Chapter Text
Pain .
Pain, everywhere, pain, everything. All she felt was pain, so vicious and violent it had her teeth tingling with bile from her earlier bout of throwing up. The last bit of heaven she’d ever savor coming up rancid on her throat.
She deserved it. Deserved the hollowness that came with that, in turn. Like the hollowness of her now empty eye socket, staring back at her, flecked in gold, from where she looked at it, fingers curled around the sink hard enough to break the marble.
Wait, gold?
Her heart raced, fingers itching for the visible blood staining her empty eye. They couldn’t see, they couldn’t know! Nobody could know she was an Angel! An exterminator, no less. The cut-off wings would be the least of her worries if anyone found out what she was, who she’d been.
God, if the Devil found out….
Vaggie shuddered, imagining a thousand years of torment in some sunless dungeon… not like she’d ever see the sun again. She’d checked, there wasn’t anything of the sort, not anything
right
, anyhow. Then again nothing was right here, everything was vile, filthy,
wrong.
It was Hell, and it was where she’d spend eternity, it seemed. Maybe she could still repent? Maybe she could prove herself, and next year they would take her back? Right? Penance would have to be enough, right?
Mentally, she ran the calculations. She usually clocked a little over 200 each Extermination day. She’d had that number cut in half this year- maybe if she showed she could still be of use, they would take her back?
She wouldn’t stop there, of course, 200 was expected, demanded even! She’d aim higher, high enough that Adam would have to take her back. 2000? No, too low, even-
A knock.
Her spear found its way into her trembling hands without a thought, the fallen exorcist slinking down into a trembling stance, rattled by the sudden breach of personal space, door notwithstanding, of course.
“Who’s there!”
“Hi, it’s uh, me? Charlie! I was just making sure you were alright, sorry…”
Right, yeah, Charlie… Vaggie didn’t trust the demoness that had ‘saved’ her as far as she could throw her. Which, given the height disparity between them, meant she didn’t trust her AT ALL. Sure, she seemed nice enough, and she’d bandaged her without even an inkling to anything nefarious, and she was quite pretty too-
She almost choked on the thought. That was a demoness. Hellborn, sure, but vile filth all the same. The only reason they weren’t hunted as well was because of the Devil’s pardon, any creature that had the devil’s sympathy needed to die, or so Lute had always said.
Lute, who had gouged out her eye. Lute, who had torn the Halo from her head and the wings from her back.
Lute… who she’d called a friend. Who had insulted and mutilated her- there were flashes, of a figure, a tall figure, Adam? Surely Adam hadn’t just stood by and allowed Lute to… oh who was she kidding, Adam would. Frankly she was surprised to scrape by her memories and find not a whinge of him cheering her on -”
“Are you uh, are you still in there- wait, are you hurt, don’t worry I’ll get you out of there!”
A mierda.
“Wait, wait wait I’m fine- I’m okay!” she placated. A lie, but the demon outside the door didn’t need to know that, did she? Vaggie shook her head of the sudden sting of… consideration?
That was a
demon
out there. A Hellborn, sure, but still filth, worthy of neither pity nor any thought beyond how best to dispatch them. Sinking to her knees, she muttered a quick prayer to the Lord above before considering her next words carefully. “...Do you have some spare clothes? Mine are… dirty.”
By dirty, Vaggie meant filthy, torn, stained in angelic blood, and above all, a telltale sigh of an exterminator’s outfit! How had the ditz outside the door not noticed that? Maybe she had, maybe she was waiting for exactly the opportunity that Vaggie had just given her, thinking that the angels’ inability to be harmed by demonic means was something woven into their armor?!”
“Sure, I’ll get you some PJ’s right away, I have a few spares- uh, they might be a bit big on you, though?”
The sound of footsteps clattering away echoed for a few moments after, leaving the angel surprised as to what was going on. Either she’d stumbled upon the best actor she’d ever met, or the most gullible demon in all of pride.
Vaggie blinked- winked?- wait, was it winking or blinking when you only had one eye? The streak of morbid humor had her laughing, a sound that petered off into silent , burning tears.
As it turned out, just because her eye was gone, didn’t mean the tear ducts beneath the open wound were, and salty tears stabbed at her empty socket as she staggered backwards.
One of her legs caught the rim of the bathtub tucked away in a far corner of the room, sending her tipping backwards. Reflex twitched a muscle in her back- a muscle no longer connected to anything. Her head bounced off of the brickwork, the raw wounds on her back scraping along the spackle as she nearly folded in half, pooling into the empty tub a bag of bruised bones and shattered faith.
Maybe it was the panic that set in, then. The frantic reach for appendages that didn’t exist anymore- well, they existed still, Vaggie had seen Lute toss them in a dumpster, but they weren’t hers anymore. Maybe it was the fact she would never fly again, or the feeling of exposed nerves against her nails, or the smell of sulfur and brimstone that clung to everything down here, but it finally sank in.
Vaggie was in hell.
Hell.
And she was never getting out.
A pang of anger overtook her. Damned? Her?! After all she’d done, after all she’d sacrificed? This wasn’t fair, this wasn’t the afterlife she deserved- it hadn’t been, after all, the afterlife she’d ended up in.
Vaggie didn’t remember anything of her life on earth, and precious little before her time in the Exterminators. But nothing, nothing could ever wash away those first impressions. The sea of clouds, the pearly gates, St. Peter’s kind smile as he invited her into perfection…
Was all of that lost to her, now?
She tried to remember beyond that, tried to gainsay her mind into trying to recall anything but the faintest slivers. But she couldn’t… Of course Heaven would be perfect when it came to that… couldn’t they at least allow her that, still?
Vaggie remembered that, at least. Being drafted into the Exterminator legions. Selected for a background she no longer remembered, and a purity she now grossly doubted. Years’ worth of training, and decades of service, and for what?
To be cast away at the first mistake she made? Was it even a mistake? Vaggie recalled the moment with frightful clarity. Had she fallen for a demon’s trick? It had looked like a child, but how could she be certain- no, that fear had been real. Whatever else might have been fake, that fear had been as genuine as the pain she now felt.
The pain of betrayal, the pain of loss, the pain of mutilation, both of her body and her mind. Had they, upon casting her out, not been content to simply take from her? But also to keep from her the very thing she’d given up to ascend to the ranks of the Exterminators.
The price of fighting was forgetting. And in place of her memories Vaggie had been given a purpose, to curb the demonic invasions before they could ever become an issue again. She’d lost any connections to the person she’d been, to the rest of heaven, and been entrusted with both purpose and a terrible secret, one that now meant no-one but her sisters knew where she was.
Her sisters, who, by now, surely hated her as much as Lute. Lute, who once counted Vaggie as her friend, who Vaggie had considered a friend,- a rival, in turn. They were in the Silver City now, celebrating the last successful extermination.
Vaggie wondered if they would return for her next year, if this punishment was meant to be temporary, but she knew Lute. If Adam’s second in command saw her again, she’d finish what she started…
That left her with the option of trusting a demon, or trying to break out of the little window she’d spotted the moment she walked in the room, the instincts she’d honed over the years paying off. Always make sure you know where the entrances and the exits are.
It would be a tight fit, but-
“Heyy, I’m back!” the sudden voice startled her. “I got you some fresh bandages, too… Can I come in?”
Vaggie’s first instinct was to say no. Her second instinct was to say FUCK NO, her third instinct was to check the mirror and ensure there wasn’t a drop of golden blood on her.
There wasn’t. Vaggie had been thorough cleaning herself up. Not a fleck of angelic blood remained anywhere in the room, save the old bandages she’d stuffed down the drain and chased with half a bottle of demon-bleach or whatever it was.
Part of her wanted to refuse regardless, bristling at the thought of a demon being this close to her, seeing her this vunerable… but those bandages would be a smart idea. It would mean less chance of infection- Lord only knew what kind of filthy pathogens slithered around in the ring of Pride.
Still, the sight of her empty eyesocket, the black hole where her eye used to be, should be. Compels her to open the door, the sound of brass sliding against brass accompanied by the thought that if it is a trick, that it would be better to get it over with now.
It’s not, instead the demoness- Charlie, stumbles into the room carrying half a closet’s worth of clothes and a small roll of bandages and gauze. The latter of which she swipes as she steps out of the way, not even bothering to offer a hand as the demoness stumbled and slid across the glazed tiles on- were those hooves?!?
“Watch out,” Vaggie called out after a moment, wholly unable to make herself sound genuine as she watched the stumbling affair in sardonic amusement, already mentally throwing clothes off of the pile.
Too long, too short, not good for fighting in, was that a onesie?!?- she was still trying to react to that bit of information when the demoness- Charlie- turned around, and gave Vaggie her first look, first proper look at her “saviour”
She’s hot . That was the first thought that came unbidden, followed by her mind freezing in place as it tried to process that information. Curtains of honeysuckle gold hair offset by porcelain skin and black lips. A button nose and faint yellow eyes with piercing, surprisingly soft eyes of the purest crimson she’d ever seen. She must have been staring, because Charlie turned those eyes away with an awkward chuckle, exposing a pair of sharp fangs that had her feeling some type of way.
The woman- no, the demon - in front of her was the picture of a stark beauty, Vaggie was reminded of the tales of vampires, of midnight soirees and gothic splendour- at least until the clothes slip from her grip to fall upon the floor, sending her down with it.
“Wait-, oh, ooops, sorry, uh, fuck, fuck, sorry- sorry, I’m uh, help?” she finally called out from a pile on the floor, somehow having managed to entangle herself in the pile.
Somehow that gesture of pure clumsiness had Vaggie’s nerves pool from her shoulders. Despite her every litany and thought protesting the very emotion, Vaggie couldn’t help herself. And for perhaps the first time in far too long, she laughed.
Actually, genuine laughter peeled from her in throaty bubbles. She spared a glance at the demon’s annoyed face and found herself grasping the sink for purchase, nearly doubling over in her fit.
She doesn’t notice the way Charlie stops struggling after a few moments, nor the way the demoness’ face morphs into casual affection at the sight, happy that she’s feeling at least a little better.
That, of course, means she’s still staring when Vaggie’s laughter peters off and the angel gives her a look. Now Charlie might not know Vaggie is an angel, but she knows that look well enough to suddenly flush, redoubling her efforts to untangle herself.
Vaggie ends up rolling her- eye- and sinking to her knees, pulling out a crimson blouse that, despite the crinkles, looks very comfortable.
“You got something to go with this one?” she asks, showing the fabric to her clothes-bound savior.
“Oh, yeah, of course,” a few seconds later, there’s a black skirt thrown her way. Vaggie mutely realizes that she’s not just looking at pajamas, now. Did she upturn her entire closet or something?!
“I’m sorry, I didn’t know what size you wear, and I kinda realized my stuff would be a bit big, so I popped into a nearby store and uh, see?” she says, gesturing at the pile of clothes on the floor.
“So you bought out the store?” Vaggie deadpans.
“Only half!” Charlie protests, which, what . “I Mostly left the men’s section alone, which- oh, was that insensitive? I can go back and see if there’s anything there you might-”
“Relax, it’s fine,” Vaggie says, despite herself. She allows her guard to drop, if only a little bit. “So, what do you want from me?”
“What?” Vaggie actually manages to be surprised at the Demon’s question. Every single one of the Exterminators had been hand-picked by Adam himself, frankly half the time they expected it to be just a chance to score, but even now that wasn’t the truth.
Some of the heaven-born, like Lute, were lesser angels or cherubs, picked for a sense of character. Some people, like Vaggie, or, rather, the person Vaggie used to be, had been picked for reasons they couldn’t remember.
Except Vaggie could- at least, Vaggie had been told after the fact. Adam had picked her because she had something not even he had, the ability to read people, really read them. And, according to him, she had a gift for that.
Well, that, and “sick-ass demon bitch killing vibes” whatever it was supposed to mean.
Regardless, it meant Vaggie was more than a little stumped when she saw, of all things, earnesty on the demon’s features. “Seriously?” she muttered, more to herself than anything. “We’re in hell . I’m supposed to believe you rescued me out of the goodness of your heart?”
“Well, yes?” Vaggie blinked, the demon looking mighty uncomfortable for a few moments. “I get where you’re coming from, really, I do, but, you needed help, and what kind of Princess would I be if I didn’t help my people?
“Well-” Just about every thought Vaggie had ever had died at that exact moment. It was a sound not dissimilar to a balloon slowly wheezing itself empty. She stared, bug-eyed, mouth open, for what felt like an eternity. All the while she tried to process the information.
“...Did I say something wrong?”
“ Did you say ‘princess’?” Vaggie muttered out in a stage-whisper, too shocked to move.
The demon- Charlie- Demon , shrank in on herself. “Hahaha… yeah,” she stuck out her hand with an awkward flourish. “Princess Charlotte Morningstar. Though, please call me Charlie! Heir apparent to the throne of Hell, and daughter of-”
“The Devil,” Vaggie squeaked out, then shrank in on herself when she realized that her thought was a lot louder than she would have liked. “Are, are you trying to make a deal with me?”
Charlie blinked, then looked between her hand and Vaggie, an awkward giggle escaping her. “Oh, right, sorry, I forget most people here aren’t much for handshakes- so, what’s your name?”
“Why do you want my name?” her tone was guarded, now. “Isn’t that another one your demon tricks?”
“Oh, pff,” Charlie waved that particular concern off. “Those are fairies, we don’t have those down here. I’d just like to know the name of the girl I saved… please?”
“I…” if someone had told her a week, a day, an hour ago, that she’d be standing in front of the Devil’s daughter in a dingy bathroom, Vaggie would have laughed them out of the room , or stabbed them.
Now, however, she could only sigh, and accept whatever came next, as she held out her own hand, offering the crooked sort of smile she always plastered on when she tried to be genuine.
“...The name’s Vaggie, nice to meet you.”