower, sub-basement, Vox's Sanctorum...

 

The overlord of Tv and tech was working over hours to try to locate the Queen of Hell. He was almost sure that she left Hell to go to another place, far from his reach but not only he was tasked by the king to find her but also he wanted to protect Alastor over all the things in Hell.

 

Also he was recovering information over the movements of the woman, to compile a timeline to register her movements, maybe trying to catch her collaborators or wind of the place she was using as a hiddy hole.

 

He was using the vast newspaper archive mixed with vids since he started as an overlord, all that his cameras recorded about the woman. One of the things he found was an all photo of the woman, with the king.

 

It was in the front of a newspaper and was about the opening of Lu Lu World, with the royal couple smiling to the press in front of the recently constructed castle on the thematic park. That was almost two hundred and fifty years ago and they looked so different in there.

 

Lilith was smiling vividly, her eyes partially closed, holding to Lucifer, hugging him from behind with her arms around his neck and their cheeks touching. He looked so happy and carefree, smiling, looking to his wife with no less than pure devotion.

 

So different from the people he knew now, that vindictive queen and that proud, angry man that wasn't coy in showing his power and authority.

 

He made a gesture to bring the most recent image he had from the woman, from the video feed of Carmila's building, from her security cameras in the last overlord reunion.

 

Looking to the new images, the woman descending from her limo going to the elevator. He made a close up of the image and compare her serious face with the old photo and the difference was day at night. Even... Vox used his metallic finger to try to scrap the monitor when he saw something in the neck of the woman.

 

But no, it was there. A mole or something, in the form of an apple. Curioser and curioser, taking she doesn't have it in the old photograph. A new fashion statement?

 

He brushed it aside for the moment to center again in the archives from security cameras in the city...

 

...When he was interrupted by someone teleporting to his sanctuary.

 

Lilith appeared there like nothing, dressed to the nines with a dark gown, fit to her body, with to symbolic wings also in black closing over her waist. She was wearing her crown and from it a little veil obscured her face, hidding, Vox had no doubt, a little the mark in the face from Ankareeda, those four deep lines from part ot part.

 

She was wearing long opera gloves in the same color as her dress and stiletto pumps, like she was to a cocktail party in the afternoon and wasn't a hunted woman in all the Rings of Hell.

 

“You're definitely brave, your highness” said the overlord. “All of Hell wants your head in a pike and you came to the information center of the search party.”

 

The woman smirked, tilting slightly her head.

 

“I don't have a thing to fear from you, Vox” said the woman. “I came baring gifts for you, a very lucrative deal that will remove my ex-husband from your back.”

 

Vox should be trying to contact Lucifer to tell him she was there, he should, but curiosity was his worst attribute and the idea of toring some information from the woman was to juicy to let it pass.

 

“I won't do a soul-binding deal, your highness” he said, he couldn't speak of the deal he has with Lucifer unless it was with someone that knew, that was part of the terms.

 

“I don't need you to” said Lilith, moving to the desk and sitting seductively in the border. “In fact, when when I give you the information I have, you'll want to help me of your own volition. At least to punish Lucifer and to free Alastor from him.”

 

The overlord, that had already his hand over his phone on the pocket of his pants, ready to speeddial the king while talking with the ex-queen, released the object and rested over his chair.

 

“What information?” he said. “And Alastor is with Lucifer because he wants to... not to mention the king is undestructable.”

 

Lilith moved, in a seductive way that the demon could find adjacent to a very dangerous cobra... now he knew why Lucifer called her 'aspid'.

 

“Are you sure about that?” asked the woman. “None of those things are true. Lucifer can be deal with, in fact, Alastor is maybe the only one that can and he isn't with Lucifer because he want to.”

 

She moved, near the overlord, sitting in the corner of the desk to his left hand, looking directly to him with that satisfy and charming smile, full of edges and danger.

 

“Let me tell you the story of the last eight years, without censorship, convenient lies or the hopes of a better future from a broken destroyed man eager to please his abuser and save his daughter” said the Queen, taking all the attention from the TV mogul. “And not for the weak of heart, this story contains abuse in so many forms... and the fruit of a rape.”

 

Vox opened his eyes and he remembered the words from Lucifer, over 'fixing things with Alastor but not what he thought'.

 

It was... it was even worse?

 

***

 

In the end, Charlie managed to convince Ankareeda to let things stay the same, to not dig more in the past.

 

She knew the girl was curious, she knew she was in her right to know some things but Alastor was right on saving the girl some pain. Normally, she was a vivid girl, very happy, wanting to joke, wanting to help... Thanks to being slightly sheltered by the Radio Demon, she was all those things and much more.

 

Anka didn't need her past tormenting her or making her cry... and it broke the heart of the princess the way of crying and the reasons of the little girl. Singing. Alastor said she used the violin to sing but it was obvious she wanted more but she never expressed to her father.

 

She cared for him, very much, enough to, even with that age, be silent over things she wanted or she was sad about, just to not hurt the deer demon.

 

Charlie's soul almost broke when Anka said that. Singing was something almost sewn to the princess' soul, something so natural for her that the mere idea of not been able to do it made her sad, terrible sad.

 

They went out of the room after an hour or so and they went to the kitchen, going the king, the Radio Demon and the two angels with them.

 

After the talk and some accord made, they decided to take something light to clean the palate and, in the meanwhile, Azrael was drilling little Anka with questions translated mostly by Alastor.

 

They talked about the things the girl liked, she presented her shadow Goldie to them and even she presented Oncle, who was holding Anka in his vapor-like arms, feeling that the girl needed the closeness.

 

Michael was cold unemotional self but he was very following the girl and what she did, what questions his sister had for her and how she responded. And sometimes he made a comment or offered a nod and little more.

 

At the end, before parting, the King of Heaven told his brother they will communicate more and Azrael gifted little Ankareeda with an adorment, a little pendant of a rooster skull with three small black feathers coming from it. The girl smiled, hugged her aunt and weared the pendant almost immediactly.

 

The visit took almost all day, between one thing and the other, and the deer demon decided to cook something specially for Ankareeda, taking the bad experience she had, making for her Pompano en papillote, one of her favorite dishes from the traditional cooking of the Radio Demon.

 

They ate, the demon tried to joke with his daughter, to test if she was still down after that conversation but he was happy she was her regular self, talking vividly with signs and eating with passion.

 

Lucifer tried to be close to the red demon but Alastor was keeping him at arm's lenght, still angry with him for the slip he had with the information.

 

At the end of the night, Alastor went to put Anka to bed and the girl requested the presence of the king to say to him good night and when Lucifer came to her room, the girl asked her father if he can let them alone. Alastor didn't like that, not one bit, but he sighed and nodded, going out of the room of the girl, not before giving a significant gaze to the shorter man, like a warning to keep his trap shut about inconvinient things his daughter could be asking.

 

When Alastor went out and Goldie nodded to Anka, telling her they were alone, the girl signed to Lucifer.

 

'I want to talk' she said.

 

The king moved insecured to the bed and sat, waiting for the girl to talk. And she, knowing he won't be understanding everything, she took out her notebook.

 

'I want to know what happened in the manor' wrote the girl. 'Eight years ago, why papa was afraid, why he left your side.'

 

Lucifer was afraid she wanted to ask about that and he was fearing what will happen if he refused or if he tell her and what. He wasn't good with this type of things, he wasn't good lying or even communicating well, not with a little girl that needed protection from the truth and, at the same time, was intelligent enough to know when she was being bullshited.

 

“Anka, darling, I... I don't know” he said, caressing his nape. “You're too little for certain things and I don't want to cause you more pain and...”

 

'Try me' she wrote and then she wrote it again when Lucifer wasn't responding.

 

“Anka, please... I... I'm trying to fix things, to be better, I don't want to disapoint you or for you to hate me and Alastor is already pissed with me and I don't want...” he tried, he has almost tears in his eyes.

 

The girl denied and wrote again.

 

'I need to know' she wrote. 'Papa wants to protect me but I need the truth to protect him instead. I need to know what you did to hurt him, what you did to cause this.'

 

And she pointed to her scar on the neck and the king felt like something was breaking inside him, like a mirror impacted by a rock, delivering just pieces of glass.

 

“I... I don't know” said the monarch, pleading at this point.

 

'Papa won't tell me' wrote the girl, to turn the page and continue. 'You have to. I want you to be sincere with me, no secrets, no lies. You want to be my dad, you'll have to own your mistakes.'

 

The devil moved a hand to caress the cheek of the girl.

 

“And telling you something horrible isn't a mistake?” asked the man.

 

She denied, saying 'No' with a sign, she then signed the word 'Dad'.

 

'I want to protect my papa, from harm, from sorrow, from nightmares and I won't know how to do it if I don't understand the root of the problem' she thought for a moment and she added just one word 'Please'.

 

The monarch was weak, too weak and he knew he was about to do something very stupid, something that could cost him his relationship with Alastor and all the advances the managed to do but....

 

“First, you need to know in what state I was when I met your father, really meet him” said the king. “Lilith and I were trying to become parents since we dropped here but she always lost the babies. We were so hurt by that we even stopped for a milenia or two. Finally, two hundred years ago, she was pregnant and feeling really well about it and Charlie was born.”

 

He smiled softly.

 

“It was the happiest day in Hell for me” he said. “But Lilith changed when Charlie was born. She became distant with me, cold with the service, cruel with people... I loved her, so I just thought she was just insecured for having Charlie, someone so little, in Hell, defendless. I had my fair amount of fears too, she was so small... Then I agree to the exterminations to protect her and Lilith never forgave me. She hated me and... She was... Insults every day and worse things. I was merely a puching ball for her and after decades, I became tired of that treatment.”

 

Lucifer lowered his head.

 

“And when she didn't have her stress releave punching bag, she decided to punish me. She took Charlie and I didn't really saw her grow, I tried to visit but sometimes she barred me for doing it, saying she didn't wanted to see me and...” he denied. “In any case I was in pain, I was alone and... I met your papa. And it was like in a fairytale, you know? In was in a party, he was dressed in a beautiful gown and he was the center of attention and... we dance and we talk and... It was good, too good.”

 

He removed his boots to moved up the bed, going to place his back to the wall and slightly hug his own legs.

 

“It was perfect, we started to live in my manor and... I wasn't that happy in a long time but...” he sighed. “For business I still needed to reunite with Lilith and she and other people told me that maybe your papa didn't have the best intentions. And also, I know he was hiding things and... Fear and... fear is a very bad adviser. I didn't want to happen again, to have a person that started to mistreat me or being nothing to them. And when we learned he was pregnant, I...”

 

Anka interrupted the king, writing something.

 

'But papa isn't like that' she wrote. 'He wouldn't never hurt you, he doesn't treat people bad. He taught me! Even to your enemies you show manners, you'll never know when you'll have to force an alliance.'

 

Lucifer sighed strongly and nodded.

 

“Now I know that, before I didn't and I didn't want to talk about the bad things that happened to me because... Because I wanted to be strong, be a strong powerful king so people think twice before trying to hurt me or the people I cared but... I don't know how to act like that and...” he made a pause, he lowered his gaze to not see his daughter in the eyes. “I treated your papa like an object. He was mine and only mine so I made a prisoner of him in my manor, I order him around. I got angry easy and yell and...”

 

Anka wanted to sign something or write it but she didn't want to interrupt but her face, if Lucifer looked at her in any moment, could tell him everything about what the girl was thinking about that.

 

“And when we learned he was pregnant, I entered in panic mode” said the monarch. “The idea of having another child was feeling right, was feeling so good but the fear of him changing when you were born, the idea of him taking you away and there was another child I wasn't meant to see grow.... It was painful, it was terrible, taking all the air from my lungs and I did something stupid, something cruel. I already had your father caged with me but in that moment I asked... no, I demanded his soul, to be sure he didn't have plans to take my throne, to hurt Charlie, to take you away when you were born. I demanded his soul, he didn't have other way but to accept my order and that broke your papa.”

 

Lucifer moved his face, raising it to look to his little girl and she was... horrified. He was fearing that was the result of knowing but seeing it was even worse. The girl made them a sign, her hand in front of her face to then lowered it at the same time she closed both fists in front of her.

 

He knew that sign, Anka used it something to joke with Alastor. That was the word 'Cruel'.

 

“I know” he said, almost a whimper. “I know how bad I did, how much I hurt Alastor. I love him and I hurt him badly and he was afraid that I could do more, that I was a danger for you so he ran... But was all a plan from Lilith. She helped him ran from the manor to then send my guards, armed with angelic steel, to hurt you both. I don't know why, I don't know... But when my guards didn't come back, I went out to find Alastor and I found carnage and blood and it was an extermination day and... I thought I lost you both and, in certain way, I did.”

 

The monarch moved his hand to caress the face of the girl, girl that was crying, that was releaving tears over his hand in a silent way.

 

“In the end, for my fear and mistakes, I didn't see you as a baby, I was never there for you, to see you grow... and now I can see you, I can be here and I'm so afraid to lose you all again, I fear for you to hate me, knowing how horrible I am and how bad I treated your father...”

 

There was a moment without either of them talking, just crying, the king with little sobs and the girl without a sound and she finally cleaned her tears and signed.

 

'Lilith did this' she said, pointing to her own scar. 'But you did it too.'

 

Lucifer, cleaning his tears, nodded. He wasn't about to negate that fact: she was mute, because of him.

 

'I can't sing, I can't talk to papa to calm him when he feels bad, with my voice' she wrote. 'I want to protect papa, from Lilith, from you. I want you as my father but you have to make a promise.'

 

The devil nodded fast.

 

“Sure, my love, whatever you ask” he said.

 

'You have to promise not to hurt him again' she started to write, meassure, thinking about it, still conflicted with her own emotions but wanting to do that. 'You have to promise you'll never hurt him again in any way, that you'll love him and protect him. That you will punish Lilith and make sure she will never hurt us again.'

 

Lucifer, after reading it, nodded.

 

“Of course, I... I was ready to do that, to protect Alastor and you” he said.

 

Anka nodded.

 

'Good, if you do that, I can forgive you' said the girl with her writting.

 

The king hugged the girl and she allowed him.

 

“I'm sorry, my love, that you can use your voice or sing” with how important was for him and Charlie to sing, on how important was his voice for the Radio Demon, that must be something the girl was keeping from her father, some that pained her deeply.

 

She moved to write.

 

'Doesn't matter' she wrote. 'It's not important, my father is. I don't care what happened to me or what happens but I want my papa happy and safe.'

 

Lucifer look at her and something tagged in his chest, he felt a pinch of pain, something piercing his heart. She was like Alastor in that front, she didn't care for herself just for her father, the most important person in her life.

 

In that moment the monarch knew she'll never love him with that intensity but that was his penance. She will never care so much for him, not only because he didn't make the same efforts for her that her other father, but also because he was the one that gave her sadness, pain... It was his reality: Two daughters he loved with all his heart and none of them cared that much about him.

 

And he has someone he loved and loved him in return and... He still remembered Alastor's words: you're killing our love.

 

He couldn't stop himself to screw things up. He had to do better, he had to or he will end up alone again.

 

He kissed the girl goodnight and moved to his room.

 

Of course Alastor wasn't there, surely he was still angry at him for his slip with Anka and he wasn't stupid, the deer demon surely knew the theme of that conversation the girl wanted to have with him.

 

Feeling like the last shit excreted by the universe, the devil moved to undress and get on his pajamas, going to the bed. One of the pillows in the left still had the aroma of Alastor, that smell so characteristic to forest, ritual magic and strong alcohol. He inhaled it for a moment and tears went down his cheeks without him stoping them, without trying to wipe them.

 

He went to his side, he covered himself and cry, in silence, holding to himself, feeling alone in that huge room with the huge bed... feeling smaller than never before. He was almost into a fetal position and he didn't know if he was about to sleep that night.

 

So many things, so much... Good things, bad things, worse things. His twin wanting to help him, believing in his word and innocence, specially in front of one of his reputed siblings. The hotel, the project of his Charlie, working! Not only she was right, but also he was wrong, very wrong... how many that could be redeemed had die on the exterminations he himself accepted. How many that could be save wouldn't go to the hotel resented at the absent king?

 

And Anka and Alastor... He let a sob escape his lips. He was doing it again, he was making mistakes again, mistakes that could cost him dearly, that could let him like he was in that moment: alone.

 

He was drowning in his own misery that only felt someone was in the room when he felt the weight in the mattress near him. Lucifer was about to move to see but Alastor just moved his arm around him and rested his head near his, feeling the monarch all the body of the demon against his back.

 

“A-Alastor?” he asked, his lips trembling.

 

“Shhh... it's late, sleep now and we'll talk tomorrow” whispered the red demon, no emotions in his voice, just a neutral tone with a little bit of static.

 

He came to him, he wasn't alone, at least not that night.

 

Near the bed, in the opposite wall of the room, Oncle breathed, at least metaphrically. Alastor was already in his bed when the shadow, lurking in the room of the king to help him with his nigtmares “sleeping” near him, saw him crying. His heart was broken seeing his love in that way and he took no time to go to Alastor to tell him.

 

The demon, no moment lose, entered into a shadow and appeared near the bed.

 

It was a mistake, sure. He will talk with his daughter in the morning to assess the damage of that slip and that conversation they have before bed but now... He won't let his love suffer just because of that and less for his own pride. He didn't want him to suffer.

 

He loved him too much to accept seeing him in that state.

 

***

 

V-tower, sub-basement...

 

Lilith wasn't there no more.

 

Vox was over his desk, his metalic fingers passing softly for the torn photograph of Alastor, back in the day, when they started to be a couple and live together. He took from his coat the other half, the half with him, with his old appareance. He tried to make both sides whole again but that tearing in the middle wasn't going no where.

 

“Alastor... my love...” and he started to cry.

 

The last time was when they broke up, the last time was after the fight... He didn't cry, but his soul was shaking for the tale of the queen. His heart was broken. Just in that moment he had to admit to himself, he still loved him. He still missed him.

 

And, in the meanwhile, he was... Lucifer was doing... And thinking the nightmare of his love started for something he did. And now he was trapped, with the very same monster he provoked, he was trapped in that relationship and his daughter was...

 

Alastor was proudful, he'll never ask for help, less from him. But maybe, deal or not with Lucifer, maybe he could do something about it.

Notes:

Yep, things are getting complicated again. Soon we'll get to a part I'm burning to write from some time and the end of the fanfiction. But still we are going some chapters in.

Chapter 46: Consequences

Summary:

Even when Alastor didn't want for Lucifer to suffer a night alone with his nightmares and his mind, he wasn't ready to forgive the Devil so easily. Not without talking at least.

Charlie receives the news about redemption being possible and Vox comes with a present for Ankareeda.

Notes:

Yeah, this isn't over. I won't abandon a fic but... Hey, I'm drawing a lot (visit my twitter or bluesky at @vengerin to see my lastests) and I started another fic. I know, I shouldn't do it but that fic story was plaguing my nightmares and refusing me sound sleep (not the first time that happens) so I needed to exorcise it writing at least the first chapter (don't worry, I'll update it soon enough). If you didn't catch in it, it will be a very hard read with a lot of pain and angst.

In any case... This are moving with this story and we are getting near to another meaty part of it. Enjoy the calm before the storm.

“Love kills more people than anything else.”

~Rumplestiltskin, Once upon a time

 

When Lucifer woke up in the morning, Alastor was already outside not only of the bed but from the room. His side of the bed was cold already and the monarch took his phone to see what time it was and was still fairly early in the morning.

 

“Shit...” he said, sitting at the bed.

 

Sure the demon was still extremelly pissed with him and, like usually happens in their relationship, with good reason. Lucifer cursed himself, he was always screwing things, making his life more complicated and miserable than was necessary.

 

Now with Ankareeda... He wasn't sure the deer demon could forgive him for that. He and his stupid mouth, he had to shallow in self-pity without thinking his very young daughter was in front of him to utter very painful truths.

 

And even her was now apprehensive of him too, most likely at least even when she said last night that she only wanted a promise.

 

Also was the matter of the suffering of his child, a suffering that he was so stupid to think she didn't have it, that she didn't miss something she never have but... Tears came to his eyes thinking in her, in how she being so young and small, tossed aside her own pain to be able to care well for her parent. And he, stupid devil, couldn't at least lighten the load because he was always or adding new pain to him or remind him of his past's one.

 

He shook his head, he wasn't getting a thing mulling over all and crying. He had to fix things, he couldn't lose this relationship, his love, his daughter... No, he had to act.

 

Lucifer moved to the bathroom with the intention of taking a quick shower but in the end he was almost an hour, thinking, preparing himself mentally.

 

He will dress, go to find Alastor and have a chat with his partner like a man, face to face, not beating the bushes, not trying to remove importance... He will tell him about the conversation with Anka and both will find a path to traverse with that.

 

Also, he had decided, he needed to find a method to heal his daughter. If Ankareeda wanted to sing, he will make it possible.

 

With a new resolution, the monarch moved out of the bathroom only to come face to face with the Radio Demon, preparing a table apparently to take breakfast.

 

“Ehmm... Go...good morning, Alastor” he said, feeling suddenly how his stomach dropped, accentuated by him being covered just by a towl in his waist.

 

“I thought we could take breakfast here to talk in private” he rose the eyes, his expression was unreadable, his smile just tense but his eyes were burning. “Because we need to talk, Lucifer.”

 

Oh, yeah, he was angry at him. Despise of his gesture last night, coming to sleep holding him, to calm him, to help him to sleep and not spiraling, he was pissed with him. That static over that word was clear as water to him.

 

“Can I dress first or...” Alastor sat at the table and made a gesture for Lucifer.

 

That was a no.

 

He remembered that time that he talked to him while he was bathing in the bathtub, saying that he was more truthful when he was expose and maybe he wanted to do the same here. At least he couldn't complain at the selection of breakfast items: a crepe with fruits and whip cream, apple juice to drink and a little custard flan to eat at the end as dessert.

 

With resignation, because there wasn't a escape from that one, the king took his cutlery to start cutting the crepe, waiting for Alastor to initiate the chat seeing as he was the one with interest in it.

 

“I won't chastice you...” started the overlord, taking care of his side of the breakfast while talking “...for having a lapse in judgement and run your mouth. I noticed is a distasteful trait with you, maybe due to the habit of not having to keep your mouth shut and always say what you think, Hell be damned. But I want you to know I'm been trying not to let the truth pass my lips near my daughter since she's able to comprehend words.”

 

Said the overlord and the gaze he gave to Lucifer was enough to him. Maybe the deer demon was saying he won't chastice him but that look was enough to understand he crossed a line with him, a new error to his column and not a small one either.

 

“I didn't want for my daughter to know the truth” he continue to say. “Not for you, because I never thought this, you and I, could be a possibility but I didn't want my sourness and pain to pass down to my daughter. I never wanted Ankareeda to know she was born from woe and pain, one that her other parent created.”

 

Lucifer lowered his head. He couldn't eat, he wasn't about to eat... not only he felt his own stomach making a pinch but also the idea of eating right now was most unappealing for him. He left go of the fork over the plate and tears were running down his face.

 

“I'm sorry, I didn't want to, it just...” he started but the overlord just rose a hand to stop his ramblings.

 

“I only want to know one thing” said the demon and the devil knew what he was about to ask. “What did you talk to my daughter?”

 

Lucifer let escape a little sob, he knew Alastor wasn't about to be happy knowing that he was mostly sincere with Anka. Maybe he already knew, taking he woke up first and he was meassuring if he was about to lie to him or not.

 

But, he didn't have any intention to lie.

 

“I... First, I'm sorry, but she wanted to know and I thought maybe being truthful but not explicit wasn't that bad... I...” Alastor didn't correct him, didn't interrupted him either, and the king was feeling like he was preparing a hangman's knot to hang himself with his words. “I explained to her how I was before we meet in that party, how I... I shouldn't have, I know but she was insisting and... I told her the truth, how bad I was. She...”

 

He cleaned a little his tears.

 

“She blamed me for what happened to her and she's right... It's all my fault” he said, almost in a whisper, he didn't want to look Alastor directly in the eye, he didn't want to see his fury or, worse, his dissapointment. “I.. I used what happened to me in my relationship with Lilith to mold me into a monster and... I have no excuse.”

 

The Radio Demon was still in silence, still looking to Lucifer even when the king didn't want to look in his direction. Finally, the monarch catched from the deer a sigh and looked up, to see Alastor with his smile turned into a soft one of acceptance, like all of that was that it was.

 

“I knew I couldn't keep that truth from her, not with your ex-wife and all the problems she created harassing us” said the deer demon. “Also, Anka is very intelligent and very keen on her use of magic. What she couldn't learn by herself, she will use the occult to achieve so... She told me this morning what you two were talking last night.”

 

The Devil nodded, he thought as much. Maybe Ankareeda didn't want to make Alastor sadder with the information that she really wanted to be able to talk and sing but he knew the girl didn't want to keep more secrets than necessary, that she was always sincere with her father.

 

“I wanted to preserve some sense of... I don't know, naivete with her, sense of innocence” Alastor denied. “But this is Hell, even for those that only are born here, this is a punishment nonetheless. But... I want you to make a promise, a solemn vow. It won't requiere a deal, if I ask that from you, I'll be a hypocrite and I'm too many bad things already. Make a vow to me...”

 

Lucifer moved, raising from his chair and going to the overlord, taking his hands.

 

“Whatever you ask of me, of course” said the monarch.

 

“I want you to make me a promise” said the deer, allowing the king to take his hands. “No matter what happens with us, now or in the future. If you get tired of me or fall out of love or something happens to me... let me talk..”

 

He said, pressing his fingers softly to Lucifer's mouth when he saw the devil was about to interrupt him.

 

“Doesn't matter, promise me you'll always care for her” said the demon. “You'll always want to make her happy and safe. Promise me that, Lucifer, and I'll feel easier knowing she knows the truth about us.”

 

The shorter man didn't have to think much about it but he took seconds to looking Alastor in the eyes. His face was most of the time a mask the deer demon weared like a second skin, his smile a charade in place to fool the gullible but his eyes... His eyes were always so expressive, so truthful and he saw in them, the sadness, the pain, the self-loathing, all together present and looking at him.

 

And suddenly his words weren't just that, it was clear he thought the monarch was meant to stop being in love with him one day... Maybe he even thought he wasn't really in love and this was more a flint product of his loneliness. Like, in the mind of Alastor, he convinced himself that he loved the deer demon just to be with someone and someday he was meant to wake up in the morning and want him out of his life.

 

Alastor had his body full of scars but he had some inside, in his heart. He wasn't healed after all the time both were together, the demon still had nightmares with him and thought he never really loved him. In that moment, the king took a determination: he would show Alastor how much he loved him, how much he cared for him. He didn't know how, but he was about to do it, for him and for Ankareeda. He will make his partner and child to understand they will be together for ever and that he loved them with all his heart.

 

This step, was the easiest.

 

“I promise you, Alastor” said the Devil. “Over my crown, that I'll take always care of Ankareeda. Together with Charlie, both are my top priority but...”

 

He moved nearer the demon, moving one of his hands to his cheek and holding him in there, trying to catch his eyes with his now that he was trying to avoid him.

 

“...You, you're also my top priority, Alastor” he said, softly. “I love you, with all my heart. We are partners and even when this is starting, I know this won't end. You'll be always my priority and I'll always love you, let that enter into that thick skull of yours.”

 

The Devil came close, trying to caress Alastor's lips with his own, just a little rub like the sensation of feathers but that wasn't enough for them, mere brushes were nothing when their bodies almost screamed for the company of the other, when their hearts were in sync, beating at the same time with feelings to strong and hard to put in mere words, but apparently Lucifer had a way easier time doing that then him.

 

He loved him, he loved the Devil from so much time ago that words at this point felt lacking and inconsequential for him. Alastor loved Lucifer and he trusted the king, even when all their story together was screaming at the back of his head to reserve a modicum of distrust, even if it was barely for the boastful and forgetful nature of the shorter man.

 

They kissed for a time but they didn't more.

 

Alastor insisted Lucifer to eat and both did it in almost silence, with soft smiles and little gazes between as a way of comfort. Those days were pretty intense for them, from Lilith and her plans to the visit of the Sins (maybe the only cheerful time they had) and later the visit of the King of Heaven with the news about redemption.

 

Redemption! When they finished with their meal, the king and his partnert decided it was a good time to tell Charlie, so after the woman took her breakfast, they asked her to chat.

 

“If it's about Anka, don't worry, I talked to her and she's fine... was a little shaken by the news and she has a huge strick of being too much of Alastor's child and wants vengeance on Lilith but...” the king made a gesture.

 

She was spiraling, thought Alastor, a trait that was almost a family trope at this time. For a moment he mused if his daughter would develop that in the future or his blood will keep her grounded and calculated as she was now.

 

“No, no, applepie, this isn't about that, it's about some news that your uncle Michael passed down to us” said Lucifer with a huge smile.

 

“Oh, ok... What news?” she asked and she was aprehensive and that was normal.

 

All her experiences with Heaven had been... horrible, was the word. From the first reunion with Adam, to then the reunion in Heaven. Not only was the behaviour and hypocresy of the angels, jumping at her for a bad word but turning a blind eye for Adam or refusing to see improvement on Angel Dust when it was fucking obvious, but the Vaggie revelation, the vicious attack on her hotel... Charlie was in that point, even after meeting her aunt Azrael and uncle Michael, very distrustful of angels in general.

 

And she didn't want to air her own demons, so to speak, but she and Vaggie talked about her dreams being a cursed endeavour just because how the angels were.

 

She tried to remove her doubts and waited for the news her father and Alastor has for her.

 

“Well...” Lucifer looked back to his lover for a second. “Remember Sir Pentious?”

 

Charlie nodded.

 

“Well, apparently, according to my sister and brother... he... is... in Heaven!” he couldn't hold much more, so he moved to take his daughter by her arms, smiling vividly to her. “He's redeemed, Charlie!! Your hotel works!! You were right, all along!!”

 

The princess felt like she was hit by a truck full of emotions. She took a gasp and tears were in her eyes in a seconds... little sobs escaped from her mouth.

 

“Pent... he... he's alive?” she asked, her voice weak, her hands near her mouth and shaking like leaves in the middle of a storm.

 

Vaggie was also shocked, maybe more than Charlie because she knew how Heaven was, she knew how rigthful and secure of their way of doing things was Sera. Doubts were in her mind, flooding it. How that happened? Did Sera let him enter? He went to The Gates? How, Why??? But she took a look at Charlie and her own doubts could wait, the emotions that were coming to her from her lover were overcharging her protective nature. He moved to hold on Charlie behind her back, hugging her tightly.

 

“You were right, Charlie” she whispered, softly, like a mantra trying to calm a woman that she was sure wasn't able to be calmer in that moment.

 

“Yes!! He's alive and in Heaven” said Lucifer.

 

Alastor, that was being silent in that moment, moved to sit besides the woman and when he normally would hug her or at least pass an arm over her shoulders, he just was contempt with holding her hand.

 

“Yes, he's having a period of adjusting to Heaven but he's alive and well” said the overlord. “You were right so I have to... apologize myself for my first statements about redemption when we met. You're not naive, you're not just a dreamer, my sweet demonbelle, you're intelligent and you knew this by heart when people like me, proudful of being so intelligent, didn't see coming. So please accept my apology, Charlie.”

 

But the princess didn't accept the apology because for her wasn't a need to. She just jumped on the arms of the overlord, hugging him tightly while she started to cry.

 

Both Lucifer and Vaggie had the same expression, seeing Alastor, after the initial surprise, softening his smile and hugging her back, less forceful and more fatherly.

 

***

 

The news ran around the hotel like gunpowder, even when Charlie was still thinking how to break the information not only to the place itself but to all of Hell. That could mean an affluence of new patrons, people ready for redemption now that was a fact and not the delirium of a extremelly positive princess.

 

Husk received the news like if someone was telling him they saw Elvis... In fact, thinking in that, he could believe in that more, taking the posibility of the The King to be in Hell, even a very little one. But no, Alastor himself corroborated the information and the bartender trusted the deer demon, he wasn't one to be deceitful, at least in that.

 

Angel was first very glad for Pentious. The death of the inventor hit him hard in the moment and he still after months tossed some cheers to his portrait in the lobby. But then, the happiness for that redemption left some aftertaste in his mouth.

 

The idea of him being able to redeem himself was almost... alien, but brought a smile to his face thinking in his twin sister Molly and his mother. But then the daunting idea of leaving Husk behind, of separating from the black cat when they were starting to dance that relationship those days... Also, the doubt he wanted to drown inside his mind came to the surface: Why didn't he got redemeed too?

 

Niffty didn't care much for redemption when she has a war between her hands with the bugs that came to the hotel but Cherri... oh, the woman was shocked and didn't know what to think. Sure, the serpentil demon and her didn't have a relationship per sé, they had a rivalry that lasted a couple of years over meaker meters of territory on Pentagram and certain chemistry. They talked a little the last days preparing for the extermination and he tried to confess his love the day before just to end up doing it in the battle, just before sacrificing himself.

 

They weren't a couple or lovers but by Heaven, his death was hard on her. She was the other side of the duo, together with Angel, cheering to his portrait every day they drank together. He tried to protect her, he died... And it was the first time someone tried something like that for her.

 

Since being abused first by her father, then by her husband, even in Hell, she never thought she could be valuable enough to have people dying for her. Together with her? Yeah, she did that with her husband, the aussy Boney and Clive, for sure... both dying in an explosion of her own making but someone activedly trying for her to not be harm was a novelty.

 

And he was alive and in Heaven and... She needed a moment to process and she ran to her room to think.

 

***

 

Two days passed and things fall into normal again.

 

Ankareeda continued with her studies but this time both Lucifer and Alastor supervised her exercises and homework and Charlie was still trying to wrap her head about redemption and a way to announced it to the public. She was thinking in using the talent show for that but, at the same time, she was still in need of certain things for it.

 

Some were produced by Rosie, some by Alastor or Lucifer and she still needed a host or hostess for the even.

 

Luckily for her, a visit to the hotel could provide her with the presenter she needed.

 

Vox went to the hotel with a smile for a visit.

 

“I had the idea that, how intelligent Anka is, maybe she already finished with the things I let in her tablet” said the overlord of TV to the father of the girl, all under the piercing gaze of Lucifer. “I bought a pendrive with new books and some games about electronics and programming. Sure she'll love them.”

 

Alastor just rose a brow, his hands over his back holding his microphone cane. He sighed.

 

“Ok, she enjoys that damned thing so...” admited the deer demon.

 

Ankareeda in that moment was coming from the kitchen, she was making milkshakes with Vaggie and had a mango and coconut one in her hand, sipping from a straw. She went to greet the overlord with a huge smile.

 

“Pleasure to meet you again, little one” said Vox with his soft smile. “I have for you more things for your tablet.”

 

Anka nodded and said something to Alastor.

 

“Very well... go with him” and the deer demon gave a look to Vox that he understood without the need for words.

 

He was granting a privilege of being with Ankareeda, he was granting something precious that Alastor valued more than his life... If he wasn't in his best behaviour with the girl, he was returning to V-Tower in a doggy bag.

 

“Your... fathers seems a little tense there” said the overlord to the girl while she was opening her room to pick up her table.

 

Ankareeda signed to him, explaining that they had a tense visit days ago and they were a little on edge because they talked something she wasn't mean to know.

 

“And that was?” he was curious.

 

'Not important' she signed.

 

The overlord didn't pressure her for more, specially because he catched that even when Alastor let him accompany the girl there, didn't mean he was sharing full faith in him and his actions: Alastor's shadow was keeping a discreet eye on him.

 

'But they are protective of me all the time, eitherway' said the girl, picking the tablet and giving it to Vox. 'I know I'm small and young but they don't need to be so worried, here I'm safe.'

 

“Yeah, I bet you are” said the overlord with a smile, connecting the pendrive to download to the tablet all the archives he gathered for the girl. “Well, you'll have now more information, specially about technology and some good books for you to enjoy.”

 

Said the man, with a smile, looking to that little innocent girl, enjoying her milkshake and curiously looking to the tablet and what was making the overlord in it.

 

“And... everything ok here at home? Are your fathers behaving?” he asked, he couldn't help himself.

 

Anka leaned her head to a side, looking very attentively to the TV mogul.

 

'They are fine' she responded, slightly on the defensive. 'My papa and my father love each other very much. Also, my father promised me he will always take care of my papa and never hurt him.'

 

She didn't want to say too much because she noticed too much interest in the overlord but at the same time was a little girl in the defensive of her fathers happiness and she wanted to punctuate that without giving too much. But she was giving plenty or at least that thought the overlord.

 

For Vox, that was almost a confirmation. Why Lucifer will have the need to promise that to the girl? Why, if things were normal and well, he had to promise that? And to her... Did she knew of how was really their relationship? Was she just thinking that was normal? Or she was lying to herself? Was she mistreated by Lucifer too?

 

The Devil glared daggers at him when Alastor allowed him to accompany the girl, so aggresive... maybe that wasn't jealousy as he wanted to believe but maybe he didn't want his dirty secret to be known. Even in Hell, hurting children was frown upon for much of the residents.

 

That steeled his resolved. He was ready to save that girl and her father, he has no longer doubts in his mind.

 

He smiled to the girl and returned the tablet.

 

“There you have it” said the overlord. “I hope you enjoy your new books, Anka.”

 

'Thank you' said the girl with signs to then make another for him to wait. She searched for something in her desk and pulled out a beautiful bracelet with multiple little blue glass beads, in different tones, with a silver shark haging from it. 'I made it with my sister in her crafts class. It is for you, as thanks for the tablet and for being my papa's friend again.'

 

He was almost melting with that gesture and he placed the bracelet in his wrist with not a second lost.

 

“Thank you, little one” he hugged the girl, sighing... Yes, he will protect this girl with his life, protect her from every evil in her life like she was his own. “I love it, it's amazing.”

 

He said, raising to then nod to himself.

 

“I should be going back home but... I'll visit soon, to ask you about the things I left in the tablet” the girl in fact was already looking for her new additions. “Bye, Anka.”

 

The girl said good bye to the overlord, she even offered to accompany to the door but he refused.

 

In the lobby he also responded to a question from Lucifer about information of Lilith, saying he didn't know a thing about her. And he accepted the thanks from Alastor for caring about his daughter.

 

He said goodbye too and returned to V-Tower, with Lilith almost as soon as he was sitting in his office chair.

 

“And well...?” she asked, siting over the edge of the desk with just half her butt, her hand resting over the wood too.

 

“I planted it... we could use it” said the overlord. “It's your assault team ready?”

 

Lilith smiled wickedly.

 

“Of course... the very moment I want them to attack, they will do” said the woman. “And we could do our job on the side. Soon, pet, we'll have what we want to: Alastor free and his daughter getting what she deserves...”

 

“And Lucifer?” asked the overlord, looking to the crystal bracelet.

 

“He will only live in the minds of mortals” said the woman with cruelty.

 

“Excelent” said Vox, crossing his hands and looking over them.

Notes:

Well... next one is gonna be a hard one, to write, to read, so bear with me. Till next time o/

Chapter 47: The moment of truth

Summary:

When things start to present better and better, plots and hate come to ruin the peace.

An attack comes suddently and Hell raise... while in the backstage also happen things to the only person all the hotel wanted to be safe.

Notes:

I'm taking a lot of time with the updates but that's life!! Also, drawing, a lot... Last Helluva Boss episode gave me a lot of food for thought too.

Here starts the beginning of the end. I don't know still how many chapters is gonna take but we are in the end of the road almost.

“Something Vimes had learned as a young guard drifted up from memory. If you have to look along the shaft of an arrow from the wrong end, if a man has you entirely at his mercy, then hope like Hell that man is an evil man. Because the evil like power, power over people, and they want to see you in fear. They want you to know you're going to die. So they'll talk. They'll gloat. They'll watch you squirm. They'll put off the moment of murder like another man will put off a good cigar. So hope like Hell your captor is an evil man. A good man will kill you with harly a word.”

~Sir Terry Pratchett, Men at arms

 

A couple of days came and go in a routine that both Alastor and Lucifer were enjoying greatly and they weren't the only ones. Ankareeda returned to her regular spitfire herself, laughing and playing and drawing at her heart's content.

 

Vaggie decided finally to grace the kitchen for cooking and she taught both Anka and Alastor to prepare arepas de queso in the colombian style and for both Charlie and Lucifer were extremelly precious to see: together, their significant other, with the little girl.

 

The ex-exorcist showed a lot of patience and very good humor, specially when the little girl wanted to do the mixing herself, centered in that with her little hands and half her black biforked tongue out of her lips in a way of showing concentration that for Charlie was eerily familiar, remembering the moments of her father crafting precious toys for her when she was really small.

 

In a moment, Vaggie took some corn flour, just a pinch, to toss it playfully to Alastor and th Radio Demon retaliated using a tentacle while he was forming the arepas, the latina woman responde, Anka joined in and the end result were the three of them with flour over their shoulders, face and hair finishing with the food, in silence but smiling.

 

In another moment Alastor and Ankareeda were practicing for the upcoming talent show... or at least that was the excuse, they still didn't know what to do so they were listening to music, dancing, with Lucifer dancing with them but wasn't the only ones. Being at the bar of the hotel, Angel joined, dancing swing with the Radio Demon between laughter.

 

“Damn, Smiles!!” said the spider demon, letting the deer to lead the dance. “I never thought you were a cold fish or somethin' but fuck, you're a jive bomber, like we said in my times.”

 

“Told you, my dear, that I was a regular on dancing, almost every night” said the deer, taking Angel from the waist to turn him around in an elaborate dance move. “There weren't a single speakeasy or gin mill on all New Orleans that didn't know me. I was a regular egg: famous for my Radio Show, with honest money and of course...”

 

He moved Angel near him and smiled... in a way that made the spider demon to lost all bravado and defenses and just blush. From the counter of the bar, the little growl of both Lucifer and Husk was almost audible.

 

“...the looks” the deer demon laughed and continue dancing like nothing. “And in the time I arrived in Hell, more of the same. There was a point that if the Radio Demon wasn't invite, that party wasn't a party.”

 

Husk leaned over to Lucifer.

 

“And if the diva wasn't invited, he made a spectacle about it because he couldn't never beat the Maleficent allegations” said the bartender, making the king laugh.

 

“I heard that, Husker” said the demon without stopping to dance.

 

“I wasn't tryin' to be coy, boss” said the man, cleaning his counter. “You ARE a diva, you could be caught double dead without making a good entrance and a good show.”

 

Alastor thought for a moment in a playful way, with his finger over his chin and all.

 

“Fair enough” said the deer, moving to the counter to point to a bottle of whiskey so the barman could serve him a glass. “But I'm not the only one. In your time you were also a peacock, Husker.”

 

After serving the whiskey neat for Alastor, the bartender started to prepare a cocktail for Angel, no words were uttered about it, he already knew what the spider liked to drink.

 

“Really?” asked Angel. “Normally he doesn't talk much of his good times.”

 

And he was curious. The pornstar knew the cat was an overlord back in the day, dealing with souls and betting them but he knew little more about that and he wanted to know, more a more, as soon as he started to see the bartender as more than a desire of a cheap laid.

 

“Oh, but he was something else” continue to say the deer demon. “Owner of the Black Cat Casino on what today is Doomsday District. In those times, our good times, my Radio Tower was the tallest point on Pentagram City, in the middle of the district dominating everything and his casino was the hip place to be. Elegant, refine and full every night. And in the middle it was the owner, only dress to the nineties, very expensive clothes in his favorites black and golden and always with a moll or a dandy as arm candy.”

 

Ankareeda was attentive of her father, like he was telling her a tale and her vivid eyes moved from her parent to the bartender, with curiousity and a little sadness, noticing in him some resentment and sadness too.

 

Angel whistled.

 

“That sounds so sexy, Husky” said the spider demon.

 

The cat demon, made a gesture to rest his cloth over his shoulder, his grumpy expression in full swing.

 

“Yeah, well...” said the man. “That was the past.”

 

“I saw you when we were to Lulu World” said the pornstar. “If that how you dressed daily, I can't wait to see you in that again. You were very fine, baby.”

 

Husk denied with his head.

 

“Don't get that into your head, kid” said the barman. “Part of the deal with Al is that my good fits stay in the closet. And I'm not a fan to start remembering the shit I lost.”

 

Alastor felt a little pinch of pity for the demon but he had his reasons to get that contract in the past and maintain in the present, even when he counted the cat demon as a friend. He wasn't going to say more but Anka touched softly his hand and made a gesture with her head poiting to the the man.

 

“Well... old times were always better is a consolation for fools” said the deer demon, taking his whiskey in hand. “Who knows what the future brings... Maybe there will be a time I won't need your services or anyones for that matter, an end to scheming and cementing my power and status. Maybe you'll return to your full potential, with a bag full of experience, wiser than before.”

 

Husk looked back to the Radio Demon without believing what he was telling him, while Angel and Lucifer were gratefully surprised too. Anka was just proud of her daddy, doing something nice for his employee, showing him a little of the affection she knew her father has for the cat demon.

 

“Hmmm... I... I'll have it into account, boss” said the demon, because he couldn't think on another thing to say.

 

“But don't let your head to stay too high in the clouds” said the demon, leaning nearer the barman. “We don't want to get in more problems for stupid ass decisions, yes?”

 

And of course, he couldn't be all sweet, it wasn't in his DNA.

 

“Prepare a mocktail for my child and then accompany her to the cottage, we need to move her piano to her room so help her” he kissed the head of the little girl to then, without a warning or even a coy look, take the hand of the Devil. “I'm in the mood for a pint-size beverage in private.”

 

The king was laughing when the shadows devored them both at the command of the Radio Demon.

 

“Damn, Al's bein' nice is doin' for him” said the spider demon. “If you told me at the old hotel I'll see this, him bein' kind or caring for others or being my friend, I could laugh at your face and ask for your drug dealer, because you were into something mighty.”

 

Husk half smiled to him.

 

“Well, I bet we need to thank this little lady for boss' change of heart” said the bartender, preparing the drink for the girl.

 

Anka just denied with her head and started to sign.

 

'Papa was always good, with a good heart' said the little girl. 'Aunty Rosie says so and I believe her and also my father told me how papa was when he was a teen. But he had to care for a lot of things: first for my father, then to protect the weak in Pride Ring and then for me. I bet when Lilith is no more, papa could be happy with my father, both need each other and I'm glad they are together.'

 

Husk translated for Angel and both exchanged a gaze. Sure, not the first time that Anka was happy that both men were together but she was being less effusive about it, like the revelation the girl had, because Charlie commented with them about that moment, dampened a little the happiness she felt at having her parents together.

 

They didn't question it or asked the girl. They simply changed the subject and continue with their day.

 

***

 

At the morning of the third day after the visit of the King of Heaven, Lucifer was sleeping over Alastor, using the wide chest of the overlord like the most comfortable pillow in the realm when suddenly his phone started to emit the tone he has for messages: Alastor humming.

 

He tried to ignore it, taking that the Radio Demon was still sleeping but the tone repeated itself, several times, like if he was receiving a chain of messages.

 

Still sleepy, the king moved his hand to levitate the phone to his hand and there he saw the messages, one after the other, with the same sender.

 

“Al, wake up!!” yelled the king, sitting in the bed.

 

Maybe Alastor was more relaxed those days, sleeping in the security of the hotel, with the most powerful being in creation around his arms but he never left behind that little part of him that made him react in full alert and be ready for action at the minimal, and he was prepared, alert and wake up in a second, sitting in bed and combing his hair backwards with his fingers.

 

“What's happening, love?” asked the deer demon.

 

Lucifer showed him the hellphone. There were a lot of urgent messages from Azrael and one word catched his eyes: Exterminators.

 

“Azzy says Uriel and Lute are preparing the exterminators to assault the hotel” said the Lucifer, nervious, jumping from the bed and pacing in the room.

 

“And your twin brother can't stop them?” asked Alastor, moving to dress himself and, in the end, just snapping his fingers to do it, making his cane appear and ready for action.

 

The king was trying, at the same time, to talk to Azrael and ask her questions like that.

 

“She says that she's trying to reach Michael but there was a problem with the counsel” the monarch made a sound with his tongue. “It must be a distraction. Fuck them...”

 

The king snapped his fingers and he was ready too, dressed and with his cane in his free right hand while he was trying to text with the left one.

 

“She's gonna keep me informed” the devil made his phone dissapear and looked back to his lover. “We need to prepare ourselves. First things first, we need to protect Ankareeda, wake her up and... Can you close your bayou again?”

 

The Radio Demon denied with his head.

 

“To close my bayou I need time and a ritual, not even your power can accelerate that” said the deer. “But I have another idea. Let's go...”

 

He took the hand of the monarch and both traveled through shadows to the room of the girl.

 

She was still sleeping, hugging her shadow like every night since she had her.

 

“Anka, love, wake up... you too, Goldie” said softly the deer demon to his daughter and the shadow, moving her slowly and caring.

 

The girl opened an eye and signed.

 

“Sorry to wake you up, love, but it's urgent” said Lucifer.

 

It was rare for both to wake her up in the morning. Or she woke up by herself, being an early bird as she was or one of them came to wake her... More Alastor than Lucifer, but the king was doing it those last days. Both... was something rare and she felt that maybe urgent, so she sat in the bed rubbing her eyes.

 

“Anka, the exorcist angels are gonna attack the hotel again, like in the old hotel, remember?” the girl nodded and signed, worried for her papa. “No, no, love, don't worry. We won't even close the bayou but you need to take refuge there. This time Fat Nuggets and Keekee are gonna be with you, ok? And you have Goldie too.”

 

The shadow nodded. One of the things that Lucifer coded in the magick he used to create the shadow was the protection over everything of Ankareeda and she was ready for duty.

 

“Also, this time I'll have your father with me” Lucifer nodded to his mention. “We'll end this threat soon.”

 

'Remember your promise' said Anka with sings to Lucifer and he smiled softly to her.

 

“Don't worry, Anka, I'll protect your father with all my might” said the king.

 

The girl nodded, to then, resolute, look back to her other father.

 

'What should I do, papa?' she asked, ready to be a good girl, an obedient daughter and not be a burden in the next battle.

 

Alastor kissed her over the hair, proud of her.

 

“Go to the cottage and wait there... carry what you need to pass the time” said the Radio Demon. “Don't go out unless Lucifer or I say is safe. We'll bring Angel's pet and Keekee here to make you company, you just need to wait here.”

 

The girl nodded.

 

'I'll be good' she signed, to then snap her finger and dress up with comfortable clothes: short jeans and a yellow bluse with flowers in different tones of orange.

 

She picked up her tablet and she was ready to go to the cottage with Goldie behind her.

 

“Don't worry for her... we'll protect the hotel” said the monarch.

 

“Yes, we'll do and for that I need you” said the deer demon. “But first, we need to wake up the rest and arm them, we need to be prepared.”

 

The deer demon turned to his shadow, that was ready and aggressive, showing part of the emotions that were hidden inside the composure of the overlord.

 

“Go with her, make her a breakfast and then return to me” he ordered the shadow and Oncle nodded, going after Ankareeda to the deep part of the bayou. “Let's go, beloved.”

 

***

 

Both Alastor and Lucifer shared the task to wake up the staff of the hotel to warn them and help them arm themselves. Soon were all prepared in the lobby, ready for battle and the anxiety of a battle ready at hand.

 

“Well, you said you had an idea to protect the hotel, out with it” said Lucifer, that was getting nervious and angry for moments.

 

Alastor looked and him and nodded.

 

“In the last fight, we, mostly myself, deviced a tactic of letting pass just a couple of exorcists at a time to deal with them in an easier way for us” started to explain the demon.

 

“Yeah, a Thermopylae special” said the monarch, understanding.

 

“For that I created a shadow shield... until Adam broke it and I had to deal with him” said the deer and he noted the recoil expression of Lucifer, the guilt, but that wasn't the moment for that. “I was musing... We could combine our powers before, you powered my ritual of consumption. You can do the same with my barrier, right?”

 

Lucifer thought for a moment. Yes, he could do that or add a second barrier under his as a secondary protection. He didn't know if Uriel will join the frey, he didn't know if after so many centuries his sibling was now a warrior, because they weren't before so maybe if it was only Lute and her bitches, Alastor shield could be enough but...

 

That was a recless attack, even taking into consideration that maybe Uriel became a warrior, he was nothing against him, the same with Lute, the same with the exorcists. They were nothing but... this attack was something else, something that smelled bad to his serpentile nose. He wanted his daughters protected but also he wanted Alastor safe.

 

“I can do more than that” he said, pointing to the Radio Demon's staff.

 

Alastor moved his cane near the devil and Lucifer bit his finger to draw with it his sigil in the backside part of the deer demon's microphone with his golden blood to then move his hand up, to his hat and take Nahas.

 

“I'll leave Nahas with you, he will connect us” said the shorter man, tending the golden snake to Alastor's neck. “You'll create a barrir around the hotel and we'll face Uriel's forces outside of it.”

 

The golden serpent circled around Alastor's neck and the demon petted the head of the animal with his finger.

 

“Are you sure? Isn't he your halo, don't you need him?” asked Alastor.

 

Lucifer denied.

 

“I won't need my halo for this battle, specially if your tricks are hightenen by my power” said the monarch, with a secure smile to then present a serious one, taking a gander around him to his adult daughter, his daughter-in-law, Husk, Angel, Cherri and Niffty. “Very well, if everyone is ready, place the shield, my love and let's receive this annoying visit.”

 

The Radio Demon nodded and concentrated himself, this time he needed his shield to be unbreakable, the protection of his daughter was too important. He opened his eyes and they were filled with golden energy, his antlers grew and Nahas coiled up in them and with that surge of power, the demon let his magicks go and the shield formed. Very similar in appareance to his old one, but this time the eyes had a golden sclera and ruby pupil, his veve symbols filled with golden energy mixing with the red and green.

 

Alastor then made a gesture and took everyone through shadows outside of the dome.

 

***

 

Ankareeda was in the cottage, with the door closed and playing with her tablet while she was eating cookies and lazily petting Keekee, laying over her lap. Fat Nuggets was oinking while smelling and moving with his nose fixed to the wood floors, trying to get his bearings over the new place he was.

 

Goldie was prepearing some orange juice for the girl while Anka observed something in her tablet.

 

For a moment, a second, there was a message of connecting to the net and now in the top right part of the same there was the symbol. When Vox gifted the object to the girl, he said it was completelly safe for her to use because it didn't connect to Vox's services or the Hellnet in general but there it was, connecting the wi-fi to the net, moved, as she felt it, by magic drowned in electricity: Vox's power.

 

Anka was surprised and she had to thought for a moment, so then she ran, fast, entering into a shadow to go up her attic to take from a box she was saving there a replica of the little shark she added to Vox's friendship bracelet. She kept it in her right palm to then move over it her left hand fingers, casting veve symbols in the air. Her magic activated the stone and faint voices came from it.

 

“Are you ready, your majesty?” that was Vox's voice.

 

“Yes, the portal is opening now for Uriel, is our chance” that was Lilith.

 

The girl was furious, she closed her hand and discharged a punch to the wood of the floors, to then gave it another hit that she used as motivation to move. Again she entered into a shadow to go down, taking the tablet she made a gesture for Keekee and Nuggets to stay... the kitty understood but the pig wasn't even looking in her direction.

 

She went out of the cottage with Goldie and moved her eyes around, trying to find something... she had to go fast.

 

***

 

The portal in the sky opened in is golden colors and the angelic host started to cross. Soon the people of the hotel noticed there weren't so much exorcists as the last attempt at extermination.

 

Sure, they killed a shit ton of them but this wasn't even those remaining numbers. It's like Uriel and Lute couldn't convince more than a third of the heavenly forces to disobey a direct order of the King of Heaven himself.

 

The last ones crossing were Lute and Uriel.

 

The ex-lieutenant of Adam was wearing now clothes in his colors, with a new golden halo over her hand and a golden celestial arm, made from the same material the First Man's axe guitar was made, full pure angelic power.

 

It was the first time the group saw Uriel.

 

Uriel or Auriel or Urielle, was a very beautiful angel, with golden hair like Lucifer with their tips in red color. Clear brown eyes, mediterranean type of skin and with six beautiful wings with tones of golden to red simulating the vision of a soft sunset. They weren't dressed like a warrior, they were wearing a tunic in white with a over piece, like a cape, in a bordeaux color.

 

Lucifer didn't lose time, opening his wings and flying high to meeting them half way, so fast, that he produced a sonic boom sound raising.

 

“Long time no see...” said the monarch, in his full Devil Form. “You took a turn where it wasn't and you end up in a place that ain't your neighborhood, little sibling.”

 

The angels stopped at the encounter with the King of Hell, the exorcists waiting for orders and Lute with a secured and diabolic smile in her face. Uriel, in the other hand, had this soft and almost caring smile that was revolting Lucifer's stomach.

 

“I'll give you this oportunity, just this one, to gather your little friends and get the fuck out of my turf” said the king, closing strongly his fist and producing flames in it. “You have a minute to comply.”

 

Uriel moved in the air nearer the Ruler of Hell, even his movements were soft, almost ethereal... One could see this angel and thought that it was the last one they could worry about, so good and delicate. But Lucifer knew the truth: that same sibling had a very twisted nature hidden inside that he showed in his own trial, placing a blade to Lilith's neck to stop his justified rampage.

 

“Dear brother” they said, with that voice that gave almost the impression they were in any moment forgiving your sins. “Sorry it has come to this, but we can't let your vile influence to corrupt Heaven and you have to pay for the unjust death of our beloved champion Adam.”

 

Lucifer was fuming.

 

“Unjust? UNJUST?!” The voice of the monarch sounded polyfonic, filled with power. “Your fucking frat boy tried to murder my daughter, you could be glad I didn't return all your exorcist bitches and the one-armed wonder here in pine boxes.”

 

Lute was ready to attack the monarch but Uriel moved a hand to signaled her to stop.

 

“Your daughter...” said the angel, soft, almost caring... to then smile in a way that for Lucifer was like Alastor's but lacking part of the humanity the deer demon tried to hide behind. “Your daughter is a hellborn abomination, a waste of angelic potential only worthy to corrupt and fornicate.”

 

The Devil was already seeing red, that commentary just opened the floodgates of his wrath but before he could fly and destroy the secure and vicious smiles from Lute and Uriel, the heavenly host was over him, attacking without a warning.

 

***

 

The tablet was in the soft part of the terrain, in the ground in a zone more or less leveled and Anka was looking at it from a distance of several feet, biting her thumb, waiting...

 

The object started to emit a soft hum sound, vibrating over the terrain to then be visible overcharged by electricity. Seconds, and the electricity moved out of the table to recompose in the form of two humanoid forms that soon went solid showing Vox and the Queen of Hell by his side.

 

The gaze from Anka was severe and angry, making a fine line with her eyes while her little horns made an appearance over her forehead. She signed slowly looking to Vox.

 

'Traitor' she said.

 

“Ankareeda...” the overlord moved just a step. “Sorry to do this but it's for your own good. I'm here with Lilith to help you, to save you and your papa from Lucifer. I know what he did to Alastor, I don't know if you know but he was bad, very bad and your father is here with him against his will. I'm came to rescue you both.”

 

The queen was in silence, looking at the girl with a very unreadable look, with those markings in her beautiful face.

 

'That's what you believe? She told you that?' said the girl with gestures. 'She lies.'

 

Vox was decided to gain the girl, to convince her. He didn't want to hurt her or force her, he wanted the girl that in his mind he was already calling 'future daughter' to be in good standing with him.

 

“She told me the truth, a truth that explains everything” said the TV demon. “Come with us, I will help you, protect you both.”

 

'You're stupid' said the girl, with almost coldness. 'She tried to kill me already, remember? That mark, in her face, was my claw and not my papa or me need rescue from my father.'

 

And that gave pause to Vox. Sure, Lilith had an explanation for that, it wasn't like the TV demon forgot it, he asked. She explained that she was trying to convince Alastor and before his stubborness, she lost her temper and hurt the girl. She was sooo regretful about that and she reasured the demon she wasn't holding a grudge to the girl for the scar on her face.

 

But... Ankareeda looked very secure about that and the way she was looking to Lilith.... He looked back to the woman and she moved, passing by the side of the overlord.

 

“We are wasting precious time” but when she tried to move more than a couple of feet, she was stopped by a barrier.

 

Her eyes moved to the little girl, that now was half smiling and looking deliberately to the ground. There it was a complex double circle with a pentagram and with veve symbols, the queen and the TV demon recognized fast as a trapping sigil.

 

Vox moved to the border, passing his hand caressing the barrier and tried to use his electricity to nullify it but when he called his powers, those weren't coming.

 

“What?!” the girl opened her closed hand and in there she had a copy of the shark adorment on his bracelet.

 

He understood immediactly, it was a type of magic he already saw in the past its use, by Alastor. It was a type of voodoo magic that could block the powers and even the body of someone, animic magick, was called.

 

“Clever girl” said Lilith, impressed.

 

Ankareeda smiled.

 

'I'm not powerful but this will hold until father and papa return from the battle and they will deal with you two' not because she didn't want to fight the queen, but she made a promise to be a good girl and she was ready to fullfill it.

 

Lilith laughed.

 

“Yes, clever, but not enough... Soon I'll have your fucking head in my hands” said the queen. “Your father will be forced to serve me and when he would, I'll kill you, painfully.”

 

“What?” Vox looked to her.

 

“Oh, yes, she's right, Voxxy dear, I lied to you” in a gesture to a side, her nails grew like pointy claws of seven inches and in a fast gesture, she impaled the overlord. “You were so easy, my dear, with that stupid desire of being a white knight. Serves you well... Men, always thinking they can save us.”

 

After caressing his tv face in a very sadistic way, the woman released her claws and let the demon drop to the ground, painfully wounded. Seeing that, Anka released the magic that blocked the powers of the overlord, letting him the possibility to attack the woman, to defend himself but he wasn't doing it, he was there, bleeding.

 

She didn't have time to think about how much wounded was the demon when the Queen of Hell was tearing through her magic like she was opening a very persistent curtain.

 

Goldie took her from her shoulders, when her first instint was fighting and soon, both started to run to the deepest part of the bayou, running to avoid confrontation with that woman.

 

“No matter how much you run, little doe!!” said the woman, going after them. “I'm going to kill you and that little shadow too.”

Notes:

Next one is gonna be hard, as fuck, to write... and if things go well, it's gonna be a meaty one too.

Chapter 48: A deadly game of hide and seek

Summary:

Uriel, Lute and a third of the angelic exorcists, the ones they could convince to disobey the orders of the Archangel and King of Heaven Michael, were attacking the hotel.

After protecting the structure with a shield, like last time, Alastor is prepared for the fight, dealing orders to counter the attack and support Lucifer, who isn't playing anymore with the assailants.

In the inner most part of the Radio Demon's bayou, his little daughter Ankareeda is playing a dangerous game of hide and seek with the vicious Queen of Hell.

Notes:

Ok, I'm pumped to continue with this one so I put my effort in this part. Hope you enjoy it!

“In the 72 names of God; in the names of the angels Sanvai, Sansenvei and Semangelof, protect this child from the evil spirit Lilith and her host of demons. Eagles and vultures chase her outside the crib and room of the infant to the night where she reings.”

~Ancient prayer to protect newborns from Lilith

 

 

In the best day, in the most hopeful day, was ill-advice to attack directly the King of Hell.

 

Attacking Lucifer when he was already furious, in his devil form, with a lot of pent-up aggression stored in his small frame for years, defending his daughter´s hotel and trying to protect his new friends, his new partner and his youngest child was akind of doing bungie jumping tying the rope to your neck. That type of action was meant to enter Hell's Dictionary under the word: Dumbass.

 

The exorcist host jumped over Lucifer like a group of hooligans, all trying to ram a spear through the Fallen Angel, with vicious expressions in their cybernatic masks.

 

“Dad!!” screamed Charlie seeing it was impossible to see the monarch with so many assailants over himself.

 

But soon his wings grew, exploding like dynamite, forcing part of the angels to move far from him. Two of then managed to pierce him over the stomach, almost in a cross pattern but Lucifer just smiled while raming the lances even more inside, piercing himself so deep and fast that the tips of the weapons traversed to his back, raising from him with so much velocity that two angels behind him trying to hold him were wounded instead.

 

Not losing a second, the monarch extracted the spears, launching one like it was a javelin towards one of the exorcists, piercing her head through her eye and using the other to jump over the chest of other while stabbing her.

 

For the way the red light was illuminating his eyes, the growls escaping his throat and how his figure was apparently consuming the light around him, the people of the hotel could deduce that the king was almost in a berserker mode.

 

Alastor knew he couldn't not ponder in that or be preoccupied for Lucifer, specially knowing he was a powerhouse. The hotel needed to be protected and the people under his charge, including his daughter, needed to be safe. He didn't have time to think or worry about his lover, he had a job to do.

 

He concentrated again in his shadow shield and soon tentacles rose from it with weapons, killing every single exorcist the flied too near to it for comfort.

 

“Alastor, we need to help dad!” said Charlie, coming near him and grabbing him from the arm.

 

The deer demon looked at her and sighed. She was nervious, afraid, she needed to calm herself if she wanted to be useful.

 

“The best way to help your father is staying out of the way and curling the angelic army” said the red demon. “Vaggie can fly for herself, you can use Razzle.”

 

The ex-exorcist was attending to the deer demon's words and nodding.

 

“Go up there and start to sift those harpies from the sides, we'll get anyone of them flying low enough” he looked up for a moment, taking in the view of the King of Hell doing something some people will call fighting but he was more lean to call it massacre. “Lucifer will deal with the rest. Do not engage with Lute or Uriel, reserve them for him.”

 

Vaggie wasn't happy with that because she wanted a round 2 with the exorcist crazy bitch but she nodded. If she knew something, that was strategy and following orders and right now was best to make a cohesive plan all together.

 

“I can go up there too” said Husk, susprising everyone.

 

The cat demon, even having wings, was always very anchored to the grown, rarely he used them to fly to the point some people that didn't know him thought he couldn't, that those wings were more vestigial than anything.

 

“Are you sure?” asked Alastor.

 

The bartender nodded.

 

“Yeah, boss, I got some shits to protect” said the demon, preparing his cards and giving a not so subtle gaze to Angel.

 

Alastor thought for a moment to then look back to the cat demon with determination.

 

“Husker, I'll allow you reing over your overlord powers for this fight” said the demon. “Make them feel it and don't let me regret it.”

 

Releasing the dominion of Husk over his own old powers was like losing a little the collar he has around his soul, took a toll on Alastor to allow him do that but he couldn't reach much of those exorcists without hulking out to his eldritch form and in that form he was a target too big to not hit and, even when he hated it, he was vulnerable to angelic steel like every single demon down there even with the extra boost that Nahas was giving him.

 

That was a gamble but, hey, Husk was involved so that was almost cathartic, poetic in a way.

 

Feeling his old power dancing in his finger tips, Husk cracked his neck and opened wide his wings, ready to go with Charlie and Vaggie.

 

“Husk...” Angel didn't know what to say. “Fuckin' destroy them, baby!”

 

“Take care of the fort for me, kid” said the demon, flying a couple of meters to wait for Vaggie and Charlie.

 

Razzle transformed into his draconic semblance and the princess rode him to the fight, with the ex-exorcist with her spear in hand.

 

“Alastor, do ya think...?” started to ask Angel and the demon just denied with his head.

 

“Center in the fight, you're the one with firearms, make every single bullet count” said the deer demon. “Trust in Husk, mon ange, even being my employee, he IS powerful.”

 

***

 

Ankareeda was running as fast and far as her legs and shadows allowed her.

 

She was afraid, that woman attacked Vox even when he was his ally as soon as he had a semblance of questioning her motives. No, the queen wanted to get his papa into a deal but something was telling her, that doe motivated sense of self-preservation, that if she caugh her, that was the end.

 

And even if that wasn't the case, she would never let that woman to own her father, she would rather die first.

 

But she wasn't planning to.

 

That was her father's bayou and for her first seven years of life, that place was all that she knew aside from Rosie's Emporium. She knew every pond, every tree, every rock... and she was counting that she didn't need to best or fight the queen at all. She just needed to avoid her, to just dodge her for enough time for the battle outside to finish and her fathers to come.

 

Resting for a moment with her back against a tree, the girl catched her breath to then look to Goldie, at her side but controlling the direction from where they were coming, trying to be on guard.

 

'We need to distract her' said the girl with signs. 'I'll go to the big pond with the waterfall, you go to the alligators, try to make some noise there so she will follow.'

 

The shadow nodded and went to do her part while Ankareeda, after a deep breath, enter into a shadow and moved to the place. There was a very well concealed little cave behind the waterfall, her father created it after she read about something like that in a book and she had there some toys. She could hid there and wait and Goldie knew where she was, she could tell her fathers.

 

She just needed to wait, the Queen couldn't find her there.

 

But Lilith wasn't planning to delve into a chase, she was a queen and she wasn't dressed to traverse a fucking swamp in heels to catch that horrible feral girl. No, she has other ideas in mind, more intelligent and time saving.

 

The Queen wasn't so sure that Lute and Uriel could contain Lucifer, even using certain advantages in that fight, so she needed to get to the girl fast and easy. She started to walk to the inner part of the bayou, not to where the girl was, but to the small not marked path that led to the cottage.

 

She had a plan, even a plan for when she catched the little beast. No, she wouldn't let her live, not after what she did to her face but she was sure that death will be useful for her either way. A little message here, some venomous words over there and she was pretty sure she could redirect Alastor's fury towards Lucifer. In fact, was his refusal to abdicate his throne to her what placed the girl in the crossfires of their conflict.

 

Lilith found the cottage and enter in there, catching in the surroundings. All that space, even decorated to place a little girl, was screaming 'Alastor'. His smell, his colors... The queen sat at the bed of Ankareeda and took one of her dollies, a little one made in wood, identical to the girl. She was sure Alastor made that for her, specially because he adquiring toys could raise suspicions.

 

“Oh, my sweet misguiden Alastor” said the monarch. “What we could have been. I could have been the mother your daughter needed, care for her like my own, raise her in my image as a powerful and feared princess of Hell and you could have been by my side, singing for me, killing for me, giving me the heat I need in my nights. Oh, Alastor... We are so similar, you and I, we are both born from woe, betrayed by our bodies...”

 

She changed her face, pure sweetness and longing, almost sadness, for pure hate and fury, pressuring the wooden doll with her hand until just splinters remain. The woman cleaned her hands to move again.

 

“But you had to chose him” she denied vigorously with her head to then adjust her own hair in place, eyes closed, trying to calm herself. “Oh, my deer, you're going to kill that groveling disgrace today, because those nasty little angels force you or because you'll lose the only person you love more than him.”

 

She moved around the room and her gloved hands finally catched someting she was searching for. In her hands she had a handmade hairbrush, still with some threads of golden hair attached to it. Such a magnificent idea that girl gifted her, using animic magicks with Vox.

 

“You will come to me, little mouse” she said, going to the little kitchen of the cottage, taking a small bowl and some spices, going with all to the wooden table in front of the little house.

 

She placed the bowl over the table, the hair inside and the spices to then murmur some enochian words while creating violet fire in her hand, lowering to the bowl to mix everything with fire.

 

“Come to me, Ankareeda” she whispered... just to then scream when the whiplash from the magic lashed out to her from three different sources of power. “Fuck!!”

 

She screamed, seeing how the magic cut over her opera gloves with three distintive colors: bone white, neon green and golden. The girl was protected with the magic of the Cannibal Overlord, Alastor and Lucifer, of course she was... The queen took a look at her arms, seeing the damage in his blackened hands, with several cuts over her dark like bark skin.

 

The demoness clicked her tongue annoyed. Again she entered the cottage trying to find something from Ankareeda and took one of her old shirts from when she was a toddler.

 

“Well, I'll hunt you like a bitch then” she said, making another fast spell with the clothes.

 

After five minutes, she opened her eyes and those were filled with violet energy and far, far from her, she saw the silhouette of the girl.

 

“There you are, little mouse” she said, viciously.

 

Her horns grew on her head, her unhealthy tail appeared behind her and a pair of leathery and gaunt bat-like wings adorned her back, flapping them to then raise in the air. She dispised her demons attributes of late, taking part of her beauty away but she wanted to capture and kill that girl as soon as possible.

 

***

 

The angelic exorcists weren't a match for the fury of the King of Hell and for the help of the rest of the hotel.

 

Lucifer was dropping angelic exterminators like they were grains of sand between his fingers and Charlie was managing to divert exorcist nearer her father, trying to escape her pitchfork and Razzle's jaws. Vaggie wasn't having it and she was showing she was one of the most prominent exorcists back in the day, cutting through her ex-companions like they were butter.

 

Husk was fighting in a way that Angel never saw before. He saw him fighting, sure, but he used just his sharp-edged cards and his trick dices but now he was using a level of power that was for sure the mark of an overlord: He was flying, smiling wickedly, making cards appear from thin air to attack on their own accord the exorcists and pursue them like those cards were heat-seeking missiles. Then he pointed to other part and made a top hat to appear and the object sucked inside one of the angels like it was a vacuum cleaner to then dissapear with a pop just to appear over another, dropping the exorcist over, making them both drop to a point where Niffty, riding one of Alastor's shield tentacles like it was a pony jumped both to stab them in the face repeatedly.

 

Then, the disgraced overlord made the top hat to appear in his hand and like a good Las Vegas magician, showed it to the unwary angels before him, like he was presenting a trick and nothing was inside the hat.

 

He threw the hat to them and one of them catch it, ready to dispose of the object to attack its owner when, from the hat, at least of dozen white carnivorous vicious rabbits started to coming out and attacking, with very pointy teeth and sharp claws, the exterminators in their range.

 

“I'll kill everyone of those clowns!!” said Lute, ready to start her own assault.

 

“You won't do such a thing, child” said the archangel. “You have a job to do and you'll do it now. This is the perfect moment and time.”

 

They were talking very calmed, serene almost, to then point to the exorcist with almost laziness and in front of the woman appeared an object. It was a curved musical instrument, similar to a horn but with elegant adorments and filigrees, some mangificent piece made from ivory and gold.

 

“Call their hearts home, my child, and them themselves will turn to the rabble under their feet” said the angel. “Let the music of the Heavens pass its judgement.”

 

“Oh, shit” said Angel Dust, the first from the group in the ground when he noticed how that crazy woman was taking what it appears to be a trumpet.

 

He knew of Uriel's instrument, they talked to them about that posibility when under attack, but the idea that they were about to mess with the head of Lucifer wasn't appealing at all... In fact, he didn't know if only affected him or Vaggie and Charlie were also in danger. Shit, even if they affected just Lucifer, that could be another level of shitshow for them.

 

“Smiles!! That bitch...!” his words died in his mouth.

 

“Don't worry for that now, center in the rest” said the Radio Demon, concentrating in create another tentacles from the ground too to try to immobilize some exorcists.

 

“But I can shot her, maybe I could try” said the spider demon.

 

“Yeah, if they affect the pint size king with that bullshit we are in the crapper” said Cherri Bomb, launching one of her bombs near Niffty, to impact cleanly into an exorcist to close to the little cyclops to comfort. “Shit, if you raise me with the tentacles or even launch me, I bet I can explode that cunt to pieces.”

 

Alastor denied.

 

“No, too risky and we are needed in the here and now... They are trying to elude the princess, Vaggie and Husk and get down to us” said the demon, helping Niffty to jump over his tentacles so she could tackle another angel.

 

“But Lucifer...” said Angel.

 

“Trust in our King, mon ange” said the demon.

 

Alastor looked more than secure, he was smiling... well, he always was, but the spider demon those days, with their flourishing friendship, he was able to discern when the deer demon was being sincere with that smile and when he wasn't. When he was being soft with it or when he was sarcastic... That was a proud secure smile, like he had absolute trust that won't be a problem.

 

He centered in the fight again, shooting to two exorcists trying to get to Husk in his back at the same time that Lute took the trumpet, moved the instrument to her lips and started to blow it producing a sound that was like nails in a blackboard to the present demons.

 

The fight stopped under that sound, for all that had even a molecule of angelic blood in their veins, so only Husk was active after the produced sacred note, stopping after seeing the effect.

 

All the angelic attributes from Uriel made an appearance.

 

Behind their head what looked like a galaxy was formed, in reds and golden colors but in the middle of it, where a star could be placed, there was a black hole giving it a sinister look. His dark blond hair turned red in the tips and both his wings and tunic catched the appearance of embers, of a fire yet not flaming but growing.

 

A big eye formed in his chest, with red iris and others formed in his wings and in one in his forehead and their skin became of a red golden unnatural tint.

 

And in that moment, for Vaggie, Lucifer and Charlie, all was cut to black for a moment and only existed that black hole and Uriel's voice.

 

“My brother, my sad brother” said the voice in his head. “Why fight us? We are family, you know it. We are doing what's right, sinners must be erradicate before they could change Heaven for the worse. You know we had to stop you the same we have to stop them. They don't respect you, Lucifer... they never will. Not even the sinner you love respects you... he's using you. Why fight us when you still have to put that sinner in his place? Take by force what's yours, submit the sinner to your unholy authority and place your house in order. Your daughters shouldn't be disrespecting you the way they do.”

 

Charlie was listening to the voice too.

 

“The disrespected princess, the clown of the court, the jester no one takes seriously” those were the words of the angel in her head. “Your mother doesn't love you, maybe she never did. Your father abandoned you and laugh at your ideas and persona and he never did something to save your from the ridicule you became to all of Hell. Even now, he just replaced you and your mother with a new love and a new child. You will be alone soon, even your partner lied to you and she's playing you, using you to have a secure place here in Hell when she was banished. Relationships are based on dialogue, truths and trust, in what place puts you her silence?”

 

The voice of Uriel resounded inside Vaggie's head.

 

“You're not worthy” he told her. “Your family disown you when you joined the army, when they knew you liked women back then, when you tried to go with your love to keep her safe and what that got you? To be alone, betrayed when she returned with a wound and used her time to cheat on you, to throw away your sacrifice. The exorcists were your new family when you were killed in action in your second tour, they taught you how to fight like an angel, they made you feel accepted in Heaven and you betrayed them. Not only that, you went with the Princess of Hell just because you needed a secure place, you lied to her but she now knows the truth: you are untrustworthy, a liar, a betrayer. You don't believe in her cause, you are lying in that too. You don't trust those monstruos horrible sinners, evil to the core the same as your first love... you don't trust them and they don't trust you. You aren't worth it, Vaggie, you don't have a reason to live unless you create one, unless you return to us, the only ones that accepted and you didn't have to lie about.”

 

The voice was calm in the three scenarios, the voice was playing on their insecurities, in their pains and showing a way out of them, showing a way to escape that torment and coming up on top, to motivate them to reach that happiness.

 

The voice, the soft voice, the truthful voice, the real voice... the only voice...

 

Razzle was confused when Charlie moved him to turn around but he did, the same that Lucifer and Vaggie turned around, facing the ground, where the rest of the hotel were.

 

“Shit” said Husk, moving fast when some now very motivated angels went to attack him.

 

There, in the ground, Alastor was looking to his three allies affected by the Trumpet of Guidance, saw their faces and he knew they were being manipulated but... He wasn't afraid, he wasn't even preoccupied. He was smiling like he was winning.

 

“About time...” he muttered.

 

***

 

Ankareeda was without Goldie, not alone because she had Keekee and Nuggets, in the cave behind the waterfall, feeling the cold of the place and shivering. The cave was very small, no more than six square feet, with a small table and two chairs. There were some toys and a couple of books and the place was beautiful, almost like from a fantasy book.

 

There were some colorful crystals in the walls that reflected part of the light that filtered the water and even when the place was a little humid, it was nice in a way, with only the sound of the water dropping over stone and the smells of the plants and the wet earth.

 

She made a couple of cookies to appear in her hands and started to nibble in them, thinking, trying to relax herself.

 

Her fathers, her sister, her sister in law and her uncles and aunties were fighting a group of angels outside of the hotel. She didn't know how many, she didn't know if this was an easy or hard fight for them. Anka knew her fathers were powerful, specially Lucifer and she was pretty sure that even when he wasn't as powerful as the Devil, Alastor surely had a couple of tricks up his sleeve. All were armed with angelic weapons and she knew for the statue in front of the hotel where the gardens started, that Razzle could take the form of a dragon.

 

The girl offered part of his cookie to both animals and continued to think.

 

Goldie wasn't with her but she was meant to attract Lilith's attention and then run. Maybe with time her fathers didn't need to finish the fight to come get her and stop the Queen, maybe her uncle Michael could come down and stopped them. He was an angel but he was good, right? A little cold and looked slightly unfriendly but she was a good judge of character, she knew he was good as soon as she saw him.

 

Thinking in that and petting both animals, specially Keekee over her lap, the girl didn't notice when something impacted over the waterfall, producing a huge explosion of water. And he was surprised enough for that to escape the claw that closed over her neck.

 

“I got you, little mouse!” said Lilith, taking with brute force the girl out of the cave.

 

The little girl tried to kick her, to bite her and claw her but the firm grip of the queen never faltered even when her blood, red but with sick black spots, started to pour from the wounds in her arm.

 

“Fight all you want, little mouse, I'm going to enjoy my time tearing you piece by piece to then show your mangy corpse to your fucking father.”

 

She batted her wings, jumping high with the girl taken by her neck to drop in dry land near the pond, forcing the girl to the ground while closing both hands over her neck, pressuring, asfixiating her.

 

“You... you stupid mute!!” she made more pressure, Anka was having a hard time breathing. “First you stole my connection to Hell, accelerating my decay... then your fucking father denied me so you could play princess with Lucifer and you clawed me!! Me!! I'm going to enjoy this so much!!”

 

She said, releasing just one hand to dig with her sharp claws over the shoulder of the girl digging his claws deep to then lower them, leaving a bloody trail in the arm of the girl.

 

“I'm going to hurt you until you scream for me, mouse!”

 

Ankareeda was grinding her teeth, she was in huge pain, she wanted to scream, she needed to scream but she wouldn't. That woman wanted her to react that way, she wanted to hurt her and make her suffer and she wasn't about to give her the pleasure... but how much time she could keep up just on pure stubborness?

 

In that moment, something impacted in the woman, make her scream and releasing the claw over the neck of the girl enough to let her breath and cough but not leaving her at all.

 

“Get away from her, you bitch!” Vox was there, holding his stomach with one hand, his clothes bloodied and his free hand charged with electricity, the same as his antenna. “I won't let you hurt her.”

 

Lilith looked at him and she started to laugh.

 

“You can barely stand at all” said the woman with disdain. “The hero arrives... Let me ask you a question, Voxy boy: How it feels to be here fucking simping for a man that will never care for you, that will never love you and trying to do good for a child that won't care two shits about you?”

 

The woman was moving her free hand in the sly, holding thumb and middle finger together and rotating her wrist. Anka saw the movement and felt the magic before it manifested but behind the back of Vox, a copy of Lilith materialized, catching the wounded overlord by surprise, holding him from a shoulder to then stab him with the elongated claws, so long were her nails that they rose from his stomach.

 

“This won't kill you, sinner and all... but soon you will succumb to your wounds and dematerialized” she and her copy laughed. “Useless as always, Vox... no wonder Alastor never took you into consideration, being always the fucking bottom of the barrel. Now, stay there and see me kill the little bitch, so you can regail her father with every single detail.”

 

She returned all her attention to Ankareeda.

 

“Who knows? Maybe Alastor kills you too, blaming you for the lost of his daughter” she said with cruelty.

 

There, he was useless and he knew it. He couldn't possible stop the Queen of Hell and less being wounded, specially if she could use the same trick of the clones that Lucifer did. No, there he was serving no one and he didn't want to give the words of that woman a listen.

 

He already did and maybe Anka was about to pay the price, just because of his stupid obsession with Alastor and his saviour complex. The overlord transformed himself into electricity and moved trying to go out of the bayou.

 

“Coward...” the queen laughed. “See, honey? He doesn't care, in the end, you can only trust in yourself. Men, by definition, are useless.”

 

***

 

Vox dropped in the ground of Alastor's room, he was losing a lot of blood but he couldn't fail now, he couldn't lose his form and fail Ankareeda, fail to save her from a problem he himself provoked.

 

Maybe he failed Alastor, way too many times, maybe with this last action he will kill the little that was between them even as possible friends but he wasn't about to fail Ankareeda, not this time. His mouth was full of his blood, his clothes more red than blue... His eyes wandered to the hearth of the room, with Alastor's hellfire illuminating the space.

 

The overlord moved limping to it, with decision he took the poker and introduced it in the flames for a moment, moving it over the fire and the embers, over the firewood and when the flame licked the black rod to an orange color, he took a breath three times before moving the hot metal to his flesh.

 

The scream was accompanied by the smell of burned flesh.

 

***

 

“Where were we?” asked the queen to suddenly start to strangle the girl again. “Yes, I was torturing you, little mouse.”

 

The girl had tears in her eyes, she had her jaw clentched, refusing to scream but didn't matter how much she tried to claw her in the arms, Lilith didn't move, didn't lose her hold.

 

“Don't worry, I won't kill you in this way... I just want to drink from your pain, little mute” said the woman with pure hate. “Soon I'll start to cut parts of your body... let's say, let's start by those eyes of yours... too similar to Alastor's.”

 

She said, moving one of her elongated nails to one of the eyes of the girl, slowly, near and closer every second... At least until Goldie appeared and shoved the queen to a side. And wasn't the only protector that arrived at the time of need to save the girl.

 

Keekee, that was drop to a side by the brutish ways of Lilith, managed to move outside of the cave and elude the water to go to defend the girl, jumping to claw at the demoness' face to then place herself protective in front of Ankareeda.

 

“Stupid shadow, stupid treatorous animal!!” she said, angry more with Keekee than with Goldie. “I'm your master, stupid key, I gifted you to Charlie!!”

 

But the magical beast snorted to roll her eyes, like that was the biggest lie in that side of the Pentagram and it was true. Keekee was the soul of the old hotel and that hotel was before that a theatre for the family, Lucifer constructed the placed and gifted to Lilith and Lilith to Charlie for her misguiden project. But when the King created with the help of the rest the new hotel, again he imbued Keekee to be its soul.

 

She was never Lilith's and now less than ever.

 

Ankareeda rose from the ground, her arm was hurting but already it was healing itself. Her throat was worse than ever and she was alone, with Goldie and Keekee to defend herself from the Queen of Hell... and she knew she couldn't run. She found her once, she could find her again.

 

The feline jumped in the air and the girl catched her by reflex.

 

For Charlie, Keekee was a key to access all the secrets of the hotel. For Lucifer she was a keyblade he could use to create or a weapon to protect the hotel.

 

For Anka, with the key familiar accepting her as one of her cherished owners, the familiar turned into a Kee Keystaff, a long key that the girl felt with powerful magic as soon as she touched her metalic form. She was black with a top in form of a heart with the eye of the feline in the middle and six wings in pink and green, reminiscent of Lucifer's but in those two mixed colors instead of red and white.

 

Lilith rose from the ground, she was salivating a mix of blood and black ooze.

 

“Do you really think you can fight me, mute?” said the vileness the tall woman. “I'm the Queen of Hell!!”

 

With just one hand, Ankareeda started to sign.

 

'And I'm my father's savage daughter and I won't go down on my knees' she said.

 

She presented herself secure, that's something she learned from her father, to smile and present always in control... even when she felt her legs like jelly, her heart was pounding hard in her chest and her hands, both now holding to Keekee, were sweaty.

 

Doesn't matter what Lilith said about men, she trusted her fathers and friends will save her, she knew, in her heart, they'll do.

 

She just had to keep fighting until that moment.

Notes:

Next one is gonna be intense, there will be a huge reveal and the beginning of something... won't say what. You'll see but I'm motivate so, if nothing happens, you'll see it soon.

Chapter 49: Mental palaces and the hand that guides

Summary:

Uriel let Lute used their trumpet and now Vaggie, Charlie and Lucifer were affected by its power, manipulated the three in their minds by the archangel's power to attack their friends.

Information is power but those used to be in power sometimes have blind spots due to habit. And those used to be at the bottom of the barrel, know very well how to prepare and survive.

Notes:

I wanted to update this before Christmas and I managed! Also I want to upload the next one soon... Oh, the next one have me salivating. I thought in placing that part in this one but it was becoming massive and I don't want that. Don't worry, X-mas is like regular days for me, so maybe around those days you'll have that chapter too.

If not, and we don't see here: Happy Christmas for you all!

“Everything that lives is designed to end. They are perpetually trapped in a never-ending spiral of life and death. However... life is all about the struggle within this cycle. That is what 'we' believe.”

~Pod 153, Nier Automata

 

 

Alastor continued smiling. Not as his tense smile, not that smile that his eyes could betray as false or a mask, he was genuinely smiling before the image of the three angelic touched from his advance guard being affected by Uriel's trumpet.

 

And not only the instrument did something to them, he noticed the power of the archangel, he felt their reach touching the minds of his companions, of his lover and the two women. Apparently, linked to that object of power, Uriel could influence the minds of the affected and, as Alastor predicted from his conversation with Michael, the object only affected those with angel blood.

 

The deer demon could be proudful of a lot of things, mostly as a facade used to mask his insecurities and traumas, but one of the things he could truly be, it was his cunning. He loved to plan, to manipulated, to use the weak points of his enemies against them but also, if he could, their strong points too. Sometimes, he learned along his afterlife, when someone was very good with something, that person could place all their eggs in the same basket: A stupid error when you have a stag very prone to stomp hard on obstacles.

 

The demon was smiling because he knew they were about to do that, he knew to whom that could affect and he took a meassure about it. If something he learned when he confronted his dreadful father when he dropped to Hell, it was that the most delicious thing was to turn your enemies strong points against them.

 

“What we do now?!” asked Angel, almost panicking, looking up to Lucifer, Charlie and Vaggie, apparently ready to drop and attack them.

 

“The Trumped was played, mon ange, so some Gehenna is ensued!!” he said, laughing maliciously while Cherri and the spider demon looked back to him like he was crazy.

 

Only Niffty was smiling with the same disposition, still riding one of Alastor's tentacles to reach easier some exorcists, jumping on them like a provervial death rain with the help of those tendrils that were protection and trampoline. She knew Alastor well, her friend had a plan, a wicked, evil plan.

 

Lute catched on Alastor... Sure, Uriel was sure of their object of power, of their own power but the woman wasn't stupid and, even when she loathed sinners, that man was not losing his mind or reacting like he should be having the King of Hell against him. He was reacting like someone that had a hand over a nuclear button and not a single fiber of morals to use it.

 

“Sir??” called the lieutenant. “That filthy demon is planning something, doing something.”

 

Uriel, still in their angelic form, made a gesture with soft hand.

 

“He's just one more crazed soul, child” said the archangel. “An impious soul lost in this realm of perdition and madness. Soon he's existence will be silent, for good.”

 

The deer demon stopped laughing slowly, still his smile was diabolic, his eyes fixed on the archangel painting an image of purity and the divine, so similar to those churches his mom made him visit to keep appareances. It wasn't good, aside from being black, not being pious. Black people in his time, creole specially, never could affort much. Not only physical belongings but also you couldn't get mad or angry or show some character or sometimes even showing moxy was not only frown upon... you could get murdered for that. No, that sanctified image wasn't doing it for him like in life because he knew what lurked beneath the surface, beneath the imaginery of that angel...

 

Only one angel deserved his devotion and he was claiming that angel back.

 

“Oh, my dear, not a single soul managed to silence me in life or afterlife” said the demon, amplifying his voice so Uriel and Lute could listen to him clearly. “Allow me to introduce myself: I'm Alastor, the Radio Demon, it's a pleasure to be meeting you, quite a pleasure. Apparently you have my lover and my adoptive daughters in your grasps and I'm taking them back, if you please.”

 

He said and Uriel just laughed, musically and soft, like a father listening to something very stupid their child was saying, forgiving them for their stupidity.

 

“They are released from the necessity to think” said the archangel. “Demon, they are not yours anymore, they never were. My misguided brother was created by Creation and these two young women are touched by divinity... They are ours, they belong fighting our fight, our holy crusade to free this plane of the bad seeds before they could enter the Realm of Heaven.”

 

And Alastor laughed again. Lute knew, she knew... she knew that type of acting, that smile, that security. She wasn't stupid, single minded maybe, but never stupid and that man, that demon, was oozing so much security that she was very tempted to left the archangel to dance that tango by themselves.

 

“Oh, darling” said the demon. “You look back to us like we are ants. I bet you even look to winners that way... Not because we did bad things, naughty things but because we are humans. You assume, my dear, that we are all insects under your divine garments... mere bugs... but my dear mother knew better. She always warned me about bugs, little things that can be more dangerous than they look. Because she knew... Little bugs can be quite sneaky...”

 

Angel opened his eyes when he noticed him... The same Husk and Cherri, being this one that last that noticed that something was creeping out of Lucifer, something viscous and black, something oozing from his back and they all remember something.

 

“...And little bugs can be quite poisonous” Oncle was embeded with Lucifer, hinding within the little shadows of his clothes and he was moving his ghostly hands to the king's ears. Alastor cane glowed in golden, the sigil of the Monarch of all Hell was bright as his true name while Nahas, his companion serpent, was biting the apple, that was also part of him, the Last Fruit of Eden, releasing part of its juice, red as blood, over the forehead of Alastor like an unholy baptism.

 

Alastor could interrupt the melody of the Trumpet in their heads... because Oncle was centered in the king but was launching tentacles, too fast and surprising to stop, to Charlie and Vaggie's heads... but why he was about to deny the power the trumpet gave, the power of being free of doubts, of constrains, of fear... of morals and not use it? Because now, with the power given by Lucifer, he could.

 

“Let me teach you this lesson, my dear” said the Radio Demon, viciously, his eyes in radio dial form but golden with the power of the Lightbringer, his voice overtook by raw energy. “Maybe you are one of the powerful angels up in Heaven looking down on us, with short and unjust lives, dealing with the cards Creation allowed us to have, some of us with very poor hands, dealing with all the bad a cruel world can throw at us but down here in the mud, down here on Tartarus, you are just the fish that is going to be eaten by an alligator, because I'm just a sinner, that's true, but this sinner... It's King in the Airwaves.”

 

And he snapped.

 

***

 

Outside of time, just in the mind of Lucifer...

 

The king was in the space in his mind, looking at something marching from his side, barely silhouettes of a very tall man with antlers and a very small figure taking his hand. Going far, far from the crying monarch, far from his reach, from his hand... leaving him, again, in a space blank of anything important, so, so utterly alone.

 

“I can't lose you, not again... Oh, please, please... I can't lose you again” Lucifer was hugging himself, rocking in place, tears washing his face. “I need to get you back, I love you so much I can't lose a love and a daughter all over again... I need you, by my side, I need you...”

 

He extended his hand and at the same time he was taking his devil form, releasing his wings, the horns raising as a crown from his forehead, his tail trashing like a whip.

 

“If you take me by force, you'll lose me again for sure” said the calm voice of Alastor, coming from behind the monarch. “I'm a wild animal, Lucifer. I can love you, be loyal to you, I can be your partner and your hunting hound. I'll let you command me and love me... but the very same moment you'll try to place a collar on me, I'll make everything in my hand to be free again. I'll claw my own neck to be free, even if it means my death.”

 

The Alastor in the mental emptiness of Lucifer was dressed in pure white, with clothes so similar to Lucifer's ringleader attire that they could only be very same in his size. His cane was also different: a simple cane with Nahas coiling around and resting his head over Alastor's hand.

 

“But... You'll leave me again” said the monarch. “You'll catch on how weak I am, how pathetic and you'll leave me or hate me, like she did.”

 

“I'm NOT Lilith” he tapped the ground with the cane, sounding like a thunder. “And you aren't weak or pathetic. My love is not for the weak and plain, my love wasn't for a mortal, a human... My love is a driving force only moved for the exceptional. You are that. You are my Morning Star and you will not be the puppet of Heaven ever again.”

 

He tapped again his cane, the eyes of the monarch were wide open, looking to the demon, authoritarian and powerful.

 

“Who are you, Lucifer?” asked the demon. “A sweet little angel? An abandoned husband? The shadow of Lilith? A disgrace father?”

 

Lucifer growled.

 

“Or are you Lucifer, my partner, the father of the child that rose from my own belly over my own hands, born from shadow. The father of Charlie the First Redeemer, the Morning Star, THE KING OF HELL?!” he was, little by little, raising his voice.

 

The monarch growled again, like a lion that is suddenly free from his circus and now he has the posibility to eat the animal handler that was tormenting him all the time.

 

“I'm the fucking King of Hell!!” said the monarch, biting the words and baring his teeth.

 

“Then show those traspassing in your Realm what means to defy the King of Darkness!” said the Radio Demon with elation, tapping his cane once more, bringing color... red, of fire, of blood, of sacrifice, around Lucifer. “Go and show to those that want to oppress us that here, in your kingdom, in my home, we eat those who dare.”

 

***

 

Outside of time, just in the mind of Charlie...

 

The princess was crying over her bed. Her bedroom looked like the scene of a very strong fight, with everything thrown in the ground or broken, with the photographs slashed. Not even Razzle was in her mind, just her, crying, over her bed, alone.

 

“Everytime I found you alone, you're an absolute mess, my dear” said the Radio Demon, sitting next to Charlie in her bed.

 

In her mind he was dressed with the three piece suit and the top hat he used the first time they sang together and with his black light person, the one he used sometimes when he was using magic and music to get his point across.

 

“Fuck you, Alastor” said the woman, trying to cover herself with her duvet. “I can't handle your creepiness and cruelty right now.”

 

“Do you find me cruel, my dear?” said the demon softly. “Was I ever cruel to you?”

 

“No but...” she tried to find the words, even in her mind he couldn't speak her mind, thing Alastor found funny.

 

“But, but, but, but...” he denied with his finger. “I was never.”

 

He rose from the bed and walked around, catching on the details and looking finally outside the window. The image was even worst that real Hell and that was something. Fires, screams, suffering... She saw her realm just like that, more like the biblical Hell than what they have.

 

“Tell me, my dear, what is all this?” he said, pointing around the room with his cane. “All this desolation, solitude and boredom?”

 

Charlie just whimpered from her improvised refuge under the covers.

 

“I thought you were more than this... princess waiting for a rescue archetype” said the demon. “Disney must be salivating with this scenario, I'm pretty sure he must be around here somewhere... maybe working with Voxxy.”

 

“Let me alone, I can't do this anymore” said the woman. “Nobody believes in me, everyone laughs at me and everytime I think I find the one...”

 

The Radio Demon clicked his tongue and made a gesture with his cane. All the bedding of Charlie was removed from the bed, duvet, sheets...

 

“Enough of that, my dear” said the deer demon. “This isn't you, my demonbelle. This was never you. You smiled back to Hell, to adversity, to naysayers... you were always an optimist to a fault.”

 

The woman hit the mattress with her fist.

 

“And that what got me?” she said. “I have no friends, my parents doesn't love me and the most important person in my life doesn't support me, doesn't love me like I love her. She lied to me.”

 

Alastor rose a brow.

 

“If you're behaving like a child, maybe I'll tell you a tale, like those you love so much” said the demon. “Once upon a time there was a princess that knew she had a destiny. She was sure of it because she was kind of a miracle herself, born from an angel and the First Woman. The Princess feared nothing because her calling was more important to her than her pride, her feelings or her wellbeing. Her father, due to his traumas, didn't approve but she gifted the girl with anything she could possible want to get her due.”

 

The demon made a gesture and everything around him changed, images extracted from the very mind of the woman. Memories.

 

“She flaunted her dream to her realm in live TV even knowing the result” continued the demon. “Because she feared nothing. That princess not only managed to took an enemy of the realm and transform her in her stronger support, someone ready to die and kill for her, who also feared nothing, but also she catched the eye of a perverse and terrible wizard. A master of shadows and darkness and even when he was full of bad intention and malice... She turned him around. She called herself his friend and she was ready to even face the king to protect the evil wizard... and his last part.”

 

He said the end of the sentence softly, going to the bed again and sitting, next to Charlie that stopped to cry to just look at him.

 

“Charlie, you showed me you have a very sharp mind, lack of malicious intent and we'll work on that, my dear but...” he smiled to her softly. “You are special. You're a speck of hope born from the bowls of Hell, really you don't know how special you are, girl? Your father loves you so much that, for a time, I feared he didn't have love left for me or my little one. Vaggie loves you so much, she was ready to throw hands with me even when she thought I was evil incarnated when we met. And me... oh, my darling, you managed the impossible, not only you consider me your friend, you managed to make me feel the same.”

 

Then he bonked her in the head with this cane, releasing from it a sharp feedback sound. Not hard to produce pain but she moved the hand to the place of impact.

 

“And you already managed even a bigger feat: You redeemed a sinner!!” his radio sound, silent till that moment, came to life with applausse and cheers. “All of Hell will have to admit they were wrong and you were right. But your job isn't done, my dear.”

 

He moved, energetic, jumping to be on her feet, like a showman presenting a spectacle of a century.

 

“The show must go on, my princess!!” said the demon, opening his arms and when he did, all the walls of the room dissapeared, like they were pushed to reveal a brighter Hell, almost like the human world, with people walking happy and secure without the fear of angels descending from the Heavenly Sphere. “Are you gonna stop now after one success?”

 

Charlie cleaned her face.

 

“No” she said, moving to sit in the bed.

 

“Are you gonna fail your people?” asked the demon.

 

“Of course not!” she rose from the bed, stanting over her feet.

 

“Are you gonna let your love and your family to fight all your fights for you?” asked with passion.

 

“Fucks no! I can fight my own battles” said the woman, changing her clothes to her battle outfit. “I will defend my family and my fucking hotel!”

 

Alastor laughed, soundly.

 

“Then go, my dear!!” said the Radio Demon. “On wings of hope rise up, my valiant princess, to protect your love ones and your mission.”

 

***

 

Outside of time, just in the mind of Vaggie...

 

The Alastor that appared in the thunderous mind of the ex-exorcist was more monstruos. Taking part of his demon form, he was double his size, his limbs were elongated and contorted in unnatural ways like he had more joints in different places. Also he noticed the green thread, sewing him together... Charlie must have told her about magical sutures only present in his demon form like when they made the deal.

 

But not only that, he was more evil in appareance, more unhinge, with long hair brushing the ground, unkept and greasy, longer and deadlier claws, even his cane was twisted and convoluted in his enormous hand, more a branch from a terror tree than cane. Even the eye wasn't the elegant one he had in it but a full blown eye, the complete orb, levitante over the staff.

 

Was a marvelous image the one that Vaggie had of him.

 

The place was loud, screams and people around the laying figure of the woman, kicking her relentlessly and she allowing it.

 

“Perra pendeja tortillera!” was screaming one of the voices.

 

The people kicking Vaggie down didn't have a form defined, they weren't people but shadows, with vague forms and nothing more but for the form the woman complained and whimpered, the damage of the kicks were real, the same as the damage of the words.

 

“Mala hija, lencha, torcida!!” another voice, this one femenine.

 

“Desviada, mereces que Dios te castigue con dolor y sangre” said another voice.

 

“I never loved you” another voice, woman again. “People like us doesn't love, we have good times, but nothing more.”

 

“You deserved to die” one voice.

 

“You deserve to fall” another voice.

 

“You don't deserve love again, you won't get permanent love” another voice.

 

“You lied” another.

 

“You lied” another.

 

“She loved you and you lied” another.

 

“They can be redeemed and you killed them” another.

 

“Enough!” Alastor tapped his cane while growling and the group dissapear like smoke hit by wing.

 

He moved near the woman and her, black and blue, hurt and bleeding, turned to look at him.

 

“Are you going to kick me while I'm down too?” she asked. “Or worse... maybe devouring me whole or offer me a deal for my soul, perhaps... A la mierda... I bet even in this moment, I can fuck things worse.”

 

The demon twisted his head to a side, with the sound of broken neck that in the end was more like the crunch of old wood in a haunted forest in that form.

 

“Do you think I'll do something like that to you?” asked the deer.

 

“You forced Charlie into a deal, didn't you?” she responded, cleaning the blood from her mouth and trying to sit on the ground.

 

“To protect my daughter, remember?” said the demon. “My, my... he did a good number in your angelic head. Do you really think you are this? This distasteful little thing that allows low life vermin to kick her?”

 

“Que te jodan...” she said biting the words.

 

“The Vaghata I know will kick their asses just for badmouthing her” said the demon. “Fuck, she will kick even my ass and Lucifer himself if she thought we weren't supportive enough with Charlie or defend her properly. Because that's what you are, Vaghata, dear.”

 

“Not my fucking name!” she replied.

 

“And what's your name then? Puching ball, boxing bag?” asked the demon. “Adam gave you that name because that was all that he saw in you. You were a bad ass exterminator, I bet your body count makes mine looks like a chump... and that depraved celestial mistake just saw you as a body part. He gave you a name to mock you, I gave you one knowing very well what I attached to it.”

 

He moved his oversized hand and took the fallen angel by the chin, very softly, just placing one falange from his index finger under it.

 

“You're a warrior, a protector, you're the last line of defense for Charlie” he said. “You're my Vaghata, strong as a hammer, direct like a wrecking ball, deliciously stubborn and infurientingly righteous. You're our Vaghata, the one we know we can count on, the one that will be there for Charlie and Ankareeda, for Lucifer and for me and for all the miscreants of the hotel, the ones we have and the ones will have. Because you, my dear, are not defind by this...”

 

Around them again the worst scenes of Vaggie's life, the way her family reacted when they learned she loved a woman, how that same woman betrayed her. Her death in the army, in a country far from home... Her training in Heaven, Adam, the name, the exterminations, her compassion causing her own fall. Even Charlie's words when she learned she was an angel. Like mirages around her, they repeated again and again.

 

“This isn't you...” the demon touched one illusion and changed, this time the scenes were unknown to Vaggie.

 

Scenes she never lived, not her memories.

 

“The same this isn't me” and with those words, she understood.

 

She saw... Alastor being beaten by his father when he was little, the insults with his transition, for being creole, for just being different. The moment he killed his father, insults directed to him when he was a young man, fights and more insults. One of the last scenes she could see was Alastor, most likely in his thirty, on the ground of a kitchen, his mother in his arms, covered in blood and bruises and... something written, a message in the wooden floor: You next, grifter girl.

 

“This... they did this...” said Vaggie, her hand over her mouth as a mere reaction.

 

“I made them pay” said the demon. “There and here. But this, all of this!! This isn't us! We are not our traumas, we are not our worst moments. You and I, Vagatha, we were forged by those but we?! We are fucking fighters and not a single soul will tell us what we are, will tell us what we should feel and we will never be put down, my dear. Because you and I are fucking armors to protect the people we care about. I won't let Heaven to take my Lucifer or my Ankareeda. Are you gonna let them take Charlie? Let that bitch Lute to hurt her?”

 

“Fuck no!” And she made a gesture and her spear was in her hand, tapping the floor with it.

 

“Then go” said the demon, changing to a new form, more his regular self, showing the change in perception that Vaggie had. “Because Vaghata means tigress and that is what you are, our tigress fending the enemy with tooth and claw.”

 

***

 

One second later...

 

Just one second after the snap, the expressions from the three affected companions changed completelly. Rage, determination, security... They turned around again facing Uriel, Lute and the rest of the exterminator angels under the satisfied gaze of the Radio Demon.

 

“What?” Uriel dropped his angelic semblance just from pure surprise. “This is... impossible. My Trumpet was made by Creation, its control is...”

 

“Sonic” said the deer demon. “Maybe Creation gifted you with a fancy Apocalypse buttom but by the Grace of Lucifer I received here the gift of being the master of soundwaves and radiowaves. In that sphere of influence you bow down to me... because your power is mine. And now, my king, highly motivated by your fancy tool but free of mind, is gonna kick your fucking ass, bitch.”

 

And like an announcer, he raised his hand pointing to the sky.

 

“Take it from here, darling!”

 

Lucifer smiled like Uriel never saw him before.

 

“With pleasure, my love” said the Devil, with that smile that the archangel was starting to fear, like something primal creeping in his body, taking out his throat and delivering at the same time a cold sweat down his spine... Or he thought that, taking archangels couldn't produce sweat.

 

One flap of wings from Lucifer and he was face to face with Uriel, looking directly to his eyes, meassuring him with his gaze barely inches away.

 

“Welcome to Hell, bitch” said the king to just bitchslap Uriel so hard in his face that he impacted on the ground near the group of the hotel.

 

“Sir!!” yelled Lute, trying to move nearer the archangel just to find Vaggie standing in her way.

 

The latina was looking to the other exterminator angel with a smile secure and ready, enough to give the lieutenant some pause.

 

“You have bigger things to worry about, bitch” and Lute had just time to block the spear with her sword before entering into a full aerial battle with the other woman.

 

Charlie, for her part, moved Razzle to face the rest of the exorcist, pointing to them with her pitchfork.

 

“This is my fucking hotel and you're traspassing!” said the princess. “If you don't stop trying to attack it, I won't kill you but you're gonna wish I did.”

 

And she moved the dragon to release a powerful fire breath in the direction of the exorcist.

 

“Oh, shit!” said Angel, resuming the fighting shoulder to shoulder with the Radio Demon. “Alastor, you motherfucker!!”

 

He said, laughing seeing how the two angels and the princess were demolishing their oponents.

 

“Shit, edgelord, you should warn us” said Cherri, also fighting again.

 

Alastor parried an exorcist lance to then grap the weapon by the shaft, force the angel to come nearer him and biting hard in her neck, just to release a tentacle from his back carrying the Morningstar sword, beheading the attacker.

 

“To fool an enemy, you need to fool your allies” said the demon, his mouth full of golden angelic blood after gulping the meat. “Uriel was overconfident and that was their downfall. Those used to be in power are always the same: they get so sure they can't be remove from that position, in their own capacities, they end up complacent.”

 

Angel shot to an attacker too near to Alastor, while Alastor pierced two other ones behind the spider demon and Cherri.

 

“They never needed to evolve, to survive, to persevere...” the demon entered into a shadow to re-appear just in time to block an attack on Cherri Bomb. “There is no greatest pleasure as to make titans fall, mon ange.”

 

He said to the pornstar while Angel was taking care of two exorcists that were about to attack Niffty.

 

“I told ya before and I'll tell you again, Smiles” said the demon. “You're a fucking block.”

 

The demon granted a wicked smile for Angel before returning to the fight.

 

Lucifer, for his part, had Uriel pinned down on the ground under him. While the archangel tried to free himself it was impossible: Lucifer was too much powerful, even physically. They even tried to escape using their power to become pure light but that didn't work when the darkness from the King moved from his hands to nullify the transformation, creating momentary dark chains.

 

“You... you were always like this” he started to punch his sibling. “Always so full of yourself, so fucking sure of being pure, saint and all that bullshit.”

 

The angel was starting to bleed from their mouth.

 

“But guess what? You aren't doing Creation work, little sibling” said the monarch. “Creation dropped Sir Pentious' ass in front of Sera and Emily, according to Michael... Yes, we talked, shitass... Try to guess what the message was.”

 

“That c-can't be, our brother hates you, like the rest of us, serpent!” said the archangel after spitting some blood.

 

“Yeah, I'm a serpent” he let his tongue to flicker out of his mouth for a moment. “But at least I'm not a conniving little asshole conspiring with a femme aspid and Adam's crazy fangirl.”

 

“You! The traitor, the mistake, talking about conspiring or being conniving... You betrayed Michael and Creation with the Original Sin, this place shouldn't exist and it's your fault!” screamed the archangel, with pure fury.

 

“I wasn't trying to be conniving or create Hell... I felt in love” said Lucifer. “And even when that love was sour in the end, I don't regret it in the slightless. That love gave me my daughter, my capacity for loving others gave another daughter and a partner and all their love made me whole. I didn't want to hurt my siblings or Creation's plan but don't fucking try to act like our actions were the same. You did this with malice... And you deserve to pay for it.”

 

And he prepared his fist.

 

He didn't have angelic steel, because, at the end of the day, Lucifer didn't need it. He knew he could kill any angel is he put his mind to it, he had to live with that truth and he felt better everything he thought he never killed a sibling or even an exorcist. Now, something he was holding and refusing to do all his existence, he was ready to break it.

 

Uriel crossed a line and he needed to pay, so his hand filled with hellfire and he was ready to struck his sibling with it, when the portal to Heaven opened again, pouring more exorcists but this time not alone.

 

Michael was flying with them, accompanied by two other archangels: Gabriel and Raphael. The later was a dark haired man, young, with walnut color skin and piercing green eyes while Gabe was a tall dark blonde older man, with the appareance of a forty something one, with kind black eyes.

 

The three descended near the King of Hell and the mistreated archangel.

 

“Enough, Luzbel” said Michael, with his usual monotone voice.

 

“Help me, brothers, this vile demon was close to destroy me” asked, pleaded the archangel.

 

Gabriel rolled his eyes.

 

“He won't kill you but not because you don't deserve it” said Raphael, moving to kneel near Lucifer and placing a soft caring hand over his shoulder. “Don't burden yourself with this, Sammy. We'll manage this.”

 

Lucifer had the temptation of removing the hand, growl and going for Uriel's head either way but... The tone from his brother was so calm, the smile so sincere. He had to admit he missed that and... he couldn't do it.

 

He relaxed until all his devil attributes were hidden from view again.

 

“Raph, good to see you” said the monarch, softly.

 

“Good to see you too, big bro” responded the archangel.

 

In that moment, Gabriel just launched to him and hugged him, strong, happy, almost crying.

 

“I missed you so much, Sammy!!” said the archangel, with almost sobs.

 

“It's... it's Lucifer now” responded the king, without really knowing what to do but becoming very emotional.

 

“Lucy then!” said Gabriel, moving to look to his big brother for a moment to then hug him again.

 

“Brothers, we'll have time for that, we need to attent to this first” said the King of Heaven.

 

In that moment, both Vaggie and Charlie landed. The princess stopped attacking the exorcists as soon as they stopped themselves and ex-exorcist was carrying Lute as prisioner, throwing her new golden arm to the ground, in front of Michael.

 

“This bitch is also yours” said the latina, releasing the other woman, landing Lute on her knees in from of head of the Archangels.

 

“Sir, I...” Michael silenced her.

 

“Not a word, Lieutenant” said the monarch of the High Sphere. “Your actions, the same as Uriel's, will be judge in a court martial in from the First Sphere and the Archangel councels. Take them, please.”

 

He ordered to a group of exorcists that tied the archangel and the woman with angelic ropes, the same the rest of the exorcist army was capturing and tying the survivors from Uriel's militia.

 

Oncle, seeing the fight was finished, came out of Lucifer's shadow at the same time that Alastor teleported near the king.

 

“Are you ok, beloved?” asked the demon, hugging him and kissing him.

 

Lucifer smiled softly, caressing his face.

 

“Never better” he looked back to the shadow. “So... that's why you didn't want to left Oncle with Anka, hmmm? Worried for me, love?”

 

“Always, my king” said the demon.

 

Taking everything was finished and with good note, to even Lucifer being able to save that part of him that never hurt one of his siblings, the demon smiled sincerely while letting the shield around the hotel to drop.

 

Just to find Vox, limping, holding his stomach and going to him, bloodied and bruised.

 

“Vox?!” He moved to the demon, holding to him at the same time he was almost fainting.

 

“Al, don't lose time... Lilith...” she pointed, without strenght, to the hotel. “She's with Anka, she's gonna... you have to save her, Al, I couldn't... it's my fault...”

 

The deer demon opened his eyes wide, moving his gaze from his ex-partner to the hotel to then, fast, dropping into his own shadow.

 

His bayou was a side dimension, a pocket one, aside but adjacent to the real space, it was prepare to prevent intrussions of any kind, even his own. Nobody could watch with powers inside the bayou from outside, nobody could teleport directly to it. He couldn't go directly to Ankareeda but he appeared in the room and started to run while connecting his senses with his dominion, trying to locate his child.... before it was too late.

Notes:

Next one is the last revelation of the fanfic and full Anka, I'm dying to write it!

Chapter 50: No good deeds...

Summary:

Ankareeda is ready to hold the Queen of Hell until her fathers could rescue her but she gets some unexpected help.

Alastor has a decision to make: Will he do what's right or he will chose the easy pathway doing what is right just for him?

Maybe taking advice and a page from Husk's book isn't a good idea, or is it?

Notes:

Happy Sinmas! I wanted to upload this on the 25th but this chapter was a beast to write. It's long, it's intense... and it left me emotionally drained.

Btw, tags changed.

“Doing what's right is never easy... You think you're right, but you lose track of what you were trying to do all along and then there's blood and screaming and death. Doing a bad thing for a good end just sours the good.”

~Janice Hardy, Blue Fire

 

 

Ankareeda was ready, Keekee tranformed in a key-staff in her hand, her shadow ready to attack in her shoulder, the Queen of Hell was the enemy and she had to remember how her father taugh her to fight, to protect herself.

 

That woman wasn't playing, she wanted her dead.

 

***

 

Three years ago, Alastor's bayou on Cannibal Town...

 

'But I don't want to fight, papa' she said with signs, still in the hug of her father.

 

Both were in the bayou, sitting near one of the ponds with comfortable clothes, dressed the girl with a simple dress and Alastor with a burdeoux shirt and some brown pants, he had rolled the sleeves and the pants a little and he had his hooves in the pong, the same that Ankareeda, hugging her from behind.

 

“But you need to learn, mon étoile” said the deer demon, moving his claws with care and softly through her golden locks. “I told you about the king, we escape him when you were little and you were hurt when we were running. The Evil King wants to lock me up and I'm trying to find a way to defeat him but I still don't know how to do and I don't know if I can keep you safe until I do.”

 

He rose with his little girl in arms. Alastor didn't want to burden his daughter, his precious daughter with that, with knowing they were in danger and that they had a powerful enemy but he knew it was a necessity.

 

If Lucifer learned he was alive and that he had his daughter despise his wicked attempts to make him abort her, surely he will hurt her, kill her or use her to force him to submit. And submit he would because his daughter was everything to him but that was, even terrible as it was, just wishful thinking.

 

The Devil showed him he wasn't a patient man, he was a calculated one... He was fury, made man and he was pretty sure he would never forgive him from escaping Magne Manor.

 

The deer demon kissed his daughter first in the forehead and then in a cheek, making her smile.

 

That was needed, even when his sweet baby didn't want to hurt someone.

 

“It's needed, my love” said the demon. “You know I won't be wanting to do this if it wasn't. Not only for the Evil King and his multiple servants, but this is Hell, Anka, people won't give you the time of day if you don't show them you can overpower them.”

 

The girl thought for a moment, she was in the arms of her father, almost like a baby. She was so vividly that day, so happy, and now she looked slightly down, almost sad.

 

Alastor felt a pinch of pity and guilt. His daughter was too good, part angel as she was, she inhereted from Lucifer a light the Devil already forgot existed inside him, she was like how he perceived the monarch when he was a teen, those days that were for him solace in his mind and sour, a trap he closed around himself to be there, in Hell, before his time, serving no one, afraid, alone with his daughter and fearing every second he could lose that small part of happiness he had just for being his baby with him.

 

Thinking in the memories of the king, sweet and sour, and in what could had been, he was took out of his thoughts from the soft hand of his girl, caressing his cheek softly and smiling at him, giving the demon all the light and happiness he could ever want. Ideas of him being in Heaven with his mother or maybe dying of old age, seeing the world advance and evolve while living, maybe finding a person that could make him feel at home, were erase in the moment with that smile from his daughter.

 

She was everything for him.

 

'Ok, papa' said the little girl. 'I'll learn to fight so I can protect you'.

 

“You don't need to protect me, my love” said the demon. “I'll protect you, always, because you're my treasure. I only need for you to...”

 

***

 

'...Hold' she remembered the words of her father that day. 'Just hold the enemies until I can come to your side and destroy them. You just have to be alive.'

 

Be alive. Ankareeda invoked several shadow tentacles that launched towards Lilith while she moved to a side. She wasn't sure what powers Keekee could possible give her but when the woman manage to destroy several of his dark limbs to reach her, with a claw ready to strike, she knew at least one power that Kee-staff could give her.

 

'Down' said a soft femenine voice in her mind. 'Move to left, to the right. Jump.'

 

The girl followed the instructions of the staff more by instint as for the voice itself... in fact, she notice how her hand moved the staff to parry a hit from the queen by itself.

 

“Stop moving, you damn beast!” screamed the woman, trying with all her might to strike the girl.

 

Tired, she concentrated power in her hands, a violet and putrid black energy and tried to blast the girl, who was moving from shadow to shadow, dodging the attacks but without going too far. She knew her fathers were coming, she had to believe they were and she didn't want to woman, that hurt her in the past, that hurt her father and the relationships of her parents, that wanted to hurt her and Charlie, to escape from there.

 

No, no, she wanted to keep her there until both men could enter in the hotel, in the bayou, and finish the job.

 

Lilith was tired and she wasn't ignorant of the fact that if Uriel failed, that was a possibility, Lucifer could enter that place in any time and destroy her. Alastor, she was pretty sure she could fight him and win, even in her current state, with ease, but the Devil was another type of challenge entirelly.

 

“Enough!” she prepared a wave of energy, like the one she used over the girl when she was sleeping to nullify her powers but this time, Goldie, her shadow, moved in front of the girl and with an opposite wave of golden energy, stop that spell for taking effect. “Fucking Lucifer!!”

 

She bit the words, observing how the girl stay on guard, controlling her every move.

 

“That fucking disgrace made that shadow, right?” she smiled, viciously. “Surely he knew his useless self won't be here to protect you, little vermin.”

 

'Don't insult my dad' said the girl, signing with one hand, slowly, piercing the woman with a warning gaze.

 

“Or you do what?” scoffed the woman. “Insolent brat, you should be dead by now.”

 

She resumed her attacks, ferociously, brutal, every time she landed a hit that didn't impact the girl and impacted the ground, she left a deep gash of earth in there. Anka saw it, knew she couldn't lower her guard, she couldn't let the woman to strike her and that would be her end.

 

“I could be fucking happy, already, if you didn't existed!” she started to say with fury. “Alastor could left Lucifer as soon as he saw him acting under the Trumpet, we could be together, ruling Hell together... We are meant for each other!!”

 

She tried to use her tail like it was a whip and stroke the trunk of a fallen tree, pulverizing it with pure force. She was absolutely mad, out of her seams.

 

“He should be mine!!” he screamed launching for the girl with huge speed but the Kee-staff moved, glistening a little and in from of Lilith, stopping her advance, appear a huge wardrove.

 

She destroyed it and the staff conjured a table, a cupboard, chairs... Lilith looked unstoppable.

 

“Instead I'm here, dying... my only relief is to take you with me!!” dodging three chairs, one pink two seats sofa and a bedside table, the woman managed to get to the girl, slashing her in the arm with her very long nails.

 

Ankareeda entered into a shadow to appear a couple of meters far from her, bleeding in her arm for the satisfaction of the demoness.

 

“There... soon your father will weep, if not for me, at least he will torture himself with your lost” she laughed, out of herself, her face distorted by malice and fury. “There is no future for him and Lucifer after I'm killing you, girl. You're the only thing why Alastor is keeping him by his side...”

 

And the woman had a thought, a terrible, cruel thought... Something that will be so damaging for the girl that maybe she would lower her guard and she could strike like a serpent. She started to laugh, terrible, just in the back of her throad.

 

“Say... Wanna know how good was Lucifer to your daddy?” said the queen, staying still, while she was conjuring a double behind the girl.

 

'You're a liar, I won't believe your lies' said the girl using her hands.

 

“But I'm not lying, little doe” said the woman, looking to her own nails. “Because the truth is so much better... Daddy Lucifer imposed a lot of things to your father. He made a prisoner of him, he treated him like vermin under his hooves and you know what's the best part? Your father never wanted a child, Lucifer imposed that to him too. He forced him, he abused his body to have an insurance, so good, that your daddy had to gave him his soul to keep you alive.”

 

The girl didn't understand completelly what the woman was saying but sounded... terrible. Did Lucifer really forced his father to be pregnant of her? She knew already that Lucifer took his soul but... he prepared all to have that outcome?

 

'That's a lie' she said but the doubts were in her face.

 

That... mixed, in part, with little Lucifer told her about what happened. She knew he asked for his soul and her father gave it, she knew her father was caged in that manor but... Lucifer looked really repentant of that, he looked disgruntled with himself for the things he did. He could never force her father to be with child, never.

 

'Lucifer told me about the soul deal' said the girl, slowly. 'But he's sorry, he said to me he was and I believe him. He promise me he will protect my papa.'

 

The woman laughed like a maniac.

 

“And you believed him?” her laugh was acid and cruel. “I forget you're just a child, a stupid sheltered brat that never have a problem in your life and your own worry is for your daddies to be together. Patethic... The only thing that I'll regret is being unable to see the way Alastor is gonna lash out to Lucifer when you're dead. Maybe he'll kill him and all...”

 

And in that moment, with Ankareeda distracted, a double of Lilith came behind, holding her in place with her arms trapped and with the real woman slapping Keekee out of her hand with a claw filled with violet fire.

 

The familiar came to her cat form again, trying to stand on her feet but dropping to a side, exhausted and hurt.

 

Ankareeda started to kick, trying to free herself from the embrace of the clone, trying to move her hands to claw on the arms of the copy but she didn't move an inch. She tried to enter the shadows but the power of the queen was blocking her.

 

“This ends here, little doe” the Queen raised a hand, preparing her claws. “It's already too late for me, but I'm taking you with me, little star.”

 

She said, mockenly, while going closer and closer to the girl.

 

The kid tried to free herself, tried to hurt the clone so she could release her but the duplicate didn't move... She was trapped and she was soon to fall into that woman and there was nothing she could...

 

'Little star' that was the voice of Keekee, again in her mind. 'She's right, you're a star, like your angelic father before you.'

 

The girl moved her eyes to the cat familiar and noticed how her eyes gleamed with every word.

 

'Alastor said you didn't inherit a thing from the King but that's not true' continued the voice. 'You noticed it, right? Everytime you are angry, everytime you release your horns, you notice...'

 

She did.

 

It was rare for her to be truly angry but she was when Lilith tried to use her to force her father into a deal, she was when she saw that the king hurt her father the first time the girl met the king. A fire, inside her chest, something primordial, something that was so hot that felt cold for her.

 

And she was a star, that was her name meant: Dark Star.

 

'And what do stars do?' asked Keekee.

 

“They... shine” said Ankareeda, with her voice, low, very low, almost inaudible, hurting her own throat in the process.

 

“You... you talked? The fuck you said?” asked the surprised and angry monarch.

 

The girl rose her eyes, piercing Lilith in a way that gave her pause for a second. The irises of the girl, golden ones surrounded by crimson looked back to the woman in a way that didn't seem like the gaze of a little scared girl but the gaze of an ancient being, fathomless, powerful... Lilith in that moment was looking to those eyes and was feeling like she was looking directly to the sun.

 

Something came out of Keekee, like drops of something dark and viscous, moving like it was intelligent to go behind the girl. The girl didn't notice, centered as she was in that fire raising, little by little, inside her chest, but the woman saw that liquid darkness moving until it positioned behind Ankareeda and growing, adquiring the semblance of something vaguely femenine.

 

'What do stars do, little doe?' repeated the figure with a voice less neutral, less devoid of emotion and more charged with intention.

 

“We shine” repeated the girl but this time, she raised her voice in a scream, a prolongued ear-piercing scream that came with a source of power coming directly from inside the little one.

 

Dark energy, coming first like waves crashing a shore, started to raise like an ocean stroke by a hurricane. The first thing to go was the clone of the Queen, exploding like it was a balloon too much filled with air and then Lilith fell backwards, looking with surprise not only to the power that girl was sporting but the entity that was granting it to her.

 

The energy reached the woman and the heat started to take her apart, to make her scream adding her own voice to the voice of the girl. She tried to run, to escape, she was crawling trying to the get the most distance with Ankareeda... until the girl exploded in that mix of violet and dark energy.

 

***

 

Alastor moved like a man possessed, going inside his bayou with all the speed his deer legs could muster and then some. He catched on the last part of the screams and the energies that washed over his bayou.

 

“Anka!!” he yelled, going to the point of the explossion to find his daughter in the ground, unconscious and covered by a dark sustance, dry and uneven like bark. “Anka...”

 

He looked around, Lilith wasn't there and his daughter... He had tears in his eyes, his daughter looked like she was...

 

The girl moved a hand, slowly, her eyes still closed but part of that bark started to drop from her with the movement.

 

'I did as you taught me' said the girl with signs. 'I waited for you to rescue me.'

 

“Oh, my baby” he started to hug his daughter, checking she was ok, that she wasn't hurt... she was, he noticed her right arm was damaged when the bark dropped from her skin, showing a light burn.

 

He had time just to clean that sustance from his daughter when Lucifer reached him.

 

“What happened?” he said, looking around.

 

There were an evident blast radious around the zone where Ankareeda was. The ground was charred, devoided of liquid and the trees were pulverized the nearest and dropped the farther ones.

 

“Is she ok?” asked the monarch. “Where is Lilith?”

 

Alastor, that was centered only in his daughter and never noticed the zone or anything more, looked around to see a trail, a mix of blood and something more, going out far from the explossion.

 

“Attent to my daughter and heal her” he said, rasing at the same time that Keekee moved to the girl, purring and staying by her side.

 

“Did she escape? I should...” he was shushed almost immediactly by the expression from the deer demon.

 

“Heal my daughter” he repeated, making enphasis in every single word. “I'll take care of this.”

 

Lucifer wanted to go after Lilith if she was still alive, if she escaped... whatever happened there. But not only Alastor was decided but Anka needed him and his child was a priority.

 

The king smiled to the girl, cleaning a little more of the bark covering her and he started to heal her arm impossing his hands over the burning.

 

 

Alastor followed the trail of blood and he didn't need to go extremelly far to find the Queen of Hell... or what remained of her.

 

Her clothes were almost destroyed, her hair burn and her skin wasn't better. She lost part of one arm and her legs were decomposing with every second that was passing.

 

“Lilith...” said the deer demon while the woman was still trying to crawl. “You can't escape, my queen.”

 

The woman moved her face to look back and him and tried to smile.

 

“You can save me” he said, her voice almost a grunt, deep, damaged. “Save, Al. Help me escape this and I'll help you in return.”

 

The deer demon crouched down near her, looking with full curiosity.

 

“You have nothing I could wish for” he said softly.

 

“That... that's what you believe” she said, she tried to laugh but was too much of an effort. “Help me and I can give you this...”

 

She took from her clothes what's look like a small key, regular modern key attached to a red keychain with a single rose in red. The symbol was known to him, he was sure of it but he didn't recognize it in that moment.

 

“And what's this, my queen?” he asked.

 

“This key is your future... if Lucifer learns what I stored behind the door this key locks, you'll... you'll lose everything” said the woman, with a soft smile. “I don't want you to lose, Alastor, I love you, always did. So similar you and I.”

 

The demon sighed.

 

“We aren't similar, Lilith” said the Radio Demon. “We couldn't be more different.”

 

“That's not true” she said, still she was losing blood, flesh, decomposing like a milk too much time under the sun. “You wanted to be a real man, I wanted to be a real woman. I was the only one that could understand that desire, Alastor, not Lucifer, not Charlie, not anyone in this hotel. Just... just me. We meant to be together, you and I, both being real and ruling Hell for the good of the people. Lucifer doesn't deserve you and he...”

 

She moved the key to Alastor's hand, closing it over the object.

 

“You will lose him and everything if that is discovered....” she sighed. “Maybe... maybe it's too late for me. But don't let them take your happiness too, Alastor. Go there, destroy was between you and what you deserve...”

 

The queen moved her hand near the face of the demon, with the full intention to caress him.

 

“Was... was I alive?” she asked, dropping dead near the demon.

 

He noticed, how her body started to mutate with decomposing, how her flesh transformed into mug, her bones to branches, her blood a mix of sap and tar. And he saw it, between the remains, something nesting behind of what was the apple mole she had in her neck, a note, written in enochian in a partchment yellowed and old.

 

The demon took the partchment and the keychain and stored them inside of his pockets. He made a gesture and the bayou moved itself, taking the remains of the queen and adding them to the mass, taking them like fertilizer for the ground.

 

***

 

Days later...

 

Ankareeda had the regeneration of the king but maybe because the energies she released were too much, she was still hurt after days passed.

 

The monarch and the Radio Demon took the girl to Sloth, so Belphegor could examine her and she mentioned not only the burns she had in her arm, but also some in her leg. Also she noticed the girl busted her throat and was now sore and she also said tha the girl was anemic, needed a lot of meat, legumes and spinach to be in top shape again.

 

Alastor was glad that the damage was temporal and there wasn't anything more damaging for her that they didn't notice. They were worried enough when the girl told them what happened, of Keekee talking to her mind and helping her.

 

Those... weren't Keekee's powers at all. She was intelligent and Lucifer created her when he created the old hotel (that was a theatre at the time) as the soul of the building and he used her again to remake it but even when she could do things like open every room and trying to help the Morningstar family, her powers were really limited and surely she wasn't completelly sentient.

 

Something or someone helped Ankareeda to release the energy she was taking from Hell itself and blast Lilith with it. She was hurt in the process because she never learned to manage that type of power, centered in shadow magicks and she was and even when Lucifer had some theories, he didn't want to express them yet.

 

The important thing was that Heaven took care of Lute and Uriel, they wanted to collaborate with Charlie in the redemption project, ding, dong, the witch was dead and Ankareeda was ok, she just needed to heal.

 

Lucifer was free, free to be with Alastor, free to be a father for the little girl... no complications, nothing to think about. He tried to live to the fullest but Alastor those days wasn't on the same spirit.

 

The demon didn't want to have sex, thing the king respected, but also he was... moodie, contemplative. He wanted to know if Lilith told him something but after asking once and he refusing to answer brushing it aside, he decided to not push it. He made that mistake in the past, he wasn't now ready to make those mistakes again, not when everything he ever wanted was in the reach of his finger tips.

 

That day he took his time to try to teach Ankareeda how to hon her connection to Hell, how to control better that energy and the girl took that time to also teach new signs to the king, both smiling and playing, more than accomplishing anything really. Alastor smiled from a shadow seeing them together and moved to the bar, asking for a whiskey from his employee.

 

Husk prepared it neat, like Alastor liked it and when he presented the drink, he catched certain glint in his eye, recognizing it.

 

“Somethin' you want to talk, boss?” asked the cat demon, cleaning the counter with a rag.

 

The demon was about to refuse when he let his hand go to the pocket in his jacket, feeling the weight and the form of the keychain in his hand.

 

“Tell me, Husker” said the demon, taking the glass with the other hand and raising it near his eyes, contemplating the golden liquid like he was meassuring his future. “If you're placed with a choice... let's say: a right thing to do or the right thing to do by you and you have to pick one? What will you chose? As a gambler... the right thing to do could go eitherway but you don't control the narrative or the outcome and the good just for you, will always be good for you, you'll control everything but... Doing the wrong thing for the right reason doesn't sour the result?”

 

The bartender was... surprised. Not only was a heavy hitting question that could puzzle anyone even talking hypothetically but usually Alastor was more sure of himself. That could be a conundrum based on theory but...

 

“It's not like you to become so deep with me, boss” he half smiled but when the deer demon drank all the whiskey in one gulp and was ready to leave, the man stopped him with a gesture. “Ok, let's talk, ok? No jokes, no shit... The right thing or the wrong thing. One is uncertain and the other is secure. Shit, when I gambled, I gambled important things but I did it because there was a possibility to win... trust me, if I could have cheated, I would have done it. But... again that depends on how much you value playing by the rules.”

 

And the cat demon was divided in that with Alastor.

 

Sometimes he bent the rules to get his due and didn't have a problem on stomping into the powerful and the people on top. But when he dealed with the little guy, Alastor was brutal and frank, but he never took advantage of someone ran down by luck.

 

The deer demon thought about that and made a gesture for another drink. That was odd too, since he knew the overlord, he rarely took as much unless it was night and he was ready to go to bed. Yeah, something was eating him inside and he was worrying.

 

“Husker... If I'll tell you right now, here, that I'll gladly trade your contract in exchange for another sinner, someone you don't know, would you accept?” asked the red demon, lost in gaze, his eyes fixed on the liquid dancing in the glass moved by his hand.

 

“No” he responded almost without thinking and that attracted the attention of the pensive man.

 

“No?” asked Alastor.

 

“Yeah, no” repeated the cat demon. “See? I'm here for my own fuckin' decission. I fucked my afterlife myself. And I could be worst, I know it but you ain't no poppy field either, boss, no offense. I made my bed, I'm lying in it and if this type of life is shit for me, it'll be shit for anyone. I won't go sacrificing a random dude to save my bacon. I'm not that type of demon.”

 

Alastor thought for a moment before taking his drink, in pure silence, looking to the man the first seconds after his answer but then to a point lost between himself and the back shelf with drinks.

 

“Thanks, Husker” said the demon, before raising from his stool, accomodate his clothes and enter into a shadow.

 

***

 

Two days later...

 

After thinking and more things, the demon reached to the king, asking him the favor to accompany him to a place. He didn't tell to where they were going and why, the deer demon simply took the monarch with his shadows and both appeared on Doomsday district.

 

“What we are doing here, Al?” asked the king, looking around how the people that were usually there to fight and releave some stress, were running from the present of the King and the Radio Demon.

 

Alastor made a gesture to the monarch to follow him.

 

He was serious, talking just when it was necessary for the last couple of days and now that was worrying Lucifer a lot. He didn't know what has the deer demon in his mind or how he could help him. He was ready to let him go in his own speed but damn, this all looked so damn mysterious that he was almost feeling his skin gaining goosebumps.

 

“Sire... Do you love me?” asked the demon, so soft, that Lucifer had a hard time to catch on the question.

 

“Why you ask, Al? Of course I love you” he said, moving to be more side by side with the demon and reaching with his hand, tentatively, to hold his hand. Alastor let him.

 

The demon didn't stop and moved trying to find a concrete place.

 

“Do you think you could love me even if Lilith wasn't that bad with you?” said the demon. “If you meet me without misunderstandings, without... you think you could love me anyway?”

 

Lucifer tried to smile, to take the hand to kiss it, but Alastor was to serious (even with his permanent smile) for him to able to calm? Or make the deer to feel better.

 

“Of course” he said. “You're special, Al... Yeah, if Lilith had not been a bitch, maybe that was hard but... I guess that knowing you, really you, I could...”

 

Alastor interrupted him.

 

“I saw Lilith dying” said the demon while he was extracting the keychain from his pocket. “She said a lot of things I didn't understand in the moment and offered me this in exchange to save her. Then she gave it me anyway because she knew she was dying. When she was dead, her body suffered a transformation, her bones going like wood, branches, and her blood like sap and tar, her muscle and skin like dirt.”

 

“Well, she was created from that stuff” said the monarch, but now he was curious eitherway.

 

He didn't ask to see the body, Alastor said was little of the Queen to see and that he let her rest in his bayou and that was it. He was too happy, too hopeful to worry about the body of that woman.

 

“I saw that too, until I saw this paper” he took the patchment and showed it to the king. “I had to brush my enochian and consult Rosie to learn the meaning.”

 

Lucifer took the old piece of paper.

 

“'Whatever you do, you must live' What is this?” asked the monarch.

 

Alastor went to a ruined building, the front had in the past a beautiful red paint almost pink and between the ruins they could see the desings of roses drawn in the plaster.

 

“It's an instruction” said the deer demon, moving a rock to a side with his tentacles. “Do you know what a homunculus is, Lucifer?”

 

Asked the demon, continuing with his labor of removing debris.

 

“Yeah, I think? I know magic but I'm not verse in magic because I have my power so I don't need spells and such like... well, the rest” said the monarch. “Those are like golems, right?”

 

Alastor nodded.

 

“Mostly but different” said the deer demon. “A golem is a creature you create, you can give them one order, just one and they will carry it without delay and without repose. If you order them to dig a hole in the ground, you better stop them when you have your hole or they will be digging for eternity. A homunculus is a living creature, you can try to make them with multiple instructions or some core sentiment, but they aren't robots.”

 

When the place was almost cleaned, a red metal door was discovered, a metal door without a keyhole, but Alastor knew it will open, he felt the old wards fading after the death of its owner and he could open the door, with not effort.

 

“So they are like new humans or something” asked the monarch, observing the door opening and reveling a spiral staircase going down.

 

“Yes and no” said the demon. “You can control a homunculus, you can use them like you with your clones but they have a tendency to independance... Lilith had a peculiar apple shaped mole in her neck, that note as behind that mole in the flesh. It's a very simple core, a very simple command: Live.”

 

They started to descend the stairs and Lucifer was more and more confussed.

 

“Are you telling that Lilith wasn't herself? That was a decoy?” he grunted. “She could be out there, plotting and...”

 

Alastor sighed so loudly that Lucifer stopped in his ramblings.

 

“She wanted to be alive, Lucifer” said the demon with a tone that was like death tolls. “She wanted to be real, like me. She told me that I could have anything if I destroyed what's behind the door down there. And... at first I didn't understand, then I did. She wanted to be real but so I am. I want our love to be real, for you to really chose me and... Damn my soul, I can't hurt someone to get it.”

 

The place was darker and darker, descending for meters and meters, so the deer demon made some green fire to fill his hand to see.

 

“Why are you...?” Lucifer didn't know what he was saying, why he was talking about that, right now, about hurting someone to get him to love him? He already love him. That wasn't making any sense.

 

“I want you and love with all my heart, Lucifer” said the demon. “I thought I could do everything for our love, for having your love but I need to do this. I need the truth even if this destroys me, destroys us. I won't hurt an innocent for crafting an ever after that I will always doubt if it's real.”

 

“I don't understand what you are saying, Alastor!” complained the king, following the man downstairs with difficulty, taking he was goind faster with every step.

 

“The Lilith that broke your marriage, the woman that was a nightmare for you, wasn't real” said the demon. “The Queen created her, I don't know why but I have my theories. I don't know how but she took your wife's place and here...”

 

He stopped in front of the red door in that far away basement, it has symbols in enochian to prevent scrying, shadows entering (he knew, he sent his shadow to find the place and Oncle couldn't enter there) or any other type of access but also, Lucifer recognized some spells used in caging, containing...

 

“I love you, Lucifer” said the demon, without looking at him. “But I can't hurt another for my happiness so I decided to take a page from Husker's book and bet everything to our love.”

 

He introduced the key, was too late to backdown. He could, he could find an excuse, say to the monarch that was a joke, take him out of there, lure him with sex and attention to forget that place. He knew he could do it but... Alastor was many things, many things he accepted about himself, many things he created in his persona and many things people thought about him around the decades but he was sure as Hell and Heaven existed, that he wasn't an evil man.

 

Not good either but if the scales needed to go to a place or the other, he was sure he wasn't an evil man. He will never condemn innocents for his benefit and he had pride in that, he was sure and proudful of that.

 

He turned the key.

 

The place was dark and smell like old and humidity. It didn't look big either, just a round room and as soon as their eyes adapted with the little light from Alastor's fire, both men started to see the motives in the wall, layers and layers of enochian, in every place you looked, from ceiling to floor.

 

There was only a small kitchen, a chimney and a bed and something was in that bed, covered by layers of sheets taking the place was humid and cold. Something that moved as soon as they reached the place, like detecting the intrusion.

 

“What...?” asked the monarch.

 

While the person was moving, Alastor found the lights.

 

There, in the bed, was the very deteriorated image of Queen Lilith. The woman had lost weight, her skin lost her luster and her hair was dirty and uncombed. She had huge baggy eyes from years of not sleeping well and first she look frightened with the two men, maybe not knowing them or not knowing if they were real.

 

“Lilith?” asked Lucifer.

 

The eyes of the woman came to life, her expression an unmistakable face of pure happiness and relieve, the expression of something that lived through Hell and at last, at long last, could see the light of day. A damsel rescued from her tower by her prince.

 

“Lulu... Lulu!!” she moved, fast, hugging the short man and he initially didn't respond. “It's you, it's you, really. At last, at last you found me!! Oh, my love, my love!! It's really you!!”

 

She was crying, the king was stunned and he didn't know what to do. Suddenly Alastor's word took meaning, suddenly all the odd behaviours of “Lilith” made sense. It's like the answer was always there but this was the first time he saw the complete jigsaw puzzle.

 

“Lily...” said the devil, taking the face of the crying woman with his hands, seeing how much the time mistreated her, the time she was there... like a prisoner, by her own creation?

 

She never mistreated him, she never felt ouf of love with him, she... was here, alone, waiting for him. Loving him still.

 

A rush of emotion filled the king and both made the move with the practice of millenia, him holding her by her face, she smiling and crying so beautifully, her hands placed on his shoulders. Those that fell together for love, those that stay in that love for centuries, those that were the beginning of everything: Sin, Hell, eternal love...

 

They kissed like they did hundred and thousand of times. They kissed with passion, they kissed with need, they kissed like two opposite magnets keep separated for way too long. They kissed like they were custom made for the other, like the starved that, at last, have a dish full of food in front of them.

 

Alastor was at the door, with his head lowered to a side because he didn't want to contemplate what real love looked like, he didn't want to be blinded by that image.

 

No good deeds without a punishment, he thought while turning around.

 

Love was a strength, he believed in that, love could stand in front of everything, serve as an armor to protect the love ones from any malady. But for that, love needed to be true, needed to be real.

 

For him? It was... But... like a fool that never learns, like someone that didn't learn all his life and after-life that good things weren't for him, that he was born cursed and alone and he was destined to be that way, he was destined to lose, he bet everything to his love, to the strength of it.

 

He bet all to red... and he lost everything.

 

The demon entered into a shadow and left behind the true lovers.

Notes:

I'm been having nightmares with the last scene and with a scene I'll write in two chapters? I guess is in two chapters. Real, tears in my eyes when I woke up, nightmare. I don't know if I'll manage to present correctly the angts I'm about to serve you but be prepare, next chapters are gonna be hard as fuck, specially if you're an Alastor's fan (or simply want to see him happy).

Chapter 51: No more tears to shed

Summary:

Lucifer has a talk with Lilith learning all the deal with the homunculus while Alastor returns to the hotel.

Old habits die hard and that is true specially for someone like Alastor.

Notes:

Well... first of all, don't kill me!! I know this chapter is hard, I know the next one will be harder. I said it before, I'll say it again: Things need to get worse so they can be better.

Let me tell you this one was hard to write and still, not the hardest I'll write.

Hold with me!

“Have you ever been in love? Horrible, isn't it? It makes you so vulnerable. It opens your chest and it opens your heart and it means that someone can get inside you and mess you up.”

~Neil Gaiman

 

The kiss continued for a moment, being both the Devil and the Queen only conscious of the presence of one another and after that heartfel kiss, they came others, little ones, around the mouth, in the cheeks, the chin, the jaw, little aftershocks coming from pure emotions.

 

“Lily, I... I don't understand...” said the monarch, with his head bloated, confused. “What... w-what are you doing here? What happened?”

 

The woman had tears in her eyes and she hugged the man like she was fearing losing him from one moment to the other.

 

“It's my fault, Lulu, my love, I'm sorry” she was crying. “I'm so sorry...”

 

Lucifer was able to comfort her for a couple of minutes but he needed to know, he needed an explanation.

 

“Please, tell me” he asked softly. “I need to know what happened to you, what... what was that thing?”

 

Lilith was upset for having to explain something that, apparently, was so damaging for her but she knew she had to become clean with Lucifer, she had to tell the truth, hard as it was.

 

“I... I know you're gonna get upset with me, Lulu, but know this: I love you and I was desperated” she sighed. “I... I tried, all the methods in existence, to become a mother. It was my dream, our dream. All I wanted was to have a little one with you, so you could be the marvelous father I knew you could possible be.”

 

She said, placing her hands softly in his cheeks.

 

“Not only I consulted with Belphy but... I tried magicks, I tried everything...” she sighed. “Nothing was working and I... I decided to consult with Eve.”

 

Lucifer opened wide his eyes.

 

“Roo? You asked for Roo's help?” he couldn't barely believe it. “Do you know how dangerous that is? What she asked in exchange? What you did for her?”

 

“Nothing!” she said, trying to calm the monarch. “Absolutely nothing, I swear. She understood my desire to be a mother and she... She told me I'll have to find a way around because... Because this was a curse, from Heaven.”

 

The Devil couldn't believe the woman, doing something so reckless but when she mentioned that curse, he was equally surprised and incredulous.

 

“Impossible, they... that's... that's too cruel” said the king. “My siblings would never...”

 

Lilith denied.

 

“But they did” said the woman. “Eve told me herself, they cursed me, love. They didn't want for us to gain more power having powerful descendants, like you or I could treat our children like weapons or a powerboost. They were afraid of us, of you, taking Heaven to procure a better life for our children and... I... I'm completelly barren but... Eve provided a solution.”

 

“The doppelganger” said Lucifer, starting to understand.

 

“Yes!! I could create her in my image but fertile, full of life” she said, with a timid and sad smile. “She could do what I couldn't and give you a child.”

 

Lucifer denied with his head, taking the woman by her shoulders, softly, worried and also slightly afraid.

 

“That... was very dangerous, that was...” he took some air, breathing before he could say something bad. “Lily, why you didn't tell me? This was something for us, about us, as a couple, a married couple. I know you wanted to be a mother, I know I wanted to be a father but you should...”

 

“I couldn't!!” she almost screamed. “I... I know you, Lulu, I do!! You wouldn't let me! You would forsake the idea and... I couldn't live without that. So, together with Eve, I created my double. She told me I could add something, some instructions but I wanted for her to act exactly like me so I only made one: I wanted for her to live so she could deliver my baby. And she did! I... I was hiding in our Envy mansion and the idea, the plan, was for her to take my place just until the baby could be weaned and we could have our baby and see her grow together but... She was giving me excuses, beating around the bush... One day she said we were about to make the exchange, she will give me our daughter and we could exchange places and she proposed this place in the Eastern quadrant, in this... It was a store, clothes, she conduced me to this basement and here she locked me out.”

 

She deflated, the moment a terrible nightmare in her mind, tricked by her creation and locked there in the dark, alone.

 

“I bet she didn't kill me because she needed me, I tied her powers through me so she could use my abilities. She fed me and... sometimes she looked like she just wanted to talk...” a part of her, felt bad for the homunculus.

 

It was a living creature, with emotions, taking a place that wasn't hers, trying to find her own way and maybe it was because she was the only creature Lilith could talk for over two hundred years but she felt pity for her.

 

“When was the last time she talked to you?” asked Lucifer, still without taking much conclussions about all of that, still trying to find some rime or reason.

 

“She came, often, lately” said the woman. “Around eight years ago she came with this problem, her power was becoming weaker and she noticed some changes in her, like her skin started to deteriorate and her hair was starting to fall, like she was becoming old. Last time I saw her was a couple of days ago, she was here mostly to scream at me, talking me about a man she loved and couldn't have, to show me her charred arms and... She was out of herself and also her face was hurt, by a claw? She was just extremelly angry.”

 

Lucifer thought about that. Apparently, taking that, the birth of Ankareeda also cut the connection of the homunculus to Hell, making her weaker and losing “freshness”, so to speak. Her body was deteriorating and that explained her errors after being very sibylline and calculated. She was desperated and wanted results so she could avoid dying, the thing that Lilith placed as a command in her core.

 

That creature made his life a living Hell for two hundred years so he wasn't ready to feel pity for her but a part of him could understand her.

 

Lilith moved and hugged the monarch again.

 

“My love, I'm so glad this nightmare is ending” said the woman to then look at her lover directly to the eyes. “You found me!! You save me!”

 

There was pure love in those amethyst eyes.

 

“I... I didn't” he confessed, feeling the heavy weight of those eyes over him. “I wasn't the one. Alastor... he saw her dying, she gave him the key of this place and he found you, he's just li...”

 

And he stopped, his brain finally stopping the travel to memory lane, to the best places with Lilith, to remember the present, to remember what he was doing, with whom... He looked fast to the door.

 

“Alastor?!” Emptiness, nothing more. “Oh, shit, oh, shit...”

 

Lucifer growled, raising from the cot the woman used as bed all those years.

 

“I fucked up, I fucked up big time” he took the hand of the queen. “We need to go to the hotel, I need to talk to him and... Charlie and...”

 

“I don't understand, love” said the woman.

 

“You'll do, you... it's gonna be very hard to explain and I can't do it without finding Alastor first” who knows how the demon took that moment of weakness and this new change in his life. “Let's go.”

 

Knowing he couldn't produce a portal inside that circular room, he moved his wife outside and thought for a second.

 

“There is something you want to take from here?” asked the man.

 

She denied.

 

“Only... my homunculus took my wedding band, I'll love to recover it” said Lilith, going outside of the door with the devil.

 

“Later” he said, creating the portal directly to his room at the hotel.

 

Of course Alastor wasn't there.

 

“I... I need to talk to Alastor, I'll introduce you to him and the rest and explain things but I need to do this first” said the monarch. “Take a relaxing bath and I'll be here soon. Don't go out without me, ok?”

 

The woman, still without knowing why but assuming that her husband asked her those things because it was best, she moved to the bathroom to take said bath.

 

***

 

Since he let the shadows to engulf him, Alastor reached directly not to his room, but to his bathroom.

 

With his dear daughter reaching to his room with ease, the least thing he wanted to do was to share his pain with her. No, this is something he brought upon himself, this is something for him to suffer alone.

 

All his skin was burning, feeling the sensation of being raw and with ants crawling over it, even the fabric of his clothes was too much in that moment, so he stripped completelly, placed the water the hottest the system could manage and went under it, dropping to his knees holding to himself.

 

He felt betrayed but not by Lucifer, but for himself. Why he lied to himself in that way? Why, knowing he wasn't destined to be happy, to have love, why he fooled himself thinking that could go well? Why he was so stupid to think he was enough for Lucifer?

 

No, he wasn't. His body was a curse, he wasn't normal, he was defective and he couldn't even give the person he loved something as simple as free physical contact on demand.

 

One, one look at his long lost wife, one look to the idea that things could return to how they were two hundred years ago and Lucifer didn't even hesitate for a second. Being in the same room with Lilith, he was less than a shadow for the monarch, he was non-existent.

 

And he said he could maybe fall in love with him even if Lilith wasn't like the homunculus was with him. Surelly the monarch thought it but in the hour of the truth, he was nothing for Lucifer.

 

What he lived those days was a dream, a fantasy, something that was so easy to pop like a soap bubble. And pop it did.

 

The deer demon cried bitter tears while holding his head, screamed now that he knew nobody could hear him. Not even when he had to run from Magne Manor, nor when he have to maintain his daughter inside his body to heal or he had to give birth... not even his death was as painful as this was.

 

Why he allowed himself to have hopes, to think he could have love, to think in a future knowing he was never enough. Now that he taste the forbidden fruit of happiness, returning to his sour afterlife would kill him for sure.

 

He held hard to his hair, he teared some apart, he clawed his own shoulders... He needed the pain, he deserved the pain. He needed to return to his unfeeling state, he needed to return to misery into his own terms, in the arms of pain, so he could exist, survive the way he was feeling his heart was turning into dust.

 

***

 

He didn't want to look himself in the mirror when he abandoned the shower, he simple moved to his room to dress, his face showing nothing except the plastic smile.

 

He dressed with all the layers, taking even his gloves and doning them. Now, the idea of getting into contact with another being was repulsive for him, the idea of feeling other person's skin turning his stomach outside down.

 

Alastor took a determination.

 

His pain meant nothing, is something he should know it was coming back, stronger than before, eventually, because he should be smarter and know that thing couldn't last. But he has his obligations, he has things to do and people to take care off and he needed to talk with Lucifer.

 

That conversation was the last thing he needed or wanted but he wasn't important. He only had to hold it, all inside, until he could assess some things more important for him, until he could set matters in order.

 

Just when he was schooling his mind and heart, when his hand was hesitating over the door knob, he was startled by the knocks in his door.

 

“Alastor, please, I know you're there, I need to talk” said the desperated voice of Lucifer from the other side of the door.

 

The deer demon closed his eyes, his hand, under that tone of voice, was trembling... Finally, taking a moment to breathe, the Radio Demon opened the door to received the king, hands behind his back with his microphone cane, standing tall and with the fake smile.

 

“Ah, sire, perfect, I wanted to talk to you and I didn't know if you already returned” said the demon, with a monotone so devoided of emotions that could easily be a letter into a paper.

 

The tone took the monarch by surprise but was nothing, absolutely nothing, compare with the coldness and distance he felt from the deer demon. Also, again, his eyes were always the crack in his perfect mask and those eyes were so filled with suffering that he could felt his own tears coming out of his eyes.

 

“Alastor, please...” he begged. “I... I need to talk, to explain. What happened in the basement, was...”

 

The red demon raised his hand.

 

“Sorry, your majesty” said Alastor. “But I'm not your adviser or your friend to need to know what you do or left undone with your queen.”

 

He made a gesture to let the king enter in his room.

 

“And we need to talk about something more important” Oncle moved to make sure the door between the room of Ankareeda and Alastor's room was closed. “I need to know what are you planning to tell Queen Lilith about my daughter, how you want to proceed, because if you plan for me to hide, both myself and her, I'll need time. If you plan to revoke your claim to paternity, you'll need to silence more than me if you don't want the gracious queen to know.”

 

The words of Alastor came and went leaving him feeling empty and stunned. It was not only the formal treatment again, placing a wall, or several, between them but also that thought, the idea that he could try to hide Ankareeda or deny her like... like...

 

“What?!” said the monarch. “No! I... I don't want to renounce my daughter!”

 

Alastor was looking at him, directly, and Lucifer was feeling that gaze in his very soul.

 

“Do you want to take her from me?” asked the demon, being a pure ocean of calm.

 

“You... wha... No!! Alastor, please, I don't want...” he tried to move his hands to take the hands of the demon now that he was leaning in his cane but the deer just moved a couple of steps back out of touch. “I don't want to take our daughter from you!”

 

The demon hummed, just hummed to that response.

 

“Then what do you wanna do?” asked the deer demon. “Are you telling everything to the gracious queen, leaving us, my daughter and I, opened to her possible vengeance? Are you planning to have contact with my daughter on regular basis or do you prefer for us to take some distance, from you and your heir, and arrange some visits?”

 

Lucifer couldn't believe what he was seeing and hearing.

 

Alastor was suffering, his eyes weren't lying, he was sure of that but he just wanted to leave everything to his decision. Without talking, without... fixing things.

 

“Alastor, please... Don't be this way with me and don't think these things, please” he begged, he had the huge temptation on going down on his knees. “We need to talk about this, this isn't only about Ankareeda, but about you as well. What... What I did was a reflex, was... I don't know how to explain it but I plan to tell everything to Lilith and I want to fix this, I want... I don't want to lose you or our daughter. And Lily...”

 

Under the mention of the nickname, the red demon felt a stab in his heart but he controlled perfectly the feeling closing his eyes for a couple of seconds.

 

“She won't do a thing, she isn't like that, she...” the monarch denied. “Please, Alastor, can we sit and talk about this?”

 

The demon was just looking at him, the pure image of composure and lack of feelings.

 

“There is nothing to talk, at least not about me” said the demon. “My promise is fullfilled with the return of your wife, my services as concubine are no longer required. There is nothing to talk about that. My daughter, in the other hand, is the only thing that's important to me right now, the only thing I care about. I need to know, for certain, preferably in writting, your position about Ankareeda and if you want to cut all your ties to her, I'll need time at least to find a suitable place and to explain to her.”

 

Lucifer was starting to be overwhelmed.

 

Not only were the words from Alastor, calm and lacking sentiment, was the pain he was catching from him, so devastating that was making his heart hurt but also that way of talking about himself, about their daughter.

 

“I said no!” said the devil, showing his horns and tail. “I love my daughter, I want to continue to have my daughter here and continue to grow our relationship. And you think that about yourself? You think I saw you like that? You're not a concubine, Alastor, you never were, you're...”

 

The demon raised a hand, asking with that gesture to the king to stop.

 

He took at least seconds, almost half a minute to talk after interrupting the monarch, trying to get his heart in check, his pain hidden and his face showing nothing of the turmoil inside his being.

 

“I'm nothing, my king” said the demon, slightly less cold, more soft. “I made a promise to make you happy and now you are. You're reunited with your wife, you have your perfect love of your life again with you. I know that and knowing that my services aren't necessary, I need to know where I stand. As one more of your subjects, I'll follow your orders. If you want my daughter here at the hotel, you'll have her... If you want to take her from me and raise her as a princess yourself with your queen, taking if she wants my daughter too, you can do that. Maybe is for the better, I was never meant to be a father, I don't have the instints or the abilities for that. I'm been doing it for seven years with the help of Rosie and books, I don't know a thing of caring for a child and I can't give her the things you can give her. I'm just dead weight for her.”

 

Lucifer wanted to cry, he wanted to cry the tears that not only his heart was producing but the ones that Alastor was refusing to cry. The way he was seeing that man crumble before his eyes was too much for him.

 

Creation forgive him but he loved him.

 

“Please, Alastor, you're better father that what I could never be” said the monarch. “Ankareeda needs you and all the things I could give her, she will have them. But she needs you more than anything and I need you here too. I... please, I don't want this to end in this way, we have something special and we...”

 

“There is no 'we', your highness” every one of those titles, coming now from the mouth of the red demon, were like pikes directly to the devil's heart.

 

Maybe the last time he felt so much pain was when he was impaled before his banishment to Hell.

 

“You have your wife, I am alone, as always was meant to be” said the demon, moving to go near the door. “But I have a duty to my daughter. I'll communicate to her the situation, now that you clarified for me what you wanted to do.”

 

He was ready to leave but he thought for a second.

 

“You should return to your spouse, your highness” said the demon, without looking to the man, just looking to the door, his head not so high as before, slightly down but still not looking to the floor. “She looked very spooked by this experience and she'll need reassurance, support and company to recuperate.”

 

Because didn't matter if the existence of the real Lilith broke his happiness and denied him a future, didn't matter if she, without doing anything, just took almost everything from him. She was an innocent and a victim, he will never hate someone of fairer means.

 

The Radio Demon rode the shadows, leaving the monarch alone in his room with his own thoughts and feelings.

 

***

 

Ankareeda was playing with Charlie and Vaggie a game, similar to dominoes, with little pieces made of wood with works, from fruit to abstract concepts and not only they were trying to win but also the girl was using signs to teach them the words. They were having fun, even when Anka was still wearing the splint for her damaged arm.

 

Alastor appeared near them, hands over his microphone but in his posture and placement, there was some distance.

 

“Sorry to bother you in your fun, Anka, darling, but there is something very important I want to talk to you” said the demon.

 

The girl just needed a look, just one gaze, and she knew something was wrong with her father.

 

'Papa, something happened?' asked the girl, still analizing her father.

 

“Yes, my love, I need to talk to you something important” said the demon, controlling his tone to be neutral in all moment.

 

Vaggie and Charlie moved, they were comfortable sitting in the couch of the lobby but now they sat correctly, looking directly to Alastor. Something was wrong, extremelly wrong with him.

 

“Al, are you ok?” asked the blonde, worried for her friend.

 

“Fit as a fiddle, my princess” even when his tone was... not kind but not aggressive or strange in other way, Charlie felt an immediact revulsion for the title.

 

Vaggie catched also, she knew something was happening with Alastor. She was almost smelling the sadness, the restrain... Was hitting really near to home, so she moved, raising from her seat and going to the demon, going to place a hand over his arm, showing her support but the gesture of the demon was clear: he didn't want to be touched.

 

“Shit, Alastor” said the latina. “What happened?”

 

The Radio Demon thought for a moment. He took the determination of make a space, placing a wall between the people of the hotel and himself. It was for the best, for much that Lucifer said he wanted him there, all was hanging from the decision of the queen and even when he started to saw some of them like Angel as friends, Charlie and Vaggie as something akind of adoptive daughters, he knew he shouldn't have attachments... Better to take action now that to move with those feelings and see them crushed like it happened with his love for Lucifer.

 

“Things are gonna change” he said. “I discovered something related to your mother and... It's not my place to talk about that. You need to talk to your father, Charlotte, the same I need to talk to my daughter. Just... give him a couple of hours, he will need to think how to tackle this with you two.”

 

“But... what? Can't you tell us anything?” asked Charlie. “And what with the 'Charlotte' and the title, we left that behind a long fucking time ago.”

 

Vaggie nodded.

 

“It's not appropiate” said the demon. “Maybe, never was. I'm sorry, I need to talk with Ankareeda, it's urgent. Come, my love, I'll wait for you in the cottage.”

 

And the shadows carried him again.

 

Anka thought for a second and turned to her sister and sister-in-law.

 

'I'll go now' she said with signs. 'I'll try to learn what happened.'

 

Both women nodded.

 

“Good idea” said Charlie, to then see how the little one rode the shadows too. “But I won't be here sitting over my hands.”

 

Said the princess, with decision.

 

“Something happened between my dad and Alastor, did you noticed?” asked to her fiancée.

 

“Babe, was impossible to not notice” said the latina. “He was trying to be cold and distant but he wasn't his regular self, not his douchebag self, not the real version of him that we could see this last month.”

 

The princess nodded.

 

“He... was almost ready to cry, I'm sure of that” the woman took the hand of her lover as support. “I hope my dad didn't do something to him.”

 

She denied.

 

“I'll go to speak with him, wanna come?” asked to Vaggie.

 

The woman just nodded and both took the elevator.

 

***

 

Lucifer, after not knowing what to do when Alastor dissapeared, moved to his room to find Lilith coming out of the bathroom, smelling deliciously to apples and cinnamon and dressed with a violet slip nightgown with a peignoir over it, same color, darker tone.

 

“Are... you feeling better, Lily?” asked the devil.

 

The woman smiled softly and nodded.

 

“Yes, fresher than ever” she commented, sitting in the bed, smiling to her husband in a way that was almost and invitation.

 

Invitation that he didn't want to take. Setting things right was more important that doing what his lower part of his body wanted to do.

 

“Good, that's good... We... we need to talk about what happened during your absence, Lily” said the monarch, going to sit in the bed.

 

The woman sighed but nodded.

 

“I know” the queen lowered her head. “Something tells me things were not good for you. Did my homunculus...?”

 

Lucifer took some air, ready to respond to his wife when a knock at the door interrupted him, making him almost jump on his seat. Maybe it was Alastor, maybe now he was calmer, real calmer and not that facade and now he could want to talk.

 

With that thought he went to the door just to find Charlie and Vaggie in there.

 

“Dad, can we talk?” said the princess, trying to sound more soft that the tone she was ready to employ, thinking her dad could had hurt Alastor in any way... Just to see over his shoulder and see...

 

“Mom?” she asked, ignoring her father for a moment, entering in the room.

 

Vaggie became on guard on the spot, taking out her spear to be ready for combat while controlling what was happening there. Lucifer was too calm, in a way, to be near someone he wanted to kill badly for the last weeks.

 

“Charlotte?” said the woman, becoming emotional. “Oh, she's so tall, Lucifer... And so beautiful.”

 

The phrase took the princess for even more surprise that the initial and the monarch knew the cat was out of the bag. Well, he could the recount of what happened maybe better with Charlie there and she could undertand, once and for all, what happened with her mother and why Lily was here.

 

“Well, I needed to tell your mother what happened all these years, so...” he snapped his fingers and the two armchairs in his room moved from their place near the hearth to be in front of the bed. “Sit, this is gonna be long.”

 

***

 

When Ankareeda reached her father in the bayou, he wasn't exactly in the cottage, more near the nearby pond, gazing to the water like he was trying to find some calm in it.

 

“Come, mon étoile” said the demon as soon as he felt her daughter near. “We don't talk in this way, you and I, since some time.”

 

His voice was still very dispassionate but it was soft for his daughter, even his smile was less tense.

 

When the girl went to him, he sat her over his lap and hug her, keeping in that way for a moment, needed that moment the same that he needed to breathe. Maybe in his pain he thought he wasn't good enough father for her, that with him she would be no more than a simple sinner's daughter and with Lucifer she could be so much more, even if that could kill him and maybe he thought he wasn't prepare to be a good father, that he was blind, in darkness, going with the motions while she was growing, but he loved her. He loved more than he could love anything in the universe.

 

His daughter wasn't a symbol of his love, she wasn't a present from Lucifer... She was his better part, the only thing good about him and the only good thing his body ever gave him.

 

'Papa, what happened?' she asked, moving her hands slowly to speak. 'I know you're sad. Did Lucifer do something?'

 

She asked, cautious.

 

“No, he didn't” said the red demon. “The thing is... I know you had great hopes on him and me being together but it can't be, my love.”

 

'Why?' she asked.

 

Alastor sighed, he was catching on how his daughter was becoming sad, she wasn't her perky self when she reached the bayou but now she was feeling what he was about to tell her even before he could. Eitherway, it was better to rip the band-aid.

 

“When the queen died I was there and she left a keychain behind” said the demon, ready to talk about facts but not about what the homunculus said to him or his own feelings, just the data. “I investigate with Oncle and I found a basement. The queen wasn't the real queen, because the real Queen Lilith was there.”

 

Anka moved, surprised, looking to her father with peaked interest.

 

'She was fake?' asked the girl, because that sounded like one of her fairy tales, the ones her father used to read to her.

 

Alastor nodded, hugging his daughter.

 

“Yes, she was” said the demon. “A creature called homunculus, similar to the clones your other father can create, perfect copies. I don't know her origins or how she came to supplant the real queen but... I went with your father and we rescued her.”

 

The girl thought for a moment in that information.

 

'You knew she was there, papa?' asked the girl and when the deer nodded, she knew she had to ask the question. 'And you went to rescue her even when she...?'

 

Because the girl was starting to understand what happened between her fathers.

 

Alastor gave her a soft smile, sad, lowering a little his defenses because his girl wasn't reproaching his action or was mad at him for 'losing' her other father, she wanted to know because, at the end of the day, his daughter had a good heart and she could do the same, even knowing she could lose Lucifer in her life.

 

“It was the right thing to do, my love” said the demon without hesitation. “She was someone needing saving, without the means to save herself. I knew what I was losing but...”

 

He took some air and closed his eyes.

 

“...Also, I can't lament losing something that wasn't mine” said the demon. “If it was true love, he would chose me, doing the right thing but still... It wasn't the case, my love, I'm sorry. I know you wanted that and I tried, but it wasn't meant to be.”

 

They stayed in that way, both looking to the water, catching on the frogs leaping and trying to catch insects, specially the fireflies, moving dangerously near the water.

 

'And what happens with us now?' asked Ankareeda. 'My dad...'

 

She stopped and changed the sign.

 

'The king, still wants us here? Or... we'll need to go?' asked the girl and she was very sad, her signs barely moving her hands.

 

Alastor sighed.

 

“His majesty said he wants us here, he still wants a relationship with you, to be your father but... I guess that will depend on the queen” said the deer demon.

 

'I don't like her' said the girl, not angry, still sad.

 

“You don't know her, you don't know that” said the demon, raising with the girl in his arms. “And isn't sure but you'll have to be in your best behaviour when you meet her.”

 

The girl turned around, hugging her father around his neck, she then moved just one hand to sign.

 

'I don't want to go, I like it here' said the girl. 'I want to be with my sister and Vaggie and my uncles and aunties... I want them to be still my uncles and aunties.'

 

Alastor started to move to the cottage thinking the girl needed a good hot cocoa to feel better.

 

“I wish I could promise you that, my love” said the deer demon. “I don't have anything that ties me here but you do, so I'll try to stay for you and you have to make an effort too.”

 

The girl thought for a moment.

 

'But you have friends here' she said. 'You and Angel are good friends and Charlie needs you!'

 

She moved to look directly to the eyes of her father but Alastor moved his eyes, avoiding her gaze.

 

“Angel tolerates me” said the demon. “And being realistic, nobody needs me. It was a delusion from my part to think that I was needed by your other father, the same that with him here the princess doesn't need me. She also has Vaggie and Angel has Husk... or, better said, they have each other. Even you, what the king can provide to you, I can't. You'll be always limited by me being a sinner, while with only your father, you're a princess of Hell. No glass ceiling for you.”

 

Ankareeda was near to cry, tears fighting to abandon her eyes. She hugged to her father strongly, as strong as a seven years old body could manage and she signed over the back of her father and, even when Alastor wasn't looking, he knew what she said.

 

'I need you!'

 

And he wanted to believe that but... his mind was calling him to a very dark place. A known place.

 

A place in his mind he wasn't visiting since he died or, more correctly, since the days before dying. The whispers telling him he wasn't needed, that his life was unimportant, the his love was meant to die or kill those he loved. And a place in where he knew he was tired... Tired of not being happy, of being alone, of being always a second choice.

 

Lucifer wanted to be with him because he thought his all time love didn't love him back anymore, Charlie needed him because she thought her father wasn't kind to her project and would never help her, his friends normally used him, like Mimzy, he bet Angel wasn't different from that. Husk never cared for him, even when he tried to save him from himself, the same as he was always an inconvenience for Vaggie.

 

He remember how she projected him in her mind, a monster, someone ready to torture, to hurt, to... He tried to project that image to enemies, as a deterrant but she saw him like that even knowing him.

 

Even his daughter... She thought she needed him now but he had to think in her future and his mind was telling him that her future will only by bright if he wasn't in the picture as a shadow over her happiness and accomplishments. It broke his heart having the thought of leaving her behind but he refused to use his daughter as an emotional support arm floaty... He didn't want to mess with her future just because he needed her, he needed to have love from the only person that could really love him.

 

His mother always said 'Leave places better than you found them' and maybe he needed to do that. Alastor thought he had to plan, to start to move things as soon as possible... but a dark determination was raising in his broken heart: First he needed the Queen to accept his daughter's presence and then he was ready to deliver an amazing performance... Before the curtain call. Then he could abandon the play leaving the stage by the side.

Notes:

If you didn't notice before, I added a new tag... Btw, I'll try to update first Dollface before the next chapter. Oh, boy, my joy, from angst to more angst but in another (but similar) flavour. Damn, I'm a riot XD

Chapter 52: Kindness in a dark place

Summary:

Lucifer, Charlie, Vaggie and Lilith have a conversation... or mostly Lucifer places things over the table for the queen.

Lilith wants to meet the man that saved her and Alastor sees a marvelous oportunity to present Ankareeda.

The deer has a plan and no amount of kindness and comprehension will deter him from it.

Notes:

A show about pain, this is. Let's meet Lilith properly and we'll dive a little into the self-destructive tendencies of Alastor. Also, beware, meaty very long chapter incoming.

“All witches are selfish, the Queen had said. But Tiffany's Third Thought said: Then turn selfishness into a weapon! Make all things yours! Make other lives and dreams and hopes yours! Protect them! Save them! Bring them into the sheepfold! Walk the gale for them! Keep away the wolf! My dreams! My brother! My family! My land! My world! How dare you try to take these things, because they are mine! I have a duty!”

~Tiffany Aching, The Wee Free Men

 

 

“I don't understand what's happening” said Charlie, first aprehensive and reluctant to be seated but then going to sit anyway with Vaggie in one of the armchairs of her father's room.

 

Lucifer sighed, he was walking the room but eventually, when Charlie and Vaggie took his armchair, he moved to his workbench and took his stool, siting in it.

 

“Yeah, that goes around...” he shook his head. “First things first, Lily, this is Charlie and her girlfriend Vaggie... Girls, she's the real Lilith.”

 

“What?” said the princess.

 

“Pero qué coño...?” added the ex-exorcist.

 

“The woman we confronted was a copy, a copy she made.. with help she shouldn't get” he said, serious, looking to her.

 

She lived an ordeal, she suffered in captivity but she also made errors, starting for trusting The Root.

 

“So, she is...” said Charlie, starting to be overcome by emotion.

 

The idea that her mother never changed, never tried to sell her to the Von Eldritch, that she was alive and she was good... and there, for her. But Lucifer saw that happiness, creeping in his daughter and he didn't want to deceit her, to let that happiness grow with hope to then snuff it out.

 

“It's not exactly what you're thinking, applepie” said the monarch. “Your... Lilith created the homunculus to be able to be a mother. I didn't know that, I told you how we tried and it never...”

 

Charlie remembered that conversation, into the bayou of Alastor, talking about how much took Lilith to be a mother, how secure she was when she was pregnant of her about that being the time and how she changed after giving birth to her.

 

The princess was... starting to catch on the implications and that was shattering any semblance of hope that was raising in her just mere seconds ago.

 

Lilith lowered her head, ashame. Maybe the queen wasn't privy yet to all the things her creation did to her family but she was starting to catch on the emotions and the shame and regret was starting to make space in her heart.

 

“I was cursed by Heaven” said the woman with a sighed that was almost groan, she was looking to no one. “We lost so many, many children that I... I just wanted...”

 

Charlie denied with her head.

 

“So that... fake Lilith, that creature, the homonculus like you called her, was my real mother” said the woman, sadness was starting to move to let rage fill the void.

 

“I'm your mother” said the woman, trying to smile to the blond hellborn. “She was identical to me in every one, even cells... She was just means to an end... she didn't have the curse that weights in my soul. The original plan was to her giving birth and feed you the first months and then me taking over, raising you...”

 

The woman interrupted the queen.

 

“First, that's horrible, she was alive, she had feelings... maybe she was a monster at the end but she was a person” the princess denied with her head. “That's beyond cruel, making her to give birth to take me away and... what? Destroying her? That...”

 

“That's not what I wanted!” said the queen raising from the bed. “Charlotte... I... I was planning to give her a life, changing her appareance, living freely in another ring... She was a part of me, I didn't want to destroy her but... She was just...”

 

“My mother” said the woman. “She was my mother, the only mother I knew. The woman that raised me, that taught me right from wrong, to conduct myself, about the sinners... She... she was my inspiration, her love for her people, specially sinners, the idea they deserved better, that was...”

 

Lilith interrupted her.

 

“That's mine too!!” said the woman, desperated. “I always cared and loved my people, both hellborn and sinners. And sinners deserved better of what Heaven and their dispositions gave them. I don't know if you're already known to mortals or if they summoned you but they did, with me, since the beginning. I was there when mothers feared for their children, I was there to see hunger, war, cruelty, discrimination... I was the shoulder and the only help of women mistreated all around history!”

 

She rose from the bed, her horns showing.

 

“I know they deserved better because I knew how hard and cruel their mortal lives were” the woman took some air, closing her eyes trying to calm herself. “Charlie, while I was queen, sinners were protected. Do you think the exterminations were Adam first attempt to stick his nose here and make life miserable for sinners? I always stopped him, I was a wall he tried with all his might to pierce with no avail.”

 

Lucifer denied.

 

“And I fucked up giving the 'yes' to exterminations here” said the monarch, repentant.

 

Lilith moved to him, just to hug him softly, with a delicate smile.

 

“Don't be hard on yourself, Lulu” said the woman. “I wasn't here to be more firm, to reasure you. Even when my homunculus told she did what she could when she came, pure rage, to told me about the exterminations, I knew she didn't reach to you like only I could. I'm sorry, my love, for not being here.”

 

Charlie, even when she was grateful that at least that part of her mother was, well, really Lilith's, was still furious with her... even when she didn't know exactly why. She felt cheated, yes, the idea that her mother was that creature, that creation was painful for her and, at the same time, the idea of that woman, doing that to be mother, just... Wasn't right.

 

“In any case, even when... her had many things from you, she wasn't you” said the girl. “And she's dead and you can't pretent coming here and acting like you were my mother all the time.”

 

Vaggie was holding her hand strongly and Charlie really apreciated the gesture. She needed, all that information was... hard but now she understood a lot of things, starting by the state in what Al.... That came to her train of thought at last and she opened her eyes when things clicked in her brain.

 

She faced her father immediactly.

 

“And what happens with Alastor?” asked the woman, starting to feel something unwell in her stomach.

 

“Alastor, that's the man that saved me, right?” asked Lilith. “I will very much meet him to say him my thanks.”

 

Lucifer took air and denied.

 

“That's gonna be something much complicated than you think, Lily” said the monarch. “Al... Alastor... From the beginning, your clone, homunculus or whatever, was very different from you. She was distant with the service, she loved to be above everyone else and... I let that be because I was just happy to be a father and I thought maybe was a normal reaction of becoming a mother. But...”

 

The First Woman returned to the bed, sitting again. Catching in the expressions of Vaggie, Charlie and Lucifer, something was telling her that story wouldn't be of her liking.

 

“For one hundred years of Charlie's existence she was... I guess the term is abusive with me” Lilith opened her eyes widely. “I... I allowed her because I thought she was unstable for the exterminations, worried for Charlie, with dangers both coming from Hell and Heaven but when she carried herself to be in the more physical type of aggression, I stopped her. Around that time, when things in the palace were extremelly tense, a mortal woman summoned me to save his son.”

 

***

 

“Mô rwa, rwa enho lanwit, parin mo gin” was chanting the mother of the boy over the symbol made with ashes of appletree wood. “Mo priyé a twa. Sové mô piti, sové mô Alastor d'abuzè a blan mal bokou. Sivouplé, vini a mó, Damballa-Lucifer.”

 

Alastor was helping her, repeating her prays, first to clean the room they were using for the ritual, to purify it from external influences and then to the ritual itself. He was young but the boy was a pragmatic, he thought that was of no use.

 

Sure, he knew magic... magick, with k, to differenciate real power from parlor tricks, existed, was an ability some had, including himself and her mother and wasn't like he didn't believe in the Loa, of course he did... What he didn't believe, it was that Damballa, the benevolent white serpent loa, and the christian Lucifer were one and the same and that entity was also in the market to make deals with mortals, helping them or saving them.

 

Alastor was fourteen, and when someone could think that was not age at all to be desmotivated, cynical and tired, the young man was just that. For years under the rule and belt of his father taught him there was no hope for him, there were no miracles because he expended half of those years praying, to whoever entity wanted to respond, for the demise of his father.

 

He needed to took that into his own hands and now he was ready to be punished for that. People like him, with the wrong body, poor like a rat, from his origins, weren't mean to have a future and he assumed that with stoicism.

 

Heck, he was less that shit under the sole of the men of his city, how much important he could be to an entity like a loa... Specially someone so up in the scale as Lucifer.

 

But... he loved his mother, with all his rotten heart and he didn't utter a note of discomfort, a single complain. His mother wanted to reach that last hope to save his life, so be it. He managed to get the wood needed for the ritual with the last of his savings (not that he would need them in his bleak short future) and helped her mother to prepare everything.

 

He was surprised, when after mere moments of his mother finishing her chanting, red smoke rose from the now illuminated symbol to left a man, inhumanly gorgeous but small, neatly dressed in pure white.

 

The man, with a huge smile, twirled his cane in his hand to then rest both his hands over it.

 

“Ah, Louisiana... New Orleans! There is a time like someone from the Pelican State invoked me” said the Devil, with his unnatural but, for Alastor, very endearing voice. “Oh, please, raise... both of you. Can I get your name, madame?”

 

He said to the woman, in a tone that was almost playful.

 

“Aloÿia, your highness” said the woman, extending her hand when she saw the short man was doing the same. “But people use to call me just Yia or Mama Yia.”

 

“Enchanté” said the Fallen, turning around to see the young boy, dressed in long very worked and used brown pants, a white shirt with sleeves rolled and with glasses, looking to him with surprise written all over his face. “And you, young man?”

 

The mixed boy reacted at last, smiled and tended his hand. He was waiting for it to be kissed but for the first time in his life, was more... anticipation than disgust. He wanted to be kissed by the beautiful man... in the hand, of course.

 

But no, the King of Hell took his hand firmly and gave him a handshake, like they were equal.

 

“A-... My name is Alastor, my king” said the boy, his voice barely leaving his lips. “Pleasure to be meeting you, quite a pleasure.”

 

“Mine too, young man, very strong name for a strong lad” he made his cane dissapear and clapped his hands. “Now, if you can point me to the food, we can talk about your predicament.”

 

The woman looked to his son for a moment and Alastor could see in her eyes the relieve of someone that have salvation just in the palm of their hand.

 

“Of course, your highness” said the woman, guiding the man to the kitchen. “I hope you came with the empty stomach because I think I overdid meself.”

 

***

 

“I stayed a week with them, sharing meals, knowing the young lad” continued to tell the monarch. “And of course I saved him from the mortal authorities. But unknown to me, I made quite an impression on the teenager and he decided that was his after-life mission to return to me my happiness.”

 

Lucifer sighed and lowered slightly his head.

 

“He was good, he wasn't meant to step on Hell so he decided to take matters into his own hands” he explained. “He become a killer, targetting abusers, pedophiles, rapists... And when he died, he tried to catch my attention but wasn't easy. I became very bitter, isolated and... Well, your copy and I were trying to save appareances for the rest of Hell even when we weren't living together, but she had the hots for Alastor from day one and when I met him first time, not only I didn't related him with that kid but also I hated him for the attention he was receiving from her.”

 

And that created the beginning of Alastor's train of thought, believing what rumors said about him and trying his plan.

 

“Eight years ago, in a party that your copy celebrated after the last extermination that year, I met Alastor again... as a woman” said the monarch. “Alastor is trans, he was born a woman and he decided to take that last resource, thinking I only have eyes for female company, to get near to me” he made a jar of water to appear and a glass, serving himself some drink it in a single gulp. “And effective he was. We met and... we started to live together since that day.”

 

The hand of the queen moved little by little to her mouth without her realizing. It was just there in the end of that phrase, holding her own mouth and surprise.

 

“So... you and him since eight years ago...” she said, Lucifer denied.

 

“Not quite” said the monarch. “I... the experience with your clone scarred me, change me and I was... Again the word is abusive, with him. I knew, I felt, he was hiding something from me and I thought all was a plan to use me, gain the throne... I couldn't think he was really invested in me and first I tried to control him, I forced him to be a prisoner on my manor and then...”

 

He knew that part was going to be hard to hear for the woman, taking her story, what she had to do to be a mother with him. Maybe knowing that Alastor became pregnant so fast will be a hard hit for her, like a show of her own uselessness, placing a value in a pregnancy that for Lucifer wasn't important at the end of the day. He loved her for her, not for the idea of her having kids with him, even when he loved both Charlie and Ankareeda with all his heart.

 

“He became pregnant and fearing... abandonment mostly, I forced him to relinquish his soul to me” said the Devil. “That was hard for him, he felt rightfully betrayed. He loved me, since he was a teen, at last he could stay with me even when later he confessed me he thought I never loved him and... Well, your clone orchestrated him escaping just to make him abort or even trying to kill him for chosing me and not her... and... I thought he died together with the baby but he... he tried to get vengeance on me and all was discovered and then your clone... In any case, in the years I thought he died I discovered that I really loved him and we recently tried to bond, to become something and we were managing just fine and...”

 

Lilith moved her hand from her mouth to speak.

 

“So... you feel in love, mistreated him but then you encountered here and you bonded... you love him and... I adventure to say the baby is allright?” asked the woman.

 

“Yes” responded Charlie with a soft smile. “I got a sister, her name is Ankareeda. She was hurt by that plot and Alastor had her in secret fearing dad could hurt her, because the other Lilith made him believe that attack when escaping was on dad's orders... They became a couple after ups and downs just barely a some weeks ago.”

 

The Queen sighed.

 

“And here I came messing all up” she said, sad, very sad.

 

“Lily, don't say that” commented the king, moving to the bed to hold the hands of the woman. “I didn't know but if I had known, I would rescue you anyway. Alastor was on the same mentality, he knew you where there, he had the key from your homunculus, he snooped the place first. He knew what he was about to encounter and he did it anyway.”

 

Only for Lucifer to react in pure impulse, kissing the woman like she was the water he needed in his desert, ignoring completelly the man that he was calling 'his love' mere minutes before. He betrayed Alastor and now the man was destructed, returning to his very self-loathing thoughts.

 

“I want to meet him” said the queen. “I need to thank him in person and know him.”

 

Lucifer placed an expression of pain his face.

 

“I don't know if now is a good moment” said the king but Charlie interrupted more possible words from him almost jumping from the armchair.

 

“I think is a magnificent idea” said the princess.

 

“Applepie, Al is...” he tried to make her understand.

 

“I know how he is, we saw him when he went to talk to Anka” said the woman. “And better now than letting him stew in his own thoughts. I'll go to find him!”

 

And the resoluted princess moved to go out of the room in the direction of the other side of the corridor, to the room of the Radio Demon.

 

“What do you think, Vaggie?” asked Lucifer, looking to the latina. “You're awfully silent.”

 

She looked back and him and the monarch could felt the slight coldness coming from her. He felt the very same the day Alastor confessed how it was living with Lucifer.

 

“I think this is all complicated and pure shit” said the ex-exorcist. “I don't know what you did for Alastor to react like someone was dancing a cumbia over his grave, but he was trying to build an emotional wall even between Charlie and me and himself. I don't like this and I think this chat is gonna be a shit show.”

 

Lucifer sighed to then shook his head.

 

“How bad you saw him?” asked the monarch.

 

The latina woman crossed her arms.

 

“Like someone extracted his soul and pulverized it” said Vaggie. “I don't know what you did, I think is because she's here and present. But what... you fucking did, you better try to fix it because if the shit I saw on him it's just a beginning, the end is gonna be apocalyptic.”

 

***

 

Alastor was decided, he had a plan and he knew the steps he had to take to achieve what he wanted. He was ready to use the same resolution, the same aplomb and drive he used to try to kill Lucifer, to achieve his vengeance... even when this time the vengeance part was gonna be different.

 

First step, he needed for the queen and his daughter to meet and for Lilith to accept the presence of his Anka. He didn't need for her to like his baby but he would try to make that happen... Acceptance was good for his plan but interest, curiousity or even affection could be even better.

 

He helped his daughter to bathe, he picked her best dress, a new one, in white and violet.. Not a princess dress, even when Rosie purchased some of those for Anka, but a regular but elegant and cute one. Alastor didn't want to give the impression that his little one was already behaving like a princess... He didn't want the queen to feel threatened over her own status or the status of Charlie as heir. No, he had to play that with intelligence, he had help his daughter to charm the woman but never trying to place her in the same status as their daughter.

 

Even when that hurt him, he had to accept the truth that not for Lilith or Lucifer, Ankareeda wasn't in the same social strata or social importance than Charlie... Also, his daughter didn't need that.

 

She needed protection, money, recognition and all the support the crown could bestow to her, even being a bastard child. It didn't mattered if in front of the nobility she wasn't royal, if she had the commodities and advantages of one.

 

Thinking in that, Alastor was in his room waiting for Anka to dress up, with a couple of shoes to match the dress in his hands, lost in thought.

 

When the girl was ready, she called her father's attention touching his hand.

 

“You're beautiful, my love” he showed her the shoes. “I know you don't like them but...”

 

She took them from his hands and she started to placed them on her hooves.

 

“You won't protest?” asked the demon, with a sad smile.

 

'I'll be a good girl, a good daughter' she said with signs. 'I'll do whatever you ask of me, papa. I'll behave, you'll see.'

 

She was sad and she wanted to indulge him at all cost... That broke his heart even more, having to watch his daughter losing her light, her fire, because things turned different and not according to her dreams and hopes. She had everything she could possible desire and in the blink of a second she lost it.

 

Maybe for her he should let Lilith lost in that basement, maybe... No, Alastor was sure of something: he was a monster but not that type. Besides, who could say the spell that constrained the queen would weaken with time or someone could find her. No, better now, better as soon as possible that far in the future.

 

Reality was pain but he prefered to have certain control in the middle of that.

 

“You're always a good girl, Anka” said the red demon, placing his gloved hand over her head. “I'm always so proud of you.”

 

He needed for her to know, that he loves her, that he was proud. He wanted that burned in her memory so she wouldn't blame herself when...

 

Someone knocked at the door and Oncle moved to open.

 

“Sorry, Al” said Charlie, from the door without entering, to then smile when she saw her sister. “Anka, you're so beautiful! That dress really matches you.”

 

'Thank you' she said with signs to then using her hands to make sure the dress what very well in place.

 

“Anka was reading herself to meet your gracious mother when the queen desires to” said the deer demon. “Can I do something for you, Charlotte?”

 

Charlie was starting to hate her full name, with passion. The coldness that name projected for her coming from Alastor, after so many time being 'darling' or 'dear', was making her feel uncomfortable, just because she knew how Alastor was hiding how he felt.

 

“You're on luck” she said, smiling, hiding her own thoughts just like the overlord did. “Queen Lilith wants to meet you, so you can present Anka to her.”

 

She used the full name of the woman also to add some distance... yes, of course, the idea of taking her as a mother, even if she wasn't the one that birthed her or raised her, crossed her mind and maybe eventually she could do that, with time, lots of time, but now she was worried sick for Alastor and she was angry with her dad and with Lilith for creating a copy that only brought pain over their family.

 

Also Charlie was using the lessons of Alastor, so the overlord could say she paid him attention. She was smiling, not betraying how she really felt, the utter pain and confusion.

 

“Very well, we'll go now at the request of the queen” he said, looking back to her daughter.

 

Anka nodded and took the hand of the overlord to move to go out of the door with him but as soon as he stood out, Charlie hugged him in a moment that was pure reaction.

 

“Charlotte, this is not appropiate” he said, rigid as a plank and without responding back to the hug.

 

“I don't fucking care” she said, maintaining the hug. “Just accept it.”

 

She knew he needed the hug, Alastor knew... but he couldn't let sentiment to take the better of him. Because if he let his feelings to take even a second the rails of his person, he couldn't do what must be done.

 

So he just waited until the woman broke the hug, cleaning Charlie her eyes before tears were there.

 

Nor Alastor or Anka commented about that and both followed the princess to the room of the monarch or how Alastor was calling that room in his mind: The royal chambers. Charlie went to open the door while Alastor used signs to tell to his daughter 'Remember what we talked'. Anka nooded.

 

The woman let the overlord to enter the room but Alastor stood at the door with his daughter behind him.

 

“Your highness” he said and bow looking to the woman. “Princess Charlotte asked me to come, apparently your gracious majesty wanted to see me. May I enter?”

 

He asked and wait.

 

Lucifer looked at him, with a mix of sadness and annoyance. Even for a short time, this was his room for a time, they have trust and that wasn't needed. And painfully, he knew why Alastor was doing that and he hated it.

 

“Of... of course” said Lilith, smiling softly. “I wanted to meet you, my husb... Lucifer told me you were the one that rescued me.”

 

The overlord just moved two steps inside and made a gesture with his hand.

 

“Oh, no... I didn't such a thing, your majesty” he said, his smile in his face, his showbiz persona at full swing, hiding completelly his thoughts and feelings. “Our gracious king is your hero on shining armor, I'm just a hunting dog that pointed in the right direction.”

 

He said to then snap like he was remembering something.

 

“Ah, of course, your highness just wanted to see me but I hope I can introduce you to my daughter” he extended his hand and Anka took it, moving inside the room looking to the woman first with full rejection and sadness.

 

Apparently she thought for a moment, remembering what she was doing there and she started to smile. Even when the young girl tried to take a page from her father's book, she wasn't apt to hide her emotions, she always weared her heart in her sleeve and she wasn't an actress. Her smile was sad and insecure. She took her dress and made a curtsy, lowering her head.

 

“Her name is Ankareeda” said the deer demon.

 

'It's a pleasure to meet you, my queen' said the girl with signs.

 

“Oh, I'm sorry, I don't know sign language... is she deaf?” asked Lilith, alternating a gaze between Lucifer and Alastor.

 

“No” responded the king. “When your clone ordered her death, she was hurt when she was still on Alastor's belly. She can't talk.”

 

The woman again moved her hands to her mouth... She knew that the terrible things her homunculus did would always haunt her in a way or another.

 

“My poor thing... I'm so sorry” she tried to smile for the girl. “You're so cute, with that dress... and you look so much to Lucifer... To your other father too.”

 

She rose her gaze to look to Alastor, smiling to him.

 

“In any case, I want to give you my sincere thanks, Alastor” said the woman. “Without you, I'll be trapped still there without even knowing my homunculus died or what she did. We talked but she never... Whatever, I want to thank you, in anyway you think is appropiate.”

 

Alastor hummed, moving his hand to his chin, like he has to think about it.

 

“I want nothing, my queen” he said finally to then look to his own daughter. “If only... My only wish is for your grace to treat my daughter fairly. Despise me taking advantage of your absence and your husband, and taking a closeness I shouldn't, my daughter is an innocent girl and I hope and wish for your highness to take mercy on her.”

 

Ankareeda was nervious, trying to act with confidence and smile and when Lucifer, that was in that moment paying more attention to Alastor and his words, catched on that, he made a gesture for her to approach but the girl didn't want to, staying near her father.

 

“Also, my daughter won't be a problem for your highness, she knows her place very well and she won't expect any special treatment” said the demon, placing a gloved hand over the shoulder of his daughter.

 

Lilith observed the situation and the woman catched immediactly for the expressions of everyone and what they were hiding behind them, even when the only person she really knew was Lucifer.

 

The little girl was sad and that was obvious, she could almost see in her eyes how her world was almost crumbling. Her father, that deer demon smiling and acting like nothing happened, feared her reactions and not for himself... There was around him an aura of pain that tug at her heart, it was the pain of feeling replaced but also something more, something she didn't catch hiding deep inside him, an old rooted sentiment.

 

Charlie was furious with Lucifer, with her, she was worried for Alastor for the way she was looking back at him when he wasn't looking and Vaggie also was gazing over the overlord, frowning when he talked about the little girl knowing her place or, before, when he mentioned taking advantage of her absence.

 

Emotions were palpable, feelings on the level of the skin but also, at the same time, there was more... specially with that deer demon with the radio voice, her saviour.

 

“Alastor, would you mind if we talk in private?” asked the queen and all eyes were immediactly in her.

 

Even Anka, that in that moment took the hand of her father placing herself almost in front of him, like she was some sort of small shield.

 

The overlord thought in that for a moment and nodded.

 

“Of course, my queen, we could talk in my radio tower if you want” he said while bowing a little to point to the door.

 

The woman snapped her fingers to change to a comfortable dress in purple tones and matching shoes and moved to go out of the room.

 

“Alastor, are you su...” Lucifer was going to asked when he received the pure artic gaze from the demon and nothing more.

 

The Radio Demon was behind the woman, pointing to the other side of the corredor, to the door there while in the room, Lucifer sighed to look to the little girl.

 

“Anka, darling, come here” he asked softly. “How are you feeling?”

 

He asked, while extending her hand. But the girl didn't take it, instead she signed.

 

'You promised me' she said, fast, sad, breaking a little her attempt to present herself with the same ease as her father. 'You hurt papa, you abandon him... us.'

 

“No!” he moved near the girl. “I didn't. I... made a mistake, I didn't know how to react when i saw Lilith and she was so relieve to see me and we kissed and...”

 

“You kissed her?” Charlie was mad. “Alastor went with you, surely fearing he was losing everything to rescue her and your fucking first reaction was to kiss her?”

 

“It was a thing on the moment!!” said the pained king. “I didn't thought...”

 

“You didn't think, that's for sure” said Vaggie, crossing her arms.

 

“But I want to fix it” he looked again to Ankareeda. “I promise I'll fix it. I'm not abandon you or your papa, I promise.”

 

The girl crossed her eyes for a second and when she opened them again, she denied.

 

'You hurt him already, papa is sad, very sad' said the girl. 'I don't trust you, you lied to me. And I don't know what will happen and... I'm afraid.'

 

Lucifer didn't understand the last part but Charlie did.

 

“I don't understand....”

 

“She said she's afraid” said the princess, moving to the young girl and hugging her.

 

***

 

“Here” said the overlord while turning on the lights. “It's not a very elegant or wide place, sorry, your highness, I just hope it will suffice.”

 

Lilith look around the radio tower, catching in something that she noticed.

 

“Did Lucifer build this one for you?” asked the woman.

 

“Well, not willingly, your grace” said the demon, making a chair to appear so the woman could be seated. “He rebuilt the hotel and apparently Charlie asked him for my own radio tower. I was licking my wounds after fighting Adam.”

 

“You fought Adam?” asked the woman, surprised, while taking her seat with a muffled 'Thank you'.

 

“Oh, yes, my ego got the better of me and I got my ass kicked” said the demon, laughing. “It was pointless, really. I almost died for people I didn't believe in, for a place I thought it was a joke and for the hope of a future vengeance that was never in my hands. All devoided of sense or meaning, but what if one more error in a long list of those?”

 

He laughed again.

 

“Well, your highness wanted to talk, so I'll should be listening” said the demon. “But maybe allow me to cut to the chase here. You don't have to worry about me, I have not intention to continue my advances with the monarch and he doesn't want that either. He never loved me and I was only entertainment for him. Your position, your throne, your family, your heir is more than secure.”

 

Lilith was allowing him to speak and was catching for the words he used more than the sinner wanted to freely express.

 

“If you're still in the necessity of being reassure or want to punish this lowly sinner for daring to touch your husband, you're in your right... Probably in your situation I would do the same” he sighed. “But again, I must to plea leniency for my daughter. She's innocent and she shouldn't be punish for the sins of her father. If you promise, with a deal, to not hurt my child, I'll accept whatever punish you see fit. I won't hide, I won't run.”

 

The queen thought for a moment in his words, in the way he express them and all the things he wasn't saying.

 

“You really think I could punish someone that saved me from two hundred years of nightmare?” said the monarch. “A man that risked his relationship and future just to do the right thing?”

 

Alastor just shrugged.

 

“Your homunculus could, easily, and she was almost you” said the man.

 

“Yeah, but she wasn't me, not at all” in fact, she was starting to believe that including that instruction to live to all cost, broke something in the head of her creation. “I won't hurt you, Alastor, and less your daughter. Specially not for sleeping with Lucifer, we didn't have an open marriage but we invited people to our bed. Women, mostly... very insecure my husband about his skills with men.”

 

She sighed, trying to smile softly to try to make the deer demon to relax.

 

“And maybe you now think he didn't love you but I think he did and he does” said the woman. “He was very worried about you, you know? As soon as I told him, explain him my ordeal, he wanted to return here as soon as possible to check on you.”

 

Lilith looked so different from her homunculus, composed, real and good, for the lack of a better word. Alastor was relieved she was like that because even when Lucifer told him he cared for Anka, he could protect her, he wasn't in the mood to trust the king right now and less with the security of his daughter.

 

And for the rest... he wanted to believe her, his broken heart wanted to believe. He couldn't.

 

Rosie said that thousand of times: Words mean nothing.

 

In the hour of the truth, he chosed her and ignore him and that was the truth above all else.

 

“I... what I want to say is...” said the woman, raising from the chair. “I've been away two hundred years and my copy made an impression on Lucifer that I don't know if I would be able to change. And you two were together and now I'm feeling like a strange, an intruder, jumping in the middle... and...”

 

Alastor rose a hand.

 

“Do you still love him, your majesty?” asked the demon.

 

Lilith didn't have to take time to think in that.

 

“I do, but...” Alastor interrupted her again.

 

“Then everything is as it should been” he said. “Whatever was what Lucifer and I had, was a flint, a speck of dust compare with your love story, with the time you were together. You love him and you deserve your happiness, with your daughter, daughter-in-law and him, specially after that nightmare you had to live. He deserves his happiness too, with the woman he truly love and his beloved daughter. A woman that can give him everything I can't.”

 

He didn't want to show his feelings, he didn't want his mask to crack but Lilith could catch a little on the pain when he made that pause, closing his eyes for a moment.

 

“But you...” insisted the woman.

 

“I was born to be alone, your highness, I'm used to that” said the overlord. “God made sure of that giving me my background and my body.”

 

“Nobody deserves to be alone” she said.

 

“Agree to disagree” said the demon. “In any case this it's just my infantile promise fullfilled, he's happy, he's gonna be happy and that was all that mattered to me. Now... I'm in no position to ask but if you really think you owe me anything for your rescue, I wish for my daughter to be included in your family. I know she's a bastard and with a sinner no less but...”

 

“She's Lucifer daughter, of course she's part of our family” the woman came close the deer demon. “And I'm sure Lucifer will want to give her every single thing she needs and every single advantage, I bet he loves her the same as he loves Charlie...”

 

Alastor didn't believe that but he let the woman to speak. He wanted to be in her good side, he wanted Anka, specially, to be in her good side and he gained nothing trying to explain the queen why she was wrong.

 

“But even with that, Anka also have you” said the queen. “She deserves to have her father happy by her side.”

 

“Maybe I won't be forever with her” said the man, contemplative. “I'm a sinner, yes, durable, of course... but not immortal, not indestructable like Lucifer. Far from it. I'm a ruthless and cruel overlord and people want my demise. Before I was protected by the closeness of the king, going out again who knows is someone could take their chances and win.”

 

“But Lucifer can still protect you” said the woman.

 

“No, he won't” responded the deer. “His majesty is gonna be very busy with his queen, returning to the marital life he desires so much. Helping Charlie with the hotel... No, he won't be my babysitter, I wouldn't allow it in any case. I just want reassurance that my daughter will have care and love and all the things she need to develop correctly, that she wouldn't be dragged down for having me as father.”

 

Lilith sighed. She knew she needed to talk to Lucifer. She was a very empathetic woman and the feelings she was catching, with difficulty but they were there, from the deer demon was enough to gave her pause. There was a dark sinister determination but not agressive, not against her... it was something lingering there and if she was a betting woman, she will be betting on something very sad and dark.

 

No, she needed to talk to Lucifer as soon as possible.

 

“I have not problem of treating your girl as my own” said the woman.

 

“Excelent!” Alastor took some distance from the woman, twirling his mic in his hand. “Now, I have a few errants to run, if your majesty is so kind could say to my daughter that I'll be back soon? Also, it could be a magnificent oportunity to know her... My daughter is a delight.”

 

“She looks like so” said the woman with a soft smile.

 

“Perfect, this was a very productive chat” he said, before bowing the then dissapear in his shadows.

 

While Lilith returned to Lucifer's room, Alastor went to his own, to his collection of books about magicks, shadow rituals and he started to peruse a very old tome until he found something, a page with the drawing of a very intrincated dagger in the middle, with concrete symbols, not veves, more cabalistic, from traditional magic.

 

He took a piece of paper and started to draw the dagger, with all the symbols.

 

“Stop” he said to Oncle, who was in his shoulder looking to the dagger and emiting sounds that could only be categorized as whimpers. “I don't know if I'm to use it. I... I want both options.”

 

His shadow protested, pointing to the dagger.

 

“This isn't up for debate, my mind is made” said the demon. “Don't worry, whatever I decide to do, you'll be free from my same fate.”

 

'That isn't important' said the shadow, talking with signs instead that his shadow talk. 'This will be worst, for you.'

 

“I wasn't counting on taking this route” said the demon, confessing his ideas. “I wasn't expecting the queen to be a good person, still I don't know. I... I just need to commission the dagger to have both options.”

 

The shadow moved, denying with his head.

 

'We can still talk with our love...' said the shadow but Alastor, delivering a punch to the desk, interrupted him.

 

“He isn't our love!” said the demon. “He chose! And his election wasn't us... wasn't me. And I can't continue with this pain digging a hole in my chest every time I see in his direction. I wanted to make good on a promise, why I had to involve my heart in it? And now I can't go back, I can't hate him, I can't continue either.”

 

He made a surpreme effort to not let a single tear abandon his eyes, he closed them and closed strongly his own fists.

 

“I knew I was meant to be alone but now that I tasted company... now that I know tenderness, now that I know what I was missing, I can't crawl back to my hole in the dark, alone and unloved” he said, in a mere whisper, soft, felt. “I can't deal with this pain anymore. And I don't have any single reason to continue, not a single carrot to chase... First was protecting my mother, then was to reach Hell to fullfil my promise, then was getting close to him, make him happy... then my vengeance, saving Ankareeda from him then his love... Now there is nothing, there is no plan for the future, there is no ambition, there is no single motivation and even when I wanted him happy, I'm a terrible hypocrite and I'll die inside every single time I'll see him happy with her, caring for her, loving her... I wouldn't be able to endure that torture and if they really take Ankareeda...”

 

He turned around to face his shadow, a part of himself, the only creature he was prepare to be sincere about his own heart, because it was useless to hide it from him. Oncle and him were the same, he was feeling the same.

 

“I'm just chosing to die once, instead of dying in every single moment” said the demon. “But this provides with an alternative, similar solution but maybe more elegant... I don't know, I'll take the decision when the moment comes.”

 

He neatly folded the drawing and stored in the interior pocket of his coat.

 

“Remember, not a word to anyone, you're bound to it” said the demon. “Now let's go, I need to resolve today a couple of errands to start this plan to unfold.”

 

And he was carried by the shadows.

 

***

 

“Sorry to intrude, Carmilla” said the demon, materializing in front of the woman through the shadows.

 

“La madre que te... You startled me, Alastor” said the spaniard overlord, resting her fountain pen in its stand on the table and crossing her hands over the documents she was correcting. “Can I help you?”

 

The demon moved his hand to his coat to extract the paper, placing it on the table and moving it towards the woman.

 

“I believe you can” said the Radio Demon. “I need a commission on angelic steel, as soon as possible. An eleven inches dagger with those symbols carved on the blade, with precision, I need them identical and in the same position, the same for the desings on the pommel and hilt.”

 

The woman took the piece of paper to observe it with care, trying to imagine the object in the meassurements the demon told her.

 

“I can extrapolate the rest of the meassurements but...” she pierced the demon with her eyes. “Why this type of dagger and on angelic steel? What are you planning, Radio Demon?”

 

Alastor laughed, trying to rest importance to his petition.

 

“Nothing, nothing bad at least” he said. “It's for a small little ritual of nothing.”

 

The spaniard rose a brow and moved her hand to her chin.

 

“Should I warn the king about this little trinket of yours?” she said, with half smile. “He asked me to alert him if someone tried to purchase angelic steel...”

 

Even with his smile permanently in his face, Alastor became serious. Never in all her life Carmilla saw in him such terrible darkness and, in the same time, that determination.

 

“Do it, if you feel you must to but maybe it's better to keep your nose out of things above your paygrade” he said, almost snarling the words. “This will take out a dangerous enemy of Lucifer and you're making me lose time. You have a week and not a single day more to finish my commission or I'll be... disapointed, Carmilla.”

 

A cold sweat went down the woman's back. She never saw Alastor losing his cool in that way, he always acted secured, impassive, he even was cheerful to certain extend. That reaction was new for the woman and something told her, maybe her survival instint, that the creature in front of her was at the end of his robe, with nothing to lose and ready to make his problems, everyone's problems.

 

“Noted” said the woman. “I'll get your commission in time, don't worry”.

 

“Lovely” he said. “Contact Husk when you have it finished.”

 

He turned around to then be engulfed by shadows.

 

There was something there, something that worried her about Alastor. Could he be going rogue? Going against the king? No, no, that wasn't. She noticed how he looked when talking about Lucifer, how he looked back at him when together. But his demeanor, this dagger...

 

She observed the drawing again.

 

Maybe she won't talk with the king, but maybe she could talk with another overlord, someone very knowledgeable in magicks of any kind.

 

***

 

Alastor transformed into shadow moved to the entertainment district, to the studio deep in the bowels of V-tower.

 

The moth demon was recording a scene with two girls, one very tall and the other rather petite. The small one having as only support in the world the wall behind her and the mouth of the other demoness lost between her folds.

 

Valentino was licking his lips, drooling his poison profusely, enjoying the show.

 

“My, my... I'm glad the girls are enjoying themselves in this way” said the demon after appearing from a shadow.

 

“Cut!” yelled the moth demon. “Qué carajo, what do you want, Radio cunt?”

 

He said, taking out his cigarette holder to smoke.

 

“Oh, the show doesn't continue? Pity, they looked like they were having fun...” he shrugged to move near Valentino, full masked in his showman persona, bigger and grandeur than life. “I came for business, in any case. I have a very lucrative endevour to propose to you.”

 

Valentino laughed.

 

“You? Oh, papito... maybe you're tired of being the pet of the king and you want to showcase the talents in bed he taught you?” he blew smoke in Alastor's direction but the demon seem imperturbable. “I can work with that, I can make you a star... I bet your little cunt just touched by the Devil will sell amazing.”

 

Alastor grabbed with force his cane.

 

Maybe Valentino was oblivious to how far he was going, how near death he was walking but the rest of the studio apparently catched on the vibes and started to dissapear one by one as soon as they saw the shadows coming to life, the little shadow imps coming out of some corners, appear out of thin air... and the mood coming from the deer demon.

 

There was something in the back of the head of every demon in that studio and it was that a predator was in the zone, he was dangerous and volatile. Valentino didn't catched on that, maybe because the danger came from the shadows and the moth only saw danger in lights.

 

“Not that type of business, no... This face, sadly, was meant for radio only” said the demon advancing just a step, just one... and all the cameras in the room were fried with an overcharged of static. “I have a proposition of another nature. You have something I need, I crave... And you're gonna sell him to me.”

Notes:

I won't ask 'What he wants from Valentino' because it's obvious but 'why' and what he's planning apart from a way out? That's the thing. Again, I'll try to update sooner than later because these parts are maybe the ones I thought most about this fanfic.

Btw, the the chant in creole: Mô rwa, rwa enho lanwit, parin mo gin. Mo priyé a twa. Sové mô piti, sové mô Alastor d'abuzè a blan mal bokou. Sivouplé, vini a mó, Damballa-Lucifer.

Translation: My king, king in the night, a godfather I need. I pray to you, save my son, save my Alastor from the abuse of malignant white people. I beg of you, come to me, Damballa (a loa represented by a white serpent, kind and saint, benevolent)

In my headcanon, the loa are angels, being Azrael the loa of death Mamam Brigitte. I have the correlation with some but not all. In anycase, Damballa was perfect for Lucifer, he's also related to another white serpent loa related with rainbows (Charlie?), so I liked the idea.

Chapter 53: Preparations and actors

Summary:

Alastor is an overlord in a mission, he wants to leave everything better than he found him and his first stepping stone is Valentino.

After the talk with the moth overlord, in a moments washed by memories, by instances in time the forged who he was, he continued with his plans with little steps and more preparation.

Notes:

Ok... I thought I wouldn't finish this one for some days but I managed to finish this chapter today. Huzzah! Again, this is a good 30 miligrams of angts directly in the vein so...

Btw!! I got things! First of all and more important, remember that commission I rambled about some times that I was waiting? But well Ice, this amazing artist, finished the commission for me. Look at THIS!!

It's amazing, right?? This is the scene from Chapter 19 with Alastor, Lucifer and Ankareeda going to Cannibal Town. I'll try to embed it in the chapter itself but I wanted for all of you to see it because it's freaking amazing.

Also, I decided to draw covers for my fics and I'll start for this one. I have helluva an idea but I don't know how it'll end up. We'll see.

Btw, also, I finished this drawing for St. Valentine's of the boys in the official merchandising outfits, always in my style, of course ^^ Not a big thing but I'm freaking proud of their faces!

Anyway, enjoy your dosis of sadness and... the return of flashbacks!

“This tale, too, will fade with time, passing into legend as the world heals and moves on. Nevertheless... As aether obeys the cycle- as Death and decay gives way to new life... So too do the memories we share inspire others to rise to greatness.”

-Crystal Exarch, Final Fantasy XIV – Shadowbringers

 

 

“What are you talking about?” said Valentino, that now, giving a fast sweep around with his eyes, noticed he was alone with the Radio Demon in his studio.

 

There was no fear in the moth demon yet, he didn't fell intimidated by Alastor. Somewhat, in his head, he was untouchable by the deer demon, pretty sure he didn't want to sour the return of the friendship with Vox or create a war between the Vees and the Hazbin Hotel that could catch Miss Rainbows and his bastard daughter in the middle.

 

No, for Val, Alastor was all bark and no bite... but nobody in his studio wanted to be even in the same zip code to check if that was true.

 

“You know, my crumb fella, perfectly well what I'm talking about” continued to said the demon, moving now around the studio like he was curious, making stops to catch in certain objects, even making a pause to take a little bag of cocaine to look through the plastic. “The days I expend with Angel were instructive, fun in fact... I want to own him, completelly, turn him into my personal pet.”

 

He turned around to look back to Valentino and the gaze of pure horror was plastered all over his face.

 

“You can't be serious” said the pimp demon. “Angel Dust ain't for sale, venadito. He's fucking mine and mine alone. He's almost a gold mine in my business.”

 

It looks like there was something more, but Alastor didn't care. He was an overlord on a mission and he wasn't in the market to try to decode the thoughts of that man and less to care for his feelings or what he wanted.

 

“Say...” the moth moved near the deer and even made the gesture to try to place his arm around his shoulders... but there was something in the gaze that Alastor gave him, turning his head slowly, that made the moth recoil.

 

He was ready, for profit, to go to the maw of Death to the point of seeing their golden teeth but he wasn't that crazy to stick the hand between them.

 

“I got other actors, equaly talented as Angel, actresses too, if that's also your speed” said the demon, licking his lips. “I can sell you, fuck, even gift you, as a good will offering, two of my best... They could scratch whatever itch the king isn't taking care of.”

 

His voice was like honey, tempting, his pink poisoness smoke moving around him like the coils of a snake. Valentino was in his element when he was seducing, when he was using things that were no part of his personality. He could be charming, he could be seductive, understanding... All a facade, a mirage to lurk souls to his grabby little hands.

 

“Tempting” said the demon, to pin the moth with a serious gaze. “But I came to achieve something concrete that you're gonna give me, like it or not.”

 

“Y una mierda!” he screamed in spanish, pure fury, with his wings opening like if he was trying to make himself bigger. “Angel is mine! I won't let you use him and mistreat him at your sick pleasure!”

 

Alastor knew the moth demon wasn't completelly in contact with reality, he knew that even after a contract, after all the damage and mistreatment, he thought he cared for Angel, that he was better with him than being free or being with another. Delusional, really, but the demon thought all demons in Hell were a little bit delusional in a sense. You needed to, to survive eternal damnation and the crude state of that place.

 

Even Lucifer, King of it all, was that in a sense, thought Alastor, feeling his pain too near to comfort. He lied to himself that he loved Alastor, just because he was alone, just because Lilith left him and was terrible with him. He needed that to survive and to have company again, a person caring for him and his every need.

 

Alastor was so glad that he was ready to finish it all, one way or the other, that he dropped any sense of delusion and lie and could see his reality for all that it was, painful as it was with the need of trying to find a way out.

 

His body tensed in front of Valentino, his form shifted slightly, deforming himself, showing part of his demon semblance with his radio dial pupils fixed on the moth.

 

“Trust me, pimp, you don't want to fight me now” his voice came distorted by his static. “I want Angel's contract and I want it now.”

 

He said, his body dismorphed into that aspect of himself, pure limbs and big antlers, black sclera eyes with just tiny bright red radio dials fixed in the overlord. His smile tense and macabre, with stitches in the corners and the black saliva starting to drip from between his teeth.

 

“I won't give you Angel!” said the pimp demon, with his wings vastly opened, his four hands now ending in pink claws, bigger in form and hunkching, more insect like and ready to fight, with his pink smoke around him, menacing like it has life of its own and also secreting pink liquid from his mouth down to his chin.

 

Alastor grew bigger, enough that when launched a hand towards the moth demon, said hand rivetted in dangerous claws were in the size of the torso of Valentino, impacting him against the wall like the provervial insect he was.

 

“Again, will be a very bad move to fight me in a good day” said the deer demon, going close with his head to the other man. “Now? I have nothing to lose, nothing that I could care... I'm in a point where turf wars, old friendships, decorum between overlords or basic manners mean nothing to me. I have an objective and you're barely a stone in my way... Give me the contract because I'm not in the mood to even torture you.”

 

With his tentacles raising from his back, the lips of Alastor curved into a snarl.

 

The gears inside Valentino's head were turning and shifting, now very attentive of those words that escaped the mouth of the deer demon.

 

'Nothing left to lose'? He thought. No, Alastor wasn't ok, now he was seeing he wasn't. The Radio Demon he knew never lose the compusure, his precious presence and character persona. Never showed weakness but also never made pointless shows of strenght. He never showed his anger even when that was palpable in his gaze... No, this Alastor wasn't ok and the other words he said were turning again and again in the moth demon's head.

 

Something happened, something that affected Alastor deeply. He knew part of the angelic host tried to erase the hotel and its inhabitants, he knew Lilith tried to kill his daughter because Vox told him everything when the king returned the overlord to V Tower to recuperate. Stupid fool... his partner was so fucking deep into the deer demon that he even bought that posibility to play the hero even when everything was telling him that Lilith was lying. He was lucky he was still alive!

 

But... Ankareeda was ok acording to Vox, the hotel was intact, nobody died and even the King of Heaven appeared to stop one of his siblings, the one leading that bullshit. Then why? Why Alastor was like this now?

 

In anycase, the state of the Radio Demon didn't make him to agree easier... no, in fact, that installed some determination to deny him. In that state, he wasn't sure what he was about to do with Angel and he care for the spider, he really care for him. Sure, sometimes he has to discipline Angel because he was unruly by nature but that was part of his charm. No, no, he cared for him and he wasn't about to lose him and less to a demon that was out of his mind.

 

“I'll give you Angel over my dead body!!” the moth demon turned into smoke to escape from the claw of Alastor. He was ready to fight.

 

The eldritch horror that was the Radio Demon in that moment tilted his head to a side slowly, cracking his neck with the sound of ancient wood breaking in a forest.

 

“À votre guise...” said 'As you wish' in french just before launching towards the moth demon.

 

***

 

An hour later, the Radio Demon returned to the hotel.

 

His face had several scratches that were healing slowly but surely, with one pretty nasty cutting slightly his superior lip. His always neat clothes, always dapper, had some tearing here and there, one specially in the shoulder showing an injury that gushed blood in some point, staining in a different tone of red the fabric around it.

 

“What the fuck happened to ya, Al?!” Angel and Husk were sitting together in the lobby, both conversing in some gossip that Niffty came to dispense.

 

They knew already what happened with the false Lilith and the real one, at least the little that Niffty could learn cleaning and, disturbing as it was, moving through the walls trying to fight insects in their natural habitat.

 

The spider demon was worried for his friend, for how he took the news because that was something Niffty couldn't learn but when he went to his room to talk to him, he wasn't there. And he saw, because the door was half opened, that Ankareeda was with Lucifer and the real Lilith.

 

Worried for him, he started to talk with Husk, just to see how the Radio Demon was entering the hotel, with his clothes torn and several wounds.

 

“Nothing, Angel, dear” said the demon, both hands to his lappels, his always present smile dampened by the cut over his lip. “I'm peachy, as always.”

 

The pornstar denied with his head.

 

“That's bullshit” he said. “We... We heard about the Queen and what not... I went to talk to you and you weren't in your room. And now you're returnin' after... what, a fight?”

 

Husk wasn't saying a word while Angel was really worried for the overlord. The bartender was just observing... He knew the deer demon from a very long time, he knew his tics, his tells, his reactions and he knew everyone of his masks by now. Alastor wasn't ok and, at the same time, he was scheming, a very dangerous mix that only spelled disaster and he wasn't sure to whom.

 

“Oh, Angel, darling, I wouldn't call it a fight” said the demon, looking to his nails with interest. “What's a small disagreement between overlords?”

 

The spider demon was about to ask what overlord he reduced to pulp or what overlord was strong enough to land some hits on him but before he could chose his question, the deer demon just laughed and snapped his fingers, making a golden contract to appear in the air. A contract that Angel Dust knew very well.

 

“I got a souvenir from the little quarrel” said the Radio Demon, with his false smile and that chirpy tone.

 

Angel was surprised, looking to a piece of paper that Valentino threw in his face more than once, every time that the moth demon felt disrespected, refused or even having a particular sadistic mood that day, a contract that he had memorized at this point... But when his sign was there as Anthony, the name Valentino wasn't there... or better said, the named was faded behind a brilliant, red inked name.

 

Alastor.

 

The pornstar didn't know how to react, looking to the contract for a time to then look, face washed by surprise, mouth opened, eyes watering... and some emotions coming to his chest that he didn't know how to process.

 

“You got my contract?” asked the spider demon.

 

“Why, yes, dear Angel” said the overlord. “I enjoyed our little moments together and grew fond of you, I must admit that. We have a lot of common, more than I originally thought... So the epiphany came to me: Why I don't get the contract of this charming effeminate fellow? So I did!!”

 

He said, rolling the patchment, with that flair like he was talking about a joke, about something that didn't have real importance, some tribial yet funny.

 

“Bu... but... Valentino would never sell my contract” said the spider, that now was more confused than before.

 

Valentino sold him to Alastor? How? And what gave Al in return for his soul? And he didn't want to free him, just... own him? Why? It wasn't like his services could be of any use to him... Or maybe... No, no, Angel knew that was a far fetch at most. Even if Lucifer decided to cut their relationship (and Angel prayed the king didn't do that because he didn't want to hate him... and he would because he cared more for Alastor than for the monarch), Alastor didn't need a rebound guy. In fact, he knew Alastor didn't valued sex that weren't mixed with feelings but... Then...

 

“Why?! And how?!” he voiced his confusion.

 

The deer demon just laughed, softly and almost wickedly.

 

“Oh, don't worry you pretty little head about it” said the demon. “You work for me now, so no more Valentino, no more porn, no more studio... Until I think in what way I can use your talents, your only concern will be healthy, sober and pretty.”

 

He moved the contract in his hand before making it dissapear.

 

“Also, we'll need to create a new contract” said the Radio Demon. “I don't like to have contracts on paper, they have weaknesses I don't enjoy and the clauses of this one don't fit me at all, do they? I'll present you with the terms... maybe tomorrow, I need to think them well and we can shake on them.”

 

And like nothing, he was about to move to go upstairs but Angel moved fast to block his path.

 

“How ya managed that?!” he was, in that moment, more worried about how he got the contract than the idea of being own by another demon.

 

If that was... months ago, he could be panicking. Even when he never took attention to overlords and didn't knew about Alastor when they first met at the old hotel, after a time, after seeing him in action, he knew that demon was a demon he didn't want to fuck... at least, metaphorically. Sure, he continued to act like nothing but the porn actor wasn't stupid.

 

After knowing about him, knowing his story, seeing him with Ankareeda and their chats... no, he knew the real Alastor, he wasn't in danger for being under contract with him. Even hurt, even sad, even in his worst moment, he was sure Alastor was thinking on him as a friend.

 

What he wanted now to know is how the heck he managed to... intimidate/coerce/force Valentino into selling his soul.

 

“It wasn't that hard, darling” said the demon.

 

“Yes, it was... Valentino once killed a dude for just suggesting a temporal trade, he was fixed to that contract like a priest to an altar boy, how the fuck ya managed that?” he said, because that was almost surreal for him. “Val in fact told me that I was going free when he was dead.”

 

And the idea stroke him like a ton of bricks.

 

“Did.. you killed him?” asked the demon, making a step back.

 

“I certainly tried but Voxxy came to his rescue...”

 

***

 

Half hour before in V Tower...

 

The fight ensued and even when Valentino was using all his power, all his tricks, he wasn't a physical demon, he wasn't used to fight his battles in that way and he wasn't on the same level of power as Alastor by any extent.

 

He managed to land a couple of scratches and even managed to take him by surprise with an angelic dagger he had for emergencies on the studio and hurt him in the shoulder... but the beast that was Alastor took the weapon from him after breaking his arm and after embeding him to the ground with potency enough to make him bleed in his mouth, he pierced his good antenna with the dagger, salivating black ooze all over him while snarling.

 

And all the desire and fire to fight from the moth demon died the very same moment that he saw Alastor conjuring out of shadows an angelic sword, a beautiful one with the blade faceted like broken glass but tinted in red, with the symbol of the Morningstar in the pommel.

 

He was about to kill him, kill him completelly, he was about to die, like every other overlord that fought that monster that wasn't Vox. Only his partner survived that and was by the grace of the very same demon.

 

No, he was about to die and he didn't want to. Suddenly, having Angel under contract didn't seem that important, he didn't care so much for that when he was looking Death riding their pale horse directly towards him.

 

“Please, Alastor!” screamed the moth. “I... I'll sell him, ok? Let's... Let's talk about this. There is no need to go this far!”

 

The Radio Demon, gigantic as he was, with his head the size of the overlord, just stretched his smile to impossible tense while growling.

 

“You made me lose my now precious time, so now I want my pound of flesh, moth” he said, with his unnatural voice, moving the sword in one of his tentacles ready to strike the chest of the porn overlord.

 

Alastor felt the static just before the electricity impacted his head and his back and like an animal hurt in a blind spot, he moved half his body to gaze at Vox.

 

The TV Demon was there, with his hands filled with electricity, ready to fight but for his eyes he wasn't ready for it, he didn't want to fight his ex-partner.

 

“Al, what the fuck happened here?” but he decided that wasn't important, the important thing was to save Valentino. “Please, Al, don't kill him. What ever this is, what ever he did, we can talk it. We can fix it... please, Alastor, I don't want to fight you.”

 

The Radio Demon growled again. He was ready, he knew he could take them both even ending up badly hurt, he knew he could fight them both, win that fight, kill them both... But he didn't care if Valentino was alive or dead, he didn't want to kill Vox.

 

Denying with his head, he returned to his regular form, adjusting his now badly damaged clothes and making the Morningstar blade to dissapear.

 

“Give me the contract” said the red demon, extending his hand towards the moth, still in the ground, still pierced by his own dagger and through his own antenna.

 

“What contract?” asked Vox, removing his power from his hands but still on guard eitherway.

 

There was something in Alastor, there was something he was trying to hide behind an indiference mask that he was catching but couldn't pin point. There was determination there, but also sadness, pain and not a physical one. There was an aura around Alastor that Vox didn't like but in that moment all he could do was make sure he wasn't killing Valentino and then he could try to dig in his ex-partner's current state.

 

The moth demon removed his own dagger from his antenna and rose from the ground, invoking the contract with Angel Dust, that golden patchment created out of his smoke, coming to life with magick. The overlord wasn't happy to present the contract, much less to sell his most prized possession but... After seeing his second death from at close, knowing that he was living just because Vox was there, he wasn't in the mood to try to argue.

 

“Mend the name” said Alastor, who after a second of Valentino lost in his thoughts, was tired of waiting already.

 

The moth demon moved his fingers over his own name and that fade to be hard to read in the patchment. The Radio Demon moved, using his index finger to write his name, scratching the contract with a sound of shuffling of channels that was coming direction from his pointy nail.

 

Then the took the golden patchment to roll it, keeping it in his hand. And with his other hand he took from the interior of his coat his wallet, taking a bill from it to flick it to Valentino's face.

 

“Keep the change” he said, turning around to go out of the studio.

 

The moth, painfully because he was much hurt than Alastor and every bone in his body protested the movement, bent to take the bill from the ground, looking at it to feel the rage coming to him.

 

“A dollar?!” protested Valentino. “That's what Angel worths to you, hijo de puta?”

 

Vox tried to calm the moth, specially with insults that could nullify the calming effect he managed to get over Alastor, tense as it was.

 

The deer demon turned around, with his fake smile as a flag in his face.

 

“Oh, no, Angel is unvaluable to me” said the red demon. “That, it's what you deserve, after all the mistreatment and pain he has to endure... You didn't deserve to own him, you don't deserve to be paid for releasing him.”

 

He just turned around, ready to go while Valentino was getting down in his knees, the bill clutched in his fist... Vox moved near Alastor, stopping his walk.

 

“Al, what happened?” said the TV overlord. “I know something happened to you... If I can help in any way...”

 

The gaze of Alastor was fixed in the monitor face of the man but after seconds he moved his eyes to a side.

 

“Don't waste your time and effort in lost causes, Vox...” he made a gesture with his head to Valentino. “Go check on your partner... Is what you came to do.”

 

Alastor walked a couple of steps before bracing himself to enter into shadows, knowing that was going to hurt being wounded as he was.

 

Vox moved to Valentino when he saw the demon dissapear and went to him, hugging him while the moth demon started to cry. Abuser as he was, brute as he was, sadistic as he was... he loved Angel in a twisted, wicked, possessive way. They were a couple before Valentino decided to tied him forever with a soul contract and the same he was mourning the lost of the spider demon, he also knew the words of Alastor were true.

 

He didn't deserve Angel.

 

***

 

Alastor didn't tell all the details to Angel, he didn't need to tell him how he valued him or words he uttered in that regard. He laid just the basics of what happened and little more.

 

“Ah, the beauty of having someone always ready to have your back” said Alastor almost like he was sentimental, hidding with a pseudo-sarcasm his real feelings. “What I could give to have something like that.”

 

He denied, like resting importance to his words.

 

“Anyway, I need a bath to remove the smell of cum and desperation that Valentino left over me and I need clean clothes” he said, ready to enter into shadows. “Ta-tá!”

 

“Boss!” called Husk. “Before you go, can we talk in private?”

 

Angel looked back to the bartender. He still wanted to talk to Alastor, not about his contract or what he did with Valentino... No, he was worried for how he was, what happened with the queen. He wanted to make sure things between Lucifer and the deer demon were still ok, that he was ok. But... Husk looked very serious and, with luck, he was the one that talked about that with Alastor.

 

The red demon thought that for a second.

 

“Very well, Husker” and he moved to the parlor followed by the cat demon.

 

Not another word came from the mouth of the overlord and he was waited, his hands over his staff and looking directly to his employee, closing the door to be alone.

 

“What the fuck is happenin' to you, boss?” asked the man, not in the market in that moment for subtle. “Do ya really own Angel now? And you ain't gonna free him?”

 

Alastor laughed.

 

“Why in Hell I'm going to relinquish such a promising asset?” he denied. “Tch, tch... Valentino was ready to die to secure the contract stayed with him. I won't waste an investment over stupid sentimentality, Husker. You know me better than that.”

 

Husk moved the distance that was separating him from the Radio Demon to take him from one of his lapels.

 

“Because I know you, I know this is fucking strange” said the cat demon. “I know isn't so alien to you to use the weakness of a friend to get some benefit, fuck, you did it with me. But Angel doesn't have a thing to offer, having his contract doesn't give you benefits... And I thought these days you were different, between Ankareeda and your relationship with the king...”

 

Alastor growled. Was a mili-second but Husk catched on how the mask of Alastor broke for a mili-second at the mention of the monarch.

 

“Maybe you don't know me as much as you like to think you do” he bit the words to then close his eyes for a second and push aside the hand of the cat demon holding him by the lapels. “Or you don't know the real value of Angel.”

 

Husk also growled.

 

“What I don't know is what is in this to you” said the bartender. “Also Angel deserves to be free after all the bullshit Valentino did to him. He doesn't deserve to be thrown in some ironic well suited position at your beg and call.”

 

Alastor sosteined the gaze of the ex-overlord for a time, to then soften his eyes, placing a hand over the shoulder of the demon.

 

“Don't worry, Husker” said the deer demon. “In a week and little more everyone of us we'll get what we deserve.”

 

The Radio Demon moved to go out of the parlor and Husk was there, planted like a tree.

 

If that didn't sound like a warning or a threat, why the fuck he had a full body shiver and now all his fur was on point? What was happening with Alastor?

 

Outside of the parlor, leaning over one of the couches of the reception, Angel was waiting for those two talking, biting his nail and looking to the door. When it was opened an Alastor went out, he moved to ask when the red demon just moved near him and placed a hand over his shoulder.

 

“You'll have to tell in another moment how it feels to have someone in your corner” he said, softly, to just move a little and dissapear in his shadows.

 

Husk and Angel exchanged a look.

 

Yes, they have a lot to talk about and things they needed to learn.

 

***

 

As soon as the overlord materialized in his room, he left his cane over his bed and removed his damaged clothes, going to the shower, again hot as the plumbing of the hotel could muster and he went under, first just ready to wash and go but... his hands ended up in the tiles, his forehead pressed againts them too, his tears running down with the water.

 

He thought he didn't have more tears to shed but he felt so utterly alone, so abandoned for everyone... Even someone as Valentino has someone in his life worrying about his well being, ready to throw down hands and risk their lives to save him. This time was Vox but he was sure that Velvette would do the same.

 

Husk... Angel... Valentino... What he did to not deserve having that devotion, to have that kind of care... of love? Was he worst than Valentino? Being so utterly alone and expendable for everyone was a way of the universe to tell him he was so twisted and wicked he didn't deserve even a modicum of that?

 

He was a monster, he knew that but not the first he saw monsters having devoted friends that trusted every word they utter and never questioned their actions. He saw monsters with love in their lives in so many forms and styles... What made him so different so... so utterly unlovable?

 

His daughter, blessed she be, loved him... but she shared blood with him, he raised her. It wasn't like he brushed her love, her love was important, was the only thing that was important at this point, the only line in the sand for years since her birth, for him. Ankareeda was the only thing in his afterlife that kept him sane and far from oblivion. He needed her but... She was his daughter, she didn't chose to be and, in the end of the day, she didn't need him. She needed stability he couldn't provide, position and oportunities that were cut in half for him... Even love.

 

He couldn't love his daughter like other father could do. There were days he wanted to jump from his own skin, he wanted to tear that skin apart... He didn't stand being touch, care, kissed. Why, why...

 

Alastor punched the tiles to then open his hand, clawing the very same leaving behind a huge gash in the porcelain and blood from his mistreated claws.

 

Why can't he hug always his daughter, why he wasn't always there for kisses, hugs, to caressh her sweet face and smile to her? The days his skin didn't want to be touched he couldn't even force himself to surpass it for his daughter. He tried... Creation could testify, if any time that entity looked in his direction, that he tried with all his being. It was alien, painful, sometimes he ended up vomiting... Rosie, sweet always sage Rosie, adviced him to explain to Anka what his problem was and she understand but... It was a failure for his part, either way. A parent should be always there for their offprings and he failed even in something so basic.

 

Lucifer didn't have that problem... he could show free his affection.

 

Alastor moved out of the shower to see himself in the mirror, again the shaved part of his hair was growing and the bald spots here and there were starting to be noticiable. Normally, he'll go to Rosie for a haircut and shave but... He didn't want to see the cannibal, not now.

 

Rosie, the good Rosie... She was older than him, wiser and without her...

 

***

 

The very same minute of Alastor in Hell...

 

In one of the dark alleways of Pentagram, a mass of flesh came out of the corners, from out of the trash cans, around the dark corners... it moved, it twisted and started to form, little by little, something.

 

First was the internal organs, with the heart as the last stop of the flesh starting to pump red blood to veins and arteries that were starting to form at the same time that bone gave figure a humanoid tint. Muscle were over it to then be covered by skin, finishing in the face, to then, with the gutural scream that escaped his mouth, the hair and fur was formed.

 

Alastor was shaking, feeling weak, feeling disoriented... he was naked... and in a body that wasn't his own.

 

He was dead... he died... He tried to walk but the lack of feet and the new addition of hooves made it impossible at first. He tried to cover his breast and middle section, his forehead was still burning and he was still smelling the residue of gunpowder. And then the smells started to be... nausiating. Too much, from too many sources, overwhelming him to the point of tears.

 

“Look, guys... a present!!” a group of four sinners entering the alleyway, smiles predatory, one of them even salivating.

 

Alastor tried to move, to make distance... the alley didn't have another way out, only one way, behind his promised aggressors, nothing more. Their smell now front and center, sweat, something rotten and a smell like semen but more coarse, primal.

 

“Don't get close to me...” he said, but from his panicked throat, laced with static like when he was on the radio, it came more as a plea than a warning.

 

“Don't be that way, sweet thing...” they moved, fast as lightning, with one holding him from an arm, other from the other and one going behind in a bear hug, his dirty arms around his neck and his stomach. “Don't move, cute thing.”

 

Was the advise of the guy behind him.

 

“It will be fast and painless if you don't resist” said the guy in front of him, a sinner double his size in height and mass, licking his lips while moving his hands ready to undo the zipper of his trousers.

 

Alastor wasn't going without a fight, he was a fighter, he wasn't a damsel in distress or a victim. He tried to free himself from the hold of the demons, he tried to kick with his hooves behind him or in front of him and the huge sinner just ended up slapping his face so hard that blood came to his mouth.

 

“Stay still, doe” said the sinner with a brutish smile. “You'll feel good in about a second...”

 

They laughed, they held him stronger, creating bruises in his skin, he fought, he wasn't screaming, he wasn't... he won't give that satisfaction to those demons. The big sinner forced his legs appart, he was ready to go near...

 

And a shower of blood baptised Alastor complete front, with the big sinner dropping like a sack of potatoes in front of him. Behind him, a woman with silver hair tied in a high bun, perfect complexion in pure white antinatural skin and pitch black eyes with no irises, like the eyes of an insect and a huge, intimidating smile.

 

She was dressed in pure black with a dress sensible but with a touch of elegant, with a red and black coat with motives of skulls and bones covering her shoulders. She was tall and thin and she was wearing a pointy hat, like the ones that were used in All Hallow's Eve to represent witches, small and tilted to a sided.

 

“Fuck, it's the witch!!” said one of the sinners.

 

“It's the witch of Cannibal Town, run!!” they tried to escape but there wasn't a way out.

 

One tried to climb the walls and another tried pass run by her with all his speed just to receive the boney ankle of justice from the woman, making him trip and land several meters on his face.

 

The last demon simply tried to go unnoticed.

 

“Oh, darling, my poor girl, don't worry, I won't hurt you” said the cannibal, taking her cloak to cover the naked violented body of Alastor. “Are you allright, my dear? They didn't hurt too badly, yes?”

 

She was checking, or trying, on Alastor but he was trying to cover himself, still shaking.

 

“I... I'm a man” was the only thing he managed to get out of his throat.

 

“Oh, my stars, I'm sorry, sweety” said the woman, tending her hand with elegance. “My name is Rosalyn Esmeralda Wraith but people call me just Rosie. A pleasure to make your acquaintance, my good sir.”

 

And she waited, with her hand tended like the lady she was, waiting for a treatment proper for one.

 

Alastor, still shivering and confused, took her hand and landed a kiss that barely touched the cold skin of the cannibal overlord.

 

“My, what a charmer... Let me help you, dear” she said, placing her arm over his shoulders. “New in Hell? I bet... and naked. Normally this realm let us at least a little decorum. Don't worry, I can offer you clothes and something hot to eat... you're awfully thin, my boy... you need some meat on those bones.”

 

And like she knew him from all her life and afterlife combined, she moved with the demon to go out of the alleyway. But as they were near the entrance, the very hurt but not dead big sinner, rose from the ground, covered in blood.

 

“Come here, you bitch!” he said, biting the words with fury. “That cunt is mine... Get here to get properly fuck like the good bitch you are!”

 

Something snapped inside Alastor, something familiar... the fury, the rage, the red... like when his father tried to abuse him, like when others tried, like when he saw someone being a victim or about to be... Something snapped and he growled in the very same moment his eyes lost the prominent red to become black pools of hate, radio dials in red in the middle and soon... From all his body multiple tentacles rose breaking his skin, bursting from him dyed in red with his own blood, his bones broke and contort and reformed painfully, he remember screaming... And the tendrils launched, sharp as edges made of night and speared and poke and pierced the sinner again and again and again until he was little more than porridge in the ground.

 

His transformation stopped and he was so hurt, he didn't notice the pain in the heat of the moment, he never noticed the pain when he was in rage but it came after nevertheless and claimed his conscience.

 

Rosie carried him like a bride in her arms.

 

“You're an interesting one, aren't ya?” she said, with her smile, moving to return to Cannibal Town.

 

Alastor woke up hours later in a bed he didn't know, in a place he didn't know. All his wounds were dressed and he was clothed with a red satin pajama that was slightly short for him in the pants but at least he was wearing something.

 

“Ah, you're awake, my dear” said the woman with a smile, coming with a silver platter with some foods in it. “I'm glad... Now maybe you could introduce yourself properly, I told you my name, I don't know if you remember it.”

 

Alastor cleared his throat.

 

“Miss Rosie, right?” he said, with his voice slightly distorted, like a badly tuned station on the radio.

 

“Oh, only Rosie, dear” she said, resting the platter over the deer demon's thighs.

 

“My name is Alastor” said the demon and then he tried to move the platter. “And, even when I'm grateful for your help, I can't accept more of it. I... I don't know how to repay it and also, I must go, he's waiting.”

 

He said, he tried to move out of bed but he was hurting badly, forced to sit on the border to catch his breath.

 

“Who, darling?” asked the woman.

 

“The King... King Lucifer is waiting for me...” but the doubt, memories of moments after giving his final breath catched with him... he lowered his head. “I hope he's waiting...”

 

Rosie sat by his side and placed a gentle arm around his shoulders.

 

“I guess there is a story there” she said. “Why don't you eat a little and tell it to me? Also you'll need clothes, you won't go to meet a royal in pajamas, dear... Also, Lucifer is on Pandaemonium, his palace, in the Royal Circle, very far from here. You'll need to be able to defend yourself to reach the place. Let me help you, ok?”

 

The demon thought about it.

 

“And what you want in return? Nothing is free...” he said.

 

“Don't worry about it right now, I bet you'll be an asset for me eventually” said the woman, with a soft smile. “You have great potential, I know these things, I bet I'll reap my benefits from our friendship.”

 

Alastor thought about it... he was still slightly shocked, tense from his death and all the suffering that took him to die, in that body that wasn't his own and... yes, he was hungry. Maybe... yes, maybe he could trust the woman for the moment.

 

***

 

...Without her he wasn't even the man that he was today. She clothed him, help him to discover and control his power, she helped him to create his microphone cane, his focus. She taugh him new magics, how Hell worked and he fed him, first regular food until he took the determination to start to consume sinner flesh to satiate the hunger that his powers created in him.

 

She helped him to create the Radio Demon, his persona, from his appareance and how he conducted himself. She tried to help him reach the monarch in several occassions when he was ready for him with no avail.

 

And Rosie was the one that suggested calling his attention.

 

And even when he considered her his best friend, his truest one, it was true she also benefited from their friendship. He helped her to better Cannibal Town, to place all the cannibals in line as a better and behaved community. He brought her clients, souls...

 

He loved the woman and he knew she loved him and his daughter... at least he wanted to think that, he was trying himself, to force himself, to think that but he felt used eitherway, like between them were just a quid pro quo and nothing more.

 

Also, she was a very observing woman, she could notice he wasn't ok, sniffing what he was preparing and he can't allow that to happen. He needed to prepare everything first.

 

He ignored the mirror... didn't matter to him if people noticed the bald patches or deduced he torn his hair out sometimes. His reputation in that moment moved to be the last of his worries in that moment.

 

He assured the gloves on his hands, still not wanting direct contact with any soul of Hell, and went out of the door, moving to the beautifully carved door of the monarch. From there, before knocking, he could see Ankareeda... more happy than before.

 

That... made him feel better in a way but also pierced his heart. The dark thought crossed his mind:

 

Will she forget me as easy when I'm gone?

 

Lucifer moved his head to the door, feeling the presence of the deer demon in it and Alastor knocked, like he was just arriving in that moment.

 

“Sorry to bother you, your majesties” he said, lowering his head a little, not entering the room and just waiting. “I came to pick my daughter, if it pleases your highnesses.”

 

He said.

 

Ankareeda went to his side and when he recoiled a little, just a tad when she was ready to hug his leg, she understood and just moved to be by his side with a soft smile looking up to him.

 

“Not at all, Alastor” said Lilith, with a soft smile of her own. “You were right, Ankareeda is a delight. She taught me so much of signs!”

 

And Lilith looked... happy, almost vividly entertained with the little one.

 

“I learned how to say our names and greetings and thank you...” she laughed and her laugh sounded like crystal chimes, it was musical.

 

Lucifer looked back and her and smiled softly and Alastor wanted to go from there as soon as possible but he refrained himself.

 

“I'm glad you enjoyed your time with her” said the demon. “And... if your grace want more time with my daughter, you only need to ask. Besides unless she's taking her launches or studing, like she's gonna do now, she has a lot of free time. Maybe she can help the gracious queen to get accostume to the hotel.”

 

The queen thought about that for a moment, to then look back to Lucifer and to Charlie and Vaggie, that were in the room all that time to give Ankareeda their company too, controlling the actions of the queen, even if they didn't express it, not knowing how much similar she was to her clone.

 

“I'll... I'll love that, Alastor” said the woman with a soft smile.

 

“You wish is our command, my queen” said the demon, bowing to the woman. “Let's go, love, you have homework to do. Say goodbye to the queen and king.”

 

The girl said it with signs as her father asked her to do, ready to go.

 

Lucifer still wanted to talk to Alastor, wanted to clear things with him but when he was moving from his workbech to go after the overlord, Vaggie grabbed him from the arm with a movement that was everything but delicate.

 

“Don't” she said in almost a whisper.

 

“Release me, Vaggie” the eyes of Lucifer started to go red on the sclera. “I need...”

 

“What's more important? What you need or what's good for him?” said the woman. “Let him at least to get to the new normal before you harass him with what you want or need.”

 

Lucifer released from Vaggie's hold with a harsh gesture but... under the judgement of the eyes of Charlie, he tried to relax himself and think. Yes, maybe he needed to left Alastor breath before having another chat with him. Maybe... well, maybe tomorrow.

 

Ankareeda had a good time when him and Lilith, maybe he could make something nice for the overlord, something he could like and appreciate and they could talk. Maybe consulting with the pillow Alastor will be in a better mood, maybe his words at last could reach him.

 

Yes, tomorrow.

 

Alastor, for his part, returned to his room with his daughter by his side.

 

“Did you like your time with the queen, my love?” he asked the little girl.

 

She smiled and nodded.

 

'I was good, papa' she said. 'I was charming and played with her and Lucifer and taught her signs and played the violin. She told me she played the harp and that we could play together.'

 

The demon moved his head appreciative and placed his gloved hand over her head.

 

“Good girl, love” said the deer demon. “I knew this task was easy for you. Tomorrow, we'll do something nice for her majesty, we'll cook her a dessert together and you'll gift it to her. Surely she will love it.”

 

It was vital for his plan that the queen was loving his daughter, he needed for her to accept her, care for her... if she ended up loving her and wanting to recuperate her lost years as a mother with her, better.

 

He knew that was a possibility and he wanted to exploit it.

 

Taking either of the way outs he was preparing, he needed someone caring and good to make his child happy and after talking with the queen, she together with Lucifer, were perfect for it. He needed to make sure both loved his daughter... In fact, he wasn't sure Lucifer could love in the necessary degree his little one, he was never sure of that. Not in the same level as Charlie, of course. Maybe, he'll need to help to secure that bond too.

 

He had a week, plenty of time to make sure.

 

He will need to deal with the monarch even if he didn't want it, but he would do it. Everything for his child, to let his child in the best situation possible, whatever was the end result for himself.

 

“Now... I got you new books of study, let's begin...” said the demon, making the books appear in his desk while Anka, smiling to her father, was sitting in the chair.

 

Maybe, she was thinking, there was nothing to worry about. Her father was being himself and she had a great time with the king and his queen. Maybe they won't be together like she wanted but maybe friends? Maybe that could make her papa happy and, for correlation, her happy.

 

***

 

“What do you think?” asked the weapons dealer to the spider overlord.

 

Zestial had in his immense hands the design that Alastor drew and presented to her for his project and the demon was catching in the runes and markings.

 

“This is a rare trinket thee brought to me, Carmilla” said the demon. “The charm symbols art similar to some I knoweth alas more rudimentary. T's a mixeth of things, from magicks from the heart of the Black Continent to some fusty irish charms. And thee hath said that Alastor gaveth thee this? Puzzleling.”

 

The woman crossed his arms and sighed.

 

“So you don't know what this is used for?” asked the spaniard.

 

The other sinner denied with his head.

 

“Sadly, nay” said the ancient overlord. “Alas, before making accusatory remarks towards someone as dangerous as the Demon of the Radio, I proposeth to consult an expert in all things esoteric.”

 

“Rosie?” asked the woman.

 

“Rosie” responded Zestial.

Notes:

Well... next chapter will be preparations made by Al, Zestial and Carmilla consulting Rosie (hope his dialogue is correct and not hard to read (like in my big fic XD, this time I toned it down)), Angel's new contract and an interesting chat between the deer and our Chaggie girls. Stay tuned ;)

Chapter 54: Pulling all the strings

Summary:

Alastor has a lot of things in mind, about his situation, about his heart, about what he wanted to do, about his daughter.

There were no space to go back, he won't go back not even to gain momentum and he start to move things to left everything as he wants.

Lucifer also has a lot of things in his head and even when he normally have them bottled down, sometimes the lid opens just a little.

Notes:

Here we start with some perspective from Lucifer's part that will be expanded next chapter but here is more or less the beginning and some window to the things the homunculus did to Lucifer.

Tags changed, mind the tags!

But there's no happy endings

Not here and not now

This tale is all sorrows and woes

You dream that justice

and peace win the day

But that's not how the story goes

 

 

Alastor decided not to sleep that night.

 

Everytime he closed his eyes, the images of the king and the queen, the soft glances, the smiles, that kiss that happened in that basement on Doomsday District, harassed his mind. Even the image of them with Ankareeda, being better parents with her that he could dream of.

 

Hugs, pats, kisses, things that he couldn't freely give, were like breathing for the couple.

 

First couple of Creation, the first lovers...

 

The idea of him thinking he could have something like that with the monarch, when he wasn't not only playing in the same league as her, but not even in the same sport, now felt stupid and ridiculous. Him, that wasn't able to have sex when his partner wanted or even receive freely shows of affection.

 

Thinking in that, he entered in his bayou to organize his cottage. There he has some memories he managed to smuggle from the Living World, keepsakes like a couple of photos of his mother and some about himself, a couple of newspaper clips.

 

'The new voice of New Orleans!! Alastor Montesquieu, live on the 63.3!'

 

He was a star, there wasn't a single club that didn't know him, there wasn't a single girl that worked in the night that didn't have a kind word for him or that went to him at the minimal problem arriving in their zones.

 

The mixed man knew exactly where it was every single gin mill that served hooch on the side or every juke in town. He played with the hot bands and his piano skills were legendary. He had a good life that he started to appreciate...until the wrong people paved his way to Hell. And even with the good and the bad, that man, the Fallen Angel was always in his thoughts.

 

'Did he approve this? Did I went too far? Will he remember me?'

 

Now, looking through all, he was no more than a broken toy with big aspirations, wanting love and care even when the entity that created the universe and the Fallen Angel he admired so much, decided to mark him clear and simple as some destined to be alone, always.

 

His body and mind unable to reconcile, his tendencies utter despicable and his body refusing any contact, any closeness. Thinking now, Creation left things clear... was his problem he never wanted to get the memo.

 

He decided to stop thinking and center himself in the task at hand. He wanted to leave everything presented for his daughter.

 

Memories of him and his roots if she wanted to keep them, her things from when she was small, those first difficult but marvelous years, the fear not always mudding the happy memories.

 

He remember he needed to make another document with his last will because things changed since the last time he redacted one, with Rosie, when he thought Lucifer was going for his head for trying to kill him.

 

Alastor knew he needed to let him the care of his daughter, make sure that Rosie could always visit her.

 

Taking his daughter wouldn't need money being a bastard princess, because he doubted Lucifer would declare her as a legitimate heir, he decided to distribute his fortune, massed as years and years as an overlord on Pride Ring, to his most deserving and vulnerable contracts.

 

Even if he took the second option from the two, he were still jungling those options in his mind, he wouldn't need the money.

 

Husk will recover what was his and Angel needed money to live. He needed to make sure Niffty was taken care off, so he will express that desire appealing to the good nature of Rosie, leaving also some money for both women.

 

There were others, so he stood at least four hours, with his book of souls, where he had notations, phone numbers and such of all his deals, to prepare who deserved what and who didn't.

 

When he finished, he introduced his will in a envelop and left it on the top of one of the shelves in the attic.

 

“When it happens” he advice Oncle “you'll have to take it from here. Remember where is it and this is important, too important. Give it to Lucifer. Normally, the adjudicator of my will would be Rosie or even Charlotte, but I guess the princess will be... affected, I believe. Her father won't have that problem.”

 

Because he was pretty sure that Lucifer wouldn't shed a single tear for him.

 

***

 

At the same time that Alastor couldn't sleep, Lucifer was awaken at the same time.

 

First Lilith wanted for him to sleep by her side, without nothing, not contact needed, she just wanted to feel another body next to her after so much time, to feel the closeness and by Creation that Lucifer wanted to please her in that.

 

He understood better than anyone what it was to have a cold bed, the silence of a place burning your ears without other breathing, without the skin of another ruffling the sheets.

 

Lucifer understood loneliness, pain... And he tried to make an effort but as soon as he changed his clothes to his pajamas, he couldn't. All his mind was occupied for what happened and the very same moment he tried to lay near his wife, he jolted sitting in the bed.

 

“I... I can't, Lils!” he said, his hands in his head, denying.

 

She moved to try to hug him from behind, to comfort him but he moved from her touch so she stopped trying.

 

“I... I don't know what to say, Lulu” said the woman, softly. “Can I do something? Can we talk? I want us to be like we...”

 

The king denied.

 

“I don't know if we could return to what we have, there... there is too much in the middle, Lily” said the monarch. “I... I can't, not now, I don't want to stress you or make you feel bad but...”

 

The woman moved, going to sit at the border of the bed like the man, side by side.

 

“I want to know what you are thinking and feeling, Lulu” said the woman. “I.. I love you, I want you happy.”

 

The devil took some air, tears were going to his eyes but he knew he should be holding them.

 

Lilith had a terrible experience, she was kidnapped for two hundred years, alone, with the recurrent visits of the psychotic copy of herself. He knew he should gulp what he was feeling until the woman was seated in the regular Hell, far from her captivity. Maybe when Charlie accepted her as her mother and she could have another support that wasn't just him.

 

But he felt... he shouldn't...

 

“I'm not happy, Lilith, and I don't know how to be” he finally said. “I... I know, I understand your desire to be a mother, to give Heaven the middle finger and have a fruit of our love and dedication with us. Since I know what being a father means, since I observed humans and saw them with their kids, I wanted that for me, for us. I... I understand that.”

 

He moved to look back at her.

 

“What I don't understand is the lie” he said. “Lying to me, inserting a woman that wasn't you in our bed... It wasn't the same as when we shared with another, you were there. You... left me with that thing.”

 

He denied, he wanted to hold his tongue, he didn't want to discuss with her in that moment, at night, when both needed to sleep. But the doors of the dam of his mind were opened and now all the feelings and thoughts were flowing.

 

“I tried to do it for us!” said Lilith. “I know I did bad but...”

 

“Bad?!” he moved, he almost jumped from the bed and moved far from her. “You don't know how bad you did, that's the problem, Lilith... and I don't want to discuss this at this hour, you aren't still ready after...”

 

She rose from the bed showing her horns and tail, trashing behing her.

 

“Don't try to treat me like I'm made of crystal, Lucifer!” she shouted. “I survived all these years, I kept my mind intant and I know things could be bad for how my homunculus was acting when she visited me. I know this all is my fault!!”

 

She denied.

 

“Don't try to cuddle me because we will solve nothing if you walk on eggshells around me like I'm about to broke into a million pieces” she breathed, recalling all her demonic attributes. “I need to understand, Lucifer. I don't know how much I need to atone if I don't know the full extend.”

 

Lucifer looked back to the woman, that woman he left Heaven for and evaluated her words.

 

Lilith was always strong, the far stronger mentally of them. The king suffered panic attacks when he was cast down from Heaven, he was insecure, he blamed himself and Lilith had to deal with everything.

 

Yes, he created the Rings with his broken scepter, he raised the Sins, he constructed his palace with his own power and he gave flora, fauna, a moon, a sky, a sun to his Realm. There was weather thanks to him, there were different zones thanks to him... but he did everything with her suggestions, with her words.

 

She kept him checked, leveled... some things were inevitable, but she was there, always, from kisses to panic attacks. And she dealed with the things that were too much for him, like politics, the sinners, conversations with Heaven. He was the face and power, she was the motor and substance at his side.

 

“You want to know the extend?” the woman saw his expression, changed, tormented and she nodded while sitting again by the bed. “The happiest moment in my existence was eclipsed almost in an instant. Heaven asked for the exterminations when Charlie was barely days old... and as if wasn't enough with Adam making threads to the life I just created with my wife, said wife hated me for accepting something that kept danger outside of Charlie's way.”

 

He didn't want to sit, he needed to be on his hooves in that moment.

 

“She... that creature that had your face?” he continued. “Insulted me with the worst of the worst, with things only you could know and only you could know how much those hurt me. She said... She... She left me with Charlie when I didn't have a single idea to deal with a baby, I was in panic and I didn't want for the sins to think badly of you, so I didn't ask for help. I... did how best I could but I was so afraid to mess up, so afraid to hurt Charlie...”

 

He sobbed under the eyes of the queen, now starting to be flown with tears.

 

“And that wasn't the only time and wasn't the worst one... you...” tears moved from his eyes. “You don't know what is to see the face of person you love most contorted by pure rage against you, yelling at you when you are trying your best... your darn best to not mess up, to not provoke another burst of screams, insults and... in the end, blows. First were nothing, I thought it was because she was stressed, she was trying to find a way to protect as much sinners as possible from the exterminations... there were slaps, I could endure some slaps but... she... was more sadistic every time... she...”

 

He was still not ready to talk about that, to talk of all the things he allowed her to do to him because he didn't want to hurt her, he was trying to appease her, calm her. Better to hurt him that could recuperate fast that she hurting Charlie. No, no... He allowed her hits, he allowed the yelling, the insults, even her tearing his feathers from his wings in a wrath filled stage.

 

But Lilith read that, all that, in Lucifer's face. She didn't have the logistics, she didn't have the details and she didn't know when he would be ready to talk about that abuse but she was seeing the result of that abuse in his crimson eyes, in the way he elude her gaze.

 

“When I had enough, I hurt her and I felt like a monster, I tried to steel my heart but I was hurting you!” he moved, goint to his workbench and taking his tools and one of his bases for ducks and he started to work in one, he needed to center his mind. “And when she left me, I wasn't only alone, she took my Charlie with her. She made sure I could see my own daughter little and she filled her head with false ideas on how I saw her, what I thought of her... Me! I worship the floor my daughter walks in and she made her believe I didn't love her, that I thought she wasn't enough or that she was stupid.”

 

Lucifer took red paint and started to pain the duck, removing the yellow to make wait to that crimson he had in his mind in that moment.

 

“I ended in a point that I needed to hate her, to hate you, because I wasn't surviving if not... at least not my mind” confessed the monarch. “And the pain and fear she left behind was so great that when I started to love again, when someone started to pick up my broken pieces to fuse them together with care and love, I... I couldn't stand it. I couldn't believe it because I was unfit to be loved again because all the things you did to me... she did...”

 

He was centered into that new duck that was starting to have Alastor's attributes. First his coloring, with the king alternating different tones of crimson and pink to give the duck a less plain look of plastic and more like it has natural feathers. To then use black for some tips, here and there... He then opened a drawer where he had in store the different doll threads of hair and he selected a good red to start to make the holes in the head of the duck with an awl to then introduce the strands of hair inside.

 

“I hurt Alastor” said the monarch, a sob escaping his mouth. “I hurt him, I terrorized him and I used him. He didn't deserve that and I did it because I needed to be dominant, to have the last word, to be inflexible because I didn't want to hate another partner, another love. And when he got pregnant, I saw a second oportunity to be a father and a new fear of suffering it all over again.”

 

With delicate scissors he started to recreate the haircut of Alastor, meassuring the cuts with precision.

 

“I scared him away of my life, I thought I lost him, Lils... I cried, so much bitter tears and I tried to finish it all” the woman moved her hand over her own mouth, stopping a sound that tried to escape from it. “Losing him and my unborn child was a pain, I never... And then things happened and I was with Charlie again, she needed me, she called for me... And then Alastor... I didn't deserve it but he gave me a second chance, he didn't have too, I could understand if he didn't want to because even when I wanted it, with all my heart, even when I understood half of what I did to him, he didn't need to allow me even near my baby.”

 

He used the black paint on the hair and then moved to recreate his eyes.

 

“I continued to screw things up... I couldn't help it, I didn't know how to act, I wanted to know him better, everything about him to guard him from my errors but I made more errors in the way and when we finally had things figure out...”

 

“You rescued me” finished Lilith, with all the weight of truth dropping in her shoulders, covering her like a very heavy duvet.

 

“No... I'm with Alastor in that, rescuing you was the right thing to do but... I failed him” said the king. “He asked me, you know? Before we reach the basement, if I loved him. I responded with such security...”

 

He laughed, bitter and with tears still dancing in his eyes.

 

“And I failed him, betraying his heart and now...” he denied. “I think there is no more second chances for me. I'll try, Hell as my witness, I'll try but I've the feeling I broke something precious and no amount of magic or intention will glue it together again.”

 

Because he knew how really was the deer, not his facade, not the lies and the walls that he so carefully constructed to protect himself. He knew, not the Radio Demon, he knew Alastor... And Alastor, his Alastor, was hurt and feeling betrayed. A man that suffered so much, that dedicated his life to Lucifer, being betrayed by the very same.

 

He was no ignorant to that or even to his own pain, on how tense was his chest since he had to stay near Lilith and how that her closeness activated his trauma response and he could barely control himself to move outside of the bed.

 

“I'm sorry, Lucifer” said the woman. “I... I didn't know, I should know... I made a huge error finding counseling in Eve. I bet she knew this was happening...But, but... It's my fault. I'm so sorry.”

 

Lucifer denied with his head, finishing the touches on the Alastor-duck, creating little antlers, a monocle and a cane for it.

 

“Yeah, you should have thought better” he said, low. “I don't know if I can forgive you yet, Lilith. Time cures all wounds but I don't know... I care for you but I fear I won't be able to love you again the same way. I want you to be ok and I'll try, specially with Charlie but... I don't know... I... just don't know.”

 

The monarch, the woman could see it, was broken too. She, liked it or not, she broke him and now he was suffering, for actions that he did but she motivated. Even if it was her homunculus, she was the one that placed her in his path, that leave her free reing over her marriage and the consecuences were coming to her now.

 

Not only knowing that Lucifer fell out of love with her and found a new love, but also his pain, so deep and felt.

 

She hated seeing him suffer in that way but she knew she wasn't the one to make him feel better.

 

Seeing him there, with the finished duck in the shape of Alastor, looking at him with yearning to then hug it... he really hugged the toy... That was breaking her heart and she didn't know what to do, except for crying, to fix all the evil she unleased.

 

“Sorry, Lils, but I'll go to sleep in another room” even when he doubted that he was going to sleep at all. “I won't be good company tonight.”

 

“I should be the one moving... this is your room” offered the woman.

 

The king denied.

 

“You need to sleep and here there are things from me, maybe that could help you” said the monarch. “I'll come to fetch you in the morning to get some breakfast in the kitchen.”

 

He took Nahas from this hat, the Alastor rubber duck and moved outside of the bedroom, going to one of the empty rooms of the hotel one floor down to try to sleep... Or at least to be at enough distance from Lilith to not have that sensation that was creeping in him that in any moment the woman will twist her face and the terrible creature that, more than once, made him hate his bedroom will be returning.

 

***

 

Alastor finished what he wanted to prepare in his cottage and decided to move outside of his room. He needed to contact his succubus connection to get some materials from the Living World for Oncle's ritual and maybe he could start to do something for breakfast before hand.

 

He moved outside of his room when he made sure no part of his skin will be in contact outside his suit except his face and took the corridor. The deer demon wanted to revisit the wards of the hotel make sure not only that they were stable, he would need to simplify them. If he took the complete way out, his daughter still could maintain them if they were simple enough.

 

It would be good for Ankareeda to have something to bond with Charlie.

 

The princess reached his heart and he won't deny that in his mind and he thought the best about her, he thought he really loved her sister but... The resturn of her mother and if he was out of the picture, maybe the woman would be so open to be near her. People change, and not all changes were for good. Having Anka helping her with her passion project maybe could assure a place for his baby.

 

That was all that worried him, that was all that mattered in that moment.

 

The future of Ankareeda keep him sane, stable, focused in leaving everything in the best conditions possibe... and also held him for not doing things hurriedly.

 

He revisited the little veves hidden here and there, mixed with the wallpaper or near the doors when his eyes moved to the door of the apple tower.

 

The bedroom of the monarchs.

 

A sensation of pain rose from his stomach, like acid, going to his chest... he grinded his teeth to hold the feeling. One hand over his stomach, the other on the wall, like having a support in the physical world to not coming crashing down. The idea of them, together, there... curiosity killed the cat and like he was trying to calm his own pain, he allow the shadows inside that room to listen for him.

 

“Oh, Lucifer... Lu... Lucifer...” he recoiled almost immediactly his power as soon as the husky voice of the queen, with words between moans and moans, reached him.

 

The tears he fought so valiantly to control came to him, the hand over his stomach moved to his mouth, the hand in the wall closed as a fist and a single hit without force came after.

 

He knew, he knew that was going to happen, that Lucifer wouldn't lose any time to return to his marital life and all the marvelous things that implied, all the fruits and none of the bitter like happened with him. He knew and even knowing... still a part of him wanted to... was telling him...

 

Alastor allowed the shadows to furiously embrace him, taking the deer demon to the top of the hotel where he allowed himself a last weakness, a single scream muffled slightly by the sounds of the night of Pentagram City.

 

Dropping on his knees, panting, he stook for at least some minutes, trying to recover a serenity that never came again to him. The demon made a gesture with both hands showing the palms and the Morningstar sword, that one weapon that harmed his daughter forever, appeared. Still with his breathing difuse, he look at the weapon and started to take it and rotate it, almost in a trance, not really thinking or maybe thinking too much... There was a point where he was taking the sword by the blade, with both hands with such force that the angelic metal transpased the skin of his gloves, leaving more of his blood to stain the metal. The pommel, like some poetic statement, pointing to the Heaven sphere, the tip of the blade to his heart... And he went out of his thoughts in the last moment, making it dissapear.

 

“No, no!!” he growled while still crying. “Not in this way... I'm not important, my pain isn't important, nobody will care.”

 

He continued repeating that like a mantra and in his now gloved but bloody hands he made appear his green magic thread and a suture curved needle.

 

Alastor wasn't stupid, he knew he was able to enmask his feelings pretty well, was doing it all his life and after-life but even he has a limit and he couldn't allow for other to know how much hurt and broken he was, not until they couldn't do anything to stop his plans. He started to sew his own face while murmuring an incantation, from his swallen eyes filled with tears to his mouth, he will create a strong illusion so he could center his efforts in everything else.

 

When he finished, his face was more mask than before, with not even his eyes betraying his thoughts. His smile was tense and wicked, his eyes were almost manic and that was enough. He was ready... just a weak supporting the pain of the magical stitches and then release.

 

***

 

Alastor bandaged his hands and cover the damage with another pair of gloves and moved to the kitchen.

 

First he decided to clean well the space since apparently the dinner left it in terrible form and then decided to maybe to bake some traditional Louisiana's king cake as a present for the monarchs as part of the breakfast. Yes, his initial idea was to make it with his daughter but maybe he could do another thing with Ankareeda to gift to the queen.

 

While preparing the cinnamon mix for the filling, Lucifer was entering the kitchen, surprised that Alastor was there.

 

“Oh, your highness!” said vividly the demon. “This is pass the Witching Hour and still no near dawn... you should be sleeping.”

 

There was something in the deer, in his face and tone, that produce a full body shiver on Lucifer's body.

 

“Hmmm... Well, I couldn't sleep” said the man, without energy, sitting in one of the chairs.

 

As soon as he was there, Nahas went out of hi sleeve and moved over the table, first smelling in the direction of the deer demon, in that way serpents has to do it, using the tip of their biforked tongues to catch in even more information. Then the creature catched on something and moved until reached the border of the table, were Oncle rose fromt he ground.

 

While Alastor was the perfect mask of happiness, cheerfulness and sociopathy, Oncle was another story: his ears were down, his expression had pain in it and the moment Lucifer looked at him, he could felt like the shadow showed him dissapointment and sadness.

 

Lucifer assumed he was resentful with him... But apparently not with Nahas because the shadow started to caress the snake to then take it in his ghostly arms, keeping him near his chest.

 

·”Strange” said the deer. “You usually sleep very well with a little company... Oh, but of course! How dense I am...”

 

Said the red demon with that smile.

 

“It's the good not sleeping” Lucifer was about to retort when Alastor turned completelly to him. “I'm baking a dessert from my old stomping grounds: King Cake!! I thought it was fetching to celebrate the return of the gracious queen. Sadly, it will take time but if you are peckish after... well, some exercise, I can wipe you something in no time. I'm here to serve your highness!”

 

He turned around to left the bowl over the counter.

 

“I can make you waffles or your favorite, pancakes... I can make them with caramel or with dulce de leche, or I can...” but Lucifer cut him in the middle of his rambling while thinking what he could do as a midnight snack for the monarch.

 

“I'm not hungry” said Lucifer. “And I don't know what... well, I know but I asure you I did nothing with Lilith. We talked and I went out.”

 

Alastor turned around and leaned his head to a side in an slightly unnatural angle for his neck.

 

“Don't mistake my words for curiosity or accusatory remarks” said the deer demon. “I've no interest in the marital life of his majesty and I know my input is absolutely no requiered. I'm just glad that his highness has his life on track so soon.”

 

Also, thought the red demon, he didn't know why Lucifer lied but it was not necessary for him to try to protect Alastor's heart... at this point was little left of that metaphorical organ to care for what's left.

 

“My offer still stans if his majesty wants” and he returned to what he was doing before.

 

Lucifer remained in silence for a couple of minutes, looking to Alastor. There was something in him, something that was uncomfortable to observe, something that was calling to the heart of the monarch, provoking him the necessity to cry.

 

“Are you sure you are ok, Al?” asked him softly.

 

“Fit as a fiddle, your majesty” was the only response from the deer, he didn't even questioned why the king asked.

 

The devil thought again, specially in Vaggie's words, in talking to him when he was better, in thinking what was best for him. But that sensation was calling the king to him, to approach, to embrace... He needed to make sure he tried, as he told Lilith, even when he didn't know if he has any oportunity left.

 

“Alastor...” said the monarch, raising from his chair and going near the deer demon. “Are you ok with us talking?”

 

“Oh, you can talk at your heart's content, sire” said the red demon. “It's not like I could stop you.”

 

That wasn't the first time that Alastor responded that to him wanting to talk and other times were because he was annoyed by him and didn't really want to have a conversation.

 

“But I don't want to simply talk, I want to talk to you, to try to... apologize and fix things between us” he said, trying to show what he really wanted to do, showing his sincerity.

 

The deer demon looked back at him, his mask was impenetrable and now that Lucifer could center in his face, he was more sure that Alastor did something to it, to not show how he really was feeling. Maybe it was that massive ego of him, not wanting to show vulnerability to him because he was angry or dissapointed, he wasn't sure how Alastor felt over his treason.

 

“Again, I can't forbid his majesty from talking” said the demon. “But I don't understand what your highness wants to apologize or fix.”

 

Lucifer took some air.

 

“I know I messed up, I should... when we found Lilith...” he didn't know how to start and Alastor was just there, listening to him with not a clear expression on his face. “All that happened flashed before me and the idea wasn't lost on me, the idea of a double, of her not changing at all and... I let myself to be carried by emotion and I shouldn't. I'm so sorry for betraying you in that way, Alastor. I didn't want to hurt you.”

 

The demon left him talk, his expression has still those sharp eyes and wicked smile. His mind was another world entirely.

 

What he wanted to say? Why he was apologizing? All his worries were that he ended up with a broken heart after all? Sure, Lucifer didn't want to hurt him on purpose, that wasn't a punishment that he orquestrated. Alastor wasn't so self-deprecating to think that. Maybe all that need to talk to him was to know he was ok for being alone again, for him to return to his happiness and his wife? Or was he fearing that he could take Ankareeda from him feeling betrayed?

 

That... was in fact a nice thought in his traumatized head: at least that means he loved his daughter and didn't saw her as expendable as him.

 

“Oh, your majesty worries for the most unimportant things, it's really charming. I know you didn't want to hurt me” tho hurt he was, he wasn't about to lie about it but he won't be talking about it either, it was unimportant. “It was a perfectly normal reaction. Why would you be thinking in just a fleating companion when the love of your life and mother of your heir was right there needing your help? Absurd, really...”

 

“It's not that, Alastor” said Lucifer, tears reading in his eyes to escape. “Please, please, listen to the words I'm saying. I love you, I want to stay with you... Lilith simply needs time and company. She was alone two hundred years and what I want is... I want you and I want her, both in my life, with me.”

 

He didn't know a better way to explain it. He couldn't left Lilith to go ignoring her with Alastor after what happened to her... even when he was hurt, even when he was sure he couldn't love her like before or even forgive her, he needed to know she was ok. He knew what it was to deal with something so great when the mind was suffering... and he didn't want Lilith to pass for his processes... specially for his suicidal ones.

 

“I did wrong kissing her in front of you” continued to say the king. “But I want to care for her... and I don't want to lose you. You're also the father of one of my children, you know I love Ankareeda with all my heart, the same I love you. I didn't lie when I said it... It's just...”

 

And something clicked in Alastor, something he thought in that moment taking his words and placing them like jigsaw puzzle pieces trying to find the image behind them. And the imagen wasn't perfect but there it was in the mind of the deer demon.

 

“You want us at the same time” said the red demon, making a pause, thinking, the gears on his head turning. “You want to continue what we were doing but having your wife in your life at the same time.”

 

Because that was what his words brought to his mind.

 

“And the gracious queen is in agreement of that idea?” asked the demon.

 

“I don't know and I don't care” said the king. “I want to be with you and I want her to be ok, to make sure that this experience doesn't fuck her. Is so rare to want a woman that I cared for so much time to be allright? I don't think also is so impossible to achieve...”

 

Alastor understood perfectly and thinking without using the heart was wicked but understandable.

 

Lilith could do for Lucifer things he couldn't. They could have sex everytime he was horny, they could be romantic and caring without limits and she has the knowledge and regial presentation to be a great queen for Hell. Like it or not, he was coded more as an obscure secret, a mistress, with no obligations except to shut up about their implication... Also he could lay with the king when he wanted something different or experience. Lucifer also commented they used to bring others to their bed...

 

Even... and his spell almost broke by the seer pain that thought caused him... she could give him children again in the future, thing that Alastor couldn't do. Yes, it makes a terrible amount of sense that Lucifer wanted both in his life.

 

“I guess is not” responde the deer demon. “I see your point, my king. I'll be very busy this week, I want to help Charlie with the talent show and use it to announce redemption is possible. We need to go back on track with that... Give me this week to think about it and I'll give you my answer, you have my word. Meanwhile I'll help the gracious queen to acclimatize again to all of this. Sounds good?”

 

Lucifer, thinking that at last Alastor understood what he wanted to say, that he wasn't misinterpreting him and that he just needed to be on terms of having Lilith and being friendly with her while continue being a couple like there were trying to do, making sure she was ok after the breakout, was really happy. At least some communication between both of them and some possible solution.

 

He hurt him, yes, but he could fix it! And at the same time he wouldn't need to abandon the woman after so much pain, he could help her and maybe, in the future, she could find her own way, her own love.

 

It was perfect.

 

“Sure, of course!” said the king. “And... thanks for thinking in Charlie. It's been hard for her with all of these things, all these emotions and she needs a win. And thanks for wanting to help Lilith too, you don't need to do it but if you want... She deserve some happiness after all of this.”

 

Alastor nodded... and that resolved his last issue. Now he knew, he would take the alternative. Because he would never accept that relationship of three that the king was propossing, he would never accept being just a concubine, he would never accept that his company or love weren't enough for a person, even when he knew he wasn't enough, he knew his limitations, that wasn't a thing of ego, it was how his heart worked.

 

He... wanted devotion, wanted to be place first, to have someone indiscriminately backing him. He couldn't accept less than what he was ready to give...

 

And that was the beauty of the dagger and the ritual impressed in it: His mind and body couldn't refuse the king.

 

***

 

Rosie's Emporium...

 

“My, my, I can say is a real pleasure but also a surprise to have you two here, dears” said the cannibal overlord, coming from behind her counter to receive the retaired overlord and his protegeé. “Well, tell Rosie what she can do for ya?”

 

Because the woman understood business and the profesional looks those were carrying was talking volumes.

 

“Rosie, can we talk in private? We want to pick your brain about something” asked Carmilla politely.

 

Even when she had an empire cemented with her weapons productions, with deals around the seven rings and Zestial was a seasoned overlord, a very powerful man, the spaniard woman knew she had to treat Rosie with respect.

 

The cannibal was an eminency about magicks, nobody knew how many souls she had because she was doing all sort of deals all the time and her community was loyal to her, they adored her and were ready to die for her.

 

“Sure, follow me... Dear, bring some tea and pastries” he said, almost a whisper, to one of her girls.

 

The cannibal overlord moved to her apartment over the emporium and conduced the other two to a table that soon has a complete asortment for tea and some pastries. Politely she served the beverage like they asked and took her own teacup in hand.

 

“Very well, I'm all ears” said the woman with her usual smile.

 

Carmilla took out the drawing of the dagger and presented it to Rosie.

 

With pale fingers the overlord took the drawing and her frown moved in an inquisitive stance.

 

“This is a petro voodoo wanga” said the woman. “And object created by a bokor or witch doctor to harm or as a punishment. As I see, it also has some mix celtic magic there to make it more effective in Hell, against a sinner.”

 

Rosie left his teacup over its saucer in the table and took a gander to both overlords.

 

“This is Alastor's handiwork” said the woman. “I taught him these celtic reinforcements. How do you have this and why?”

 

Zestial and Carmilla looked to each other.

 

“Carmilla wast visited by thy friend at late” said the retired overlord. “Alastor hath asked her to cautel this dagger, delcaring t'wast a punishment for a foe of the king.”

 

“And there isn't a problem there, we know they are together and have a daughter but...” the weapons dealer took some air. “There was something strange with him, stranger, if you catch my meaning. Alastor tends to be maniac but jovial, direct but gentlemanly... He was serious, almost cutthroat but also...”

 

Carmilla bit her own lip.

 

“What?” said the cannibal. “Oh, for the love of Lucifer, don't become coy with information on me right now. You know how much I care for that man, if there is something iffy about my deer, I want all the data, not scraps, so talk, now.”

 

The spaniard sighed.

 

“I felt like he was pissy and hurt at the same time” said the demoness. “And I know, Alastor hurt but... there was something. And I tried to catch with Vaggie, to know if something happened in the Hazbin Hotel but she just told me she couldn't tell me yet. And the phone call was short, like she had bigger fishes to fry.”

 

Rosie took again the drawing in her hands, passing the fingers over the part of the blade specially.

 

“As I said, this is a wanga or a harming object” explained the woman. “This doesn't tell me who the destined victim is but this is one of the worst punishment a bokor can bestow, this, despise rumors, is rarely used and in rada practices or regular non harming voodoo, you need the agreement of all serviteurs on the hounfo or community. This is a really cruel punishment.”

 

Said the woman, leaving again the paper in the table, like there was something about all of that giving her the willies.

 

“What does it do, exactly?” asked Carmilla.

 

“This dagger needs to be inserted into the body, ideally the heart but taking the celtic reinforcements, any place but the neck is optimal” said the woman. “The neck will create a instant dead, taking it's made of angelic steel and the curse won't enter in effect but the rest of the body is fair game. And as soon as the body is damage, the veves will enter the body as shadows.”

 

She stopped, taking her cup and drinking a little of the tea.

 

“The magicks will control then the individual, their gro-bon-ange as the serviteurs of voodoo call them, the soul... nullifying free will completely and all desire and reducing the victim to the state of a servant.They can talk and move like they are themselves but in reality mere robots...”

 

Carmilla and Zestial were surprised.

 

“A zombie, are you telling me that this transforms a sinner into a zombie like in the movies?” asked the spaniard.

 

“Yeah, but movies are movies, darling” said the cannibal. “Again, nobody will be the wiser, nobody will know, not at least at first glance. A perfect marionette and an unusual cruel punishment. Heck, if I didn't know the queen was dead, I could think this was for her.”

 

Zestial drank some of his tea too before talking.

 

“I bethink nor the king or Alastor wouldst liketh to have the queen 'round” said the overlord.

 

“And right you are...” said Rosie. “But why... besides her, the rest of their enemies were dispatched, right?”

 

Maybe, thought Carmilla, it was from one of the pawns of the queen, someone that helped her in any way, maybe to make an example but still that wasn't explaining the things she felt near Alastor.

 

“So the body becomes empty and follow orders...” she started to muse to be interrupted by Carmilla.

 

“No, in fact, the contrary, that's why this is an unusually hard punishment” said the cannibal. “The victim affected will be alive and conscious of all around them. They'll have their memories, their feelings, their knowledge but they couldn't act on them unless the depositary of the will says so. It's... like being trapped, with zero control of what you say or how you act.”

 

The spider overlord moved his enormous hand and pointed to the dagger drawing.

 

“And t's possible to knoweth who it's the master in this contraption?” asked the man.

 

Rosie nodded and revisited the veves with attention, pointing to a group of three: the representation of a high house with a star on top and serpents protecting it.

 

“This is the Damballa veve, represents the white serpent loa” said the woman. “Apparently is the representation of Lucifer, as a gentle zanj snake or angel snake. So basicly, this is prepared to leave the victim to Lucifer's orders. In fact, as is worded... hmmmm...”

 

The woman had her hand over her chin, but like a reflex, her index finger was trying to go to her lips, like she was trying to silence herself.

 

“What? There is something that shouldn't be there?” asked Carmilla.

 

“Maybe... What timetable Alastor gave you to craft this?” asked the pale woman.

 

“A week, he was very adamant in that, in fact a little threatening, to be honest” she responded.

 

“And how much time you really need, having the materials already and all?” asked Rosie.

 

“Realisticly, three days is enough” responded Carmilla. “Why?”

 

“I want to investigate this a little more, if you don't mind, I just need a day to see what's what and maybe chat with Lucifer” said the overlord. “You mind I keep the drawing? I'll return it tomorrow after noon with one of my girls.”

 

The spaniard exchanged a gaze with the retired overlord and then they looked back to Rosie, now lost on the drawing of the dagger but with an evidently concert expression in her face.

 

“Ok, but I'll like to be kept in the loop” responded Carmilla.

 

“As much as I'll could say” responded Rosie.

 

***

 

“Ah! Angel, there you are!” said Alastor in the lobby while seeing the spider demon coming down from his room.

 

The morning was a curious thing, with the queen present in the kitchen for breakfast and Alastor being accomodating with her. For Husk and Angel, that were commenting about all of that, later, it was bizarre and both reached the conclussion that Alastor wasn't ok in that moment even when he looked like his regular psychopathic self.

 

Ankareeda was also very charming with the woman and very accomodating, smiling and trying to help her father.

 

The pornstar, after that and commentary with Husk, dediced to clean his room. Everything he had from Valentino has to go. The only thing he was keeping was Fat Nuggets and becuase it wasn't a thing, the pig was his baby.

 

But clothes, toys... even his last stash of coke went down the drain and after some time crying and trying to stabilize his mood, he went to the lobby with the intention of burning in some stores the last money he earned from the moth in new clothes.

 

“Hi, Al” said the spider with a soft smile.

 

“Ready to shake on your new deal?” Alastor could look chirpy and all but Angel was pretty sure that was just his best mask yet.

 

“Mmm... Sure, Al, we do here or...?” he was asking.

 

“My room, let me help you” and the demon snapped and the shadows carried both to the room of the deer demon.

 

The first time that Angel was there, was when they were trying to separate the overlord and the king from fighting each other at the bayou, the first day they all met Ankareeda, coming like a storm trying to find help to protect her father or so they told him later, taking he joined the group effort in the elevator. And in that moment, he couldn't catch on the decoration, not with the hurry and the confussion.

 

“Well, dear, don't fret, this is going to go fast” said the deer demon. “Want to take a seat?”

 

Offered Alastor to Angel, pointing with his hand to one of the two armchairs near the hearth of the room.

 

The demon went to one and sat.

 

“I had my time to think in the conditions and of course, I'll want your imput, I won't be a cruel master to you” he laughed, like it was a very good joke. “In reason, of course. But I thought it like this: Your time is yours, you can do whatever you want with it until I need something. Whatever I ask,you'll do, center yourself in that task if is something fast and achivable in a day, let's say... or you'll be puntual and a good diligent worker if it's something like a job, most like Husk right now.”

 

Angel nodded.

 

“I get it, time is mine until you want something done” Alastor nodded.

 

“Excelent, next point...” said the deer. “You'll must clean your act. I won't place a time table or not relapses clause here but you must make your effort to left the drugs. I have no use for an employee that will sell any part of their body for a couple of bucks or some low quality meth. I want my investment in tiptoe condition. I'll help with that and in the case I'm not able for whatever reason, you'll find help elsewhere.”

 

The pornstar thought about that and while he really wanted to quit drugs, he knew how hard it was. His addiction followed him here from home and even when a couple of times he tried to kick out the habit, he couldn't.

 

“I... could try, specially with help” said the spider.

 

“Excelent, effort is what I want” responded the deer to then clap once, like he was happy with him accepting the initial terms. “Next! You'll try to take Charlie's little project more seriously. We know all this works so she must did something that was on point. You'll try to get redeemed and if you have any possibilities to jump ships, our arrangement will be nullified automatically. We still don't know if you need to be free from deals to ascend but let's us cover all the basis, d'cord?”

 

Angel was surprised, more than surprised.

 

“Ok... but... why?” asked the demon. “Did ya said that I was an investment? You wanna lose whatever you paid Valentino for me?”

 

Alastor made a gesture with his hand, like removing the importance of what Angel said.

 

“My, of course not” said the deer demon. “I'll have no use for a soul near redemption! You'll surely grow a conscience and start to question my orders... no, no, no, no. That's wacky nonsense! Tho, that reminds me... I want to place a last clause about the breaking of the contract: if the deal is done for that reason or any other, you'll have the convulsion to try to honor the redemption clause and the no drugs one. Also, you'll accept to have revulsion to sell your soul again.”

 

That... was confusing.

 

“What?” asked Angel.

 

“For example, take the contract is broken for any reason, I can't force you to do my bidding but my magicks could left a residue to motivate you in those directions. You won't need to follow those emotions but I'll need your concent to make them part of our little deal.”

 

“So... ya want for me to accept certain magic mambo jumbo that tells me to do good by ya and to not screw up with my soul again?” he asked, one brow raised and somehow trying to find something in Alastor that was misplaced there, not because he didn't trust him, but because something was making his spider fur in his back to raise on point. “That's correct? Why?”

 

He asked when the deer demon nodded.

 

“I got my reasons!” said the demon, moving his index to his lips. “In any case... Those are my conditions... Also, I'll add that like I do with the rest of my employees, you'll be compensated for working for me. This is your first paycheck.”

 

And he extended the check and while Angel already knew that Al paid his contracted souls, at least, according to him, those that he didn't deal as a punishment, the money reflected in that made his eyes go wild.

 

“But, this... this... It's almost double that the money I made with Val!” he exclaimed.

 

“Really? And to think he was more stingy that I thought...” he shrugged. “Anyway, there, your first compensation and I already have a job for you!”

 

“S... Smiles, this is... I don't know what to say, this is...” he didn't know how to say thanks, because even still in a contract and not a full owner of himself, those conditions looked like one of those dreams he had after a little of starting his contract with Val, how he would repent from cheating his soul from him and tell him he love him, breaking the contract and caring for him... loving him.. He refused to think in Valentino in that moment. “What... What job, Al?”

 

Alastor rose from the armchair, pure energy, showmanship.

 

“Charlie is gonna tackle at last that talent show... it won't be a competition, just pure talent to attrack viewers to the Hazbin Hotel for the entertainment” said the demon. “The plan is to announce that redemption is possible. I'll ask the king to communicate with his brother to maybe have a representative of Heaven here or, better, Sir Pentious himself to speak about the process.”

 

Angel was nodding.

 

“I can prepare a number for myself” said the spider.

 

“Yes! But also, I need help with a number for me” said the demon. “I want it to be perfect, a show people will remember for ages... take it like it is my last performance and I want to left the public waiting for more.”

 

And the actor catched on something in Alastor, something that was not hidden by his smile and those eyes that normally were so vivid and telling and now they looked equally false. He notice how Alastor was rubbing with one hand over the ring the King gave him, that ring he made with Milady's blood and that Lucifer asked to be returned when he thought he was worthy of it.

 

That was what Alastor wanted to do? To woo the king with music and propose of sorts? It was a strange movement with the queen present and all but it looked like she already knew they were together or that impression was the one that was left in the kitchen on breakfast.

 

Well, in that case...

 

“With pleasure, Al” said the demon. “I'll help you with your number.”

 

·”Excelent, Angel” he said effusively. “I want this show to be for the ages...”

 

It's what Alastor wanted... a last act of defiance before going to complete servitude.

Notes:

Next chapter... next chapter is the one that kept me having nightmares for a time. I don't know if I'll be able to translate with I dreamed about that scene that I'm dying to write but I'll do my best. Till next chapter!

Chapter 55: Between Friends

Summary:

Alastor had plans, things he wanted to do in that week to give Lucifer his answer, to do what he decided to do.

And first things first, he wanted to leave as few untied ends as possible, so his first stop was a pass due talk with Vox.

Notes:

I know! It took too much and no, this is not the sad part, not yet. I was writing the things I wanted to present before the talent show and I realise it was going to be way too much for a chapter. In fact, this is a meaty one by itself. No, I'm not trying to prolongue de inevitable XD

“Once a wise man told me, 'Family don't end in blood', but it doesn't start there either. Family cares about you. Not what you can do for them. Family is there, for the good, bad, all of it. They got your back. Even when it hurts. That's family.”

~Dean Winchester, Supernatural

 

 

 

Alastor had a week to prepare for the talent show, to prepare the number he wanted to be his peek, a representation of all that he is before he enters into a zombie like state completelly at Lucifer's whims mercy.

 

The problem is that he can't only centered himself in preparing that and he had to be the organizer of the event and tie some lose ends too. And one of those ends was some talking with the TV overlord that was due for Alastor.

 

With their ups and downs, with the fights and all the errors from both parts, the deer demon really thought he needed to give the man some closure, so while he was receiving instructions from Charlie about how she wanted him to conduct the talent show, taking he was about to be the host, the red demon approached him entering in frame via shadow.

 

“Voxxy, we need to talk” said the demon, his usual tone of completelly lack of worrying thoughts and his permanent smile with now the addition of the permanente eyes, showing a full mask hidding his turmoil.

 

The TV demon, that was reading and correcting from a script that Charlie gave him, sitting in the lobby of the hotel in one of the couches, turned around to look directly to Alastor... and the thing that saw in him made him frown.

 

“Oh... Ok, sure, Al but...” he wasn't sure what he wanted to talk.

 

Was he ready to chew him for trusting the homunculus and endangering his daughter? That didn't looks like because he didn't feel aggression coming from the deer demon but, again, that expression in his semblance he was completelly sure it was a mask, something made by magic taking his eyes and even ears weren't giving a clue.

 

“Don't worry, Voxxy, I won't bite you” joked the red demon, like he was sensing the thoughts of the other overlord. “Today, five o'clock your sancta sanctorum on the base of your tower. Made sure your two accomplicces don't bother us.”

 

And as soon as he came he went, without giving Vox time to respond, assuming he was accepting that conversation without fighting it and without even trying to check if he was busy in that moment or not. That was typical Alastor, thought the demon.

 

He continued with Charlie, with the script but his mind was on the deer demon.

 

What he wanted to do? What he wanted to talk? And if he was about to reproach him for his error? For taking the word of the woman? He knew it wasn't that... Not that Alastor didn't want to have that talk but he knew he wasn't fooled. He wanted to believe Lilith, he wanted to be a hero for Alastor and his little one. He knew Lilith was lying, he just disconnected his brain and thought with his heart, that heart that still wanted the best for Alastor, that wanted his heart and be important for him.

 

He muted his common sense on purpose and paid the prize: He almost die. And when he woke up from his wounds, all his thoughts were 'When Alastor was claiming vengeance on him'. And he waited the first days on fear, trepidation... and nothing. Then he was contacted by Lucifer ordering to support Charlie with her musical festival or talent show or whatever and he learned what happened on the hotel.

 

Why Alastor wasn't claiming vengeance.

 

The real Queen Lilith was discovered, her other self just a creation and apparently the king... that man that Vox still hated with every fiber of his demonic being, with every circuit of his technological self... decided that Alastor wasn't enough for him. All of the deer demon's sacrifices: his identity, his dignity, his freedom, his body, every moment since he dropped on Hell... Weren't enough for his royal majesty, not in the face of the queen.

 

He didn't know what will happen with Alastor and Ankareeda, he didn't ask. All he wanted was to go to his ex-partner, to hold him, to hug him, to ask him if he was ok, even if he knew the answer... And in those days he was too much of a coward to do it, fearing the possible searing gaze of the deer demon to whom he failed so deeply.

 

And now... he wanted to talk.

 

He couldn't concentrate in anything more, he couldn't learn a single line from the script or the order in what Charlie wanted to do things... When the princess, with her bleeding heart, asked him if he was ok, he said he was still recuperating from his wounds and tired and she released him from that obligation from the day, advising him to take it easy and rest.

 

But all he could do was shower and sit, waiting of the hour of that... chat? That was going to have with Alastor.

 

“Are you sure you don't want me here, papito?” asked Valentino, sitting near Vox in his couch, passing his fingers lazily over his tv screen while the overlord nursed a glass of whiskey in his hand.

 

“I'm sure, Val” said the demon. “Al wants to talk alone and I don't want to get him angry with you here... He and you, water and oil at this point... or dynamite and a match and I don't want to have to prevent him from trying to kill you... again.”

 

The moth demon scoffed, crossing two of his arms.

 

“You can't blame me” he said. “That hijo de puta robbed me my best contract. I made that fucking spider, he is a star thanks to me! To me! Now my business will suffer a lot without him and he went with the fucking venado like nothing. He isn't even picking my calls, all directly to voice mail! I can't wait to get even with the Radio Demon!”

 

Vox just sighed to then move his arm around the shoulders of the moth, moving him nearer.

 

“I can't protect you all the time” said the TV demon. “If there is a fight between you and Alastor, I don't know if I can stop him a second time. Specially now, that I think he's affected by the return of the queen.”

 

Valentino laughed low and raspy to that.

 

“It's what you get when you fool around with people that is taken” said the moth demon, his tone full with bile and cruelty. “He had nothing against someone like Lilith. The body, the class, the nobility, the power... Sure Alastor was a nice distraction for the king but everyone with a braincell knew the novelty was going to pass, even without her on the picture. With her? That pobre iluso can't compete, he has nothing to bring to the table for someone like Lucifer.”

 

The gaze the TV demon gave his lover was very significant, serious and almost angry, to then soften it.

 

“Val, please, don't talk like that about Alastor, ok?” said the overlord. “I know you're pissy with him about Angel but first, you don't understand what Lucifer is or was for Alastor and second, I don't know if I can protect you again if he gets in his head to kill you.”

 

Vox sighed and moved a hand to take Valentino by his face, when he growled and moved it to not look at him.

 

“Hey, you know I'm telling you because I care for you, right, babe? You and Velvette are the fucking best thing that happened to me on this dump and together we are unstoppable” he said, smiling softly. “You got that? I want to be in good standing with Alastor, don't believe because Lucifer dumped him I have some kind of oportunity because isn't like that.”

 

The moth demon impulsed himself out of the couch using his elbows, walking to make some distance while crossing his two sets of arms.

 

“You were always obsessed with him” he said. “Sometimes I believe you'll left everything behind if he accepted you by his side again.”

 

Vox moved from the couch too, going near the moth demon, standing just in his field of vision.

 

“That won't happen, even if Alastor wanted, I know it won't work” said the demon, to then sigh, that was something he came to terms in those days. “But I care for the motherfucker and if I can make some alliance to him, I'll do. Besides... maybe you don't want to hear it, but you were way too obsessed and centered on Angel Dust. He's good, he sells but you were centering all your content in him and you became distracted since he moved to the hotel of Miss Rainbows.”

 

Valentino scoffed.

 

“He's a gold mine” said the moth.

 

“Yeah, and you digged so much in the gold mine that was starting to become dry” said the demon, extending his hand. “Now you can try to find new talent, maybe a new boytoy we could both share.”

 

The moth took the hand and allowed the TV demon to move him again to the couch.

 

“We could share Angel...” he said with a half smile.

 

“He wasn't my speed” said the demon. “Maybe we can find one we both like... Trust me, I'll help you find your new star.”

 

Someone, thought the demon, the moth didn't have feelings for, even if those were very disturbing feelings.

 

“Say...” Vox moved, going near Val and starting to tempt his neck with his blue tongue. “I have around an hour to kill, what if we have some fun?”

 

Valentino thought about what to respond for a moment, to then lick his lips, hold Vox by his lapels and lick his face-screen.

 

“So you're going to stop pursuing the Radio Demon?” asked the moth.

 

“Yeah, I want his friendship, maybe a partnership if he's amicable but that part of my life is closed” said the demon.

 

The pimp overlord, smiling widely, started to undress the other Vee.

 

“Then do me hard, papito”

 

***

 

Alastor rode the shadows until he was inside of the sanctum of the other overlord, seeing before materializing how he was coming to the place using his electricity to travel, humming and making sure the table he placed there to his reunion with the deer demon was in perfect state.

 

“You're awfully cheerful today, Voxxy” said the Radio Demon, moving towards the table while looking around, like catching properly in the decoration. “Did some poor little thing sell their soul or...?”

 

He sniffed once to then roll his eyes.

 

“Oh, I see” he said, moving to the table and sitting on the chair without another word.

 

Vox smiled.

 

“That ability of yours was always a little disturbing” said the TV demon. “But what I can say? Val likes sex and me too, there is not thing bad with that. Coffee?”

 

“Oh, I don't care what you do with your partner, Voxxy, you can share with him his vast collection of STDs for all I care” he thought for a moment. “By the way, even when this could be considered a social call, the pleasanries are unnecessary...”

 

He thought for a moment.

 

“Tho I won't refuse coffee, black...” and he was interrupted by Vox.

 

“No sugar, I know, I didn't forget” said the demon, communicating with his assistant asking him to deliver some coffee. “Also, if you want something stronger, just say so.”

 

Alastor rose a brow and leaned his head, looking directly to Vox being so... kind with him, acting like a good host.

 

“No, I don't need anything stronger, old pal” said the demon. “Also, you know I become sappy with liqueur in my body and we don't have that, do we?”

 

He laughed, his canned laughs accompanied him too but Vox noticed a sour note on that, something that wasn't on the surface, trapped inside Alastor. It wasn't like the TV demon was very empathetic but he knew the deer demon, two decades they were together, they were far more time being friends, even further being rivals. The Radio Demon could play his magicks, could act, but the overlord knew there was something more in him and it wasn't just sadness.

 

Sadness was something that Alastor was familiar with, something he learned to live with... There was something, deep inside, something that produced shivers to the demon.

 

“If you want to talk...” offered the Vee.

 

In that moment, Peppermint, Vox's assistant, came with a plater with two cups of coffee and placed both in the table, retairing to the elevator again.

 

“I want to talk but not really about me” said the deer demon while taking the cup. “My visit is an oportunity for you to gloat.”

 

He drink a little from his coffee, with his eyes close.

 

“Gloat?” Vox had a questioning look in his face.

 

“Yes, gloat, old pal” said the deer demon, resting the cup. “You were right, I was wrong. This is your moment for the 'I told you so' or any other discourse you could have prepared for this significant stance.”

 

The TV demon sighed.

 

“Al, I won't gloat about this...” he denied, trying to catch the eyes of the deer demon but he was playing a game of looking to everything else like it was the most interesting thing in the world, in that moment his gaze was fixed on the coffee itself. “This is about Lucifer and Lilith, right?”

 

Alastor rolled his eyes.

 

“No, it's about the weather, Voxxy... Oh, please, try to keep up” he scoffed. “You were right: Lucifer never cared for me, he didn't even remembered me. And yes, you were right about what I wanted... Doesn't matter how much I said I only wanted to keep my promise, I loved him, since the first time I met him.”

 

“I know, Al, that was pretty obvious” said the demon, not with a note of mocking or anything like that, he was stating something as it was.

 

“Yes, yes” said the deer demon with a gesture of his hand. “I was a fool... I am a fool. You can laugh all you want, you have my permission.”

 

“I won't do that... I only want to know how you really are, Alastor” said the overlord. “No masks, no lies, no acting or bullshit, I want to know if you are ok with how things are now... In fact, I don't have clear how things are right now with Lucifer and his wife.”

 

The red demon drank a little more of the coffee, still his eyes fixed in the liquid.

 

“What you want to know exactly, Vox?” asked the demon. “If I'm... sad? If I'm mad? If I feel replaced? Unloved? Used? How I feel having a daughter with a man that doesn't care about me in the slightless? A man that was professing his love like the romantic interest on a cheesy novel to five minutes later ignore my very existence? How I feel when I can't even hate her seeing she's a good woman that cares for her daughter and husband, that cares for sinners?”

 

He moved his hands to take the cup again but he ended up resting them over the table.

 

“I was abused, I had fights all my life, I was shot in the head, I have cruel fights here in Hell” he was enumerating with his gaze lost to a side. “I was electrocuted, rammed with several weapons, some even angelic. I had my gut split in two and I held like that two weeks without rest, using my magic to maintain my daughter alive so she could be born... I had my chest split by an angelic piece of crap, the nepo baby of Heaven... And nothing, none of that, could hurt the same amount that this hurts.”

 

Vox was ready to move, was ready to go there, hug Alastor, tell him that he had him to confide, to be a shoulder for him, to be his friend again... but the deer demon smelled his intention and just raised a finger, just slightly.

 

“Don't take this as a return completelly on our friendship or even me venting to you or complaining” said the overlord. “It's a statement of truth and nothing more. I didn't come here for compassion or a friend. I don't have any interest in using you as an outlet of what I'm feeling. I wronged you and I came here to set the record straight, to apologize.”

 

“But Al...” he has his hands over the table and he forced himself to sit again. “I don't need you to apologize to me and less now. I'm worried about you.”

 

“There is no need for that” said the deer. “This is a Hell of my own making, I'm just suffering my consecuences and nothing more.”

 

“And what are you gonna do?” asked Vox. “You will move from the hotel, right?”

 

Alastor denied.

 

“The King didn't want me removed” said the deer demon. “He wants me there, to have access to Ankareeda and for me to help the princess.”

 

The Tv demon looked annoyed by that.

 

“And you'll just accept what he decides? Even when he's the one...” Alastor interrupted him.

 

“He just reunited with his wife, his real love” said the demon. “It was me the one that really thought we could be something more or that he could love me in the same meassure. Ankareeda loves him and what is even more important, she needs him.”

 

“Your daughter doesn't need his lazy ass” said the other overlord. “He wasn't a good father for little Miss Rainbows, who knows how he will be with Anka.”

 

“That's irrelevant” said the deer demon. “I don't need for him to really care for her, to act like a good father... I'll love to if he does but my daughter is too good for this place, too intelligent to stay in the mediocre position she will have in Hell just because she's my daughter, never getting her due. A glass ceiling for her... No, Lucifer will provide her with oportunities, a title with real weight, real power... I only need for the queen to accept her and I'm taking steps to that.”

 

Vox denied, he couldn't believe that Alastor was ready to do that, to....

 

“And you'll take it all on the chin, just like that?” asked the demon, raising his voice a little, hitting his hands on the table. “I can't believe it. You will stay just like that, seeing him being a cheesy lover with his wife, caring for his older daughter, who knows how he will act with Anka taking she wasn't born from the queeny... And you are gonna suffer through that for... for what?”

 

“For a future for my daughter?” asked the demon to then click his tongue. “I'll let Lucifer to do whatever he wants with me just to achieve that. All the pain is nothing if my daughter's future isn't hard or unfair.”

 

The TV overlord scoffed and sat again, crossing his arms.

 

“You will accept pain, as an only recourse, like you always do” said the demon. “Ankareeda doesn't need a title and bullshit, she needs to be happy and she won't be if she notices her father is suffering and trust me, for what I saw on her, she will notice. I can't believe that you, the all powerful Radio Demon, will offer himself to the slaughter for meager material bullshit for your daughter.”

 

Alastor growled.

 

“You never understood sacrifice” he responded.

 

“Oh, yes, I did... and I do” said the other demon. “I was with you two decades, very well knowing you didn't love me. I was ready to that... partnership without feelings from your part because you were so fucking important to me that I was ready to suffer every fucking time you make a move to get closer to the Devil. I know how that pain is, Alastor, and I don't want that for you, specially when it's way worse: At least I didn't have to see you together with him.”

 

There was a silence that was seated, heavy, between the two demons. Thick as molasses is stayed between the two almost a couple of minutes until Alastor talked again.

 

“I want the best for my daughter” said the demon, his voice low, his gaze again to the coffee, lost in the ripples in the dark liquid. “I'll love to give her that and my happiness, give her a real family where everyone will love her forever. But it can't be... I was never able to love another since I met Lucifer, not alive or here in Hell and I know, I'm painfully aware, that I won't be able to love another no matter how much time passes.”

 

He laughed and his laugh was dry, sad... even when his magicly stitched face wasn't showing his true feelings.

 

“More than anything, I could sell my soul to be more like a buck but no... Nor my life, nor Hell will ever give me quarter and apparently my heart was so fragile that was one use only” he denied with his head, if it wasn't for the spell, Vox could be see tears by now. “How pathetic is that?”

 

Alastor took the cup and drank the rest of the coffee in one gulp to then rest it slowly over the soucer.

 

“My mind is made” said the deer demon. “I know the toll I'll pay but I need to do this. I can't give my daughter happiness but I'll make sure she wouldn't ask for anything in her life. I just... wanted to apologize with you. You're right, you sacrificed for me, you stood by my side knowing I couldn't possible love you and I treated you badly. I'm regretful about little in my life but I'm regretful about that.”

 

He rose from his chair and invoked his staff, ready to go.

 

“I'm sorry, Vox... you deserved something better than me” said the demon, turning around. “I wish you the best with your partner.”

 

The deer just walked a step when Vox held him by his arm.

 

“Why this feels like a good bye, Alastor?” asked cautiously the TV demon.

 

The Radio Demon widened his smile.

 

“Don't worry, old friend, I'll be around” he responded before entering into the shadows to transport out of V-Tower, the words from the TV demon still ringing in his ears.

 

***

 

A day passed since his conversation with Vox and Alastor was fully focused on preparing the talent show and to practice with Angel the song he wanted to play. A song that ended up changing thanks to the spider's advice... something that could give him... a meassure of the control that he will still have, because he was losing it all.

 

An Adieu to his stage persona before he transformed into a mere tool.

 

Those days he was eluding the king and the queen, more present everyday in the hotel. He rarely ate on the kitchen with the rest, even if he was the one cooking and he was always finding an excuse to not be in the same place as them.

 

And there he was, with Angel in his room listening to music and talking, when the spider broke the silence.

 

“I think the song is gonna be a massive thing” said the ex-pornstar. “But I think we need another backup singer. I can do just fine by myself but this will sound better with another.”

 

Alastor moved his head to look directly to the spider.

 

“I don't want to include another in my business” said the demon. “I'm ok with you and even when Husk and Niffty have great voices, they already have their numbers to worry about.”

 

Angel clicked his tongue.

 

“Still I think we should...” someone interrupted him, knocking at the door.

 

The Radio Demon immediactly entered into a shadow, he didn't want others to know he was almost hidding in his room of the actor demon, he didn't want people to know he was even avoiding his daughter because he didn't want for her to learn how bad he was or to notice the magic he applied to himself to hide his real feelings.

 

The spider demon just shrugged and moved to the door, opening to find... a very hurt Cherri Bomb.

 

“Cherri?!” he exclaim, taking the woman that almost collapsed on his arms to the inside of his chamber. “What happened, girl?”

 

He asked.

 

“I'm good, Angie... Or... I'll be good, I only need to crash out here for the moment” she said.

 

The demoness had a black eye, several bruises in her face and arms, some cuts and one of her lips was busted, making her talking very hard and painful. Even so, she tried to smiled.

 

“I didn't want Charlie to see me like this” said the sinner. “I just need some use of the first aid kit and little more, I'll heal this.”

 

“Yeah, you'll do, but what happened? Another territorial dispute?” he denied with his head. “Cherri, we talked about this, you said you were going to let that in the past, to try to get to Heaven for real.”

 

“Yeah, cunt, but you know me: if I don't go find problems, problems come to find me” she tried to laugh but she grunted with the pain.

 

Angel helped her to sit on his bed while Alastor was coming out of the shadow, making Cherri to jump in her seat.

 

“Fuckin' Christ!” she said. “The less I need now is a heartattack!”

 

“What happened to you?” asked the demon looking directly and very intensely to the woman... or better say, her wounds.

 

“Are you gonna tell Charlie?” she responded with that question.

 

“No if you tell me who did this to you” responded the deer.

 

Angel, that was trying to find his first aid kit, turned around and looked directly to the sinner, like he has a revelation.

 

“Oh, don't ya fuckin' tell me, Cherri!!” said the spider, annoyed.

 

“It's not what it looks like!” she responded.

 

“Ya know, ya shouldn't go near him” said the actor. “Fucks, Cherri, you know better than going near the fuckin' psychopath again.”

 

“Who's the psychopath?” asked Alastor, turning to look to Angel.

 

The spider demon rubbed his forehead with two fingers to then point with two hands to the demoness.

 

“Her fuckin' ex” said the demon. “They end up here together, regular Bonnie and Clyde type of shit but only if Bonnie was drugged out of her mind and just following to the flows of Clyde. The guy is a bitch, bad news... Cherri dumped his ass time ago but sometimes this bullshit happens when he manages to slither his way near her.”

 

Alastor rose a brow and crossed his arms.

 

“You went to him?” asked the demon. “Why?”

 

“I didn't, ok?!” she denied. “The fuckin' cunt saw me in some place with the people of the hotel, a promotion, a vid, I don't fucking know! He asked to see me, he said... Well, doesn't matter, nothing of this matters, I'll...”

 

Angel made her sit again, she rose to face Alastor, and he started to go through the kit to try to find what he needed.

 

“Christ on a stick, girl, you know ya can't trust what he says, not matter what it is” said the spider demon. “Tell me at least the motherfucker didn't get handsy with ya this time.”

 

Cherri had a look in her face and Alastor knew that look.

 

“If you don't want for me to go and tell Charlie exactly what happened, tell me, what he said and what he did” asked the demon.

 

He wasn't expressing any feeling about it but not for the spell. Even his voice was in that moment cold as ice.

 

“Fuck.... Ok!” she said, annoyed. “The cunt contacted me with a delivery boy imp and a note. He said he was blowing this place up if I didn't carry my ass to our old hidding hole. He said he just wanted to talk but... he was angry. Telling me this is all a farce, that I could be better with him. I told him to shove his worries up his ass, that I was taking this seriously... maybe was an error to mention Pent...”

 

She complained when Angel started to desinfect her cuts.

 

“The cunt went ballistic and things got... heated...” and she didn't want to talk more.

 

Alastor looked to Cherri very fixedly, analizing the cuts, the bruises and all the damage, trying to paint a picture of what she endured with her ex partner.

 

The deer demon knelt down in front of the woman and moved his hands in front of her, with green energy starting to emerge from them.

 

“Allow me, darling” he asked Angel. “Mo konmprann vou èdé, mo conmprann vou drwat. Si-to-ple, M' ole èdé çila fenm.”

 

He murmured on his mother's language, softly, the energy from his hands extending to Cherri's form and her bruises soon changed color like they were be healing for days, her lip and eye returned to normal.

 

“I can't heal you all the way” said the deer demon. “But this will be enough for Charlie not to make inconvenient questions.”

 

He rose up and looked directly to Angel, that was extremelly susprise for the healing powers demostrated by Alastor, like he knew he was a practicioner of magicks but he never expected him to be able to heal.

 

“Mon ange” he said. “If you're so kind to lend our friend a sweater and dress yourself.”

 

The spider demon was confused for the petition but he moved to his wardrobe to take a croptop sweater, enough to cover Cherri's arms and giving it to her.

 

“What are we planning, Smiles?” asked Angel, dressing with a jacket and taking in his hands his ass kicking demonsteel tip platform boots.

 

The demon lowered his sleeves, previously rolled, and dressed with his coat.

 

“I think is about time I take my responsabilities as host of this hotel seriously” He offered his gloved hand to Cherri. “Now, dear, can you accompany us to your ex partner's nest?”

 

Cherri for a moment looked scared... then she remembered with whom she was speaking. It was easy to forget that Alastor was the Radio Demon when he was kind with her.

 

“Wha... What do you wanna do?” asked the woman, taking the hand and raising from the bed.

 

“People still doesn't understand that an attack on this establishment or its residents, is a direct insult to me” said the deer demon. “And as soon I'm here, I'm conscious and I'm me, I won't tolerate that.”

 

So while Ankareeda was playing boardgames in the lobby with Lilith, Lucifer, Charlie and Vaggie, they saw the group going out together.

 

“Where are you going?” asked the king, noticing the murderous intent of Alastor from a mile.

 

The demon didn't look at him, he just advance towards the door.

 

“Don't you worry your little head, my liege” he responded. “I'm just going out to solve a little grievance, nothing more. We'll be back in a couple of hours, maybe less... It will depend on how good he's at hiding.”

 

He murmured the last part but Lucifer catched in that eitherway.

 

“What do you think that was about, dad?” asked Charlie, still looking at the now closed door after the trio left the hotel.

 

“I dunno” said the monarch, taking the dice from the board. “But Alastor was reaching murderous intent. If I didn't know that Al only goes for people that is asking for it, I'll be feeling pity for the poor soul.”

 

Lilith leaned his head, looking to the door.

 

“He didn't look different to me” said the woman.

 

“Yeah, I think he did something to hide his feelings for the time being...” the monarch clicked his tongue. “If that's what he needs, I won't pry. I learned my lesson with that. But at this point I think I know Al and there is a way of walking and moving for him that calls when he wants to rip the entrails of someone.”

 

The princess looked to the door too.

 

“I don't think is healthy for him to hide his feelings” her gaze moved towards the queen, to then look to her father. “I know Al is very particular but... are you sure is the best for him to do that?”

 

Anka was just observing, without making any move or talk in her way, just observing the adults expressing their opinions on what her father was doing.

 

“The times I almost lost him was because he set boundries and I danced over them like I was practicing a polka” said the monarch. “I won't commit that error again, not when things are still in the air and I could lose him still. He promised me an answer after the talent show and I'll hold to that moment. He wants to center himself in that.”

 

“I still think...” and Charlie was interrupted when the door of the hotel opened to let Rosie enter, with the woman taking out her hat and umbrella and making them dissapear.

 

Ankareeda moved in shadow to then launch herself to the arms of the cannibal overlord.

 

“Oh, my beautiful baby, how are ya? Your mess of a father wasn't taking you to visit” the girl said sorry with signs to then hug the woman again.

 

It was apparent, at least for Lucifer it was, that his daughter needed that... and it hurt a little that she wasn't asking of him for some form of caring gesture.

 

“No need, baby... Is your father home?” asked the woman and the girl responded denied with her head and making the gesture for 'no', to then explain her father just left. “Well, no matter, I wasn't gonna see him.”

 

The woman, like she was in her own domain, moved to where the group was sitting around the low table, playing that board game with Anka and her black insect like eyes moved immediactly to the queen.

 

“I see the rumours were true” said the cannibal. “You must be the real Lilith, don'tcha?”

 

The queen rose from her seat and stood in front of Rosie, looking directly to the face of that woman. The monarch felt the animadversion from her and she could more or less understand it was due to her humunculus... But that didn't look generic, but personal.

 

“Yes, I'm Queen Lilith, is a pleasure” she said, with education but at the same time holding her posture, trying to show she wasn't intimidated. “And you are?”

 

The cannibal overlord scoffed to then half smile to the monarch.

 

“I'm Rosie, dear” said the woman, also not intimidated by the other. “I'm an overlord and the lady major of Cannibal Town. Also, I'm this little one's godmother.”

 

Silence... for the rest of the presents, that was almost a clash of titans, the rub of two tectonic plates and everyone was holding their breath waiting for the results of that. It was apparent that Rosie didn't like Lilith on arival and the queen felt that I didn't like the hostility that was coming from that unknown woman.

 

“It's a pleasure” said Lilith, cold as ice.

 

“I doubt it...” said the cannibal to then move, like ignoring the woman and going near the king. “You! We need to talk.”

 

Lucifer, by reflex, gulped his own saliva and nodded.

 

“Sure” he said, raising from his seat and adjusting this vest. “We'll go to the parlor.”

 

The woman nodded and after giving a kind smile to both Charlie and Ankareeda, she moved following the king to the parlor, closing the door behind her.

 

“I have the impression she doesn't like me much” said the queen, returning to her seat.

 

“You can't blame her” said Charlie, taking the dice to roll it and move her piece. “Rosie is Alastor's best friend, she cares for Anka like a mother and your copy tried to kill her to reduce Alastor's support system.”

 

The princess was at least on speaking terms with the queen but she still wasn't open to her, there was still some tension in the way she talked to her.

 

“That's horrible” said the woman, deflating a little.

 

Anka moved to be seen by the woman and signed.

 

“She says that Rosie loves her father very much and she cares for both” translated Charlie. “She said that also they lived with her seven years, that she's almost a mother for her.”

 

Lilith smiled softly to the little girl.

 

“I'm glad you have someone like that in your life, Anka” she said. “She looks fierce.”

 

Vaggie nodded.

 

“Oh, she is... the rest of the overlords, according to Carmilla, doesn't want to mess with her turf” and for better or worse, overlords were always trying to screw each other, trying to gain even a street to add to their territories.

 

But Cannibal Town was almost spared from that.

 

“What could she want to talk to Lucifer?” asked the queen, more to herself than to the rest.

 

Even that, even having an educated guess, both the princess and her paramour shrugged.

 

***

 

Lucifer turned around at the same time that Rosie closed the door of the parlor and he took a deep breath before speaking.

 

“Ok, I know why are you here” said the monarch. “So on with it: Tell me I'm a screw-up, tell me how much I hurt Alastor...”

 

He said, not looking to the woman.

 

“As I said, Alastor hasn't visited me in days” said the cannibal lady, going to one of the couches and sitting in it. “I know about the queen because Vox told me in a call, asking me about how was Alastor. So now, I want to hear what ya did and how much you screwed things up with my friend. So go on with it.”

 

The devil clicked his tongue and sat in front of the cannibal.

 

“I... I guess I should be start from the beginning” said the king. “When Lilith, her humunculus, better said, died after facing Ankareeda, Alastor was with her and she left him a key. That key was from a secret basement on Doomsday District, where she had Lilith as prisoner. He asked me to go with him and he was... I should understand he was processing something in his mind from his questions but all was that strange...”

 

The woman crossed her arms.

 

“What questions?” she asked, her tone still neutral.

 

“If I loved him, if I could fall in love with him even if Lilith wasn't the monster she was... and... I simply thought it was his self-steem fucking him over after Lilith's passing” said the monarch. “It wasn't the first time we talked about that, in some term or other. He was always feeling out of his depth with me, always remind him that I'm a king and he's... well, him. I tried to dispel his doubts in the past and I thought this time was the same.”

 

Rosie took some air. She knew that about Alastor.

 

The deer loved to hide that part of himself, he loved to present himself infallible, strong, powerful and secure, like nothing was able to move his resolve, to sink his ego, to dent his pride... But Alastor in reality was mix of doubts, traumas and issues tied up by a very thin thread of appareances. Like the Titanic... big, strong, but only in the looks.

 

“And what happened when you two found your wife?” asked the cannibal.

 

“Lilith was relief of seeing me and I... you don't know how much... how painful was everything with her clone. How bad things were” confessed the monarch, without giving details. “And having her there, my mind just went to the idea that the monster wasn't her, that she never hated me, she never left me, she never hurt me and she never... She kissed me and I followed into the motions.”

 

Rosie not only clicked her tongue in desaproval, she also clossed her hands into fist so fiercely that they produced a sound of tense leather.

 

“In front of Alastor” wasn't a question.

 

Lucifer just nodded.

 

“And then?” she asked.

 

“I asked Lilith, she explained a little what happened and then I remembered Al and he wasn't there...”

 

“Sure he wasn't staying to be the public to your makeup session” she sighed. “Continue...”

 

“We came to the hotel, I tried to talk to him as soon as I reached the hotel but he was... He just wanted to know what I wanted to do with him and Ankareeda. He was breaking my heart, telling he wasn't a confident or a friend, that he didn't care what I did with my wife. That he kept his promise and now I was happy. I wasn't happy, I tried to explain to him but he insisted in knowing what I was about to tell about him and Anka to Lilith and what I wanted to do.”

 

Rosie knew that Alastor wasn't himself if he wasn't taking the wheel of every situation. The deer loved to stir the boat, to have everything under control. He was a control freak by the book and leaving everything for Lucifer to decide was telling her volumes of the pain the chest of the deer demon.

 

“And you told him....”

 

“That I didn't want him to go, that I wanted him here, that I wanted to fix things with him” Lucifer denied. “He even suggested that I could take Ankareeda from him and raise her with Lilith.”

 

“Over my town's dead bodies you're separating that baby from her papa” said the woman, seriously.

 

“I don't want that! I tried to tell him I don't want that!” said the monarch, maybe raising the voice a little. “But he was... It was hard, really hard to talk to him. He was saying these things... like he wasn't born to be a father, that he wanted the best for his daughter. He was even doubting if I love her like I love my Charlie. It was... like seeing him going to the gallows, fucking Hells! It was hurting and was frustrating at the same time....”

 

“And how that conversation ended?” asked Rosie, starting to see the wide picture... a horrible picture that she didn't like, something like modern art kind of picture.

 

“In an inpass” said the monarch. “But we talked days ago and I explained to him that I wanted him, that I love him and I want him in my life. I explained him that things with Lilith finished and I only want to help her.”

 

He was saying that, but Alastor still wasn't visiting her and then it was the thing with the dagger.

 

“Are you sure you expressed yourself right?” asked the woman.

 

“He told me he will give me an answer after Charlie's talent show” said the king. “We're preparing a show to get some publicity and then announce that redemption is possible. One of Charlie's friends got redeemed.”

 

He smiled softly but the seriousness from the cannibal overlord erase the smile from his face.

 

“Carmilla visited me with some questions a couple of days ago” explained the woman. “Alastor apparently made a custom order on angelic steel, a dagger.”

 

Lucifer frowned.

 

“Do you think he's planning to attack Lilith?” he asked, worried about that.

 

The woman scoffed and her expression was almost fury.

 

“That's your first thought? May you don't know him at all... or deserve him if that's your fucking first thought” she denied. “Alastor won't hurt an innocent or he would have left your queen to rot in that basement.”

 

The king felt the sting of those words but he didn't try to contradict them. It's true that was his first thought and it was one he knew he shouldn't be having at all.

 

Rosie made a gesture and made the paper appear with the desing that Alastor passed to the weapons overlord for his order.

 

“Do you know something about magicks, right?” asked the cannibal.

 

“Well, I don't need to because my power doesn't work ritualistically but I read a lot, so yeah” he said, taking the paper and examining it.

 

“What do you see there?” asked Rosie.

 

The Devil took the paper and with the fingers of his right hand he was tracing the symbols.

 

“This is... is a mix of two cultures, celtic and.... Mix of the Dark Continent, Congo, Angola mostly, mixed with french. Creole, I guess?” Rosie didn't respond, she allowed him to go in his speed. “All the forms of magick derives more or less from elohim, the language of my people. If I'm understanding the sigils correctly, this is a curse to transform someone into a supreme receptive state. This will nullify the Apple completelly, bye bye, free will..”

 

And that, horrified him, more than most things in the world or in the planes. He gave that to Humanity, because he thought they could be better that being mere pets for his siblings. He wanted to save all... he wanted to save Eve.

 

He supported everything inside free will and free will as a maxima. That's why the soul contracts didn't work in a forceful way, demons needed to sell their servitude in a conscious state of mind or the contract was going void in that very second and the backlash in power to the wannabe overlord was painful to say the least.

 

That dagger was... a perversion, a horrible thing... and when his eyes opened widely, when his pupils dilated, was the tip for Rosie to know that he found the name.

 

“Why the fuck this will subside the victim to me?” he rose his eyes to look to the woman. “Alastor won't hurt an innocent, we agree on that, but then with whom he's planning on using the dagger?”

 

“With a person he thinks isn't innocent, someone he thinks deserves it, someone he wants to gift to you... The only person that Alastor will mistreat time and time again with the upmost cruelty” the woman sighed. “You're intelligent, figure it out.”

 

She took the paper from the hands of the monarch after raising from her seat and made her hat and umbrella appear again.

 

“Before I go, let me tell you something, your highness” said the cannibal. “Unlike Alastor, I'm not a good person. As a witch I could chose my destiny in death and I chose Hell because I was sure it was my place. I don't have qualms to hurt whoever is necessary to get to someone I want to fuck up ten times over. I'll do unspeakable things, no matter how vile, to get my due... Doesn't matter how many eggs I have to break and how many necks I have to step on.”

 

Rosie adjusted her hat and her face was serious, deadly serious.

 

“I'm not a good person and I guess you can relate in that” she continue. “I trusted you with Alastor because I thought you could end up together, that you could be good for him and his baby... Because I know the content of his heart. If after giving you my vote of confidence my friend ends up hurt, if his baby ends up hurt. I don't know how but I'll pay you tenfold in pain. I don't want to, because I like your family, or at least your daughter and daughter-in-law, but if you hurt mine, I'll fucking destroy yours.”

 

Normally, in front of a threat like that, Lucifer will be half transform and trying to teach the sinner or hellborn in question a lesson that they'll never forget... Nobody threatened his family, his Charlie and lived to tell the tale but... There was something in the cold demeanor from Rosie, in the security of her words, in the lapidary statement that he knew he couldn't reproach her words.

 

“Good day, your majesty” she said, going to the lobby to say goodbye to Anka and Charlie, with a huge smile, like nothing happened.

 

So few people had the guts to plant their feet in front of the Devil without feeling weak on the legs, less were able to threaten said Devil. Only crazies and people so inflated in their ego they thought they were untouchable. But Rosie knew she wasn't immortal, she knew how much he valued his people and she wasn't crazy.

 

That woman saw the deer demon and his daughter as family and she was ready to scorch the earth and salt it for good meassure if something happened to them. Devil or no Devil.

 

Lucifer was so glad that Alastor had someone like her in his life, specially taking how useless he was feeling to deal with him and his little girl.

 

***

 

Hours later, Angel, Cherri and Alastor returned to the hotel, talking very vividly and happy, joking even between the three.

 

Husk was sitting in a couch in the lobby and moved fast near the group as soon as they entered.

 

“Where the fuck you go?” he asked.

 

“Worried for me, Husky?” said the spider demon, going to the arms of the cat demon, hugging and looking at him with a very soft smile. “We're makin' a solid for Cherri.”

 

The bartender looked relieved for seeing they were ok to then look to Cherri and then to Alastor.

 

“Don't look at me like that, old chum” said the deer demon. “Charlie is always saying that I'm her facilities manager so I decided to take my job seriously to take out some trash.”

 

He then pointed to the ex-pornstar.

 

“And see? I brought back your honey in one piece, not wear or tear” he laughed to then start to move to the kitchen. “But now I should be going, I want to prepare something delightful for our very tight troupe.”

 

Cherri moved, going with Alastor.

 

“Hey, Al....” she said, still unsure how to address the demon. “You made me a fucking solid back there, you didn't have to but you did. What I don't get: Why you didn't kill him? You looked like you were very ready to do that.”

 

The demon looked at her and nodded.

 

“Well, yes, darling, killing abusers is my biggest hobby, I enjoy it a great deal” said the deer. “But... you're not meaker, you're not a damsel in distress. You're strong, a survivor and you know how to fight. You don't really need my protection from that cumstain and the only thing that baffles me is why he still lives when he's not match for you.”

 

Cherri smiled, entering in the kitchen with the overlord.

 

“The cunt knows how to push my buttons, I guess” she said.

 

“You allow him to do that” said the demon. “He's a pathetic little man, is a miracle that he survived Hell. You should take him out of his misery.”

 

“You really think I should kill him and be done with it?” asked the woman, with sincere curiosity.

 

Alastor was starting to remove his coat to put on his apron and nodded.

 

“Yes” he tied the apron. “You suffered under him, he doesn't deserve your love and he doesn't deserve your pain. It is you the one that should take the reins and finish him. All survivors should be the ones to finish their abusers.”

 

Sure, he could do that for her, if she asked. For the moment, he gave him a lesson on manners and reinforced the idea that the hotel and every single being inside, even the cockroaches (that were Niffty's sole domain) were protected by him.

 

Alastor thought it was cathartic when a victim could finish with their agresor, if they have the power, the strenght.

 

So the ball was on Cherri's court and she should decide.

 

“That's a very nice thought... sure some people could say is messed up but....” Alastor interrupted her.

 

“But we're demons, we live in Hell” said the deer. “It's up to us to make this place better, for ourselves and those we care about.”

 

The woman thought in that for a moment and finally she bumped on the overlord with her elbow.

 

“You know, when Angel told me you have his soul now, I was worried” confessed the woman. “But... you're good for Angie, a good friend. He needs a way to not got back to that asshole moth and I know you're helping him. I'm glad he has a friend like you... That we have a pal like you.”

 

Alastor stopped what he was doing and rose a brow while looking to the woman.

 

“Do you perceive me as a friend?” he asked, slightly confussed because he barely interacted with the aussie woman before.

 

Cherri nodded.

 

“Sure, cunt” she said. “You're fuckin' ancient and strange but hey, a friend of Angie is already my friend and what you did for me today? Means more than you can think, so yeah...”

 

The smile in Alastor's face softener just a tad, not much because his spell was controlling his wicked smile too but enough to transmite some closeness.

 

“I'm honored” he said, to then think for a second before the woman could go out of the kitchen. “Say, my explosive friend, want to help me with something? Between friends...”

 

Cherri didn't thought for much time.

 

“Sure, shot away” she said.

 

“Can you sing?” he asked.

Notes:

Next one will be full the talent show and... something more. I'll try to update soon, I think that part is gonna flow almost by itself, so I'll try to update in some days, maybe in a week or week and a half (tho I'll try to update before that).

Chapter 56: Farewell of a showman

Summary:

All the preparations from the people of the hotel have the culmination on the talent show, a festivity with good food and drink and of course, musical numbers to atract the press and the important players of the city to announce that the hotel had it's first redemption case: Sir Pentious.

In the middle of all, Alastor is eaten moment by moment by his own turmoil and in the last minute he changes his number.

Alcohol, a roof and a dagger are witnesses of an open heart from the Radio Demon.

Notes:

Well, I finished as soon as I could. This is a meaty chapter, very long but I didn't want to divide it, so bear with me.
Btw, the quote on the beginning is from a metal band called Warcry, a song called Nana (Lullaby in spanish) and it's mostly like the last thoughts of a warrior dying on a battlefield. It's a very beautiful song.

“I'm losing my senses,

I can't barely see,

Death wait just a moment

my enemies soon come for me.

 

I'm seeing a Lady,

smiling just for me.

If that lady is Death,

Who is afraid to just leave?

 

She come singing a lullaby

from my dear homeland

My mother sang me that to me

I could never forgot.”

~Warcry, Nana (Lullaby)

 

 

Alastor, Cherri and Angel were in the room of the spider demon, listening to music, to the song that the deer demon wanted to play on the talent show.

 

“It's nice shit” said the woman while the Radio Demon had her hands in his.

 

Funny thing, Angel started to manicure his hands and Cherri wanted to do the same but she said Angel did a better job. Alastor offered to try, saying he helped friends of him when he was alive and Rosie in Hell with their nails and even makeup and she was now enjoying the attention and the practice of the deer demon.

 

She was surprise, both for how delicate was the overlord, but also how talented he was, rivalizing with Angel himself.

 

“Both” she said, when without words the demon presented with two different colors. “I think it could be the shit to alternate the color.”

 

“There are your nails, darling, if you like that...” he said, shrugging.

 

Cherri thought for a moment.

 

“Ok, what do you think will be better?” asked the woman.

 

Alastor, feeling smug for the woman being able to take his suggesting, presented the darker red nail polish and then another from Angel's manicure set, red too but at least three tones lighter.

 

“There is this type of manicure called reverse french that was very popular twenty years ago” he pointed with his head to the spider demon. “Angel explained to me that fashion tends to come back and I noticed that Charlie has this type, so maybe is in fashion again?”

 

The ex pornstar nodded.

 

“Yep, that's the one with the half moon near the beginning of the nail, instead of the french regular with the tip of the nails with beige, pink or white” said the demon. “It made a come back but I got this gel for nails that I'm dying to take for a spin.”

 

The woman, half smiling, rose a the brow of her eye.

 

“And you know how to, radio boss?” she asked.

 

“Let me do one and you can judge me, my explosive friend” he said.

 

“Go on... Again, the song I like, is catchy and all but...” she started to say.

 

“But?” asked the deer demon while working on the nail.

 

“Don't you think is too much... doggy style?” said the aussie, like trying to explain a concept that was clear in her mind but not so much in words.

 

Alastor rose a brow in response.

 

“What do you mean, my dear?” asked the red demon.

 

Cherri thought for a moment, even leaning her head like she needed to adjust her brain to try to put her thought into words.

 

“I mean, you wanna make a statement, you said” Alastor nodded. “Some big, bold and give a message to Lucifer that you want to be with him but this song is like... like you are desperated to be with him, to have him accepting you.”

 

Alastor thought that was almost the point of that song, a big statement that he was going to be by his side, that he was making a sacrifice to do it. Make it big, loud, so nobody could question his motives if what he was about to do with the dagger was even known. Show the world a last performance of how he was before he could fade away and become... well, Lucifer's puppet.

 

“And.. you think that's bad?” asked tacitly the Radio Demon.

 

“Yeah” she said. “Since I fucking know you, you're this scary motherfucker, secured, top tier, no bullshit taker. Damn, when you wanted to help me with my ex I thought you'll be speargunning for my soul.”

 

She said with a smile.

 

“But you're sweet, I get, when you want to but you're still this scary cunt that's gonna break all the bones and souls of the losers that will try to mess with you or your people” she thought for a second. “I think could be better a song that reflect that. Some... I know you don't like punk, so maybe you don't know these songs but you want to sing something like 'I wanna be your dog' by the Stooges when you should be singing, I dunno, 'Won't fall in love today' or some like that... Or I give you one better: Respect. A fucking classic.”

 

Alastor was confused.

 

“But that isn't a love song” he couldn't know about the other two the woman mentioned because she was right, he didn't know them.

 

“Is has to be?” asked the bomber girl. “I mean... Why not a song that's a fucking statement, that tells to King Shortcake 'You better gain this'? Specially with Missus Queeny here. If he wants your ass or any other bit on you, he should be making things to gain it, not the other way around.”

 

Saying that Alastor was susprised, was a statement. He tried to brush it aside and continue with the nails of the woman but he couldn't, stopping again.

 

“You're saying it like I'm the catch and not the literal King of Hell?” asked the demon.

 

Cherri, that asked Angel for one of his lolipops, just shrugged.

 

“What good is gonna do to your relationship that he's the fucking King of Hell?” said the woman, placing the loli in her mouth. “Or the president of the Munchkin Kingdom? Is he gonna be better in the sack for that? Treat you better? Cook better? And that supposing he can wip something else side from pancakes... We're talking partners, not an ally in a fight. He being the King of Hell is useless to daily life.”

 

The deer demon was... stunned, still processing what the woman was telling him. What a woman like Cherri, not that he thought she was stupid but also not in the triple digits IQ, was insightfully telling him.

 

“She's right” said Angel. “You add a lot to the table, while the shortking sadly, adds too little.”

 

“The absolute fuck I add to a relationship aside for fucking problems?” his voice rose an octave. “I... I can't stand touch most of the time. I don't care for sex! I'm not much for shows of affection and I have a long, very long, list of baggage.”

 

He was almost trying to go against his first impression, trying to remove that idea that he added more than problems.

 

“And? Ya cook amazingly, ya know how to listen, case on point with us... Ya're an amazing dad, ya are a block and that not showing affection is bullshit. I saw ya, really saw ya. In your way, ya show you care” said the spider demon. “And baggage or not, ya want the best for the pint size king and ya showed that, time and again. After all he did, he should be on his knees for days to gain ya, cover ya with flowers and presents and clothes and bullshit and cookin' for ya. Here ya are tryin' to find a perfect song. What's he doin'?”

 

Alastor didn't know what to respond to that, he didn't know if Lucifer was doing something, in fact until now he didn't thought he should be doing something.

 

He was the one that was going to sacrifice himself because he didn't want the pain of his lost of love, he didn't want the pain of knowing all the things he did just to be at Lucifer's side just to lose him.

 

He didn't think Lucifer should be doing something because he was feeling like he wasn't enough, that he will never be. And now, Cherri and Angel thought that Lucifer should be... what? Winning him?

 

He continued in silence doing the nails of the woman for a time to then say:

 

“I'll think about it”

 

***

 

Vaggie and Charlie were busy in the lobby of the hotel, trying to tie up the list of the participants in the talent show and what they were doing.

 

Alastor, in that moment, came from a shadow with a piece of paper in his hand.

 

“I think this will acceptable for the catering selection” he said, tending the paper with perfect calligraphy to both women.

 

The couple checked the list and Charlie was smiling in no time.

 

“This is fantastic, Al...” she looked up to him. “Sure isn't too much? Are you sure that you'll manage?”

 

The demon adjusted his coat and bowtie.

 

“Of course!” he said, with his vivid tone of pure security. “Only the best for you, my princess. The Talent Show is gonna be a success.”

 

The woman, that was looking through the list again, clicked her tongue and lost the smile.

 

Alastor was curious.

 

“There is something you don't approve?” he asked.

 

The demoness denied with her head.

 

“No, is...” she rose from the couch and look the man directly in the eyes. “It's the title, I hate the title. I miss when you called me 'dear' or 'darling' or simply Charlie...”

 

She sighed.

 

“I know you and dad are... in not a good place and that Lilith complicated things but...” she moved her hands to the gloved hands of the deer demon and he allowed her to take them. “Doesn't matter what you decide to forgive my father or not, I want you to treat me like family, like always. You're my friend, your daughter is my sister. If you don't want my father by your side anymore, that's ok, I understand but I don't want you to see us different.”

 

That catched Alastor off guard. Sure, isn't the first time that Charlie expressed she didn't want to be treated like a princess but the only reason he didn't accomodate that request was because he wasn't feeling like it was appropiate.

 

If he wasn't the partner of the king, if he was about to be a concubine or whatever Lucifer wanted to convert and label him, he didn't find appropiate to treat the Princess of Hell with such familiarity, specially if she wanted to be taken more seriously like Lucifer also wanted. Having the whore of the monarch treating her like... well, a normal girl, almost a friend, could send bad signals to the rest of Hell.

 

So that wasn't what catched him off guard as it wasn't the first time in those days. What took him by surprise was her stating that he was the one with a vote on what relationship he could have with the monarch. Like Lucifer did something bad and he asked for forgiveness from him and he were waiting.

 

“I... I'm not deciding anything, pr... my dear” said the demon with his plastic unmovable smile and expression. “It's not like your father did something to me for selecting your mother over me, I already know I was just a flint for him, something trivial. Even if your mother wasn't on the equation, he could be tired of me in a couple of years, maybe decades.”

 

Charlie exchanged a look with Vaggie, both surprised by the words of the deer demon.

 

“That's not true” she responded. “And that woman isn't my mother! My mother is dead, the copy or homunculus or whatever was the one that brought me to this world, not her. And she raised me and cared for me... She...”

 

Vaggie hugged her partner in silence, being just there for her.

 

“She changed and she's gone” said Charlie. “And Lilith can't come here and pretend that nothing happened, that she's my mom when she isn't and she doesn't know me and even... damage our family.”

 

And from taking his hands, she started to hug him and he just allowed her, raising his hands without knowing what to do with them. He also didn't know what to say.

 

So the homunculus was her mother but why? Lilith decided not to risk another abortion with a duplicate? Or was more convinience? He didn't know, he didn't ask.

 

“And my father told us that you was giving him an answer after the talent show, that you agreed on that” said the woman. “Did you decline my father already? You aren't forgive him? If you don't want to, it's ok. We support that decision one hundred percent but for how he was talking about it...”

 

Alastor interrupted what he knew it was her spiraling.

 

“It's true I have to give the king an answer” said the demon, still in the same posture, without knowing what to do with the woman hugging him. “But it doesn't have a thing to do with forgiveness. Your father already chose your m... the queen.”

 

“What?” asked Vaggie. “He didn't tell us that. The pendejo told us that you'll give him an answer. Was he lying to us?”

 

The ex-exorcist was starting to become pissed. She was already slightly angry with her father-in-law for his insistence to shovel the queen as a mother for Charlie besides the princess' feelings about it. If he was avoiding Alastor because he already moved on and he excused saying he was waiting for an answer...

 

“As I said, Vaggie” still the name sounded almost extraterrestrial in his mouth. “I really have to give the king a promised answer. He wants to rekindle his marriage, but he wants me to... well, he didn't give it a word or term or title but on how he expressed, he wants his marriage and me.”

 

“I beg your fucking pardon?” asked the latina. “Did he really offered you to be... his fucking side piece? I'm gonna kill him...”

 

The last phrase she said it almost in a whisper.

 

“Are you sure about that, Al?” asked the princess. “Are you sure you didn't understand? It's not like dad is the best one explaining things, you know...”

 

The overlord took some air, that wasn't something he wanted to discuss with the woman but she was holding him there, hugging him... and he felt she needed that hug so he didn't want to break it... So he was trapped, with the only recourse of talking.

 

“Your father was pretty clear, darling” said the demon. “He wants to stay with the queen, but he wants me to stay here, raising Ankareeda, helping you and being by his side. I dont know in what extent, he said he wanted to continue as we were. I even asked if the queen was in agreement of that and he said that he didn't care, that he wanted her and me.”

 

Both Charlie and Vaggie were horrified but the shorter woman was the first one to recover from surprise to anger.

 

“No, no... I'm going to remove his cojones and then I'm going to kill him” she said, with her gaze, pure latin fury, looking to Alastor. “Like fuck you have to enter for that stupid petition. I really hope the answer you are preparing is a 'No' with a side of 'fuck you'.”

 

Charlie nodded.

 

“I'll talk to him” said the woman, decided. “I can't believe he's making those types of suggestions. This is not a fucking cake, that he can bake and keep two pieces, these is people we're talking about: you and my... and the queen.”

 

She wasn't angry, she was annoyed, at last separating from Alastor to cross her arms.

 

“It's not necessary that you... I mean, I was...” the deer demon was starting to became anxious.

 

Sure, that... defense of himself from the two women was something that he wasn't expecting. Well, he thought Charlie could agree because it was a conciliation of all parts, understanding that her father was a king and kings did these things, keeping outlets for their necessities. It was good for everyone also: Lucifer keep what he valued, Ankareeda still getting her two fathers and winning a mother, keeping her sister and sister-in-law. All perfect, even if not for him...

 

But apparently he was wrong, she didn't like the idea, nor Vaggie. The problem was, Alastor thought, that if she talked to Lucifer maybe he will desist, chose Lilith at complete, repudiating both him and Ankareeda and that was something he didn't want.

 

“No, I'll talk to him, this is even cruel, asking you to chose to be in a situation like that” said the woman.

 

“But I don't mind to be in a situation like that” he tried to make his smile sincere but with the spell all his facial expressions looked what they were: plastic and fake. “It's something I didn't think before and new for me but your father is a king and in history, kings sometimes chose concubines to...”

 

“That's what you think you are?” asked Vaggie. “Hell, no... This is Hell but like fuck we are in the fucking Middle Ages.”

 

“Exactly, my father will need to chose his fucking future like a fucking adult” said the princess, seriously.

 

“Again, I don't mind the situation” said the deer demon, trying to descalate both women. “In that way my daughter will still have him as a father and... I understand why he wants something like that. The queen can give him a lot things that I'm unable. Your father is very physical in his affections and sadly I'm not, for much that I try. I'll never fill the queen's shoes to be at your father's side... I'm not regal, I'm not social. I'm brutish and uneducated, I was born to be a salacious little secret, not to be at the side of royalty or dealing with nobles. Aside, the queen can give him more descendants when he wants to be a father again and I can't fullfit that, there is not enough power on the universe for that...”

 

Charlie was surprised and sad by Alastor words and she looked to Vaggie and both almost exchanged a thought.

 

“The queen can't have children” said the princess.

 

“Yeah, apparently the angels cursed her, that's why she only have natural abortions” explained the fallen angel. “She learned about the curse and created the homunculus to be a mother. Her plan was to have Charlie and then exchange for her again, giving then a new identity and a regular life to the creature. But the false Lilith was too much comfortable in the throne and having power, that she decided to trap the real Lilith and steal completelly her life.”

 

Alastor was... surprised. That was the real reason of the creation of the homunculus? She did it to be a mother because she was in his same situation, she couldn't... Well, thinking, she could still use the same method, maybe this time with Lucifer's approval.

 

“In any case” responded the deer demon. “You don't need to talk to the king. I understand he's still in love with the queen and... in fact, he's offering me a favor. I can still be here and be useful, helping you and caring for my child. Being reasonable, how many times he will try to find me for anything else?”

 

Even when his tone was almost jolly, when his spell hid perfectly his real thoughts, his real emotions, in a way both women noticed the sadness behind that statement, behind the way in what Aalstor saw himself.

 

“You really don't want us to talk to my dad?” asked the princess. “Because trust me, I'm game to have a very serious talk to with him about this. He can't play with you and your feelings in this way...”

 

She moved her hand and placed it over the arm of the overlord.

 

“Also, don't see yourself in that way” he said, with a soft smile. “You have a lot of good things that my father surely appreciate or he should be doing it. And also you don't have to be with hiim to stay here. I told you before, you're family.”

 

“Yeah... Also, Charlie doesn't like that princess bullshit and I'm missing you calling me 'Vaghata'” said the ex-exorcist.

 

Alastor rose a brow.

 

“You never liked it when I called you that way” he said.

 

She shrugged.

 

“Well, I wanted to make mine the name that prick gave me” she started to explain. “You know, to not accept what that pendejo said it meant. And I thought Vaghata was a jab at the name and what Adam wanted it to be, like when Angel calls me Vagina... But when you explained what it meant, what it meant to you, I kinda of like it, shitlord.”

 

Alastor didn't know what to say, so Vaggie just continued.

 

“So, if there is a need to pick up my suegro and explaining him how to treat you right, where Charlie goes, I go” she smiled and did something that Alastor just saw little with her and was in very special moments. She hugged him and Charlie joined them in that type of group hug.

 

“We care for you, we want the best for you” said the princess. “So if you don't want us to talk to dad, ok, we won't but know this is my hotel and I decide who stays and who's welcomed. You don't have to accept any idea or ultimatum or bullshit from my dad just because you want to stay here with us, ok?”

 

He was still feeling the whiplash of the information. For a side about the Queen being barren as he was, for the other, how the princess and her paramour saw him, thing he... he really thought it was somewhat conditionated on being with the monarch, even in a concubine capacity.

 

And not, he wasn't stupid, Charlie valued him before knowing his story with her father, she saw him as a friend but... Somewhere in the rabbit hole of desperation and pain, he managed to convince himself that the woman, both women, could be better distancing from him and that he didn't have any foot into maintaining a friendship with them if he wasn't in the king's good graces.

 

He had a lot to think... about this, about the song... for the moment, he moved his arms and place them, slow and softly, over the shoulders of both.

 

“Thanks” he said, so softly that was almost inaudible. “I... I'll think about it before giving my answer to the king.”

 

***

 

Alastor had a very complicated and long day, with a lot to think about. He was tired, more mentally than physically, and he only wanted the day to pass at last.

 

He prepared an old concoction to prevent dreams, knowing his brain would be ready to torture him in his sleep and he drank it, going first to his room to change into his pajamas, so he could say good night to his daughter and go to sleep just right after.

 

But when he entered into his room, there it was his daughter, sitting over his bed with her legs almost to her chest, apparently thinking when she was surprised by him.

 

“What are you doing here, mon princesse?” he smiled softly for his little one. “Do you need something? I was going to say good night in your room, you could...”

 

She interrupted him, signing slowly.

 

'I need to talk, papa' she said.

 

“Of course” not knowing what could be thinking his daughter to need so seriously to talk, he moved to sit near her in the bed, waiting for her to start.

 

The girl thought for a moment, like she wasn't sure how to start the conversation, looking even to Goldie, her shadow, perched over the headboard of the bed.

 

'Papa, I know you're sad' started to sign the girl. 'And I know you used magick to hide it. I'm seeing the stitches.'

 

She said, making her eyes to change color, becoming her iris of a vivid golden one. That was one of the reasons because he was elluding his daughter, knowing it was a possibility to notice his spell and asking about it.

 

'That's why you don't want to stay with me?' she asked, she was sad, so sad, that was breaking his heart seeing her expression. 'Because I make you sad, because I remind you of the king?'

 

Alastor denied fast, moving to take his little daughter in his arms and hug her.

 

“No, no, my love, my life, isn't like that, at all” said the demon, desperated to comfort his baby. “The situation with the king has nothing to do with this. I was just... occupied, with the Talent Show for your sister and other things that were eating my time.”

 

She rested her head over the chest of the demon, her expression made obvious she was really close of crying.

 

'But you were busy other times and we did things together' she said, with slow signs from her small hands. 'And you leave me all the time with the king and the queen.'

 

Even when his daughter couldn't emit a sound, he notice the little sob for the way she moved against his chest.

 

'Are you going to go and leave me with them?' she asked, tears running down her face. 'Leaving me here to be a princess without you?'

 

“No! No, my love, never, I'll never abandon you” but he almost did.

 

He contemplated suicide those days so much that he was just dancing over a rope and he almost, almost, left his daughter behind just to not suffer, to not feel the pain.

 

What kind of father he was?! He changed his idea, of course, but the guilt was there, the pain was there, seeing his daughter crying before the idea of leaving her behind was carving in his chest, deeper than Adam's wound managed to go.

 

“I'll never do that, I'll always be by your side” he kissed his daughter's head. “I love you so much... I'm... yes, I'm sad. I... I wanted to give you a family, I know that's what you wanted and I'm sad because now I can't. I can't give you uncles, aunties, siblings or another parent. Now, we are you and I and... I wanted at least for you to conserve part of it, even if isn't a whole. To be able to stay with the king, maybe with the queen if she's amicable to that... with Charlie and the rest of her family. That's why I wanted you to stay with them these days, to... I don't know...”

 

He didn't know how to explain to his daughter why he was doing the things he was doing, why he wanted for her to forge a link with the Queen, the reasons behind his actions. He could be sincere, sure, his daughter was intelligent, she could understand him but he didn't want to explain certain things, certain thoughts.

 

“Maybe the king doesn't love me anymore” he really thought he never did, that he wanted a relationship with him because he didn't want to stay alone... he even couldn't sleep well alone. “But you're his blood and he wants to have a relationship as father with you... or at least have you near him.”

 

He couldn't promise her that relationship will be enterely what she wanted from a father. He still wasn't sure if the king really saw his Ankareeda as he saw Charlie, even when Lucifer said he did, that he loved them both equally, he also said he loved him and they were meant to be together forever and that was a lie. And he didn't want to lie to Anka, he didn't want to raise her hopes to be crushed again, like he foolishly allowed because he was blinded by a love that was just a chimera.

 

“And if the queen likes you, you could also have a mother” he said, softly.

 

'I don't need a mother' she said with signs. 'And I don't need the king. I don't want the king if he doesn't want you'.

 

And she hugged him, as strong as someone so little could do.

 

“Don't say that, love, he's your father too” said the demon

 

She signed, a mix of angry and sad movements.

 

'I don't care, if he doesn't love you, he doesn't love me' she said. 'We're the same, we're together.'

 

“My love...” he kissed her head again. “I won't leave you. In fact, the king didn't ask me to leave, he did the contrary, he wanted me to stay. I have to give him my answer after the Talent Show.”

 

Ankareeda tried to clean her tears with the sleeves of her pajamas.

 

'And you want to stay?' asked the girl.

 

And that was a tough question. He knew, because that was one of the things that was killing him inside, that he will always love Lucifer, his heart was his forever and seeing him happy with the Queen will hurt him every single time. He wanted, even with that pain, being there... he wanted to be useful for him, help him if someday raised the posibility, childish as it was that sentiment.

 

In the other hand, the pain will erode him, he knew as much, the pain will carve his will like water on a stone in the coast, until nothing from him remained. He didn't want to be there, he didn't want to see Lucifer and think in all the moments he uttered an 'I love you' that wasn't real, every time they shared a bed, every kiss in his mind as fresh as it just passed moments ago.

 

And... even when he wanted for Ankareeda the best, he wanted to see his daughter as a princess, having every single whim and fancy in her hand at the moment, seeing her happy... he knew that will also hurt him, seeing Lucifer being a better father than him, being able to do things he couldn't do always...

 

“It's... difficult, that is why I asked the king for a time to think about it” admitted the deer demon. “It's true that it hurts, it's logical, pretty normal with heartbreak. Your father... he was my first and only love so it's my first time feeling this and it's hard but... I think I can overcome it, if I see you happy. Your happiness is everything for me, my love.”

 

He hugged her tight, making her feel secure, making her feel all the love he has for her.

 

“I want for you to be a strong, loved princess” he started to say. “To be admired and to have everything you deserve. To be by the royal family making the king proud with his perfect daughter.”

 

The demon smiled for her, cleaning her tears softly with his hands.

 

“I want for you to now want anything, to have it all... from riches to respect, the higher education your sharp mind needs and all the things you like, like art lessons” he sighed. “Being a sinner, my choices are limited. I can't send you to a good school for hellborn in another ring, I can't give you everything. And you need more, deserve more.”

 

Ankareeda thought for a moment.

 

'I don't want to be a princess' she said.

 

“But you are, my love” said the demon. “And you deserve all the things the position will bring. Maybe then you can do something good with it, help those of fairer means like your sister is doing with her rehabilitation project. But first you need a type of education that I can't give you, no matter how much effort I could do.”

 

The girl thought for a moment to then hug her father again. It was like she was fearing he was about to dissapear on her and maybe after those days, that was a real fear of his daughter, a fear he caused. Again, he failing as father.

 

'I don't want you sad' she said. 'I want you happy.'

 

“I'll be, don't worry” he lied. “You'll see, from the day of the Talent Show forward, you won't see me sad. I'll even remove the spell, so you can see the truth. Ok?”

 

Ankareeda looked to her father, fixedly, with her big sad eyes, so expressive that Alastor felt a tug in his heart just looking at her.

 

'Promise me' she said. 'Promise me you won't go from me and that you will be happy.'

 

Alastor thought for a moment.

 

“I can promise you I won't be going anywhere” he said. “But I don't know how much time it will take for me to be fully happy.”

 

Specially taking he never was happy before, not at least since his mother died.

 

“But I'll try and I'll be sincere with you” said the demon. “Is that enough?”

 

She thought and nodded, to then again hold to him, grabbing him from his coat and placing her head resting over the wide chest of the deer demon.

 

“Good” he passed his hand softly for her blonde hair. “Do you want to sleep in my bed tonight?”

 

The girl nodded again and the demon changed his clothes with a snap and after placing his monocle over the bedside table, he entered in the bed, covering himself and his daughter with sheet and duvet and hugging her he went to his dreamless night.

 

***

 

A couple of days passed and Alastor tried to stay more with his daughter, the same that he had his alone time to think.

 

He thought on the words from Angel and Cherri, on the words of Charlie and Vaggie and in the conversation with his daughter. He even had a moment to drink a glass of rye with Husker and even the cat demon was trying to peer into how he was and he was about to do. And one phrase from the demon stuck in his mind.

 

“...Because, ya know, boss, kids learn observing their parents” said the bartender. “And even when Anka is sharp as a knife and she's having a good education, she will catch on daddy. If you want her strong, resourceful and nobody steppin' on the kid, you'll need to show her how's done.”

 

That idea, that phrase... was going from side to side of his brain, together with the rest.

 

That's why, two days from the Talent Show, the deer demon went to find Angel.

 

“I want to change my song” he announced.

 

“Good! I hope we could chose something with more bite” said the spider demon, opening the door to let the deer enter his bedroom. “We'll should start to find...”

 

He was interrupted.

 

“No need, I have the perfect one already” said the overlord.

 

“Somethin' from your time, Smiles?” asked Angel.

 

“No, something you already showed me” he said.

 

***

 

The day of the Talent Show from the Hazbin Hotel was there and everyone was moving like a tornado, everyone busy with one thing or the other.

 

Charlie and Vaggie was organizing the scenario, the guest list, the order of the numbers. Alastor was with Ankareeda cooking like a storm, finger food, canapés, hors d'oeuvre, beverages pre-prepare to ease the load from Husk.

 

Angel was collaborating with Vox on the technical part, making sure mics and speakers were in perfect condition. Normally, that was a job for Alastor, but the demon had his hands already full and the spider demon wanted to help in any capacity.

 

Lucifer and Lilith, for their part, tried to offer their help with whatever Charlie needed but the woman was adamant to not let her father and his wife to meddle in the show. The king was pretty sure the woman was angry with him for something but when he tried to talk to her about it, she just said she wasn't and that she was just busy.

 

In the end, she accepted the help from the Queen to accomodate the guests taking she had a very wide social experience and natural charm but for much that Lucifer insisted in trying to help, both his daughter and Vaggie just ask him to step aside and center himself in the number he was about to present.

 

The king, with nothing to do, tried to move to the kitchen, observing from the door how the deer demon and his daughter were cooking together, smiling and listening to music and a sigh escape from his very soul. He loved them, so much... And all his hopes were placed in that answer after that event.

 

With a soft smile he moved inside the kitchen after a time.

 

“Can I help you with something?” he asked.

 

Ankareeda just crossed her arms and gave him a severe gaze while Alastor didn't even bother to look at him.

 

“Out” he said, not screaming or raising his voice, not even angry, completelly neutral tone while he pointed with his arm to the door.

 

“Hey, I only want to help, Charlie isn't allowing me with anything” said the monarch, slightly annoyed.

 

Alastor wasn't looking at him, focused on what he was doing.

 

“If you're bored, read a magazine or practice your number” said the deer, still, no animosity, no anger, not being dry... Just... nothing.

 

For Lucifer, that lack of complete emotion against him was even worse, more painful, because he was feeling like was nothing between, like he was being talked by a stranger. Also, the way in what Anka looked at him... From being almost all the time with Lilith and him, those last days he barely saw his younger daughter and the moments they were in the same room, she had that cold gaze.

 

Cold and positioned near her father, like she was ready to protect him or something?

 

He tried not to think much on it. Surely the girl saw, the same as him, the spell Alastor used to hide his own feelings to appear in his face, and being a little girl and an intelligent one, she blamed him for that.

 

The hope from the monarch was that, if Alastor accepted him again, forgive him, she could return to be ok with him. He didn't want to lose more time with his child that the time he already lost.

 

“Ok, I'll leave you work” he said, softly, to then add something before going. “Do catch my performance, ok? I prepared something special.”

 

There was no response from them, so he sighed again and moved out of the kitchen.

 

Anka signed to her father.

 

“Yes, I'm ok, my love” he responded softly.

 

***

 

Alastor moved to change his clothes when Vox started with the show.

 

All the gardens of the Hazbin hotel were full of chairs, people, guests... Charlie invited not only the media, but also the overlords, some nobles and even some sins like Ozzie and Queen Bee. The ambiance was festive, happy and the princess was glad of having so many eyes placed on her hotel, specially with the bomb of a news she had prepared to close all the event.

 

The opening act was carried by Husk, making a number of magic and music, combining tricks with cards and other magician props with music. The end of his number was related also with his current ocupation as a bartender, with a number where he used juggling to place a tower of glasses, to then make a bottle appear to fly over them and pour the liquid over the top, releasing a waterfall of colors that were mixing until reaching the bottom.

 

He finished the number serving to the prominent guests his cocktail to then retire to the bar Charlie prepared for him near the buffet. Alastor moved while Lucifer was starting to arrive to the stage, leaning at the bar dressed for his number.

 

The Radio Demon had his hair into a ponytail and was dressed in a simple but elegant black suit, with a thin red line in the lapels and the wrists of the coat and thin pin stripe also in red in the trousers. His gloves weren't like regular ones, trying to imitate his hands and claws but these ones were more distinguishable being completelly black even the tips of the fingers.

 

“Husker, a double” he asked.

 

“Sure thing, boss” said the bartender, pouring the good rye. “Say... you been going hard on the liquid courage these days...”

 

Because Alastor was always very moderated with alcohol but that week he saw the demon taking more and more whiskey, never to the point of being drunk, but that was just because he wasn't a lightweight and his tolerance for alcohol was great.

 

“Blame a man for wanting to relax, my old friend” he said, taking the whiskey while the applause and the cheers were accompaning the monarch to the stage.

 

“Well, well... our next number is gonna be a sure treat” said the voice of Vox, full immersed into his host persona, with his smile wide and his charm dialed to eleven. “Our gracious King Lucifer is gonna present a number with his well-known talent with the violin. Raise your hands and give it up for our majesty: The King of Hell.”

 

The audience applauded to the Devil, Ozzie and Fizzarolli started to whistle even to receive the monarch to the stage. Lucifer, with a big smile and dressed with a red three piece suit moved to the microphone to speak.

 

“Good afternoon, guests of the Hazbin Hotel!” he said, raising also his charm, looking right and left to give everyone a part of his smile. “In celebration of my daughter's hotel and all the good things that came from it and will come, I prepared a number for the ocassion.”

 

He made a gesture so people lowered the applause.

 

“To be truthful, I wanted to present the perfect song for a very special person in my life” he said, his smile going less showman and more real, more candid. “I wanted to sing but... words can't explain my feelings so...”

 

Lucifer moved his gaze until his eyes encountered the Radio Demon, leaned in the bar, nursing his half drank whiskey in his hand. Then, the monarch moved his eyes at front, to the public.

 

“So I'll present this piece, just music...” he made his golden fiddle to appear, tasted the strings with his finger to then prepare the arch to play. “I hope this melody express my emotions, my feelings and my desire to reconnect and make up for the time we lost.”

 

And he started to play, slow, almost somber, like the notes were talking about yearning, about loneliness... and then the armony was in crecendo, faster and faster, like a hope raising, like a horizon with light visible after a long night.

 

Alastor almost growled, drinking his glass in one fell swoop.

 

Why? Why he looked to him? To make sure he was looking, to make sure he could see the spectacle he was giving to his wife? So he could see his mastery, that he admired so much since he was a boy, directed to the woman that was in the audience, with her mouth slightly opened, drinking from the marvelous, the almost sacred, image of the Fallen Angel pouring all his soul and passion just for her?

 

What he wanted was... what? Put him in his place? Make sure he could understand in what situation he was entered if accepted his offer?

 

“Another” asked almost with a snarl to the cat demon.

 

The music was going more and more, pure passion, devotion, notes marking the fire that was in the chest of the Devil, exposing it for everyone to see, for everyone to enjoy... and enjoy they were. The mastery was well-known but it wasn't the same as having him there, just there, to the reach of a hand, without dampers, without any physical barrier that could masked or diminish the almost magic he was able to pour into the instrument.

 

There wasn't a single soul that wasn't on awe of that performance, there wasn't a single being that wasn't touched by the emotions of desire and passion, of love, those strings were producing... The Devil with his smile in his face, his eyes closed, concentrate taking impossible sounds from his instrument.

 

Oh, Lucifer... thought Alastor, his eyes fixed in him, a mix of rage and love and pain and longing burning his very soul. That music, that his heart could treasure, could almost worship with devotion like his personal god, was hurting him, tearing what was little of his heart because it wasn't for him, he wasn't in the thoughts of the monarch when that set of notes came to his mind.

 

He wanted to reconnect, to make up for the time lost... And Alastor, poor Alastor, was sunking in the darkness of his very soul with every one of those notes.

 

Not only was the idea that he was using something so important for him, something that was in his mind everytime he thought in the monarch because music connected him to the Devil, just to show the love he has for his wife... but also... Also... he will never submerge into his music. He will never feel again his very soul vibing like a tuning fork with the notes that he was able to bring.

 

That was the last time he would be touched by his beautiful music... and that music wasn't for him.

 

Again he finished his drink like it was water to left the glass over the counter.

 

“Boss? Are you...?” but before Husk could finish to ask if he was ok, Alastor just entered into a shadow to dissapear.

 

When Lucifer finished his song, with the silence first and then the thunderous applause, he tried to find the deer demon but he was already gone for his desmay.

 

***

 

Niffty had her number with the help of Charlie and Vaggie, signing a very animated pop song on japanese to then for Angel to take the stage, dressed in an impossing gown in black with heart shape bossom, opera gloves and a very long wig to make a rendition of 'Put the blame on Mame' from the black and white movie Gilda.

 

The passion and the humor that he put in his performance gave him a huge cheer and applause too.

 

Ankareeda prepared a number, with with the violin but with the piano, presenting some mastery for someone so little. She was better with the fiddle but from her choice of instrument to the clothes she was wearing, she was setting a separation from what Lucifer could represent and setting similitudes with her other father.

 

Then it came a number from Vaggie with Charlie and then was the turn of Alastor. He wanted to go last, all in the hotel thinking that was him just being a diva, but he had other reasons.

 

Angel Dust changed his clothes to a suit, the same as Cherri, going both to the stage in their position near the mics settle aside.

 

“And the last of the numbers for today is surely a show stopper” said Vox, presenting. “A song from our own Alastor, the Radio Demon.”

 

There were applause, more from the people that really knew him like Rosie, Ozzie, Queen and their respective partners, together with the people of the hotel, than the rest of guests to the event.

 

The music started to sound even when Alastor wasn't yet at the stage and was surprising for the people that knew him, because that was almost pop or rock, nothing that he usually will play in his station on the radio and less sing in front of the public.

 

With decided steps, the demon went to the main mic, no dedication, nothing to say before singing.

 

“Boy, I guess you're doing me a favor

melt my armor down to chains and bolts

love to you's a synonym with danger

gas can light a flame with no remorse.”

 

Lucifer was in the audience, ready to listen to the song of the deer demon, with Lilith by his side and just the beginning was producing him whiplash. And if he had any doubt the song was for him, Alastor wasted not time in making sure he was between the guests.

 

“Don't know why I let this go, go on for so long

Fake tears, they never stain quite like the real ones

Pick a time you wasn't lying, bet you couldn't name me one

Name one”

 

The feelings and emotions that Alastor was placing into the song were notable. That wasn't just talent, that was a soul, a heart, presenting the darkness inside, the falling out of love that he was feeling, that was tearing his very being apart.

 

“If you can just leave me in the dead of the night

If you can deceive me looking dead in my eyes

You don't have to say it, baby, I understand

That I'm not your man, no, I'm not your man

This ain't how you treat somebody you say you love

I gave y ou everything, it still ain't enough

You don't have to say it, baby, I understand

That I'm not your man

No, I'm not your man, hmmmm...”

 

He closed his eyes for a moment, holding to the shaft of the microphone like it was a lifeline that was saving his very being. When he opened his eyes again, still they were fixed on the monarch.

 

And he wasn't enjoying that. Of course, Alastor had a huge talent, his voice was amazing and he was pouring his soul into the song, but... the pain, the almost rejection... The lyrics of the song too fitting for their lives, their story, their situation. He failed him. He did.

 

He failed him when he landed in Hell, he failed him when they met again and he failed when they lived together. And after that, again and again... And apparently? Alastor was out of chances to allow or maybe even fucks to give.

 

“Once or twice ain't nothin' but a number

But don't say that you're sorry now

If I knew what it was, I would've been done, gave you up

there ain't no crawling back, I shut that down”

 

He losened his bowtie until it was nothing but a silk strip hagging from both sides of his neck and soon, for the horror of Lucifer, he thought how Alastor was starting to move his ring, the ring he asked to be return to him if he thought he earned his love and trust, that even when they started to be together, before rescuing Lilith, Alastor didn't return to him.

 

And now, he was moving his ring in his finger, like it was annoying for him, like it was bothering him somehow.

 

“Don't know why I let this go, go on for so long

Fake tears, they never stain quite like the real ones

Say a time you wasn't lying, bet you couldn't name me one

Oh, name me one, oh, oh...”

 

In a fast, almost furious movement, he removed the ring like this one was on fire, burning him, and kept it in his hand, almost like a demonstration, almost like he was saying to Lucifer he had it, far from his finger. To be vigilant of what he was about to do.

 

“If you can just leave me in the dead of the night

if you can deceive me looking dead in my eyes

You don't have to say it, baby, I understand

That I'm not your man

No, I'm not your man...

 

Baby, I'm not your man

Oh, oh,

Oh, I'm not your man

Oh, baby, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not...”

 

And with the end of the song, when there were no more lyrics and only music in the air, the Radio Demon released the ring from his hand, letting it drop over the stage like it was nothing.

 

For the rest, it was strange but applause came, not knowing what was really happening... For Lucifer, the sound the ring made when impacted on the woods of the stage were for him so deafening as the sound he made when his broken and pierced body impacted over what today was Pentagram City, protecting Lilith in his arms.

 

A terrible, soul crushing sound.

 

Lilith tried to comfort him, noticing how he was almost at the edge of tears but when she moved her hand to reach for his arm, he already moved. He had to maneuver to move the people to reach the stage... he didn't have his mind in order to think on teleporting or opening his wings, not even to shapeshift.

 

Near the wood, he moved his fingers to touch the ring, still slightly warm to the touch of Alastor. He picked it up and tried to find the deer demon with almost desperation but he only saw how he was behind the counter of Husk, reaching for a full bottle of very expensive whiskey to then dissapear into his shadows.

 

With the ring on his hand and the memory of the eyes of Alastor, full rage and pain, he started to remember about the dagger, the symbols and the curse, moving fast as he could to try to find the man.

 

***

 

On the roof the Hazbin Hotel, between the letters that conformed the name of the place, Alastor didn't lose time to roll his sleeves after removing his coat and give a long, long sip to the alcohol, his smile tense in his face, his eyes fixed in the celestial sphere of the Heaven, up in the sky.

 

“Are you having fun?” he asked to then laugh, a very bitter one. “Sure you have... High in your throne, far from here, laughing at the misery you yourself created.”

 

He laughed again to just sit on the ground.

 

“Cheers!” he said, raising the bottle. “For the happiness you bastard enjoy so much!! The talent, the happy moments and the success of ones and for the tragedy after tragedy that others like me, born just to be the desgraced part of your tragicomedy, to make those that were fortunate to feel even more so in comparison!”

 

Again he drank... and in that moment, coming flying appeared Lucifer, landing on the roof, near the deer but not by his side.

 

“Alastor?” he asked, softly, releave.

 

“Are you entertained?” the demon didn't catch yet that he was there, still looking to Heaven, raising this time his voice to the point that faltered with the last word.

 

Lucifer moved a couple of steps nearer.

 

“Alastor, what are you doing?” he asked, frantically looking to the deer to see if he was hurt by his own hand.

 

“Reflecting... and talking to... well, the void” he said, again his bitter laugh. “It isn't like God is listening. He never did... not in my worst moments, not in my darkest ones. Not once He looked back at me and if He did, He was there just for the show... It's funny, isn't it?”

 

The king moved another step, he didn't know how much closer he could be of the demon before this one could react badly or even run from him... or worse.

 

“I don't think is funny” said the monarch.

 

“No?” asked Alastor, only to drink and laugh again. “I think is hilarious! They said you are polar opposites but you two are the same: Gods, way on high, enjoying my misery and pain, allowing me a glimpse of happiness to then close the door in my very face. The nerve I have to pretent that I can be more than I am.”

 

He growled and took his free hand to his face and after digging with his claws enough to leave mark, a green thread was lingering in his fingers, with the demon removing it with almost rage.

 

His face was... Lucifer felt his heart sinking to the depths of his chest. His smile was crooked, wanting to be erase but firmly attached to his face. His eyes filled with tears, swollen eyes of days and days of crying, his ears fixed to the his skull and cuts and marks of his claws over his skin, some dry, some new and fresh. Lucifer also caught in the patches of hair he have bold over his nape, from tearing up his locks.

 

“I'm not a god, Alastor” said the king, tacitly. “And I don't enjoy your pain.”

 

“Lies... Surely you enjoy it” said the demon. “Me, the malformated demon in the wrong body, trying to be what he wasn't born to be, the mixed runt trying to be a person when everyone treated him like an animal. Me, wanting... what? Love, care, a life? And with whom? The Devil himself?!! Oh, of course you enjoy that, the utterly stupidity that is, trying to find love in the Ruler of Hell like I'm something worthy of his time... like trying to kiss the moon...”

 

He drank again, leaving at this point the bottle near the last sips.

 

“This... is just a joke, a comedy!!” he rose from the ground and opened his arms. “A grand comedy where I'm the punchline, the recurring gag, the jester all should look at and laugh on his misfortune... because HE WAS BORN THAT WAY, HE WAS BORN TO SUFFER!”

 

He screamed, really screamed to then drop on the ground again.

 

“Maybe... I had an oportunity to be happy, you know?” he said, going from the fury and pain to almost melancholy. “If our paths never crossed, maybe I could fall in love with Mimzy... or Rosie... or Vox... or even Angel Dust, people that cared for me, in a way or another, that were maybe at my hand, me at their level... maybe...”

 

He poured in his mouth the last of the drink and broke the bottle violently to a side.

 

“But no!! You appeared in my life, when only my mother treated well, where only she loved me and you made me think... you made me believe that I could have a life, that I could be valid, that I could dream and play music and be what I felt I was. You deceived me!! You should have left me to die!! All that I have from that moment was pain, happiness out of reach because you weren't just happy placing me in a path that was only suffering, like a thief you robbed me my heart so I could never find happiness without you!” he sobbed, his soul present in his words, his tears running down his face, the pain piercing him once and again while he was talking. “And not even with you.”

 

He denied and made a gesture to a side and the dagger was in his hand. Lucifer tried to move near, maybe to disarm him but Alastor pointed to him with the weapon.

 

“I should have known... But I was so... so sure... I was sure you was meant to be the only good thing for me” he said softly. “I... I wanted to make my life about finding you again someday. I wanted to be... worthy of you. I educated myself on that idea, educated myself with the little means I have. I expended my first paychecks on books, on instruments... I learned how to talk properly, how to move, how to behave.” He moved the hand with the weapon, holding it now again at his chest with both hands, like he was about to pray with the weapon there. “I tried to help people, I tried... and for more that I wanted to school myself that it was crazy trying to... wanting to... Even when I tried to lied to myself saying that I wanted only to fullfil my promise, that I wanted just to be by your side. It was a lie... I wanted you! And I should known it was impossible when you decided to ignore me in my moment of need.”

 

The king was suffering, obviously not like Alastor but the pain of the man he loved was coming to him like waves breaking on the shore and all the sentiment was hurting him, it was hurting him seeing him so destroyed, so much in pain without knowing how he could help him, how he could light his burden.

 

“I didn't ignore you, Alastor, I don't know what you mean...” he said, another step near the deer demon.

 

“My death... you said you wanted to know but you could already know if you just answered me” he sobbed, closing his eyes. “I should know in that moment how stupid was my quest... how futile...”

 

“I don't...” he was interrupted.

 

“They killed them, Lucifer... they killed Mimzy and my mother” said, soft, almost inaudible, with a sob between the words. “They killed them because they wanted to hurt me.”

 

“What?” asked the Devil, without nothing more to say, with his own throad almost blocked by the pain he was seeing in his lover.

 

“A group of low lives... They wanted to be the new bad guys, like the mafia or some shit” he denied. “They tried to get protection money from the locals and... We clashed when they went to Mimzy's. I don't know how... they knew what I was and... They didn't like it. They tried to jump me together, after going out of work from my radio station.”

 

He smiled but that smile was anything but happy.

 

“I had it all before them” said the deer demon. “Famous, with the radio, the clubs, my mama happy at home, not having to work no more. For a moment I even thought didn't matter how much time I took to reach you, I could enjoy life and... like that thought was a sin and I had to be punished, everything went to shit. And maybe it was a punishment, how could I dare to stop to think on the Devil for a time?”

 

Alastor denied, looking now to the dagger, his crimson eyes still tinted by the tears were looking to every simbol, every cravesse.

 

“They tried to beat me up and abuse me to teach me a lesson but I managed to defend myself and left two of them badly hurt” said the deer. “Later I learned that they died from their wounds. I should let them kill me, my worthless hide in exchange for them to not... Mimzy and my mother didn't deserve that, didn't deserve to die at their hands, abused and placed in display so I could see them. Mimzy in her club, my mother at home...”

 

Lucifer moved a hand over his mouth, not knowing not only what to say, but knowing also whatever he could say would only wound the deer demon more or not being enough to make him feel better.

 

“I wanted them dead, more than dead... tortured, murdered, here waiting for me to do it again and again and again so I... I... I drank, a lot, and I took drugs like they were candy, just to keep me sane, to keep me on focus but dull the pain and...” he was almost hypnotized by the blade, talking almost for himself not for Lucifer, at least for the moment. “I managed to lure them to the forest... far from prying eyes. They... I... allowed them to touch me... so I could get close enough... I allowed those mules, those beasts to place their unholy unclean hands on me so I could kill them on a cabin far from the city... They resisted but I hurt them, badly and... naked, bloodied and hurt, I went out of the cabin to bury their mangy corpses. But... one of them wasn't dead, he shot me, right between the eyes...”

 

He looked in that moment to Lucifer.

 

“I managed to finish him off but I was losing vision, mind... I was.. confused and I knew I was dying... I was cold and afraid, so very, very afraid... and I remembered the invocation my mother did... I drew your symbol while I was laying there, on the damp ground of the forest, I said the words.... I called for you, not to save me but to... accompany me here, so I could feel some warm, some care... not so alone and... you never came!!”

 

He dropped on his knees, crying, almost like a baby, his chest free from a pain he was holding in there since he died, a pain he never told anyone, not even to Rosie.

 

“The magic was there but then went gone, you refused the call, you never came and you left me there, alone, dying... like the trash I am...” his sobs were almost silent but they were there and even when his face was hidden for his position, Lucifer was sure his face was full of tears.

 

“No, no... I didn't, I.. Alastor... You invoked me with your mother, I can only be summoned once or the mortals would abuse that power” he tried, desperated, to explain. “I didn't refuse on purpose, I didn't know...”

 

Alastor rose from the ground.

 

“It doesn't matter, nothing matter from my past, nothing... no pain, no sorrow” he denied. “That was a sign that I refused to accept, I refuse to see or urderstand. That was the Universe warning me that I was nothing for you, that I would never be. God, your God, created me to be utterly miserable and alone, with a body that was always alien to me, with a body that didn't want sex or even contact with another human being... I was born to walk alone and my refusal to that only created more and more pain for myself. So crappy I am to catch on clear hints.”

 

He looked again to the sphere of Heaven.

 

“I shouldn't try to get you to love me or at least to accept me as a companion” he said. “Was an error and when you tried to transform me in an obedient concubine, I should have allow you, maybe it was the best for you and what I deserved... but I never knew how to quit... Going to you, again and again when it was obvious I was nothing for you.”

 

He looked to the monarch. The pain he felt... he could be happier if in those crimson irises was fury or disgust or even an accusatory gaze but there were only love; love, simple, pure, mixed with a heart so broken that he could almost see the pieces reflected in there.

 

“The pain of knowing it was never meant to be is breaking my soul” he said, the confession so soft. “If I was alone, if it was just me, I would have be done, finishing this pain the very same moment I saw you kissing your queen. Not for you... you can't decide who you love, you can't force your heart. But for me, for the absurdity of my aspirations.”

 

He took some air, he cleaned the rest of his tears, drying near his eyes.

 

“This was the elegant solution I thought” said the demon, showing the weapon. “This dagger. I could go being myself, without the pain, without thinking, without the continued suffering, the remorse, the doubts, the everything... Care for my daughter like she deserves and give you whatever is that you desire from me. At your service, always, without refusing, without phobias, manias, tendencies and wants... nothing but the perfect Alastor you could use.”

 

“Don't...” said Lucifer but he could add anything more, because Alastor moved the dagger to place the tip in his own chest.

 

“It's what you want, yes?” asked the deer demon. “The love of your life, again with her, make up for the time lost like you asked in the dedication of your piece of music. Be together with her and Charlie and Vaggie... and my daughter and me when you are bored, when the rest of the people in your life, the people you really love, are tired or busy. To play with my daughter a couple of hours at day and fuck me at your leisure like you did in your manor.”

 

Lucifer denied.

 

“Doesn't matter... talking these days with Cherri and Angel and Husk... even the princess and her paramour I reached an epiphany, a clarity of mind in the middle of this tumultuous pain in my chest: you... never loved me. You never wanted me and if I do this, I'll be trying to impose again when most likely your family will give you now everything you need or desire.” he said, moving the dagger in his hand, from holding it from the blade, to hold it from the grip. “I know I'll never love another, I know solitude and pain is my future... I don't deserve an escape.”

 

He moved the dagger again and, while holding it from the blade, he handed the weapon towards the king.

 

“The same that my daughter deserves a father one hundred percent centered in the task of loving and raising her” he said. “Take it, it's yours. I plan to go from here and raise my daughter because I'm tired of begging for her to be as loved in your heart as your princess is. I'm tired of trying to find a happiness that isn't destined to me or trying to run and hide from my suffering. If you really wanted what you proposed, staying with your wife and have me as a concubine at your side, use the dagger, I won't resist it, I just won't be the one that choses it.”

 

He made a pause, Lucifer with the dagger in his hand without knowing what to say, what to do, how to fix all of this.

 

“I won't... I... Alastor, please, I love you, truly love you, and I want to be with you, I don't want you to go, to lose you and lose Anka” he almost begged.

 

“I won't go far, I can't, sinner and all I can't escape Pride Ring or you” said the overlord. “If you want... if you love my daughter, you'll have to make the moves, I won't impide them. For the rest, words are so light that wind carries them away and I already know the truth, I saw it with my own eyes. Again, if now or in the future you want me, use the dagger and I'll be forever at your feet like you wanted me on your manor. If not... allow me to live my pain far from you.”

 

And he moved, passing by the side of the monarch to recuperate his coat from the ground.

 

“Now is time... the curtain has fallen, the show is over and the jester leaves the stage by the side” he turned around and took a bow. “Good bye, my King Lucifer.”

 

“Please, Alastor...” he begged but the demon fused with the shadows to then disappear. “Alastor!!”

 

Lucifer dropped to his knees, shocked still for revelations and pain coming from the man he loved, for a refusal that he achieved all by himself. If Alastor thought he didn't love him, it was because he never made him feel it.

 

There, with his pain, with the dagger on his hand, the sounds from the stage returned muffle to the monarch, catching things here and there, like the voice of his older daughter.

 

“So what I wanted to say is... REDEMPTION IS POSSIBLE!!” the voice of Charlie filled with pure happiness and hope.

 

Redemption was possible... Redemption is what he needed, with Alastor. Redemption...

 

But was redemption possible for the Devil?

Notes:

This isn't finishing here, of course not. There is still some meat to the story.

Aside from that, the song that Lucifer played on the violin is this one

And this one is the one that Alastor sings. I was planning on using 'The Door' from the same artist but when I listened to this one, I knew it was the one.

Next will be a new chapter for my other fanfic, Dollface, but soon you'll have a new one here too. Remember, as powerful is the angts, stronger is the comfort later ^^

Chapter 57: Gone

Summary:

Alastor was gone from the hotel and that affected the people that knew him, but no more that how Lucifer was affected.

With his heart breaking, he had to face the people and their truths thrown at his face

Notes:

Yes, this took its sweet time. And I'm sorry as always. This time of year I most have my medical check ups and I had to present a lot of papers related to that and I also was ill... not to mention I wrote other things too.

But anyway, here, enjoy the pity party that I thought it was a short chapter until I saw the page count XD

“From the thunder, and the storm,

And the cloud that took the form

When the rest of Heaven was blue,

Of a demon in my view...”

~Edgar Alan Poe, Alone

 

 

Lucifer didn't know for how much time he was there, on the roof of the hotel, on his knees, with the dagger that Carmilla crafted for Alastor, imbued with his shadow magicks in his hands: a weapon that was a condemnation to eternal servitude in the name of the King of Hell.

 

Something that Alastor planned on using on himself. And he was glad he didn't, taking the words of Rosie that it wasn't a simply obedience spell but a full blown mind trapped on a body, forced to obey any command the Devil wanted to vocalize.

 

He should destroy the terrible object but... he kept it. He didn't know why, but there was a rumbling on the back on his mind, a dark seed of posibility that was telling him that maybe, maybe in a future that could be useful for him.

 

He didn't know how much time he was there but it was way after dark, the sound of the talent show stopped way before that and still he was feeling like continue crying, he was feeling like he could be there, for days, pouring his soul in the form of tears, lamenting the lost of his lover and his child but... No... He cleaned the tears and not caring for the dirt in his trousers from dropping on his knees, he teleported inside of the hotel.

 

Maybe he could still talk with Alastor, maybe he just needed time to sober up and they could still discuss this, be Lucifer more assertive, more direct, finding a way to prove his love to the deer demon, to make him feel it like no other time before.

 

The monarch teleported to the floor he shared with his daughters, Vaggie and Alastor and moved to the door of the overlord and after trying to normalize his breathing, he moved his fist to knock... only for the sound of the door opening itself to receive him.

 

Lucifer pushed it open and entered the bedroom of the Radio Demon, switching the light, just to find an empty room, not only devoided of furniture or the decorations, but also the bayou wasn't there, just a touch of Alastor magicks in the air, in empty room lingering like if he moved the magical construction just moments ago.

 

He moved like a flash, going to the door that separated the rooms of Alastor from the one of Ankareeda but this one was also slightly open and the room had the furniture Lucifer got for the girl, but everything was empty. The wardrove open and with nothing inside, the shelves that were full of books now devoided of their presence, the drawers opened and empty too... the only things left behind, over the bed of the girl, were the things the king gifted to her: a couple of books, clothes and some hair accesories, all neatly folded and placed in the middle.

 

A sob escaped his lips, even when Alastor told him that he wasn't planning on separating his daughter from him, why he felt like his story was repeating again? The person he loved suddently going far from his side, this time it wasn't hate, it was way, way worse... He didn't hate Lucifer, he felt betrayed by the king, he felt unloved by him.

 

His daughter, his beautiful, smart and young daughter far from him... His chest started aching, his eyes started to be filled with tears. Again, it was happening again, he was losing all in his life again.

 

He moved to the bed slowly and took one of the shirts of the little girl and he hugged it. He want them, he want them there, with him! He wanted to love them and cherish them, be together...

 

Immersed in his pain, he notice something by the corner of his eye, a silhouette, maybe...

 

“Goldie?” he asked with a sob.

 

The small living shadow that he crafted for his daughter was there, sheepish and sad, rubbing her hands, her doe ears dropped to the sides.

 

“They left you here too?” the small shadow nodded and went to him, with the behaviour of something affected by fear and emotion, like a mistreated pet. “Oh, poor thing...”

 

Even in his pain, Lucifer could understand leaving behind anything that related them with the monarch, even presents but Goldie was alive in a sense, she was Anka's friend, leaving her behind was a tad cruel for Alastor, hurt as he was. He moved to hold the shadow near and hug the poor thing.

 

In that moment, the elevator dinged and the monarch listened to steps coming fast and close to him.

 

“Dad?” asked Charlie, entering in the room with her hands over her mouth and her eyes wide open.

 

“Where are Alastor and Ankareeda?” asked the ex-exorcist, coming right behind the king's daughter.

 

They weren't alone, Ozzie and Queen Bee were there also with their partners, looking around and with the same question in their eyes.

 

The Devil didn't respond immediactly, still overcome by emotion holding to the shadow of his younger daughter. His heart aching so hard it was producing a sharp noise in his ears.

 

“Dad?” repeated the woman, placing a hand over the shoulder of her father.

 

“They are gone” he said, softly. “They are gone and it's my fault.”

 

“We know they are gone” said Vaggie, looking around. “Or at least, that said Niffty. She's on the lobby of the hotel, inconsolable. Apparently Alastor told her to stay at the hotel and help Charlie but... It's not the same listening to her than seeing this.”

 

She looked through the door in between and saw the room of Alastor, without his bayou.

 

Ozzie moved near Lucifer and placed a hand over his other shoulder.

 

“What happened, Lulu?” asked the Sin.

 

“What did you do?” asked Vaggie, crossing her arms, less... comprehensive and more borderlining the annoyance.

 

Lucifer let Goldie go and sobbed for a second, closing his eyes trying to stop the tears that were fighting for the worth of their salt to be conquering the face of the monarch.

 

“I... When he finished his song, I went to find him, I was...” he denied, he sighed in a way that was mostly a sob. “I was worried about him, about him using the dagger.”

 

Maybe Fizzarolli and Vortex were a little distant, near the door, not wanting to intrude in family matters. Bee was near them but she moved closer to the group.

 

“What dagger?” asked Charlie.

 

Of course, they didn't know about that, thought tha monarch.

 

“Alastor... he... he made a commission order for Carmilla, on an angelic blade” said the monarch, provoking to Vaggie to exhale a gasp.

 

Maybe Charlie wasn't tying up loose ends but Vaggie knew, she suspected that Alastor could have that tendency, that he was affected so much by traumas and self-loathing that the possibility was there.

 

“He was planning to...” she started to ask.

 

“No, it's not that simple...” Lucifer denied. “The dagger could kill him, yes, but only if it was used to cut his throat. He enchanted it, so if he used it in another part of his body, he could succumb to a curse, one that would transform him into an obedient doll, nullifying completely free will... but with his conscious mind trapped inside.”

 

Ozzie was horrified.

 

He valued free will the same amount as Lucifer, was a teaching he learned since the beginning of his existence, that's why he valued consent to much. Relinquishing consent, free will, for him was akind of a blasphemy.

 

“And you knew he had that dagger before the festival?” asked the Sin.

 

“Yeah, Rosie warned me about it but... I thought... he.. I mean, oh, fuck” it was all too painful to even talk.

 

Charlie removed the hand from the shoulder of the monarch and her compassion gave way to another emotion.

 

“So Alastor was right?” she asked, her tone cutting like a knife, taking the king from his pain for a moment to look back at her, catching on her annoyed, almost angry face. “He was suppose to give you a response after the show?”

 

He didn't understand what was so bad with that for Charlie to be angry at him. Maybe she perceived it like some kind of ultimatum from his part? Like forcing a response from Alastor before he could be ready after what happened with Lilith and having her here?

 

“Yeah” he nodded, almost timidly. “But... It wasn't my idea! It's something he proposed!”

 

Vaggie scoffed, Charlie said nothing, she looked almost like she wasn't believing what she was listening to.

 

“What's the matter with that response?” asked Queen Bee.

 

The latina almost growled to then point to Lucifer.

 

“He offered Alastor to be his concubine while he stayed in his marriage!” she accused him. “And he asked Alastor for a fuckin' response by the end of the talent show. And Alastor was saying he didn't mind, that it was the only thing he could aspire to achive with him.”

 

“What?!” asked the king visible surprised.

 

“I'm so glad he mustered enough self-steem to dump your fucking ass, pendejo arrogante de mierda” said the woman, accompaning the phrase with the colourful insults in spanish.

 

Sure, he was her father-in-law but his behaviour was fucking appealing, specially after what he did to Alastor in the past.

 

“I can't believe you thought that was a good idea!” complained Ozzie.

 

“Wait a fucking minute!” asked the monarch, seeing how they were all jumping on his case. “I didn't ask him that! Fucking Hells, I told him I wanted to care for Lilith and stay in our relationship, it's not the same!”

 

Queen Bee, that didn't want to enter into the discussion, couldn't avoid to say:

 

“It's... looks like you're asking that” she said. “Look, Uncle Lucifer, I know you maybe wanted to explain another thing but...”

 

“But if you weren't clear, it's normal for him to fill the blanks” finished Ozzie. “What were you propossing exactly?”

 

“What... I... I want to make sure Lilith is ok, she was kept in a fucking basement for two hundred years and I know what forced solitude and the feeling of abandonment can do to a person and if she tries to end herself, she will succeed.”

 

Charlie showed a pained expression, relaxing a little her tension and her ire.

 

“Ok, well, that's good, you care for her but... do you want to continue with your marriage with her?” asked the princess.

 

“No! I want... I love Alastor, I just wanted to return to what we had and being able to care for Lily” said the monarch.

 

Ozzie sighed.

 

“Then why the fuck you didn't tell him exactly that?!” asked the sin. “For what Vaggie here is telling, he was thinking he was about to become a concubine... And sorry to bring back past fuck ups but after what you did to him, maybe he was even fearing it wasn't his decision at all.”

 

“No! That can...” he started.

 

“Taking he crafted that dagger, maybe?” said Charlie.

 

Vaggie nodded.

 

“He knew he couldn't accept that fucking idea in a million years and maybe, as Asmodeus...”

 

“Call me Ozzie, please” asked the Sin.

 

“As Ozzie here was saying, he maybe had that fear of you returning to past form” said the ex-exorcist. “And he knows that if you want to do that...”

 

The monarch was horrified. One thing was thinking maybe he didn't show Alastor enough his love, that he felt betrayed because he kissed Lilith and he thought he was about to return with the woman but thinking that maybe he was losing his freedom eitherway?

 

That could explain why he left the dagger with him and told him to use it. He was really thinking in that!

 

“I can... I... maybe I need to...”

 

The rooster demon denied.

 

“You can't do a thing right now” he said. “Maybe this is something you don't want to hear but I think you need to hear it, Lulu: You have already one strike with Alastor for the past that you two share, kissing Lilith was your second strike... I don't fucking know what moved you to do something so stupid because emotion doesn't cut it. I feel strong emotions all the time and I don't go around fucking with my partner's boundaries, and less kissing other people. This... thing of yours, believing that Alastor could some how read between lines or read your mind is just an out, third strike by any rules.”

 

Lucifer didn't know what to say. He knew that Ozzie was telling him as he saw it, he knew he was right but that was never his intention and that had to count for something, right?

 

“But I can apologize...” said the monarch.

 

“You aren't listening?” asked Vaggie, still annoyed with him.

 

Even when he didn't plan to have a poly with Al and Lilith, even when the short man didn't want to hurt on purpose the deer demon, it was true that he didn't stop to fuck up with him and with a lot of things that were avoidable. And... taking not everything that happened between them was in the air, who knows in what more instances the short man was like an elephant in a fine china shop with the boundaries and the emotions of the deer demon.

 

“You hurt him!” said the woman. “Even if you weren't asking for that, you didn't think that maybe he needed reassurance after you fucking up with the kiss, you even knew he sew with magic his face to not show his real emotions and you decided to just ignore it!”

 

Queen Bee moved closer to Vaggie.

 

“Wait a fuckin' minute and run that by me again” said the fox demoness. “You knew he made some magic to hide his feelings and you did nothing?”

 

Lucifer felt attacked.

 

“Yeah! But... it's not the first time he got angry at me for poking on him and I didn't want... I mean, I knew he was sad, but I thought it was for the kiss” he defended himself.

 

“And you think that's better?” asked Ozzie. “Jeez, Lucifer. We talked about this, we talked about the huge imbalance of power you two had.”

 

The place was starting to become oppressive, with all the gazes over himself and people blaming him. Surely, he fucked up but he also hoped for some sympathy. He lost a partner and a daughter, again. Nobody was thinking in that?

 

“And what have to do power imbalance with all this fucking shit?” asked the monarch, slightly annoyed.

 

“Everything!” said the Lust Sin. “I told you that was a problem and you were suppose to learn to deal with it. Think about it: You were married with Lilith for a millenia, she's your equal in everyone eyes even when we know isn't exactly like that but for the general public she is the Queen. Now, you were starting on a relationship and you kissed her... your equal. What do you really think that happened on his brain?”

 

And... Lucifer had to admit he didn't think in that. By now he should know that the ego of Alastor was a huge smoke screen formed by cutting remarks, power trips and bravado to hide his huge insecurities. In fact, damnit, he was asking questions while they were going to rescue Lilith just because of those insecurities that he fed with that kiss.

 

“Shit...” he said.

 

“If for any reason I kiss another, specially someone on my same level of power” started to explain Ozzie. “Doesn't matter if was an accident, if I tripped or you pushed our heads together like we are dolls... If I do that, I'm owning that and I start apologizing like my ass is on fire because... my ass is on fire. I'll grovel, if I need to...”

 

Fizz was just smiling to his lover, knowing that everything coming from his mouth was true.

 

“I know you're Pride, Lulu, I know that but you should have apologize” said the sin.

 

“I did!” replied the king.

 

“You did? Did you explain to him it was an error, that finding your wife wasn't changing anything, did you asked for forgiveness and explain to him what was happening now? In front of the Queen too?”

 

No, he didn't. He asked for forgiveness, yes, but as soon as Alastor started to dismiss him, he just accepted it thinking he needed to calm himself so they could talk. That didn't happen also, there wasn't a follow-up talk... Things moved... fast.

 

Also, Alastor avoided him a lot those days and...

 

“I... I'm starting to see that I could...” he denied.

 

That wasn't a moment to think, that was a moment to fucking act.

 

“I need to talk to Niffty” said the monarch, moving far from his daughter and her paramour and the sins. “If Alastor talked to her, maybe she knows where he is. I need to talk to him, I need to correct this.”

 

Ozzie held the king by an arm, trying to stop him.

 

“Release me, Oz!” he ordered the rooster demon.

 

“Lucifer, this is not the time...” he was interrupted.

 

“First you told me that my indecision costed me my relationship” spat the monarch “and now you want me to stay and do nothing?”

 

He made a gesture and freed himself.

 

“I'm fixing this, even if I have to drag Lilith to wherever hole Alastor is hidding, I'm fucking fixing this” he said, almost angry. “I won't allow again to lose a lover and a daughter, I won't roll over and accept it without a fight.”

 

He moved like going to the door but he teleported without gestures, without making any shows of power. He was just there walking and a red mist surrounded him and he wasn't there.

 

***

 

The lobby had the remains of the party right there.

 

The news that redemption was possible and not a simple wish from the naive Princess of Hell rained over the sinners like a revolution and the effect was almost immediately: a lot of them presented themselves for the hotel and Charlie attended to them after the party, explained her ideas and while some desisted seeing it wasn't just joining and getting a ticket to Heaven, some remained and were suited for their rooms.

 

Husk was still filling some papers for the princess behind the reception counter. Angel and Cherri were a little bit tipsy and trying to console the nonetheless unconsolable poor small sinner crying a storm while sitting on one of the couches.

 

Niffty was wailing her little heart out, sobbing, with tears pouring down her cheeks, sitting in the border of the couch with her feet dangling without reaching the floor and as soon as Lucifer appeared on the lobby, she produced a sound that was a mix between a screech and a wail.

 

“YOU!!” she jumped, going to Lucifer. “You did this, you hurt him!!”

 

And without a warning, without hesitation, she leapt over the monarch's chest and she started to stab him with the very same blade she used to kill Adam.

 

“You hurt him!! You hurt him!!” she was screaming. “He was hurt and he left without me and I need to protect him!! I need to protect him and his baby!!”

 

She continued, relentless and even when Lucifer wasn't dying from that, he tried to remove her, just for her to dodge his hands, hold to a shoulder and change her position stabbing him now on his back.

 

“You cruel! Monstrous! Devil!!” she was screaming.

 

The group returned to the lobby using the elevator and the scene that received them was that bloody feast of stabbing and golden blood messing everything around those two.

 

“Niffty, no!!” the princess moved quickly and took the sinner by her waist, raising her over her own head.

 

The short woman tried to free herself from that without success.

 

“Let me at him!!” she yelped. “He hurt Alastor, he was hurt! His face was... and... and he was crying, and he left me behind...”

 

She dropped the dagger and she started to sob. Charlie, seeing she was calming herself, at least to not be in her homicidal state, lowered her and hugged her.

 

“There, there, Niffty, I'm sure he will be ok” she was saying to the woman.

 

“But he was hurt” she complained between whimpers. “His face had claw marks and he was so sad, Anka was too! And he asked me to stay behind and help you but I want to help him.”

 

“We know, Niff” said Angel, moving near the princess not before checking on the monarch and making a scoff in his direction, like displeased for his presence. “Ya see he's ok soon. Smiles is a strong dude.”

 

The small woman looked to the spider demon with her face full of tears.

 

“But he dissapeared before and it was the king's fault too” she said, pointing to the monarch, with his clothes covered in golden blood. “What if he needs me? What if he needs something clean or help to clean his wounds? I was there in the past to help him but I couldn't help him with Anka and now he's gone and I don't know where.”

 

The wounds stayed little in the body of the monarch but the blood was annoying for him but when he was about to snap to clean himself, the sinner said she didn't know where the deer demon went.

 

“Terrific, I got stabbed and I don't get the information” then he moved to face Husk, still behind the counter. “You! Do you know to where Alastor went?”

 

The cat demon raised one of his abundant eyebrows at the question.

 

“No” he said, shortly, to then add: “But let me tell ya, I wouldn't be tellin' you even if I know. Not only he's the guy that has my soul and I want to stay in his good graces because I know he won't be hurting for much time before he tries to twist himself into a comfortable place of douchery, but also I think, pardon for bein' direct, that his obsession with you fucked him so much already and I believe he's better without that dead weight.”

 

Lucifer was looking to the bartender with a pan-stare, like he was in the middle of not believing a sinner was so direct with him and not understanding the huge loyalty that Alastor commanded from those two sinners.

 

“Yeah!” added Niffty, from her secure place over the shoulder of Charlie where she was crying. “You're not good for him, you're not a bad boy, you're a... you're a... worse boy. The worst!”

 

She moved, jumping over the arms of Angel.

 

“I miss Alastor” she complained looking directly to the spider demon's eyes.

 

“I know Niffty, I know” he said.

 

The king decided to ignore the woman to then focus on the spider demon.

 

“Do you know where he is, right?” asked the Devil, maybe with a tone tha was more demanding than anything but he was starting to not be in the mood to be everyone's doormat.

 

But Angel wasn't impressed by the tone or by the king himself.

 

“I got a deal with the guy, not a gps to him” he responded. “'Sides, I wouldn't be tellin' ya either. Ya convinced him that he was less than you, that he didn't contribute to the relationship. He was ready to grovel for your attention and love. He needs to love himself, he needs to see his value... I'm just glad he listened to the advice before placing himself like he's some sushi on a plate ya have the rights to munch to.”

 

Yep, Lucifer was definitely becoming angry.

 

“You! You adviced him to dump me?” asked the monarch, holding the spider demon by one of his arms, painfully. “You provoked this?”

 

Angel bit a curse, trying to free himself from the monarch without moving even a little his hand.

 

“Stop, dad!” said Charlie, trying to remove the hand too when the bone was starting to sound as soon to be crushed. “Let him go!”

 

“I did, we all did!” said the spider demon. “You were fucking hurting him! And you didn't fuckin' care! He's better without your fuckin' ass!”

 

The Devil was starting to show his horns, with his tail nerviously coming out, the same was his wings... a fearsome, terrible appareance that could make anyone drop to their knees and ask for forgiveness, but Angel, stubborn even in hurt, wasn't asking for forgiveness or groveling before the King of Hell.

 

The stalemate came to a close before Lucifer could finish broking the arm when Rosie entered by the door of the hotel like she owned the place, removing her big hat.

 

“My, it looks like I came in the best of moments” commented the overlord. “Bread and circus as some could say.”

 

Lucifer left Angel go to move near the woman.

 

“Where is he?” asked the Devil, in a very demanding tone.

 

Rosie wasn't impressed.

 

“Safe” she responded. “In fact I'm here in his petition.”

 

Everyone on the lobby of the hotel was waiting for the words of the woman, everyone for different reasons and emotions.

 

“He's safe and Anka too. Emotionally? That's a conversation for another time” she went near the princess with a smile. “He told me he isn't cutting ties with the hotel, not now that his help is needed with the news and all. He just needs some days to himself and to fix his new home. He'll come here to help you as soon as he's ready.”

 

“His new home?” asked the monarch.

 

“Yes, he asked me for a place to rent or buy in my territory” said the woman, she had a smile in her face but Lucifer could feel the cold coming from her, just directed to him. “I offered him first to live with me again but he said he needed his own space. I have several properties on Cannibal Town and I offered him first a manor, very centric but he decided for a very small house on the border of the town, isolated near the gardens.”

 

She went to Niffty and smiled sweet to her, lending her a handkerchief.

 

“So when he's ready to entertain, he will allow some visitations” said the cannibal.

 

They all were glad to know that the deer demon was ok, specially those like Cherri, Niffty and Angel that saw him going out of the hotel with Anka and the state in what he was.

 

“So he's in Cannibal Town...” said Lucifer, his fury retreating little by little.

 

“Yes, your highness but before you decide to blow his door down and demand whatever you want from him, hear me out” she asked, severely. “I don't know what's your game, I thought I knew but after this I'm not sure but if your goal isn't to drag him to your side and tie him to your bedpost, listen to me, because I warned you over the dagger and I'm glad he didn't use it but he was close, scary close...”

 

In other circunstances, he would be lowering his face in shame but he was still slightly pissed off for all that happened, all the accusations so he maintained Rosie's penetrating gaze.

 

“Alastor needs time” said the woman. “What dropped on my doorstep wasn't a man, were a multitude of pieces of one. He is so broken that maybe is worthless to try to glue the pieces and he will throw old Alastor to the garbage and create a new one. And trust me, he will do... He's very apt about reinventing himself.”

 

Thing that Lucifer painfully knew, knowing the deer in his childhood but then as an overlord and then as a woman.

 

“When he's ready, he will reach for the others” she said, making an elegant move with her hand, mentioning the rest but not him. “When that happens, you could try to show some interest in Ankareeda and only in her. Both have the impression you don't care for the girl and it will be good to kill that thought.”

 

Lucifer moved his hands over his head, that wasn't what he wanted to hear. He wanted the deer back, to his side, to ask for forgiveness and show him that he loved him, that he loved them both.

 

“But I want to fix things now!” he screamed at the same time he removed his hands from his hair. “I want to fix things, I really do. I don't want for him to suffer, to continue thinking I don't love him with all my being because that isn't true. I love him, with everything I am and I want him by my side.”

 

Cherri, that was mostly in silence and with her arms crossed, intervined.

 

“You sound like my ex husband” said the punk girl. “You don't think that 'wanting him by your side'...”

 

She said, trying to imitate a masculine tone.

 

“...is the fucking problem?” She denied. “All that cunt wants is having someone by his side, did you try to do that or your fuckin' big ego just can admits only someone coming to your level or petition?”

 

“Vaffanculo, Cherri is right!” said Angel, that was trying to massage his arm, now adorned with a mark from the Devil in the form of his fingers. “Ya want him with you, ya want him here, loving you... Did you really try? To be in his corner, as he calls it, to be there for him and not for your curiosity, entertainment and ego. Backing his decisions, respecting him for real...”

 

Rosie nodded, obviously she approved on that because she knew, she talked enough with Alastor, even when he eluded her calls when he was preparing for this past festival. All that Alastor wanted all his life and after-life was to be fully accepted as he was, fully loved... to have someone ready to support his ideas, ambitions, to share a life and a love and be chosen... That was the most he wanted: to be chosen by the man he loved.

 

And he didn't feel that way.

 

“If you bother him now, you'll have to force him to come with you because he'll decide to burn all bridges, salt the earth around the bridges and provoke a river flooding just in case” she denied, still smiling like she took a page from Alastor's book. “Maybe I didn't emphasize this but he's hurt and he's a deer, draw all the conclussions you want for that association and how those animals react at being hurt and cornered... specially with a little doe to protect.”

 

Goldie, that came to the lobby with the rest, moved closer to the short man. She didn't understood the situations or the nuances in it, she only knew that if Lucifer was going to see Ankareeda, she was coming too.

 

“Wait for him, to allow him a modicum of self-reflection and stabilizing himself” continued to said the woman. “And then show some interest for Ankareeda, if you're really interested in our girl at all.”

 

“She's my daughter!” he protested, with his horns making an appareance again.

 

“That doesn't mean shit, darling” said the woman. “I know many men that never loved their offsprings. Believe it or not, when you're absent seven years from the life of a little one and you were the absolute one to blame for that, people tend to have doubts. When he and her are ready, show interest... for her.”

 

Lucifer knew the advice was solid but he wasn't a patient man and living in uncertainty wasn't something he craved for himself.

 

“And what about Alastor? When I'm reaching to explain myself?” asked the monarch.

 

“Never” said the woman.

 

“What?!”

 

“You have a lot to learn and I'm not in the market to teach ya” said the cannibal. “I warned you that I was going to hurt you in a way if something happened to him and something happened, gladly he didn't use the dagger but you still need some punishment so this a rodeo you'll have to tackle by your lonesome, I won't be helping ya because I care for him, I care a great deal for them.”

 

Lucifer couldn't believe what he was hearing.

 

“Surprised? Don't be” said the woman, going to place her hat again. “This infatuation he has with you already created a lot of pain for him, a lot of suffering that surely flew over your head. If you want to continue with this ill-begotten relationship or whatever it was for you, you'll have to learn, you'll have to make an effort, you'll have to dance this tango because, believe me, I'll do everything in my hand to grow some self-steem and some backbone inside that man, even if it's the last thing I'll do.”

 

She placed correctly her hat after uttering what was in fact a challenge to the Devil to then look around.

 

“Again, he'll contact ya all when he's ready, nighty night” said the woman with a gesture of her hand to then go out of the door of the hotel, the same poise as how she entered.

 

The monarch felt like a bucket of icy water was poured over his head.

 

Alastor was good, hurt, but safe, not doing something drastic and terrible that could endanger him or his daughter. But he was hurt deeply by him... and Anka felt the same, even being safe, she wasn't allright. Both believed he didn't love them and that hurts the king more than anything that could happen to him now.

 

Also, Rosie was getting her vengeance, even when Lucifer was king, even when he was the second most powerful being in all Creation, she found the way. She will make anything in her power for Alastor to not return to him and... And that brought a sobering thought to his mind. Yes, he thought in terms of ownership.

 

He wanted the deer with him, he wanted his love to be accepted, he wanted to be loved and in his terms. He wasn't stupid, it's not that he couldn't reach that conclussion by himself but he never thought in that, in the terms in what he refered in his mind and out.

 

It was that what caused the confussion on the deer demon, right? What created his doubts and fears. What made him think he didn't love him and only wanted to use him.

 

Without acknowledging anyone in the room and not caring if his clothes were still dripping his own blood, going dry by the minute, he moved to one of the couches from the lobby and sat on it, raising his hand to his forehead and rubbing it.

 

He'll have to learn, he'll have to make his maximum effort, specially now that he had everything and everyone against him, rooting for him to fail.

 

***

 

The little house was a victorian thing, very small.

 

It was a two stores tall house with pale violet tones except for the tiles of vivid purple. The garden could barely be called that, just a small patch of terrain now devoided of any life and with a little path of stones from the door of the home itself to the metal door of the exterior.

 

Three steps separated the door and after passing it, there was a small cozy living room with a door just right by the left with a small kitchen. A stair went up to a two bedroom floor with a private bathroom per room. Over that, a small attic.

 

Alastor didn't placed his bayou in his room yet because he wasn't functional yet. He was just a mass, over his bed, crying his soul trying to make no sound to disturb his already sad daughter. After telling Rosie everything that happened and her opening the house, he just dropped on that bed not caring for decorations, for the bayou, his clothes or his appareance... He only cared for his daughter and for informing his friends that he was “ok”.

 

The living room still didn't have furniture and Ankareeda was just there, in the corner of the room hugging her legs.. she wasn't crying but she had the marks of tears over her face.

 

“I'm back!” announced Rosie opening the door of the house with her spare key. “Baby, are you alright?”

 

She asked to the girl.

 

Anka raised from the floor denying, using her signs to talk.

 

'I'm fine, papa is still sad' she said. 'He thinks I don't hear him but I do.'

 

The woman sighed.

 

“Of course you do, honey” said the cannibal. “Just allow him this day, ok? Tomorrow will be a new day and surely he'll become better when we start to fix this little house for you two.”

 

The girl didn't know what to think because her father was really sad, she never saw him like that before and that was breaking her heart. Also, she had some doubts on her own.

 

'Did you see my sister and the rest?' she made a pause. 'Were... Goldie and the king there?'

 

The overlord nodded.

 

“Yes, I saw all the gang and yes, the king and the small shadow were there too” said the woman.

 

Ankareeda lowered her face, her mind lost in thought, the doubt near the surface... Her hands moved a little like she wanted to talk but she didn't know if it was correct.

 

'Did... he misses me?' she asked, finally.

 

Rosie sighed, she was losing her hat to place it over the rack together with her umbrella and she just went to the girl to drop on one knee, placing a hand over her shoulder.

 

“Listen to me, ok?” started to talk the woman. “I don't really know if he misses you or doesn't, I'm not in his head and I can't boastfully say I know the inner thoughts of the King of Hell but... If he doesn't, you don't need him. And if he really does, you won't accept him right away, you make him sweat, you make him take an effort and gain you, my little one, because never forget your value, never forget that you matter, that you're important... not because you're the daughter of the King of Hell, not because you're a princess, but because you are you. You're worth it and he better win you over not with words but with actions. Remember that, my dear.”

 

The girl thought for a second and then nodded, moving her hands to talk again.

 

'I miss Goldie' she said.

 

“I know” said the overlord, kissing her between her ears. “But you don't need the handmedowns of the King of Hell. You'll learn, you'll do your own ritual when you're old and mature enough and gain a true companion, by your own hand and your own power.”

 

Anka nodded, obedient.

 

She wanted to cause as little problems as possible because she felt really guilty. She believed she pushed her father to be close to the king because she wanted a second parent, she wanted a big family and now her father was broken and sad and she didn't know how to make him feel better, she didn't know even if she could anything.

 

The only thing she could do was to cause less problems, to be a good behaved daughter for her only father.

 

“Good” said Rosie. “Now, accompany me to the kitchen, we're going to clean it a little and prepare dinner. We'll need to force your father to eat a little, but he needs it.”

 

She nodded again and went behind the overlord woman to the kitchen while Rosie was rolling up her sleeves.

 

A good girl, she needed to be a good girl to make her father happy and with a serious face, she decided that was what she was going to do.

 

 

Back at the Hazbin Hotel, Lucifer didn't want to talk to anyone any more. His social battery was empty, the same as he was feeling his heart tho his mind had a new determination: He was ready to do anything, no matter how hard, no matter what he needed to accomplish, to gain his love and daughter back to him.

 

Lilith was in the room, ready to sleep, so Lucifer moved to change to his pajamas and to take his leave to one of the empty rooms of the hotel.

 

“Lulu... everything's ok?” asked the woman, worried.

 

“No, it isn't” he said. “He left me after I talked to him on the hotel's roof, he's gone with my daughter. Again the same bullshit...”

 

Lucifer denied to then spit a dry laugh.

 

“Maybe he's right, maybe Creation is just a voyeuristic entity that gets a hard on seeing certain people suffer once and again while giving a cozy little life to others” he denied with his head again. “Certainly it looks like that with me.”

 

He clicked his tongue when he saw by the corner of his eye to the woman going out of the bed with that short violet night gown in silk going close to him to console him.

 

“Good night, Lilith” he was going to go out of the door.

 

“Wait!” she said, moving to one of the bedside tables and taking what it looked like a piece of patchment with something written in red ink. “This appeared on the table when I was returning to the room after the talent show. I didn't read it, only the beginning, is addressed to you.”

 

He looked to the piece of paper. It was fairly old and the borders were damaged, but not by fire like when someone adorned a patchment, more like if a rat nibbled a little on them.

 

It was a note and it was short but the “ink” had the known smell of human blood.

 

Lucifer, my beloved,

 

I know you are now in a very difficult moment and the last thing you would want is to hear from me. What happened with Lilith was unfortunated but I really wanted to help her.

 

I know how you can gain back your deer and fast, returning your daily days to just live with your family. This pain you now must be suffering is unjust on you and I understand it better than anyone. I can help you.

 

Please come to see me,

 

Atte.

 

Eve.

Notes:

Next one will be an idea I had for an Au, a short one, you'll see... and then a new chapter for Dollface and we'll return to this marvelous cliffhanger ^^

Chapter 58: The basement of Rock Bottom

Summary:

They say that when you reach to rock bottom, you can only go up from there... The problem is those people don't know there is a sublevel of rock bottom, another hole, a basement from where it was harder to climb up to the light...

...Specially it was difficult to go out without scars, traumas and a terrible change in spirit.

Notes:

Well, I stayed all night writting this and making myself sad so... enjoy?

“I don't know if this is still a battle or if it's over now, and if we've discovered that we can live with these jagged shapes, accepting that we'll never play on the same team as the peaceful, successful people. But we can still sit by the fire and remind ourselves that in the end, any piece of paper can keep you warm. Sometimes, that fire is enough... and other times, it isn't.”

~Zero Calcare, Tear along the dotted line

 

 

It was a week after Alastor left the hotel with Ankareeda and still the people from the Hazbin Hotel didn't know a thing from him or his daughter.

 

Lucifer was tense, in a mood that went from the very depressive to a sea of pure fury to the point that the residents of the place were eluding the very volatile king.

 

Charlie also was worried about Alastor and when four days were marked in the calendar without the deer demon in red around the establishment, she tried to go to Cannibal Town in secret, not telling a soul, not even to Vaggie, to try to see if her friend was alright and maybe to bring news to her father about Ankareeda to soothe him a little but, like if she had something prepared for that eventuality, Rosie appeared before her as soon was she crossed the limits of the cannibal colony to stop her.

 

The woman was kind with her, she was understanding but she was immovable like a mountain. Alastor wasn't ready and Ankareeda wasn't either. Father and daughter needed a time and the overlord lady assured her that they were making progress and maybe any time soon they will contact again.

 

Of course, that was pure bullshit from Rosie.

 

Alastor wasn't near ready to be in the company of other people and that was the thing that was moving her in that moment, walking with security and spirit, long strides over Carmilla's territory, going to the border of the very same with Zestial's to a club called, with vivid neon signs: The Swacked Juke.

 

“We're closed, ma'am” said the security outside the door.

 

“I know, move” ordered Rosie and the big wolf sinner didn't need to think on in twice.

 

There was something in Rosie that called for him, at the same time, the sensation he remembered his grandmother made him feel mixed with the signals of a very dangerous sea animal, like those on movies like Jaws or those sea monsters some sirens talked about having in the oceans of Envy.

 

He moved aside and Rosie accessed the club, with strong steps, with Kassandra, the co-owner of the place going to receive her.

 

“Where is he?” asked the cannibal.

 

“In the back” said the sinner. “He came and made me close the joint. He drank a lot and passed out, I carried him inside.”

 

The woman looked very worried.

 

“What happened with him, Ros?” asked the panther demon. “I never saw him like this.”

 

“And you should never have” said the woman. “He will hate with every fiber of his being to show such weakness to anyone, when he regains his wits, that's it.”

 

The black woman made a gesture to guide the overlord to the backroom of the club, in the place where the artists had their dressing rooms and she and the Raven twins had their offices.

 

“He also looks sad” commented the sinner.

 

Rosie sighed.

 

“I shouldn't add gasoline to the fire but fuck it” said the cannibal. “This is the king's fault.”

 

“Lucifer?” asked Kassandra.

 

“That impish egotistical piece of ex-angelic garbage used him and broke him just for his evil pleasure” said the angry woman, she had some trust with Kassandra to lose a little her composure. “At least Alastor had the mind to run from him when he wanted to collar him again and use him  to warm his dick.”

 

The panther sinner blinked twice. Sure, she has trust with Rosie and she knew she was capable of being angry and even knew she had a very... adorned vocabulary but she was in a point that she looked really, really out of sorts.

 

“It's... hard to believe” said the woman, walking with Rosie behind her going to her own office. “When the king and Al came to dance, they looked so much into each other... even in love?”

 

“Well, Alastor is in love, that's for sure” said Rosie. “And if that slovenly badly dressed gnome weren't so powerful, I would very much love to carve his chest to try to decipher if he has a fucking heart or not.”

 

“Damn” said Kass, opening slowly the door of her office. “And what do you meant by 'collar him again'?”

 

Rosie sighed.

 

“Not my tale to tell, pumpkin” said the woman.

 

The place was in pure darkness but the static from Alastor was even visible around the room, some kind of redish energy that move in waves at the sound of some lament, little sobs and hard breathing.

 

“Alastor?” asked Rosie, at the same time that Kassandra turn on the lights.

 

The deer demon was drunk. Not only he looked drunk, he was... not himself. For starters his clothes were incomplete, he didn't have the coat or the monocle, he didn't have his microphone cane and both the pants and the shirt had wrinkles, spots from the drinks. The shirt was half inside his pants, half outside, the buttoms weren't correctly placed, skewing the shirt and his bowtie was lose, almost ready to drop from his neck.

 

“Go away...” he said without any strenght behind it.

 

He was lying on the couch the panther sinner had there to relax herself or for when she had company and he was nursing an almost empty bottle of whiskey, hugging it with both arms.

 

“W'want to be alone.. lonely... as I am” he sobbed. “Leave me... alone.”

 

Alastor could barely keep his eyes opened, he had his face full of tears and when he tried to drink the rest of the bottle, that wasn't much at all, that ended up more around his face, mixing with the tears, that inside his open mouth.

 

He left the bottle go, startling himself when it broke on the floor.

 

“I'm sorry, Kassie... I'll... I'll pay it and... clean it” he sniffled. “Bring me another...”

 

Rosie denied while sighing, making her umbrella dissapear to start to roll her sleeves going to the couch.

 

“Oh, no, mister, enough is enough” said the cannibal overlord. “You have enough to drink for one night... or for a decade. C'mon here, sweetie, we're going home.”

 

Alastor tried to move to impide Rosie from catching him but in the end he allowed her, maybe because his mind wasn't focused enough even to resist.

 

“I have no home” he said, with the woman moving one of his arms over her on shoulders to help him raise from the couch. “I had... but lost it... I lost everything.”

 

“Do you want to some help, Ros?” asked Kassandra.

 

“No, darling, thanks... I''m good” said the woman. “You have a home, a beautiful house on my territory where your daughter waits for you.”

 

At the mention of Ankareeda, the demon started to sob again.

 

“I'm a bad father, don't I?” he could barely stand when Rosie, determined, started to move out of the room holding him. “I made my daughter sad... she lost her father and her big family 'cause of me. I should have stayed... my poor baby...”

 

The woman sighed again, that was meant to be a very long night, apparently.

 

“You aren't a bad father, sweetie” said the cannibal. “And you could have hurt her more if you stayed there, unhappy.”

 

She moved near Kassandra with a soft smile.

 

“Thank you, deary, we'll talk” said the woman to start to walk again, carrying with Alastor.

 

“But my daughter is sad” said the demon. “And... and he didn't love her... he didn't came to visit her.”

 

“You're in no condition to entertain, darling” said the woman.

 

“But he should... She's his baby, like she's mine, he should be doing anything to see her... and he didn't” he started to cry again. “I wanted for him to love her and he never did. He will stay with... with his wife and have more babies and they will forget mine... all of them they will forget me too.”

 

The woman made a handkerchief appear and started to clean the face of the demon.

 

“Sush, you” she stopped a moment to clean him and try to hold him better because he was in no condition to move his own legs properly. “Nobody is gonna forget you, darling. You're unforgettable. As soon as you fix yourself a little, you'll have everyone in your door, you see.”

 

“Lucifer isn't coming” said the demon. “He doesn't care for me and my baby.”

 

“To Heavens with him, then” said the woman with a little growl she couldn't avoid. “He doesn't deserve you and, certainly, you don't need him.”

 

Alastor stopped the hand of the woman, looking to the piece of cloth in her hand like it was the most interesting thing in the world.

 

“But I'm nothing without him” said the demon, almost without static and very, very low and soft. “Being the best I could be to be worthy of his... love, that was my anchor for a lot of decades... then it was his approval, his desire,... there was the vengeance and then... his attention, his love... He was the wreckage I was using to stay afloat... and now I'm drowning...”

 

Rosie just delivered a small kiss to Alastor's forehead, before starting to move again.

 

“You know how to swim, dear” said the woman. “You did it before, several times, you'll just have to do it again.”

 

“I have no strength, Rosalyn” said the demon, sobbing. “And... I don't want to pull my daughter to the deeps with me.”

 

“Then don't do it” said the cannibal woman. “Swim, even if your arms hurt, even if you can't move properly your legs, you'll have to swim, for her but also for you. It's a lie he concocted for you that you're nothing without him. You are.”

 

Alastor didn't protest, he just closed his eyes when the hot air of the nocturnal Pentagram City washed over his face.

 

“You're Alastor, the Radio Demon” said overlord lady. “And you're a self-made man. You don't need a lover that doesn't love you and Ankareeda doesn't need a father that doesn't care. You'll raise again and find a new motivation and she will grow, strong, independent and powerful. She doesn't need a title from that man, she only needs you and me and we'll help her achieve a place in this world.”

 

The red demon opened his eyes for a moment, barely thin lines.

 

“But she deserves so much more” said the man, softly. “She didn't deserve to be born here, in this pit of desperation, in this eternal punishment. She's innocent, she's good... she isn't like me or you or her father... And she deserves love and security. With us, she'll look every day over her shoulder, she will have to fight for scraps like any demon under the Sins and the nobles. She deserves better, Rosie... She does...”

 

He lowered his head so much that his chin was almost embeded in his chest.

 

“Daughters will pay for the sins of their fathers and she's paying for mine” Rosie tried to walk again but he wasn't moving. “It's my fault, I entered into her father's house with a lie and she was conceived in pain and woe... He never wanted her, not really, not with me at least and my poor baby, my daughter, is paying for my errors. She will pay for them for eternity.”

 

The cannibal overlord denied.

 

“You made her with love, she's born from love and not woe” said Rosie, trying to force Alastor to move, a couple of steps at least. “And you made no sin having her. And you love her and you care for her, more than you care for yourself... and maybe that's what you need right now.”

 

The demon didn't respond.

 

“You want her to be happy? You'll have to make that happiness for her, that security for her” said the woman. “You can't count on Lucifer or any other. Hell is a punishment, yes but if you don't want this realm to be the one your daughter will live, change it. Charlie started with that, yes? She managed redemption, Heaven's collaboration and that was with your help. Without you, that wouldn't be possible... She would still trying to make a difference without a single idea or direction. You made that possible. You don't like how things are in the future of your daughter? Change them.”

 

“I can't, Rosie”

 

“You can... one thing at a time, one place after the other, change Pentagram, change Pride Ring” she said. “Or at least, try to. What you can't do, is swallow your self-pity over and over again. Inaction will bring nothing.”

 

“I don't have power to change things, Rosie” said the red demon. “This is Louisiana all over again, where some people made the rules for the rest and your only resort was protesting and you could end up killed for it, lynched to make an example. Lucifer is not only the Sin of Pride, ruler of this Ring, this city... he's the king of all of Hell, I can't oppose him and he will never change Hell, not when he benefits from it, Charlie benefits and the Sins and nobles too.”

 

He tried to move from the woman, he tried to walk by himself just to end up almost droping to the ground, with Rosie catching him before that.

 

“It's a Fools' Errant, old girl” said the demon. “If I try to fight the dragon of lore, I'll just end up consumed by his flames.”

 

The woman sighed, ready to respond again when she heard the claxon of a car.

 

Near them there was Vox's limousine, with the Tv overlord showing his square head from one of the windows.

 

“Do you need a ride, Rosie?” said the Vee. “I saw over the monitors that Al was... indisposed.”

 

The Radio Demon moved with difficulty his eyes to where his ex partner was and rolled them or tried to, starting to try to walk again.

 

“Oh, fuck off” said the demon. “I don't need your help or your fucking pity.”

 

This time he didn't almost fall, he landed on one of his knees.

 

“I see your drunkenness stays the same with me” said the TV overlord, sighing to then look to the cannibal lady. “What's the situation?”

 

He asked and Rosie gave a look to Alastor to then look back to Vox.

 

“He's contemplative, slightly poetic” she responded.

 

Alastor, for those that really, really know him, had several states of drunkenness: happy, dancey, kitten, nostalgic, sad... and when he was contemplative and poetic, that was the worst. He drank way too much, his mind was bothered by gloom and pain and everything that came out of his mouth was as sad as beautiful.

 

“Allow me to give you a lift to Cannibal Town” he said, with his assistant opening the door of the vehicle.

 

“I don't want his pity, Rosalyn” said the demon, like he was talking in confidence but Vox was listening to him allright. “He's just here to laugh at me, to tell me that I was better with him than chasing stars... I don't wanna...”

 

“He won't say a thing or I'll stab him” said the woman, reassuring, with the same tone a mother could use to her child to tell them there was nothing to fear from the dark or the closet. “Come, my dear, for someone so thin, you weight a lot when you're drunk.”

 

The woman moved the man to the limo, helping him enter with him going almost like a child that doesn't want to obey... he wasn't protesting but his body language, removing the tics and movements due to him being drunk, was giving that vibe. Rosie entered behind him and both were seated together, while Vox was seated in front of them, looking with curiosity and certainly sadness to the deer demon.

 

“Do you need something, Al? I have water and...” the question from Vox was interrupted by a groan from the deer demon.

 

“Stop talking” he said, dropping to his side, ending with his head over the lap of the woman. “I don't want to hear his voice, Rosie.”

 

The woman gave a gaze to the Vee and denied with her head. Surely he will understand that wasn't a moment to talk to him or try to be a friend. It was better to allow him to navigate the drunkenness.

 

The overlord lady started to caress softly the hair of the red demon, trying to calm him.

 

He will need a bath and to sleep a little and would be easier if he was more relaxed.

 

“He's cruel, ya know?” he said after a couple of minutes, almost a sleepy whisper.

 

“Who, darling?” asked Rosie.

 

“Lucifer... he refused to use the dagger” Vox looked to Rosie with the question reflexed in his face but she didn't respond or made any gesture to clarify. “He said he loved me, that we were meant to be together forever and he had the tool to do it and he didn't use it. He could force me and he didn't, he doesn't want me.”

 

The woman sighed.

 

“It's better this way, you don't want to be with him by force, right?” she continued to comb his hair with her thin fingers.

 

“I want to be with him” he said, a little sob escaped him. “He could have me all for himself but... he doesn't want me. He has his... Queen... beautiful and dark and mysterious and powerful and... with huge breasts and all... He only was possessive with me when he thought I was a woman.”

 

“Forget about him, darling” said the woman softly.

 

“Can't” he moved to the point that he was almost in a fetal position. “I love him... I wanted to be his, I should have stayed, be his bitch and be glad. I could have the crumbs the queen could left for me but I wanted all and now I have nothing. He won't even remember me, nobody will...”

 

Vox was desolated, he hated to see Alastor in that way. It wasn't the first time he saw him drunk, it wasn't the first time he saw him sad but this level, in there wasn't even a sliver of the pride of the Radio Demon, not a single mark of his wit, his humor, his ego... He was utterly, completelly destroyed.

 

“Try to rest, we're almost there” said the woman. “I'll prepare you a nice bath and you'll sleep and tomorrow will be another day.”

 

“Cold and alone” he said, sleepy. “Without love, without value... and Vox will rattle to him, he's his pet. And he will laugh, thinking that I deserve this because I refused his generosity... that I deserve to suffer and my daughter too because I didn't bow to his wishes... and the queen will laugh with him, thinking in the mongrel that tried to usurp her place.”

 

The car was almost in Cannibal Town already, so Rosie gave him directions to the home of the Radio Demon.

 

“I just wanted to be loved, Rosie” said the demon, almost sleeping, kept in the waking world just by a thin thread of self-loathing. “Why I'm so hard to love?”

 

She didn't respond, Vox didn't say a single word either and the vehicle arrive to the house of the demon, isolated from the rest of Cannibal Town by gardens around and tall buildings, far from shops, the town square, Rosie's Emporium and the theatre and in the three steps that elevated the very small house from the ground level, Ankareeda was there, sitting and waiting with Oncle by her side.

 

Vox helped Rosie to take Alastor from the back of the car.

 

'Is he ok?' she asked with signs.

 

“Yes, darling, don't worry, he just drank a little” said the woman with a soft smile trying to reassure the little girl.

 

It was the first time that Anka saw her father drunk. Sure, the day they abandoned the Hazbin Hotel he had drink too but he didn't look like it and now he was vaguely conscious and he looked awful, so strange in him that loved to be always prim and proper.

 

'Can I help?' asked the girl.

 

Rosie denied.

 

“No, I'll manage” she turned to the TV overlord. “Thanks, Vox.”

 

“Anytime” he gave his ex-partner a last look and returned to the car after saying good bye to Anka.

 

“Did you have dinner?” asked the cannibal overlord because she expend almost five hours trying to locate the Radio Demon and she was glad that Kassie decided to call her by phone in the end.

 

Anka nodded.

 

“Good, now you should brush your teeth and go to sleep” said the woman, closing the door of the house behind her and making a gesture to Oncle. “Tomorrow will be another day and you'll see your papa will be better.”

 

The shadow gave the girl his hand but she didn't take it initially.

 

'It's been a week, he's still bad... worse' she said.

 

“Anka, dear, a broken heart isn't easy to mend” said the woman, feeling for the little one, that didn't really understand and didn't deserve all of this. “It's not like a cut or a bump in the head. It takes time... But he'll be better, you'll see. I know it's hard for you and that you're sad too but he needs a little more time.”

 

The girl looked to her father, there, in the arms of Rosie, almost sleep, looking fragile, weak, so different from the image the kid had from him. She moved her little hands to take one of the gloved hands of her father. He didn't move.

 

“Say good night to your father, go brush your teeth and go to sleep, we'll talk in the morning, ok?” said the woman. “I'll sleep tonight here, I'll prepare breakfast in the morning.”

 

The girl nodded and signed 'Good night' to her father to then go with his shadow to her room.

 

“Let's go” said the woman.

 

After that moment, it came the silence.

 

Alastor wasn't talking, nor was Rosie. She moved to the bathroom in the bedroom of the demon and prepare a bath, helping Alastor to sink in that warm water. He was now like a puppet with the strings cut, not moving, with his gaze lost in front of him, looking at nothing.

 

Rosie took a sponge and started to bathe Alastor, slowly and with care, humming a soft song of calm and care, with delicate movements and a motherly hand.

 

She cleaned his claws, his hooves, his arms, his chest... and she washed his hair, caressing the locks to remove with the water the shampoo, trying to avoid it going near his face. The cannibal helped him dry up and brushed his hair.

 

The woman helped him to go to the room, naked and vulnerable and helped him to dress for sleep, even covering him while he moved just toget into fetal position again.

 

She sighed and removed partially her gown, staying just with her undergarments and moved to the other side of the bed, resting in there, looking to the man submerging himself into a restless sleep.

 

“You need to get better soon, your little one's heart is breaking” she said, in a whisper, to later try to catch a couple of winks.

 

***

 

Lucifer had the worst week of his very long life and yes, he was counting the Judgement for the creation of Hell and the Original Sin. Fall to the Cunt of Creation included.

 

He was... sad, sure, but also angry, extremely so, jumping on people's cases with an ease never saw in the small man. Lilith in fact had to move to her own room on the hotel, leaving him alone in his, with his very big, very empty bed, with the small radio that Alastor made for him to keep him a sour company and his ideas tormenting his head.

 

Every single word he uttered to Alastor was wrong, so very wrong, now he has ton of ideas on what to say, how to act, how to prove... and no one to say them or prove them.

 

It was maddening for him.

 

So he did what a sane person would do and he went to talk to Belphegor.

 

That was worse. The Sin gave him a huge earful, remind him that he left the sessions like he didn't need them anymore, that he went directly to that relationship without checkings, boundaries talks or even a fucking compromise on duties and rights inside. No limits, full gas, none stop and, of course, that crashed spectacularly.

 

She even told him that if he was so worried about Lilith and the situation, he should have come to her to talk, to help, both Lilith and Alastor but no, he tried to resolve it without medical health and again, what was the result?

 

Lucifer had to leave the office of the Sin before exploding her and her Ring to smithereens but he made his displacement notice, closing the door so hard that the wood broke down the middle and the frame was displaced from the wall.

 

He wanted to go to Alastor disregarding the words from Rosie, to Hell with her.

 

He needed to explain himself better, he needed to stay his claim better... His claim? Yes, because Alastor was his and he needed to show the deer demon how much he cared for him.

 

The amount of times in that week he destroyed his room and had to reconstitute it was way too many, his thoughts all gulped inside his brain and the lack of sleep in the nights wasn't helping him either.

 

And Ankareeda... his sweet baby... He missed her, he missed her like a mortal could miss oxygen in their lungs. He missed to talk to her, to learn sign language with her... the sweet way in how she smiled and how passional she was for the things she loved, like painting.

 

Lucifer was torturing himself thinking in her, in if she was happy, if she was eating right, if she was drawing... he missed his daughter, he needed to see that she was ok.

 

And then... His eyes moved to the bedside table, to that note that he should destroy as soon as he got it but he couldn't, the note from Roo asking him to visit her.

 

He knew there were little left from Eve inside the amalgam that was in that moment the Root of All Evils, with the woman mixed with the primordial Evil and the lingering souls of those permanently killed in Hell by angelic steel but, at the same time, the memories of her, the Garden...

 

Even for the shortest of times, Eve was also his lover, also cared for him, so maybe...

 

“Fuck it” he went to his wardrobe and took one of his suits, not a white one.

 

A purely black one with touches of red, a proper outfit for the Devil and took the note to examine it once more and making a gesture he transformed it in soap bubbles that popped to nothing.

 

Another pause, he had doubts... but also he was desperate.

 

He made a flip of his wrist, a portal materialized and he crossed it, to be from his bedroom soon in the most farther sub level of Hell, in a Ring that wasn't a Ring and that no other, except one with royal blood from his family, could manage to reach. The farthest, deepest part of Hell: The Chamber of the Tree.

 

The appletree was a view, of corruptness and madness. Black and twisted, covered by a substance that looked like tard, droping from the trunk, the branches, the apple fruits handing. The size and scope of the tree was too big to catch at once, bigger than Pentagram city, with a huge crown of rot partially blocking the little light the sun in permanent eclipse could provide.

 

The roots were around all the terrain, creating a difficult to transit place between the knotted roots and that slimy black substance.

 

Lucifer rose his eyes to the trunk... it was small, someone with lesser eyes couldn't catch on that but in the middle of the trunk, hanging like the profane image of Christ, taking by hands and feet, Eve's body was fussed with the wood.

 

The king sighed and in that moment the roots rose and transform to create a picnic table with two chair and in one of those chais, the Root, or Roo, was sitting, serving some tee with a pink tea set.

 

“Oh, Lucy, you came” said the entity. “Please, sit, darling, sure you have much to tell and I want to listen to it all.”

 

***

 

Rosie woke up with the raise of the sun and decided she needed to be active if she wanted to help the deer demon and his daughter.

 

She prepared breakfast for Ankareeda, she went to wash the clothes that Alastor made a mess last night, she cleaned a little the house and went to her emporium to open and left the store in charge of the girls that worked for her.

 

Alastor woke up when it was almost mid day, his head pounding, his eyes hurting him and his mouth dry and with a horrible taste.

 

He tried to move to sit at the bed when a meow called his attention, forcing him to open his eyes completely.

 

There it was Keekee, rubbing the resting deer over the head.

 

“What... what are you doing here?” asked the demon, with his throat without a single bit of radio filter and coarse like sandpaper.

 

The feline rubbed a little more to then move to the bedside table, taking from there an envelope with her mouth to then rest it near the head of the demon.

 

“What is this?” for the penmanship, that was a letter that Charlie wrote.

 

He used his nail to break it and extracted the piece of paper. At least she used ink and not crayons, thought the demon for a moment.

 

'Dear Alastor,

 

It's been a week since you went out of the hotel and even when Rosie told us you're ok and that you will contact us when you're ready, I couldn't wait. I feel awful!!

 

You're my friend and I don't want to lose you and I need to know you're really ok, really getting better. I know that a break up isn't easy to... move on? Left behind? Whatever! I know isn't easy but I wanted you to know that you have friends here that love you very, very much. Angel misses you a ton, Cherri is super worried and I had to separate my father and Vaggie at least twice because she blames him for what happened.

 

And he's my father, I love him but I blame him too... in a way. And he... isn't ok, he's angry all the time and isolating in his room and... I don't know what to do, everything feels so overwhelming. I want to help him and I want to help you, I want for you two to be ok, for my sister to be happy and see her and talk to her and... I'm starting to see the pain and the panic of my father, of her growing without him because I feel the same! I don't want to lose all the things my little sister is gonna achieve and live.

 

This, of course, isn't a blackmailing letter or something like that. I want you to take all the time you really need to be really your normal self but I wanted to make you know that you're missed, that you're loved and that you won't lose us as friends. For me, you're even family.

 

You... don't need to respond to the letter, it's just... It's so unfair that I can't do anything to fix all of this.

 

Anyway, I want to raise your moral, not dump my insecurities on you.

 

Get well soon, Al, you're really missed here.

 

Charlie.'

 

The deer demon read the letter and read it again, all under the gaze of that cat that was on reality the spirit of the hotel.

 

“Tell her... in the way you can, that I read the letter” said the demon, sitting on the bed and petting the cat. “Would you do that for me?”

 

The creature meowed, rubbed more for his arm, like she was trying also to convey in that way that she took missed the Radio Demon and jumped from the bed... but never reached the floor, she just disappeared from his room, going to materialize at the hotel most likely.

 

He was feeling horrible, his head with a huge ache after drinking so much last night.. and the night before, even when he never left his room that other night. And he knew, he painfully knew, he couldn't go in that way, not before someone could take him for easy pickings.

 

He was broken, he didn't have any desire to continue existing and... he didn't have the protection of the king anymore. If he continued in that way, he was sure he was making an orphan of his daughter and he didn't want that, less with zero security of Lucifer taking care of her, knowing that he didn't make a move to come and see her, maintaining the contact.

 

According to Charlie in her letter, he was angry... because he didn't obey him? Because he didn't bow down to his marvelous idea of becoming his personal wench? It was his plan to make his daughter suffer his indifference just to hurt him?

 

No, he wasn't sure, he didn't care, he wasn't allowing that.

 

It was a miserable week for him, he cried more tears that he could think he had and the idea of finishing everything was too tempting that Rosie had to take from him the Morningstar Sword because he cut himself with it in his arm, just to feel something, fantasizing with cutting his veins, his throat and lying there, going numb to nothingness.

 

But he couldn't, he couldn't. Tempting as it was, he needed to react, he needed to set his hooves firmly in the ground.

 

He... has... a daughter.

 

She was seven and she depended on him, she only had him and Rosie. He couldn't count with Lucifer, he couldn't count with the Sins or the angelic brethren of the monarch of Hell.

 

Even if his heart was hurting, even if he was broken, even if he had zero desires to live, he had to. He needed to return to who he was, at least who he was to the rest of Hell.

 

Reputation was everything, it was a deterrant from harm to his daughter, now lacking the protection of being the daughter of the Morningstar.

 

Daughter of the Radio Demon has to do it.

 

He went to the bathroom, to wash his face and brush his teeth and then he went to his wardrobe.

 

A change was needed and what better that start by the clothes. He didn't want to dress his regular suit, he didn't want the memories, the reminders, the sensations... Something new, a new identity in appareance, in goals... he wasn't changing his name or his moniker but he was reinventing himself that day. He needed too, for his daughter and... if what Charlie said in the letter was true, maybe for the people of the Hazbin Hotel too.

 

Half an hour later Rosie was opening the door without a care in the world, like that room was hers, with her assertive tone.

 

“Ok, that's enough sleep” said the woman while entering. “I'm not cuddling you any more, mister. You need to go out of bed, take some breakfast and get your shit together, because...”

 

And then she looked to the Radio Demon, finishing to dress adjusting a small pair of oval glasses over his nose.

 

“Jesus Fucking Christ on a stick, Alastor, you....” and the shushed herself.

 

There was something in Alastor in that moment that made her silent.

 

It was not the full black suit, with three pieces and lines in grey. It wasn't the huge black bag eyes that he had under his eyes making him look like a cadaver or even a skull.

 

It wasn't his hair, turning completelly black without a single trace of red, now sllightly curly and tied up in a ponytail.

 

His smile was there, his static was there and even when he talked, his radio filter was there but... It was the vibe, the aura around him. It was supreme sadness mixed with something dark, almost like a sinister disposition... he even changed his microphone cane to black too.

 

“Oh, Rosie, old girl, top of the morning” said the deer demon. “There is no need to scream, as you can see, I'm already up and proper. Where is my daughter?”

 

The woman made a gesture to the door, like trying to indicate the demon that his daughter was just going down the stairs in the living room.

 

“Are you... ok, Alastor?” asked the cannibal.

 

“No, and I had the epiphany that I will never be” he said, with his plastic smile in his face and his eyes fixed in her, no emotions to be read there. “But I can't stay in a dead drop point, pining for a man that never loved me and going on my knees in front of the universe to ask, to beg, for a miserable pinch of love. I have obligations that I want to fullfil so... Allow me to go to that nice breakfast I'm smelling and let's start this new performance.”

 

The overlord lady placed a hand, a caring one, a worried one, over his arm, asking without words the question.

 

“You worry too much, my dear” said the deer demon, his tone devoided of the usual flair he used but also from sadness too, it was something completelly neutral. “Misery is my mistress, it was an error for my part befooling myself thinking that was not the case. Don't worry, Rosalyn... This Alastor will never forget that.”

 

And he continued to walk out of the door, taking the stairs to go see his daughter while Rosie, in the room, still baffled, was having a full body shiver.

Notes:

Oh, next one is interesting, very interesting with that pending conversation with Roo.

Chapter 59: Gestating Evil

Summary:

Lucifer has his chat with Roo, the Root of all Evils mixed with the woman once known as Eve, the Second Woman and also an ex lover for Lucifer from his Eden times.

The entity places a conundrum in front of the King of Hell and he takes a determination.

Meanwhile, Alastor tries to return to a routine with his daughter but he's now realizing how much affected she is.

Notes:

First of all, tags changed, mind the tags.

Second, I decided I want to finish this fic and my other one, Dollface, before the next season of Hazbin (because after the leaks I have ideas and I need the season here and I want to be free to write about those). The two AUs I have I'll take my time with them.

Well, enjoy the conversation with Roo!

“All it takes is one bad day to reduce the sanest man alive to lunacy. That's how far the world is from where I am. Just one bad day.”

~Joker, The Killing Joke

 

 

Lucifer, before sitting at the table with the entity, moved his hand over the surface, like he was trying to catch if there was dust in there, just the tip of his fingers, barely scratching a little the metal with his claws.

 

“I don't know what you're planning, Roo” said the monarch “but I'm warning you before hand: I'm not in the mood.”

 

The woman smiled half way, almost wicked, like she was thinking in maybe try her luck to see how affected was the king in that moment and how far he was ready to go on impulse but she held herself. She wasn't stupid, even when she has certain access outside of the Chamber of the Tree, she was still the prisoner of the Devil and powerful as she was, she knew he has the control if he wanted to exert it.

 

“I don't plan, beloved” said the woman, observing with her non human eyes how the king finally sat in the opposite chair. “Or at least, I don't have a single plan for the moment. I'm just invested in you, in your happiness.”

 

Lucifer scoffed.

 

“Sure, that's why you suggested to my wife to create a homunculus, to fool me, taking advantage of her suffering for not being able to be a mother” he clicked his tongue. “A thing that traumatized her forever, losing two fucking hundred years of her life... I should destroy you just for that.”

 

She moved the cup with the tea near the man after placing the sugar cubes in it.

 

“But you won't” said the woman. “You know, as good as me that equilibrium with Hell is tricky, to say the least. This is a realm that you and I created it and depend on both to maintain everything in some kind of order. I stabilize the energies coming from the darkness of this chamber and our beautiful tree and your power maintain the rings, making them solid, habitable. Hell needs us both and, they like it or not, Heaven needs us too. Without me Hell will devour the celestial sphere and without you the gravity of Hell could make both realms collide.”

 

The Devil rolled his eyes, taking the cup.

 

“Did you really ask me to come here to give me a talk about cosmic balance or my own power?” he asked, his voice full of vitriol, before drinking a little of that... apple scented tea.

 

“Of course not, darling” said Roo, resting her elbow on the table, her smile wicked and playful. “Just reminding you why you can't destroy me and why I can't try to find your end, we need ourselves, to keep this realm running and as protection from Heaven.”

 

“We don't need protection from Heaven, things are different now” said the king.

 

“Are they?” she asked, in that way she had to do it, almost like a bad omen with smile.

 

“Yes, Roo” he said, cutting on his tone. “My siblings and I made a trouce for the hotel, Michael motivated the peace, as you should know, having eyes all over my ring as you have.”

 

She nodded while sipping a little of her tea.

 

“Yes, of course, I saw” said the woman. “But they were also in good terms with you when they judged us. They loved you and they threw you here with Lilith, forcing me to return to Adam and after a very examplary life, being a baby maker and a wifey, they didn't let me cross the Pearly Gates...”

 

It was first a little rumble barely noticiable but little by little the ground, full of roots, started to quake while the form of Roo didn't hold together very well, showing that her body was formed more by something akind of tar or ink than from flesh and bones. She hit the table with one closed fist.

 

“I was right there! I died and like Adam I was in front of the doors and your siblings didn't allow me to cross, they threw me here” she cracked her own neck in place and her deformed face reconstitute again as a beautiful woman's one, less monster with multiple mouths like seconds before. “Then you imprison me down, alone, linked to that Tree...”

 

Lucifer sighed.

 

“I was really pissed when they didn't allow you to enter Heaven but Roo, you tried to eat Wrath Ring, there are still places that didn't recovered from that tantrum” he said, making a gesture to create a plate with several tea cookies, taking one. “You didn't let Lilith or me another solution, you were rabid.”

 

“I was hurt!” said the woman, her face distorting a way that for a second she was nothing but pointy teeth and eyes, moving her face like a wavesound over a speaker, like water, to then reform into the feminine face. “I did everything right, everything they asked of me! I attended to Adam, I had his children, I cared for my fellow humans and I even prayed to Creation, I prayed, held their rites, taught them to our children... And Adam got the prize and I got the boot? For what? Wanting to be free like Lilith, wanting to escape his hands, his demands, his fucking cock??!!”

 

The roots of the corrupted appletree, the original sin precursor, started to move like serpents under their feet, nervious, furiously, catching on the mood of that amalgam between primordial evil and a mistreated woman.

 

“I trusted an angel wearing the face of purity and salvation and I was condemned for all eternity, always remembered as the First Sinner just for wanting to be a fucking person” she clicked her tongue, she adjusted her huge fedora and tried to place a smile in that face. “But all this time down here gave me clarity.”

 

Lucifer cocked a brow.

 

“Madness, one could say...” commented the Devil, sipping more of his tea.

 

“The line between madness and extreme clarity is thin as thread” said Roo. “Over this millennia I learned to accept this is my place, that Hell is my home. Did you catch on the fact that I'm not possessing any demons at late? And the only time I used my influence was to save your little girl.”

 

The king lowered the teacup, resting it slowly on the saucer and rose his eyes with the same deliverated speed.

 

“You helped Ankareeda?” asked the monarch.

 

“I did!” said the woman. “She's so very special, more than you think!”

 

Said the woman.

 

“How so?” asked the monarch, but under the table, his hands were going into full fists.

 

Roo better control her own tongue, thought the monarch, if the entity didn't want to lose the organ permanently. Any mention on hurting the daughter he didn't have access in that moment, the daughter he was missing like air from his lungs and the pain he was ready to produce over the woman would be something not a single write could describe.

 

“Oh, you don't know?” asked the woman, smiling playfully. “I thought maybe you felt it... but she has a huge potential, I helped her harnessing it to fight the false Lilith. She's the perfect conduit for darkness.”

 

“What are you impliying?” asked the king, plainly.

 

“Not impliying, just saying” said the amalgam creature. “She was conceived in pain, she was cradled by darkness and death and was raised in hate. Her affinity to Hell's energies, to the power that comes from the Tree of Sin, is exultant.”

 

Lucifer denied, raising from his chair, his horns and tail making an appareance together with his red furious eyes.

 

“My daughter isn't like that, she's good, like Charlie, too good for this forsaken place” said the monarch, with embers coming from his mouth.

 

“Oh, Lucifer, my love, you can't refuse reality” she moved like a drop of ink, fluid and sinister in that black ooze she transformed, reforming just to his back, placing both hands over his shoulders. “You abused her father and create her. You forced him to stay with you and that created pain... he had to run and that created death and she almost died. Shadows kept her alive, pain brought her to this world and she was fully prepare to face a father that wanted to hurt her. All by your hand, all created by you... Isn't like a prophecy from a secret text? Something about the Devil creating a destructor of nations?”

 

Lucifer was ready to tear apart those hands to stop her from holding to him or talking but she already moved, circling the table.

 

“That's not true!” said the king. “My daughter is a labor of love, the love that Alastor has for me and me for him.”

 

“You can try to lie to yourself all you want, beloved, but in reality...” she leaned over the table, her malicious eyes fixed on the king. “She was born from your malice and abuse, she was raised drinking from the tits of woe... mute, without friends, with a father so broken he tried to kill himself several times already...”

 

That made Lucifer open his eyes widely.

 

“A man unloved, alone, moved just for the idea that he had to care for a daughter, in reality, he never wanted... he never saw himself as a woman, he never wanted to carry a kid” she laughed, lowly, raspy. “But he did... he did, over love, over duty, over the teachings of his mother... he did. Hurt, alone, reeking of pain... he did. That girl? Was born from darkness and darkness is her destination, when all the weight of the world finally drops on her. Two fathers, one an abuser, another the victim... and she the victim too, despised, refused, abandoned... The world will crash down on her and when it does, all that marvelous rich darkness she's carrying inside will explode, will go out, covering her, transforming her...”

 

This time she laughed with all the potency her lungs gave her, long prolongued and manic.

 

“And she will want answers, why all that suffering just for her, just for being born, even before being born... and she won't come to you for those, nor me or the deer demon or the queen” said the entity. “She'll go upstairs for those answers and you know as good as I do that even with a trouce, even with a deal, even with your siblings returning to pay you even meaker attention, if Heaven and its Host of Angels hates something, is being questioned.”

 

The king was... in shock. He refused to believe anyone of his daughters could produce suffering, they never would attack Heaven, never, they were... But there was something in the dialogue of the entity, a certainty that wasn't allowing him to refute, to negate.

 

“She is the keeper of a so marvelous darkness and she just need a push, just a day going bad enough and my most precious dream of seeing Heaven destroyed without affecting Hell will come, sooner than later” she said, almost purring, sitting herself giddy in her chair. “That's why she's my favorite, you created a marvelous little one, beloved, a beautiful tragic waiting to happen.”

 

“I refuse that” said the devil, with his teeth clenched hardly and speaking through them. “My daughter doesn't have a single mote of darkness inside her, she's purely good, she gave me an oportunity when I didn't deserve any...”

 

Roo shrugged.

 

“And you spat in that oportunity” said the woman. “She asked you to not hurt her papa and you did just that, because you thought with your pants as soon as you saw Lilith... and then you didn't manage to place things in their place. Even when you think you were clear, that you only wanted him and he misunderstood... Darling, really? You wanted Eden, the sequel, but this time my role was taken by a furry ass deer with so many problems... Well, I hate to admit, but a good substitude for mistreated, abused, sad Eve.”

 

She took her cup again, drinking a little with her eyes closed, satisfied with herself.

 

“You only can destroy their trust so much until they don't have more trust to give, Lulu, dear” said the woman, smiling so wide that her face was almost separated in two. “The moment that deer crumble under the pressure of his broken heart and gives up even in caring for her, you can't stop what will happen next... You'll see your dark star sitting in a throne in Heaven created with the skulls of the elder angels and the heavenborn, with the survivors of her righteous anger crawling the floors, humilating themselves to the terrible power that conquered Heaven, tranforming it in a second Hell. No more salvation for some... and I'll be free at last to walk the halls of Heaven and dip my toes on the marvelous rivers of blood she will create.”

 

“She's just a little girl!” the Devil protested, no longer so sure and no longer so angry, the weight of that image the evil incarnated was portraying for him sinking his security.

 

“And?” Roo laughed. “Lucifer, what better envoy of darkness we could have than a pure heart?! It's perfect! It's poetic! Heaven destroyed for the result of their own rules, for their own butterfly flying over their false righteousness! They separated us and then they refused my entry on Heaven after suffering their punishment, they pushed me to be fussed with the Root and if they didn't curse Lilith, making her barren, all of this, would never happen. You could be here, sure, but happy, with me, with Lilith, with kids we call our own, helping us to rule Hell into a beautiful place, torture and punishment just for the most vile ones but a place to live for hellborns and sinners that didn't deserve something so drastic... None of the suffering, none of the pain...”

 

Lucifer sat again, moving his gaze to a side.

 

“And Alastor... he surely...” he started to talk but Roo interrupted him.

 

“Yes, he had a terrible mortal life and his death wasn't beautiful, must feel terrible to believe your beloved abandon you even at the most darken hour” said the woman. “But if you were with Eve and me, you'll be happy. That small kid maybe never would make his life about returning to you, to make you happy... and even if he did, you could have meet him in another circunstances, recognizing him, giving him the attention he desired, not love, friendship? Maybe getting him to be your right hand man... See? All our tragedies, all this pain, it's Heaven's fault. They deserve to be eradicated, they deserved to see the universe tip on the axis and the rules changed.”

 

The king was valuing her words, he was really paying attention, with his eyes closed and heart hurting. Maybe Roo had a plan, maybe it was true she hasn't but her words got the ring of reality on them, the ring of injustice perpetrated against the people he loved the most.

 

“But not by the hand of my daughter, she's just a little girl, she deserves to be happy, not to be a monster, even when they deserve that punishment” he admitted.

 

“Then... it's in your hands” said Roo, softly, moving her hand to touch softly the hand of the Devil.

 

“What do yo mean? That out of the blue I should attack Heaven, drive them under my boot, rearrange the cosmic order?” asked the king, looking directly to the abysss that were the eyes of that entity.

 

“Of course not” she said. “That won't save that kid from the destiny that is pending over her head like the sword of Damocles. The only difference in that case, is that she will be asking the questions to you... no, no. In the end, she's my favorite, even when I see her as perfect, dressed in darkness, I don't want her to be more hurt than she is.”

 

He didn't understood Eve... one moment she was almost orgasming before the idea of Ankareeda transforming herself into the dragon from the Book of Revelation and a second later she was worried for her well being. Maybe a result of the duality that she was currently as an entity. Pure evil... but also, a woman.

 

“Then?” asked the monarch.

 

“Solve the root of the problem... not me, of course, I don't need solving, darling” she laughed. “No, solve her tragedy before it happens. You need to be what you been refusing to be all these long, long decades.”

 

He tilted his head, not knowing what she was meaning yet. He refused to be a lot of things since his siblings kicked him down to the Cunt of Creation.

 

“And what's that, Eve?” he asked, because he wanted advice but he wanted it from the woman he knew as caring and good.

 

She smiled softly at the use of that name.

 

“The Devil” said the entity. “Not the vision of mortals or religious fanatics, not the vision of the sinners that drop down here and blame you for their sins. Not the Devil from the movies or songs... Be the King of Hell, Lucifer, accept your throne like you never did before. Go to your deer and state your claim over him, tell him, without a posibility of a doubt, that he's yours and that the daughter you share is as beloved by your heart as your first one.”

 

Lucifer growled.

 

“I won't try to force Alastor again, I won't hurt him in that way” said the monarch. “I refuse to hurt him.”

 

“You don't have to, beloved” said the woman. “Act like he's yours, behave like he accepted the claim. Make sure for him that you won't touch him or force him in any way but you two are destined to be together. Do whatever is necessary for the universe to know he's the special one in your heart... and reclaim your parental rights. Don't wait for others to give you permission, this is your Realm, your dimension... YOUR BITCH! Nobody should be telling you what to do and nobody should be judging you. Stop rolling like a dog, a be a fiend instead.”

 

The gaze from the short man became like stone, serious, direct.

 

“A fiend...” he repeated.

 

“You're the devil, start acting like it”

 

***

 

Days passed and Alastor adapted to his new normalcy with the ease of a good actor.

 

He even went to his regular tailor to get a couple more suits in dark colors, being the most vivid, so to speak, one on red wine so dark that was black under the red sun of Pentagram City.

 

He was tying his hair in a ponytail at late and still he was wearing it all black and taking he was having trouble sleeping, still the bags under his eyes were prominent and visible.

 

The deer demon returned to teach his daughter like nothing, tried to cook with her, to motivate her to draw even or play but the jokes between them, the dances listening to music and the sweet camaraderie that was so notable between them was not present. Not because the overlord didn't try, because he did, even when his heart or what left of it wasn't in it, he tried to joke, he tried to smile softly for her and return with her to that routine but the heart of the little one wasn't also into that. She smiled, talked when she was talked to but she was trying so hard to be a perfect daughter, trying to soothe the pain of his father with that, that their normal wasn't normal any more.

 

She didn't refuse to wear shoes, even at home, she never protested for the food or tried to ask for a dish, she prefered to practice her piano or study instead of drawing and even the tablet that Vox gifted her, was abandoned, not used again.

 

Alastor hated that, tried to convince himself that was a matter of time, that she will get used to being just with Rosie and him again, to his new... act but he hated seeing his daughter like she was another kid, a girl so afraid to dissapoint her broken father that was not her anymore.

 

That day his daughter had her nose deep in a new book Rosie gave her, not the regular ones she loved to read, the novels of adventure or secret mysteries or the myths and legends, because she didn't have the intellectual appetite for those currently, but one about court manners, royal etiquette. She was very invested in it and, before the cannibal overlord had to go to her store to attent contracts and regular clients, Anka asked her a couple of questions.

 

The deer demon in that moment was revisiting the contability of the Hazbin Hotel. He was planning to return, maybe the next day, and he wanted to keep is help as always was. Maybe now he wasn't planning on staying to live there, not with the king and his queen living there too but he wanted to be for Charlie the help she needed, so the day before he sent his shadow to get the books, revisiting that they were in order and writting in a notebook several questions he has over expenditure in his absence.

 

In that moment, with him sitting in his table and his daughter reading in the couch, a loud banging noise came from outside, too close to his little house to comfort.

 

He made his microphone cane appear and moved to the door.

 

“Remain inside” he said to his daughter that heard the noise too.

 

He went to the door, his shadow already taking iniciative and going outside from the under the door and taking position to a side of his house. When the deer demon opened, he saw a big group of demons, sinners all.

 

He could recognize the dinosaur overlord Zeezi Zillah and a couple of minor overlords, unimportant, not at least enough to be invited to the meetings, with not enough souls to their names.

 

“There you are...” said the big woman. “So it's fuckin' true, you're no long with Hazbin hotel and Lucifer's brat... or with Lucifer at all.”

 

Alastor rested his hands over his cane, giving the crowd a dispassionate glance.

 

“Curious how gossip spreads, faster than fire” said the demon, not admiting it, nor denying it.

 

Sure, he knew that as soon as him being cast away by the Devil was known around the city, someone was meant to try their luck, smelling blood in the water like sharks, trying to get a piece of the man that fell from grace.

 

The problem was, for them, that he didn't lose power for not being associate with the king no more, he wasn't a defendless damsel. He was still the Radio Demon.

 

They could have luck a week before, now it was too late, with him stepping in his new cruel role.

 

“I don't care for gossip, you're on Rosie's turf and you're too close to comfort to my front garden” his antlers grew and his eyes went radio dial while he was tilting his head to a side, in a very unnatural way. “I'm in a good mood today, so I'm ready to let you all out with a warning... Or we can dance this tango and you all will learn a hard lesson, maybe the last one.”

 

Zeezi moved to a side, her smile secure and sharp, her steps thunderous.

 

“Ya know... maybe in another time I could have to think about it twice, thrice even before coming here to fuck with you” said the big overlord. “But rumor has it the king tossed you out because you're too weak now, after fighting Lilith. That you're no useful to him.”

 

Alastor clicked his tongue. Whoever was spreading that, wanted to fuck his reputation, maybe wanting for the mob of people that feared him in that past to catch him agonizing for his heartbreak.

 

Valiant plot, but useless.

 

“Oh, they say that...” Alastor chuckled.

 

“Yes” continued to say the dinosaur, amused. “And taking your current Marilyn Manson shtick, I say maybe the short king hurt your feelings.”

 

She laughed, Alastor didn't.

 

“Are you trying to cope, radio dude?” she laughed. “Must be rough, not only for you to be thrown like a used condom but your daughter...”

 

Alastor decided that Zeezi was dead, doesn't matter if now he didn't have angelic steel to do it because Rosie requisitioned all in a fear of him using it again on himself. The dinosaur was dead and he was about to inform her.

 

“Surely will be hard for the mute to be a bastard from now on” Alastor was ready to attack, his fury more a more noticiable on his face, with his ears going near his skull and his eyes closing into a fine line.

 

“You had just one oportunity to leave here in one piece” say the demon, low, biting the words. “And you wasted it.”

 

He tapped his cane and the shadow tendrils rose from the ground, going against the sinners that were accompaning the overlord.

 

His shadow launched to attack the minor overlords and he moved, with his bloodlust just for that pink dinosaur that dared to mention his daughter.

 

The brutality that the deer demon exorted to attack the dinosaur overlord was almost overwhelming, she didn't have a chance to dodge, to fight or try to escape. First were the hellfire the demon invoked around himself in motes that caught the woman's clothes without a problem or the tendrils coming from Alastor that were piercing her hard skin.

 

In a moment she managed to gain distance with him, that was for not, because he took in a fast movement his biggest form while launching his right hand claws directly to the woman. His hand was in the size of the overlord and soon she ended up pierced against the asphalt, like a butterfly ready to be inspected.

 

He was going to bite her head off, even if that didn't kill her permanently, was going to be a pain but he felt something hurting him in the arm, looking to a side one of the big guys that were always with Zillah, stabing his big an elongated limb with a small angelic knife.

 

The deer demon was already launching his tentacles directly to the aggressor but they reached to nothing.

 

Something, clad in black, picked up the sinner demon, flying with him to then land near the door of the house of Alastor.

 

The Radio Demon returned to his regular form, Zeezi landing on the ground bleeding and the deer overlord could see his saviour... though he didn't look like one.

 

The King of Hell was there, completelly dressed in black, holding his cane with his right hand and using his dominant left hand to hold by the throat the big sinner demon. Being the king so small in comparison, the poor sob was almost laying on the ground, grasping for air.

 

Alastor looked at him and a miss of yearning and pain rose from his heart to his adam's apple, catching in there like it was bile. He wasn't looking at him, he was glancing over the crowd, like he was storing in his mind the faces of everyone of those sinners in his mind.

 

“Are you hurt, Alastor?” asked the monarch.

 

The demon was holding both his cane and the opposite arm with the same hand, bleeding from the wound. He didn't respond, he didn't need to when the crimson eyes of the king looked to his hand drenched in his own blood.

 

He return his angered gaze to the sinner he was holding painfully there and he pressured more, breaking the skin to claw on that neck.

 

“You all crossed a line” his eyes moved to the dinosaur overlord, with one of her henchman helping her to raise from the ground. “And some of you were thoroughly warned about it.”

 

Rosie in that moment was coming to the place, surely she learned some were attacking Alastor and she brought the cavalry in the form of several cannibals, armed without a single shame present with angelic steel. She stopped as soon as she saw the short man, something in Lucifer activated all the alarms she was cultivating in her since she was alive.

 

There was something wrong there, there was something... dangerous.

 

“Wherever one of my daughters is, is off limits” he started to say, slowly, punctuating every word like if he was trying to brand them in their minds. “This house is an extention of my protectored terrain, like Pandaemonium, Lulu World or the Hazbin Hotel... And both Alastor and my daughter are mine. If you attack them or bother them even, you're attacking me because I take very seriously any attack on what's mine.”

 

Alastor wanted to retort, he wanted to say he wasn't his, that he made very clear he wasn't, nor his daughter. Fury was coming like fire from his own stomach but the way Lucifer was talking, the emotions coming from him, told him to better wait or not doing it at all.

 

He looked again to the sinner, that tried to breathe but taking he wasn't really alive, he wasn't passing out from the lack of air, and with a fast movement he launched him to the air like he was a little stone, like he weight nothing.

 

And before gravity could claim him back, Lucifer raised his left hand and snapped his fingers.

 

The form of the sinner twisted, huge bulges started to appear in his body, some bones came out of place breaking the skin and, like an egg on a microwave, he exploded, just over the monarch, making blood rain over him... and he didn't bother to cover or move, like if that was water raining clean from the sky.

 

“He hurt mine and now he's nothing, don't wait for him to return, I obliterated his soul with his body” gasps, only gasps came out of the enthralled crowd, both attackers and cannibals equally... Even Alastor reacted to that, his eyes going wide. “And you...”

 

He made a gesture to where Zillah was and a golden chain appear, closing on her neck, with Lucifer forcing her to go near him and she trying to resist, after seeing what she saw him doing to that other sinner, a sinner that was part of the crew almost since she was an overlord, deal that she noticed was broken the moment he exploded like a piñata.

 

It was futile, she was at his feet in no time.

 

“You organized this, trying to reap power from Alastor” with his free hand, he made a gesture and multitud of green and pink chains came out of her chest, some connected to demons there, others going far in the city or another places, all in the strong hold of the Devil.”You didn't touch him so you're gonna live as a warning to others.”

 

He made pressure and the chains broke under the strong grasp, dissolving in colorful motes of energy. The woman had her eyes wide open but then she screamed, like if a limb was being tore from her.

 

Lucifer just slapped her hard enough to bring blood to her mouth, even when the gesture didn't look particularly strong.

 

“You're an overlord no longer and if one of the gentlemen here or another overlord wants your ass, you're free game now” said the man, fury in his heart but his words were cold as ice. “But you're not allow to make deals again, not for your benefit. If someone tries to help you, to give you power, to sell you their soul, you and that sinner won't get the same mercy I dispatched to the one that hurt my lover. Is that clear?”

 

He asked, sweetly almost, leaning his head to a side, like trying to get an answer from a misbehaving kid. The woman just nooded.

 

“Good, let's hope the warning sticks this time” he released the woman and at the same time he made a gesture and thousand lances formed from the very same material of the road, the asphalt, showing the king the dominion he had over every single atom on his kingdom... with those lances piercing the assailants until their bodies were no more less that limbs and minced meat. “They will recompose, in days... now get your ass out of my sight.”

 

The woman, terrified, nodded, giving the deer demon a temptative look but thinking maybe looking to Alastor now could provoke the king, she lowered her eyes fast and ran, as fast as her big limbs allowed her.

 

The king, covered in blood and don't mind it, at all, turned around to look directly to Rosie.

 

“Take the corpses or was left of them as a present from myself” said the monarch, a smile, but not a soft one, not even a pleasant one. “As payment for not being here sooner.”

 

And he turned and he started to raise a hand, directly to the wound of Alastor, ready to heal it but the demon moved a step back, not allowing him.

 

“I just want to cure you” he said, sighing.

 

“No need, it's small” said the deer.

 

“Suit yourself” said the monarch, catching then that he was covered in blood, snapping his fingers to be clean completelly.

 

Alastor thought for a moment, while he was watching the cannibals going to take their pound... more a pound really, of flesh, with Rosie looking to Lucifer without knowing, maybe for the first time in her life, what to do.

 

“I'm not yours” said the deer, not angry, but not uncertain either. “You made perfectly clear I'm not.”

 

“Yes, I know I wasn't clear” said the monarch, raising a brow. “That's the problem, always trying to care for everyone, trying to accomodate every single person even against my best judgement, even against myself. I talked to a friend and I had an epiphany: It's truly my fault that you never felt loved by me. It is and I admit it, the same that I admit you're not ready yet and I'm not forcing you. I'll let you see it for yourself, I'll let you feel it... But make no mistake, you're mine.”

 

And even when the first part called to the very tortured soul and heart of Alastor, that admission of not showing love, the statement rubbed him the wrong way. Sure, he wanted to be Lucifer's, all that he wanted since he met him was to be his but... that claim, that certainty... There wasn't much of the pride of the Radio Demon in his body but per his new role, some pride was recovered and that pride was screaming inside his mind.

 

“I'm no one's” said the deer demon. “I'm my own master, you can't control me.”

 

“I don't pretend to” said the king, secure, so sure of himself that was almost cold. “I'm not your master, I'm your lover and you'll see what that means in time. I won't retract my claim, I won't back down... I won't force you but I'm warning you that I'm ready to wait millennia if necessary but get this in your head and heart: You belong to me, by my side, the same that my daughter is a full princess of Hell, doesn't matter where she lives.”

 

He adjusted his clothes.

 

“Now, I want to see her” he wasn't asking.

 

Alastor thought for a moment, his mind too full of the words of Lucifer and that reactionary pride he had, normally so wounded to act on it, but now that he broke completelly, that pride was part of his act and he was ready to use it. He thought and then he sighed.

 

“I'll ask her if she wants to see you, but I don't promise a thing” said the deer, turning around to enter his house.

 

Lucifer nodded but then he observed better the demon.

 

“Just out of curiosity, why the black outfit and hair?” asked the devil.

 

Alastor stopped, he was ready to not respond to him but he moved enough his head to part of his face be visible from over his shoulder.

 

“I'm in mourning” but he didn't clarify of whom or what.

 

He entered the house and almost ten minutes later, Ankareeda was coming out timidly, her head lowered and looking to a side, like a very frighten animal.

 

“Hi, my sweet doe” said the king, transforming all the coldness, all the seriousness into a soft smile with emotional eyes. “How are you?”

 

He said, removing the hat from his head, smiling at her, coming closer to her but not touching her or invading her space.

 

'Fine' she lied.

 

He didn't know what to say, he wanted so much to see her, he wanted in that moment to hold her, hug her, telling her that everything was going to be ok, that he was fixing everything. He didn't, he waited for her, going on her speed... with still the warnings of Roo dancing inside his brain, the idea she planted of the possible destiny of his sweet baby.

 

'What do you want?' asked the girl.

 

“Just... seeing you, see that you're ok, that you're happy that... I know things went badly and it's mostly my fault but I didn't want to hurt your daddy and I didn't want to hurt you, I love you both” he said, emotion coming to his eyes.

 

For much he wanted to be a full Devil, knowing it was needed, his soft point was always Charlie and now it was Ankareeda too.

 

'You didn't come sooner' said the girl.

 

“I'm sorry” he tried to move, trying to move a hand to place it softly on her arm but she recoiled and started to sign so fast that he was catching maybe one word of five. “Baby, slower, I... I can't get what you're telling me.”

 

But he saw she was emotional, that she was... sad and maybe angry too. She stopped, frustration for not being able to express herself, to not being able to vent her feelings just with signs, specially because the man never finish learning it.

 

Tears came to her eyes, but she brushed them away with a hand to then sign again, slower but strong, showing her anger.

 

'If you want to talk to me, learn how to do it' she said and she entered into a shadow to go inside the house.

 

“Anka!!” He was ready to enter in the house when he found the parasol from Rosie tapping in his hand.

 

His eyes became red, covered in that film of rage looking to the woman.

 

“Left her be” said the overlord. “She's right, you need to learn, she needs to be able to express everything she's feeling, not going slow just for your benefit.”

 

The Devil growled but he tried to calm himself, placing his hat over his head again, adjusting it.

 

“I see you disregarded my advice” said the woman, crossing her arms.

 

“Your advice was bullshit” said the monarch. “You just told me that because you're pissy over the mess I made. And sure, I admit I fucked things up but you can't certainly believe Alastor is better without me.”

 

Rosie rose a brow.

 

“Taking your track record of hurting him, I do” said the cannibal. “First your abuse, then you fucking with his boundaries and then that stupid kerfuffle with your wife... Sorry to say it, sire, but if that's a test drive of what your love is, no one wants the fucking package.”

 

“Careful, sinner” he moved, invanding Rosie's personal space in a move she wasn't expecting from him. Not the aggressiveness and not the tone, almost biting words. “I'm willing to ignore your constant disrespect against me because Alastor values you, you're his friend and you cares for him. You took care of him in the instances I couldn't... but don't get confussed. If you disrespect me to my face again, if you try to go between Alastor and me, not even my santified siblings would be able to find the remains of your wretched soul. Am I making myself clear or do I need to lead with an example?”

 

The woman gulped her own saliva like it was a very bitter drink, almost like those old medicine she took when she was alive, those thick as syrup and with a foul taste.

 

“Crystal, your highness” said the woman, even lowering her head.

 

Normally Rosie was impossible to scare. She was a force of nature almost, so decided and strong that 'fear' for her was town in a Stephen King's novel, not a concept she knew in reality. But something, in her brain filled with common sense, logic and pure will, was telling her that man, no, creature was ancient, ancestral, and her most natural predator. She wasn't afraid or really scared, or at least she will never admit such a thing, but she was in the same zip code of those emotions and she new that antagonizing the king was counterproductive for her well being in that moment.

 

“Good” said the monarch. “Tell Alastor I'm coming tomorrow to bring some things to my daughter that she'll keep.”

 

Because he was refusing the possibility by now of being denied.

 

“Pleasure, Miss Rosie” said the monarch, tipping his hat to start walking.

 

“Your majesty, just a... curiosity... Why the change of outif?” asked the woman, still with that sensation of being prey but not strong enough to not want her curiosity and maybe later Alastor's curiosity, being satiated.

 

The monarch half smiled.

 

“Because I dicided to stop holding to what I was with the tip of my claws, fearing any change even when change already happened” said the short man. “I'm the Devil, I'm the Sin of Pride and I'm embracing it, outside and inside.”

 

He tip his hat again, he walked a couple of steps and he transformed into a red mist, teleporting far from there.

 

Rosie sighed, looking to the place in where the short man dissapeared.

 

Change was needed in a realm full of dead people to not suffer from stagnation and Hell was needing a proper ruler since a lot of time ago but... Some hair in her nape going on point was telling her that change could be dangerous, that freeing the Devil from his own mental restrain wasn't a brilliant idea at all.

Notes:

Well, this was something ^__^U

Next one we'll have the return of Alastor and Anka to the hotel (on visit, at least)