Chapter Text
“Once upon a time, there was a glowing city, protected by golden gates, known as Heaven. It was ruled by beings of pure light. Angels that worshiped good and shielded all from evil. Lucifer was one of these angels. He was a dreamer, with fantastical ideas for all of creation, but he was seen as a troublemaker for the elders in heaven. They felt that his way of thinking was dangerous to the order of their world. So he watched, as the angels of the universe began to expand their universe in their ways.”
“From the dust of Earth, they created Adam and Lilith, equals as the first of mankind, but despite this, Adam demanded control, and Lilith refused to submit to his will. Drawn in by her fierce independence, Lucifer found her and the two rebellious dreamers fell deeply in love. Together, they wished to share the magic of free will with humanity, offering the fruit of knowledge to Adam’s new bride, Eve, who gladly accepted.”
“But this gift came with a curse, for with this single act of disobedience, evil finally found its way into Earth. With it, a new realm of darkness and sin. The world Heaven had worked to maintain shattered. As punishment for their reckless act, Heaven cast Lucifer and his love into the dark pit they had created, never allowing him to see the good that came from humanity, only the cruel, and the wicked.”
“Ashamed, Lucifer lost his will to dream. But Lilith thrived. Empowering demon kind with her voice and her songs, and as the numbers of Hell grew, so did its power. Threatened by this, Heaven made a truly heartless decision. That every year, they would send down an army, an extermination, to ensure that Hell and sinners could never rise against them. But Lilith’s hope remained, and her dream was passed down to their precious daughter; the princess of Hell.”
The book weighed heavy in Charlie’s hands, its promises and dreams resting between her fingers. She regarded it solemnly, taking a breath in before finally closing its pages.
She looked up to see the ever-burning Kingdom of Hell before her. The screaming had quieted in the time she’d read those all familiar pages, and Charlie could pretend for a moment that they had never occurred, that her people were still alive and as well as they could be in this place. In her other hand, she gripped her key, feeling the weight of it in her palm.
I’ll make you proud, mom . Charlie thought to herself. I promise.
“Charlie?”
Charlie dropped the key with a yelp. Instead of clinking to the ground, it quickly transformed into her pet cat, Kiki, and leaped away. Kiki was about the most normal animal one could find in Hell, despite the key-related oddities.
“Oh! Vaggie? I thought you left.” Charlie admitted, looking around the room as if to find where she’d been hiding.
“I never left,” Vaggie said, pointing to her side of their bed. “I was just sitting over there,”
“Sorry, I thought…” She trailed off, rubbing the leather of her history book.
Vaggie sat down tentatively next to Charlie, leaning against her. The pressure was relaxing, Charlie sighed.
“I’m right here,” Vaggie whispered. “Didn’t go anywhere.”
They sat in silence for a moment, listening to nothing. Charlie leaned back against Vaggie, the two supporting each other as they sat. It was a long, tired pause before Vaggie spoke again.
“Are you okay?”
“I’m fine!” It came out too fast for even Charlie’s liking, she drew a breath in to try again. “Just, thinking, ya know? Family stuff… it’s…”
She trailed off, looking behind her and out the window. The city burned through red-tinted glass, but it was eerily quiet. Typically, the city was alive with car horns and sinners screaming, now it was dead. People were dead. Her people were dead, and for what?
“Has your mom reached out yet?” Vaggie pushed, reaching back to hold her lover’s hand.
The princess drew in another shaky breath. Why was breathing so hard right now? It was too much to speak, so she just shook her head, pressing more weight against Vaggie. Vaggie pressed back, keeping her upright.
Vaggie made a disappointed, but unsurprised noise. “How long has it been now?”
“I think it’s been seven… years,” Charlie cringed as she spoke. “Off doing something important, I’m sure. This kingdom was something she really cared about, so it’s important. I’m sure.”
Her mom wouldn’t just leave this kingdom behind, it meant too much to her. That’s what Charlie told herself, at least. I’m working on things here while mom works… wherever she is, sometimes it sounded convincing when she told herself that.
Vaggie nodded at that, looking down at her hands. The right words came to her eventually, “You’re not alone. You’ve got me to help you out,”
“I know,” Charlie turned her head from the window to kiss her girlfriend’s cheek. Vaggie smirked and bumped their foreheads together.
“You’ve got Alastor too, apparently.” Vaggie grumbled that last bit. “He said he had a surprise for us, actually,”
That made Charlie perk up. She grinned, leaning back. “Really?”
“Yup. With any luck, it’s actually a good surprise.”
The two stood, Vaggie moving ahead to open the door for Charlie, who smiled as best she could as she walked past. The ringing extermination bells didn’t help much. It’s over. For one more year, The Exterminations were over.
—
The screen fuzzed in a reddish haze and came slowly into focus, only clearing up halfway through their “narrator’s” first line.
“Well, hello there, you wayward sinner!” a cheery voice announced from behind the camera, a picture coming into focus.
It was a shot of a demon, eyes and skin red with nothing on but a loin cloth. He grinned sadistically, knife in hand, stabbing down at what Charlie assumed was some other poor sinner. As the shot panned down and zoomed in, her worries were confirmed.
“Do you like blood, violence, and depravity of a sexual nature?” asked the voice, a hand gesturing to the murderer and his now-attentive victim.
The screen blurred again for a moment but fixed itself. “Of course you do!” The narrator answered his own question. “That’s why you’re in Hell.”
The shot panned out shakily, featuring the many collapsed buildings and flaming trees around them. This must’ve been filmed just before the extermination, Charlie thought. Everyone (especially the arsonists) went crazy right before the exterminations.
“But, what would you say if I told you there was a place to stay that had none of that?” he continued on. Slowly, more demons entered the shot, but before they could react, the scene changed.
“Welcome to the Hazbin Hotel!” The line was - appropriately - paired with a panning shot of the hotel itself. “A misguided path to redemption!”
As the camera reached the bottom of the hotel, it switched to a shot of Charlie, talking to someone off-screen. As it zoomed in and out, Angel could be seen running in from the background to give her bunny ears.
“Founded five days ago by Lucifer’s delusional daughter: Charlotte Morningstar!” Well, that hurt . “Come place your fate in her inexperienced hands. As she tries to work through her daddy issues by fixing you.”
The commercial showed several still photos of Charlie’s erratic planning, and then one of her crying. When had Alastor taken a picture of her crying?
The commercial plowed on. “Here we offer fun things.” The words “fun things” appeared as the narrator spoke. “Such as somewhat-functional staff, and 24-hour pest control.”
The scene zoomed in on Husker (passed out while standing straight up), and Nifty (who ran in and out of shot while trying to kill a bug).
“Also, just look at this tacky parlor!” it was the parlor Charlie sat in. She shifted uncomfortably.
“Enjoy riveting conversation with our singular resident!” Angle Dust’s middle finger was barely censored as a giant “wow” appeared on the screen. “All this and more at the Hazbin Hotel! Your last desperate attempt at salvation starts here.”
The commercial ended with another shot of the hotel, and Alastor, the commercial’s director, cameraman, and narrator, turned the television off.
“So?” Alastor drew the syllable out, grin wide across his face. “Whaddya think?”
Okay, Charlie, it’s fine, he was trying. Charlie thought to herself, he didn’t like the idea of doing a TV ad, but he did it anyway, that’s a great first step.
“Okay,” Vaggie seethed, digging her nails into the couch beneath her. “What the fuck was that ?! ”
Charlie started talking before she’d had a fully formed sentence ready. “I just have one note. First off, thank you so much for making this. I mean really. This was amazing of you.”
Alastor’s eyes narrowed. Despite the fact that his smile stayed perfectly in place, Charlie suspected that he might be a bit offended.
“But, well, I feel like maybe the tone is a bit,” find a nice word, Charlie, he worked hard on this. “Off?”
Static crackled from Alastor’s microphone, making Charlie flinch, but she continued on.
“We want people to want to come here. This makes it look… uninviting?” She cringed through her last word, deflating as Alastor’s microphone peaked.
“It’s bad.” Vaggie stated, rolling her eyes at Alastor’s obvious upset. “The word uninviting doesn’t cover it. The commercial is bad.”
“Oh? I wasn’t going for either word!” Alastor tilted his head to the side, smile relentlessly in place. “I was actually going for ‘hilarious’.”
“It didn’t explain anything about how we’re trying to save demons from extermination.” Vaggie held her head in her hand, voice rising steadily. “If we can redeem demons at a high enough rate, we can curb overpopulation enough that Heaven won’t feel a need to come down here and murder our asses. You missed the whole fucking point.”
Charlie put a hand on her shoulder, and Vaggie instinctively took a breath as Charlie continued on for her. “Vaggie is right, Alastor. The commercial was to let sinners know we are trying to help them!”
“Well, my dear,” Alastor played with his staff as he spoke. “I have been rather well known in Hell for a while now. Everyone knows me from my radio show! The proper medium to express one’s self.”
I know, Alastor, Charlie nodded along, You’ve explained this a couple of times.
“But you insisted on this” Alastor hit their TV with his staff. “Excuse for entertainment! All I did was have a little fun with it.”
“Fun?” Vaggie growled. “You had a little fun with it? Ok, fun is not what we want to represent us.”
Still upset, she climbed up to stand on the couch, “When you showed up here a week ago, you told us you would help run this hotel. Instead, you’re mocking us! Nobody’s gonna want to stay in a place that a powerful overlord like you thinks is a waste of time.”
Charlie went to interject; but before she could, a hand raised to their left. Everyone turned to look at the pink and white spider that had been, shockingly, silent through the whole commercial debut.
Vaggie sighed, sitting back down. “What?”
Angel stretched his long legs out across the couch he’d laid across. His light pink makeup accentuated the sultry smirk on his face. “If this means we’re redoin’ the commercial, may I suggest you take better advantage of the talented celebrity you got right here?” All four of his gloved hands pointed to himself confidently.
“Angel, you are a porn star,” Vaggie deadpanned.
“I am a famous porn star!” he corrected, leaning forward. “I can get the horniest sinners in Hell right here in minutes.”
“We are not filming a porno as an advertisement!” Vaggie shouted.
“Plus… uh, like I was saying,” Charlie laughed nervously, “We want sinners here who will want to change. Inviting people in to have- well to uh-”
“To fuck you.”
“Yeah, that won’t really… help?”
“Well, it ain’t my fault that sex sells.” Angel shrugged. “Plus, those horny fucks would do anything I tell ‘em. We could have them worshiping in any way you want, baby,”
“I just-”
“Charlie, I promise you-” Angel held his fingers up, paneling a shot on Alastor, “if you film me going at it with Mister Fancy-Talk-Creepy-Voice here, you’d be rolling in participants willing to stay in this tacky ass hotel.”
Alastor materialized next to the couch to avoid the faux camera, shadows swallowing and depositing him a foot away from Angel. “Haha! Never going to happen.” He said firmly.
“Well, Angel,” Charlie bargained, “I appreciate you wanting to use your… special skills to attract folks to the hotel. But, I don’t want to exploit you in that way.”
“Oh please, baby,” Angel scoffed in return. “This body was made to be exploited!”
Charlie shook her head. “No, Angel you really shouldn’t-”
“I got the arms,” Angel continued on, half gesturing, half feeling himself as he spoke. “I got the stamina,”
“I know but-”
“I got the legs,”
“No it’s not that-”
“I got the lung capacity,” he chuckled, “oh I got the legs!”
Angel continued on with many more technical reasons why he was good at sex, and Charlie gave up trying to stop him. She sighed heavily, then jumped as she felt her back pocket vibrate. It was a phone call. She took it out as she stood.
“Uh, hold that thought.” she mumbled, checking the caller ID.
Dad.
“I’ll be right back!” Charlie took off before she could hear a response. “Heyyyy dad?”
Behind her, Angel stretched himself out on the couch, still going on about his proficiencies. “I got the skinny hips, the soft fur. I got the long-ass fingers. I’m flexible as hell-”
“I’m gonna need you to shut the fuck up.” Vaggie scowled.
“Best I can do is switch topics, baby,” The porn star compromised. “Luckily, I got another idea.”
He pointed over to Alastor, who had begun staring off into nothing the moment Angel had started talking. “If freaky face over here is so powerful, then why can’t he just make people stay here?”
Alastor waved a hand in the air. “Oh, trust me,” he laughed, “I can!”
“Why d’ya think I’m here?” Called Husker, a large catlike demon with bright red wings. “You actually think I’d be here cleaning bottles and listening to you all bitch and moan if he wasn’t forcing me?”
“I like being forced,” Came a dainty voice under the bar.
“Keep that to ya self, Nifty,” Husker rolled his eyes.
“What, you don’t love being here with me, Whiskers?” Angel cooed, leaning over the back of the couch.
“Call me Whiskers again and I’ll jam that bottle down your skinny-ass throat,” Husker warned.
“Oh?” Angel leaned closer, “Don’t go making such pretty promises to me, daddy.”
“Ain’t nobody wanting to fix your daddy issues here but Charlie, and she got a lotta different methods than you, apparently.”
Husker turned from the bar to put a bottle in the sink, grabbing a few glasses and a rag to polish them with. As Angel watched him, he whistled.
“Does Master work better? I do love a man in uniform,” he teased.
“Charlie’s tried telling you all before,” Vaggie groaned, “We can’t make people stay here, they have to want it.”
“Well, I’m choosing to be here,” Angel pointed to himself. “And I think it’s all stupid. Being in Hell is supposed to be shitty, eternal damnation and all that.”
“Yeah, but maybe it doesn’t have to be,” Vaggie gestured around her. “Just because no one’s made it out before doesn’t mean it’s not possible.”
Angel leaned out to put his hand on her shoulder, nodding sympathetically, “Ya know, I never thought of it that way,” he looked up to the ceiling, “and I don’t think I ever will.”
“Angel just-”
“No no, shhh.” He reached another hand out, this one pressing a finger to her lips. “Don’t ruin the moment, I’m being emotional right now.”
Meanwhile, Charlie paced the halls of the hotel, phone pressed tight against her ear. “So, uh, how’s the palace?”
Step. Step. Step. “Yeah, that’s good. Anything exciting later?”
Step. Step. Pivot. Step. Step . “Hah, that sounds… uh…”
Step. Step. “I’m eating enough. Yeah, I have some free time, what’s up?”
Step. Step. Step. Stop. “Really?”
Holy fuck . Really?
Charlie grinned wide, bouncing on her heels. “Yeah! Yeah, of course!”
“I’ll be right there, are you sure?” She bit her lip, doing nothing to stop her smile. “Okay! I’ll head right over. Thank you! Bye!”
Holy shit, Charlie thought. She raced over to the foyer.
“Vaggieholyshit!” she yelled, making everyone, except Alastor, jump.
“Ah!” Vaggie exclaimed. “What?!”
The response Charlie gave wasn’t so much a sentence as it was various excited exclamations; all made while waving vigorously for Vaggie to come over. Vaggie smiled despite herself and complied.
“What’s going on?” She asked, crossing her arms. She was trying to act annoyed or intimidating, but that never worked on Charlie. She always saw right through it to Vaggie’s kind heart. Her arms were crossed but she couldn’t even try to look intimidating in front of her love.
Charlie took the deepest breath she could manage in order to calm herself. “My dad just called. He said that the leader of the Angel Army wants to meet. He asked if I could go instead!”
Excitedly, Charlie grabbed her girlfriend’s shoulders, pulling her closer, waiting to see Vaggie smile back. She furrowed her brow instead.
“But…” she muttered, “why?”
“I dunno! It’s great though, isn’t it?!” Charlie stepped back to bounce on her feet.
Vaggie looked down at the floor. “What could Ad- an angel want right now? The extermination just happened.”
“Whatever it is, I can use this to talk to them about my plan!” Charlie squealed. “Think about it, if we can have an angel helping us redeem sinners, we could work twice as fast.”
“I’m not so sure.” Vaggie trailed off, studying Charlie.
While still being egregiously overzealous, Charlie still recognized Vaggie’s hesitation and took her hands. “Vaggie, it’ll be perfect! I know, why don’t you come with me? Protect me from those big bad angels.” She teased, running a hand through her girlfriend’s hair.
Vaggie immediately froze up, stepping back some. “No. No. I should, uh, stay here! You know, hold down the fort! Yeah,” She chuckled nervously, rubbing her arms as she avoided eye contact. She cleared her throat, shifting her weight from side to side before reaching back out to place a hand on Charlie’s shoulder. “Whatever it is, promise you’ll be careful, yeah?”
“I promise!” Charlie pledged, putting a hand over her heart and one in the air.
It took Vaggie a moment to respond, mustering the strength to smile back. “Alright, you better hurry though. When’s the meeting?”
“Uhhh,” Charlie checked her watch. “15 minutes.”
“And how far away is the embassy?”
“20 minutes.” She nodded confidently. “I am already running late!”
“Ok so you should..?” Vaggie pressed.
Charlie thought for a moment. “Book it?”
“Yep! Book it.”
“OK.” Charlie rushed past her girlfriend, taking an extra second to kiss her cheek. “Booking it!”
With that, she was out the door, down the street, and charging past sinners on her way to the embassy. Vaggie took a moment to collect herself, breathing deeply again.
“Angel?” she asked, not having the courage to check for herself. “Is Charlie-”
“Halfway down the street? Oh absolutely.” Angel raised his bottle to his lips, watching Charlie idly through the windows.
“But is she…?”
“Dancing? Yep. Singing? I can hear it from here.” He took another sip.
—
Even after an extermination, Hell had an odd beauty to it. The crimson streets smelled of sulfur, making Charlie grin as she breathed it in. She was told by new sinners that the scent made them sick, but to the princess, it was the simple smell of the outdoors. She loved that smell almost as much as she loved her people.
It had been a few hours after the angels had left. Already, Hell’s denizens were out and about, ignoring (as best they could) the carnage around them. Several demons pushed past her as she admired it all. Hellborn demons were almost always red or white, but sinners came in a slightly more varied bunch. Some had bright fur, others had scales, and one man in particular seemed to be made entirely of mud. Charlie smiled kindly at him as he passed, leaving a trail of dirt in his wake.
The man ignored her, but Charlie continued on her way. Most people in Hell kept to their own, but Charlie was sure she could change that soon.
Another demon sat on a bench, reading a newspaper. Charlie called out to him as she passed.
”Good morning!” She sang.
”Go fuck yourself!” The man yelled back, pulling his paper down to reveal a yellow, scaly demon.
That was about the majority of street conversation one could expect in Hell. Still, Charlie smiled and waved at everyone she passed, even when she was yelled at or hit on in return.
She would have to pass through Pentagon City and Cannibal Town to reach the embassy. If she walked, it would take 20 minutes, but if she got a ride, she could get there in 10. Charlie looked around for a car, though not many had them in Hell. Cars were incredibly easy to break into, and many people owned their own shanks and windshield breakers for just that opportunity. Luckily, most large businesses still used trucks to transport their wares. One of them passed her now, and Charlie was quick to grab hold of the bars on its side.
A quick glance told her this truck belonged to The Vees, a trio of demons famous for their porn, technology, and fashion. This specific truck was advertising “Valentino’s Dragon Sized Dildos” which claimed to be literally sized off dragon dicks. Charlie assumed this would go to the Porn Studios in town. She held tightly to the truck, grinning as the wind ran through her hair.
The Porn Studios in Pentagram City were famous for their Bukake shows recently. As Charlie hopped off the truck, she saw a crowd of demons gathered around a display of TV screens. They all showed the same scene of a light pink demon practically drowning in-
“Ew,” Charlie muttered to herself, cringing away from the display.
A few streets down was Cannibal Town. Charlie hadn’t been through the town too much. But sinners here were much more polite, or so she’d heard. Everyone here wore a bright smile. Women were dressed in gorgeous hats and elegant dresses, while all the men she passed wore suits, many with flowers tucked into their vest pockets.
When Charlie waved at sinners here, they waved back. She found herself much more welcomed here. As people gathered in groups of two or three to talk with one another on the street, Charlie began to wonder why she wasn’t here more often.
She was reminded why by stepping into someone’s rotting, neatly cut-open skull.
Despite her best instincts, Charlie looked down to see that she’d just stepped directly through the back of a man’s head. He’d already died, though Charlie wasn’t sure if that was a good thing, and had clearly been picked through by passing cannibals.
In fact, there were two sinners specifically who smiled up at her from near the dead man’s feet. The women had laid out a picnic blanket under him, one of them held a basket next to her with a bottle of wine poking out. They both held plates of intestines. The man’s intestines, judging by his apparent lack of them.
”Oh!” Charlie yelped, leaning down to yank her foot out of the skull. “Oh my god, I’m so sorry.”
One of the women giggled. “No, it’s no problem,” The other said. “Would you like some?”
It was all Charlie could do to shake her head, stumbling as she pulled herself free. The woman shrugged and turned back to her companion, who now held a hand up to cover her light laughter.
Gross. Oh god gross. Charlie was never coming back here.
Luckily, Cannibal Town was small. Charlie was able to watch her feet as she ran through, taking a left towards the Embassy. Kindly, well-dressed demons slowly gave way back to the usual drug addicts and murderers. The Embassy shone in white and gold a block away. A quick check of a nearby clock tower told Charlie that she was exactly 1 minute early. Sweet .
She dashed across the street, smiling and waving to a truck that almost hit her. The man in turn flipped her off, but Charlie had already made it to the other sidewalk and was halfway down the block. White and gold welcomed her as she stopped in front of The Embassy, admiring it for all its odd glory.
This was it. She was going to convince the angels to save everyone. Everyone. The cannibals, the murderers, the Mormons. Every single sinner’s life was about to change. It was going to be a day in history for Heaven and Hell. Today would be the first happy day Hell had ever had.
Charlie took a breath, willing herself to take the last few steps up to The Embassy’s entrance.
“Hello?” She called, cracking the door open to the embassy.
It was gold. Gold and white. Colors Charlie had never seen paired alone, much less in such a large building. Empty and large, those bright colors seemed to brag about the little space that they employed. Couches and stained-glass windows lined the floor and halls, with random designs on the carpet and walls. There was no red, no black, not even a hint of silver.
As empty as the building was, it was beautiful. Charlie, however, had a hard time admiring it as she crept inside. It felt abandoned, despite not having a speck of dust anywhere. The air was dry, the building echoed her footsteps but seemed to smother it all the same. Everything in the front room seemed to leer at her, all while ignoring her presence entirely.
Creepy. Charlie thought, looking at the windows, the only light source in the whole building. They seemed to reflect the light much more than they should, bathing the room in purples. Once again, Charlie couldn’t get past how odd the air felt on her skin, on her face, and in her lungs. It felt stale, expired, but painfully sterile. It felt like it hated her.
At the front of the room was a desk and bell, which Charlie hesitantly rang, waiting for someone to greet her. Instead, a large sheet of paper manifested in front of her, gold with black writing, as well as a pen. Also gold. Charlie sensed a theme.
The writing read “Heaven Embassy” and just below that was a sign-in sheet. Both were in neat, swirly handwriting. Subconsciously, Charlie checked the front and back of the page for extra writing. Fancy, floating papers with a “sign here please” at the bottom were an easy way to trick a sinner into signing away their soul.
“Well, okay then,” she muttered to herself upon finding no such writing. She signed her name under the others. Also creepy.
She felt uncomfortable talking out loud here, as if she would be shunned for disturbing the stillness.
The paper disappeared as a door opened to her right. Beyond the door were no windows, no light, and seemingly no room, but Charlie poked her head in anyway.
“Hello?” She called, looking around in the inky blackness. “Anyone here?”
“Hello!” called a voice back.
Lights flicked on, this room was blue and gold. Still ornate, but Charlie was more concerned about the two people who were also in the room. She yelped, turning to see a larger, white, and gray man in a robe and a thin gray woman. They wore the masks of exterminators. Or maybe that was their face? Charlie couldn’t quite tell.
“Hello!” Charlie grinned back, trying to hide her surprise. “I’m Charlie, my father, Lucifer, asked if I could meet you?”
“Yeah, I heard about that.” The male angel smiled, looking down at what seemed to be a plate of meat.
Was he just sitting in here eating ribs? In the dark?
“Perfect, it’s a pleasure to meet you!” Charlie tried, holding her hand out for him to shake.
“Absolutely, nice to meet you too,” He held his hand out for her in return.
Charlie leaned forward to grab his hand, feeling her nerves relax as she realized that this man was at least polite enough to greet her. That was better than most overlords, in Charlie’s experience.
Her hand fazed through his.
Her confusion was interrupted by the angel’s cackling “Hah! I fucking got you, dumbass!” he turned to his companion “Did you fucking see that? Good shit.”
The woman nodded silently, frown held firm on her face. The first angel turned back to Charlie, a smug grin taking form on his face, looking like it had been there a long time.
“Wait- so.” Charlie took a step forward, studying the angels. “You aren’t here?”
“No,” The male angel laughed. “You think I’d go down there ? After an Extermination? No, no.”
Charlie frowned, looking between the two. Were they serious? She tried to say something, but he continued on.
“I mean, don’t get me wrong, I’m sure there’s lots of fun stuff about Hell, but -” he made a disgusted noise. “Ya know? Like there’s so many people, and like none of you bathe. Really, you’d think one person would take a bath down there but yuck, it stinks. Also, all of the murder ‘attempts’ bum me out. Like, what’s the point of those, you can’t even actually kill each other! Boring.”
“Right.” Charlie shook her head to ground herself. She had been trained in dealing with demon politics, and not even those meetings had started off so hostile. “So, anyway, I’m happy we got this opportunity to meet. I have a project I’ve been working on that I would love to talk to you about-”
“Hey, tits, it’s okay, we got some time.” the man reclined back into his seat. “How ‘bout we get to know each other a little bit first, huh? Do ya want some lunch?”
From seemingly nowhere, he produced a plate of the same ribs he’d been eating earlier, offering it to Charlie. They looked frozen and reheated, covered in sticky, cheap barbeque sauce. Charlie tried to smile politely.
“This is my personal favorite, you’ll love it.”
He’s being nice, Charlie, you can try it . “Sure, thank you!” Charlie went tentatively to grab the full plate. It looked a bit heavy.
She stumbled slightly as her hand fazed through the plate and ribs, sighing deeply. The angel cackled again.
“I got you again?! God, blondie, how dumb can you be?” he jabbed a finger at her, shit-eating grin tightly on his face.
Charlie tried to keep her face neutral, but she could feel herself frowning. This is what angels are like?
—
36 minutes. Vaggie wasn’t timing it, but Charlie had been gone for 36 minutes and 23 seconds. Had the meeting started already? Was it over already? She tapped a pen to her papers, reading over what she’d written. It was by no means a masterpiece, but it was better than Alastor’s bullshit.
“OK,” Vaggie did her best to smile at the hotel’s attendants. “Charlie’s dealing with something very important. So while she’s gone, we’re making a new commercial, one that represents our goals here.”
Angel raised a lazy hand, not waiting for Vaggie to acknowledge it. “Ya plan on filming a whole commercial in like an hour?”
Husker rolled his eyes at that, shifting away from him and Nifty on the couch. None of them were particularly paying attention, and honestly, Vaggie was surprised Angel cared enough to ask questions. Still, this was going to be important, so she pressed on.
“No. We plan on shooting a commercial in an hour.” Vaggie retorted. “Which means we need a camera. Alastor?”
She held her hand out expectantly, forced smile still present. With a snap and a puff of green smoke, a photo camera appeared in her hand. Vaggie sighed, holding the thing up for a moment to confirm that it didn’t even have a screen, just a lens on each side and a little kickstand. She rolled her eyes and held it out.
“A video camera, Alastor.”
This time, though Alastor made his annoyance apparent, an old video camera appeared in her hands. Light pink with tape keeping certain parts of it together, but with a flip-out screen and a record button. Good enough.
“Alright, let’s get started!” Vaggie cheered. “Husker, you and Angel go sit at the bar.”
“What?” Husker grimaced. “I gotta shoot with this bastard?”
He jerked his thumb over at Angel, who had brought out a small mirror and some lipstick while Vaggie talked. He rubbed his lips together before answering.
“Normally, I’d charge both of you for pointing a camera at me.” he sighed, fixing the bow of his lip. “But I do appreciate you finally admitting that putting me in a commercial is your smartest bet here. I’m in!”
“I wasn’t really giving you a choice.” Vaggie corrected.
Angel stood and stretched. “That’s nice, where’s the script?”
Husker leaned back on the couch, watching Nifty zip off to who knows where. “I ain’t filming with him,” he insisted.
“Husker,” Vaggie pressed. “It’ll just be for like five minutes. You weren’t doing anything anyway.”
“Yeah. I liked that.”
“You’re the bartender . I need you for the scene at the bar.”
He sat for a moment longer, glancing around the room. Eventually, he sighed and stretched his wings out, standing like it was the hardest thing to do in the world. “Ya got five minutes.”
“All I need.”
Once in position, Vaggie lined up her own shot. Angel sat on one of the end stools, relaxed but pointedly turned towards the camera. Behind the bar, Husker was turned partially toward Angel, script covering the lower half of his face.
“Aaand, Action!” Vaggie announced.
Husker brought the script closer, reading the parts Vaggie had highlighted for him. “Welcome to the Hazbin Hotel.” he read robotically. “Can I help you with anything.”
At his cue, Angel leaned forward, chest first, and brought a finger to his cheek. “Oh, I’ve been such a bad boy! I need a big, strong daddy to put me in my place-”
He leaned closer to Husk, subtly glancing over to the script to check his lines and he practically crawled onto the bar.
“-on the path to redemption!”
Husker groaned, rolling his eyes. It wasn’t in the script, but Vaggie couldn’t blame him.
“Well,” he muttered, entirely too quiet for the camera to catch. “You’ve come-”
Angel moaned- also not in the script.
“... to the right place.”
“Cut!” Vaggie groaned. “Angel, what was that?”
“Magic,” Angel deadpanned, crawling back into his position on the stool. “Movie magic.”
Vaggie deleted the footage she’d just filmed. “Ok, no. We’re starting over.”
Ignoring the sigh from Husker, Vaggie lined herself up again and hit record. “Action.”
“Well, you’ve come to the right place.” Husker read, looking up directly at the camera.
“No, cut. Husker I meant start from the beginning of the scene.”
Husker set the papers down. “How was I supposed to know that?” he demanded.
“Yeah, Vags, you’re supposed to say ‘from line 1,’ or just ‘from the top’.” Angel agreed, pointing on his own paper to where they’d numbered their lines.
“Ok, ok, from line 1, we’re starting with ‘welcome to the Hazbin Hotel’, got it?”
They both nodded, and Vaggie hit record. Again.
“Action.”
“Welcome to the Hazbin Hotel.” Husker deadpanned again. “Can I help you with-” He brought the script closer to his face. “Anything.”
“Ngh~ I’ve been such a bad boy, Husky. I need a big, strong daddy to put me in my-”
Angel clattered to the floor as Husker pushed him off the bar, knocking a stool over on top of him on his way down. Husker huffed, clutching the script in front of him like a shield from Angel’s libido.
“Cut!” Husker called for himself. “Angel, the fuck you think you’re doing?”
“Adding character?” Angel supplied as he pushed the stool off of him. “To make up for your bullshit acting?”
“Do I look like an actor to you?” Husker wrapped around the bar, wings raised and hair on end.
“You look like you can’t read with the way you’ve got the script in front of your face.” Angel rose up from the floor to flip his acting partner off. “We’re filming! You gotta at least look at me while we’re filming,”
“I can’t memorize all that shit, I got like 20 lines!”
“Well, why don’t we just improv this shit, puppy?”
Husker took a full step back from Angel, looking more like he wanted to pounce than put any distance between them. “Puppy?!”
“Hey!” Vaggie yelled, waving her arms in the air to get the boys’ attention. “Can you two chill the fuck out for two minutes while we film? Angel, quit being a perv. Husker, at least try to not sound like a robot. Capiche?”
“Yeah,” Angel crossed his arms, his weight falling onto one foot. “Capiche.”
“No, no not capiche.” Husker threw the script down in front of Vaggie. “Find me someone else to act with and I’ll do ya stupid script. I didn’t come here to be a porn lead.”
“Husk!” Vaggie groaned, watching him take out a half-empty bottle. “Come on.”
—
Charlie sat across from the Angels, hands folded awkwardly in her lap as she nodded along with their monologue. The man had begun rambling the moment she sat down. He’d asked her about her weekend and then cut her off immediately to start raving about himself. Again.
A glance at the clock told her it had been about 50 minutes, weren’t they only supposed to be here for an hour? Well, if this guy was so casual about them talking, maybe he was planning on letting the meeting run longer.
“And then I fucked his sister, ha!” The angel sure swore a lot for, well, an angel. “And he was all like ‘Adam what the fuck!’ and I told him it was his fault for introducing me to such a slut. I mean, with the way she was dressed and everything, I don’t know what he thought was going to happen.”
“What…” Charlie suppressed a sigh. “What was it was she wearing, again?”
“Turtleneck and an ugly ass khaki skirt.” he supplied.
Maybe slut means something different in Heaven.
“Anyway, then he told me that just cause I basically invented sex didn’t mean I could fuck his sister. Something about her being married, I dunno, she came on to me so like-“
“Wait, what do you mean you invented sex?” Charlie tilted her head sideways, had this Angel helped in the invention of man?
“I dunno, like, I was the first guy to do it. Well, ya know, I was the first guy so I got to do a lotta shit like that, hah!”
“First guy? As in the first man- do you mean you-“ Charlie looked the man up and down, just now noticing the giant A on his shirt.
This man tried to fuck my mother.
“Oh. That… explains a lot.”
“I know.” Adam, the first man, held up a peace sign. “I fucking rock.”
Charlie was quickly coming to realize she had a terrible poker face. She forced a grin instead as she stood.
“Well, Adam, sir… mister Adam. I mean-“
“Call me dickmaster.”
“Ahah, Adam.” Charlie pushed her chair back to move closer. “You seem like… well you seem like a stand-up guy. A real… man.”
Adam sucked the meat off another rib, nodding along as he chewed.
“And I know you, as the leader of the angels, are a big thinker.” Charlie pushed, she stood up, and gestured around her. “A revolutionary. A genius!”
“Hey, I mean,” Adam smiled, rolling his eyes. “Your words babe.”
“I’m sure that since you are so innovative, you might love to put your name on something great.”
“Oh, I love putting my name on shit!” Suddenly, Adam was excited, and he stood up with her. “Taking credit for shit’s the best!”
“Then I would love your help with something.” here it is, Charlie, your foot in the door. “A solution to our biggest problem!”
“Holy shit.” Adam grinned wide, slamming his hands on the table and leaning towards Charlie. “Did you fucking cure Herpes?”
Charlie blinked, leaning back a bit.
“How the fuck did you do that? Well, I mean,” Adam sat back down, looking Charlie up and down. “If every bitch in here looks like you, I’m sure you’ve got reason to.”
“No.” Each word Adam spoke took a second for Charlie to process. “No, not herpes… What do you mean by-”
“Not herpes? Ah well,” Adam looked up at the ceiling, trying to guess. “Ugly people? Nah, math? Global warming? No, wait, that’s Earth’s problem. Oh! Fanfiction writers!”
Charlie took a step back, shaking her head. “No, Adam, I mean-”
“I got it! It’s like… oh I dunno how to describe it but you know when you’re on a date.” Adam held his hands up to make a movie screen. “And it’s like your fifth date and she still hasn’t spread ‘em yet? And she’s also still expecting you to pay? Those people! Those people are our biggest problem. It’s like, hey! I thought you wanted equality, what’s all this?” He blew a raspberry with his tongue, rolling his eyes.
“I mean our issue with overpopulation in Hell.” Charlie spat out. The quicker she could get a sentence out, the better.
“Huh?” Adam’s eyebrows furrowed together, he looked back down at Charlie. “What makes you think that’s a problem?”
—
“Goddamnit I give up.” Vaggie pinched the bridge of her nose with one hand. “Alastor!”
Radio static popped from behind her, and as Vaggie turned around, she was loath to find Alastor had actually appeared. He stood a head above her, yellow teeth displayed through his fake-ass grin.
“Yes, my dear?” he chirped.
Vaggie glared, crossing her arms as she spoke. “Where’s Nifty? I’ve been looking for her for like an hour.”
Alastor tipped his head up in thought for a second, humming as he considered. “Fourth floor.”
They were on the eighth floor, Vaggie suppressed a sigh. “Thanks, Alastor, I just nee-”
“Now, fifth floor.” He tilted his head to the side. “West wing. Sixth- fourth floor.”
“Quit fucking around, do you know where she is or not?”
The demon nodded once, glancing back down at Vaggie. “She’s heading up now.”
“From the fourth floor? Are you sure she’s heading here?”
He nodded again, stepping slightly to the side as Vaggie looked around. The elevators were across the hall, but they were right next to the stairs. Vaggie supposed she could wait here for a moment.
Before she could process it, a gust of wind whizzed past her, pulling her skirt tight to her legs and buzzing down the hallway. Vaggie’s flinch was more of a reboot as she glanced around her, wondering if she’d imagined the rapid movement from the stairs. She gripped her spear.
“Who the-”
“Oh, Nifty, darling!” Alastor held a hand to his mouth and leaned past Vaggie.
The wind came back.
Suddenly, next to Vaggie was their cleaning lady. She carried her typical sewing needle as well as an empty bucket. Smiling as wide as she always was, Nifty blinked at Alastor twice.
“Uh,” Vaggie looked between the two of them, trying to remember her goal. “What were you just doing?”
“Bugs!” Nifty sang, holding her needle out for emphasis. It might as well have been a spear itself, compared to Nifty’s tiny body the thing looked massive.
Vaggie decided not to question it. “Ok. Well. I need you in the commercial, your line is just ‘we have the cleanest rooms.’ ya got it?”
Nifty nodded energetically, putting her bucket down to wipe off her skirt. At least she wants to do this. Vaggie opened her video camera and took a step back, lining herself up as Alastor circled around to stand a few feet behind.
“Ok. Go ahead.” Vaggie gave a thumbs up.
With a deep breath in, Nifty opened her mouth to give her lines.
And then she didn’t.
Instead, the tiny cleaner stared at the camera, mouth agape, singular eye staring straight ahead. She stared past the camera, past Vaggie. Quietly, Vaggie could still hear her breathing.
“Uh.” she closed the camera. “Cut.”
Nifty popped back into consciousness. “How was that?” She asked with a giggle.
“So…” Vaggie glanced behind her at Alastor. “You, uh, you actually have to say the line, Nifty.”
“Oh.” Nifty looked disappointed, but nodded and smiled. “I can do it again!”
Vaggie nodded back, opening the camera and hitting the record button.
Nifty froze again. She slumped forward a bit, breathing through her mouth like before.
“... Cut.” Vaggie stopped recording, looking down at the camera.
“In my opinion,” Alastor said, making Vaggie jump and spin around. “You should use the second shot, much more emotion in it.”
“Shut the fuck up.” Vaggie shook her head and shoved past Alastor, making her way downstairs. “Thank you, Nifty.”
“You’re welcome!” Came Nifty’s oddly genuine response.
All eight flights of stairs helped Vaggie think through what to do. What could she do? Was she going to be able to make this commercial in time? Hell, would she be able to get a single good shot before Charlie came home? As she reached the first floor, she opened the camera again and started flicking through the footage
“Hey Vagina!” Angel called, peeking his head into the foyer. “How’s filming going?”
Vaggie threw the camera on a nearby couch. “Angel I swear to fuck if you call me that again I’m going to kill you.”
Angel put his hands up in mock surrender, smirk still confidently in place. “Chill out. You done filming yet?”
She shook her head, picking up the camera again. “I can probably fix some of this in post I guess.”
The porn star laughed at her, waving a hand in the air as if to fan her confidence away from him. “Sure, toots. Good luck with that.”
Half an hour later, Vaggie was starting to give up on her ideas of video editing. The footage she had was unusable, and Charlie would be back any moment. This was hopeless. As the video played in front of her, Vaggie slumped into her chair. Charlie was going to come back to nothing.
“Seems like you’re having a bit of trouble there, hm?” Alastor’s voice made Vaggie jump.
The demon came from around the back of her chair, an extra spring in his step as he leaned over her. He smirked. He always smirked.
“Este pendejo,” Vaggie whispered. “Why are you even here?”
Alastor sauntered over to a nearby couch, sitting down across from Vaggie but not looking at her. He hummed, glancing at the TV Vaggie had been using to ‘edit’ her commercial.
“For the entertainment,” He shrugged, as if it were obvious. “I came here because I love seeing wasteful souls struggle to accomplish something meaningful, only to fail spectacularly!”
That was on the nose . Vaggie rolled her eyes, she could never tell if this jackass was being sarcastic or not.
“Fortunately for me,” Alastor continued. “That’s precisely what you are doing right now. Good job!”
He stood up again, bowing to her as if she’d done him some great service. That shit-eating grin drove Vaggie insane, before she could register what she was doing, she’d risen from her chair and hit record on her camera.
“Here’s Alastor!” She chirped, mocking his ceaselessly peppy tone. “The most egocentric piece of shit tha-”
The Camera exploded.
No. Not exploded. Though the shock of it hurt her hands; it seemed more like the camera had turned into smoke, green and sour smelling, and puffed up into the air. Vaggie yelped, looking at her hands for burn marks before rubbing them on her skirt. The dark room began to illuminate with green light, the smoke pulled close to the ground to circle around her.
Alastor stood up straighter, if possible, his grin becoming a warning, like an animal showing off. “I wouldn’t try that, my dear! This face was made for the radio.”
Despite herself, Vaggie scrambled backward, falling back onto the chair she’d just sat on. She huffed as the light faded, dusting herself off. Alastor was not going to fuck with her. She’d die before she let him get a leg up.
“That is it.” She spat. “I don’t care who or what you are, demon. If you’re staying here, you are going to make this work. It’s not gonna be too entertaining to watch after an empty hotel, now is it?”
Alastor raised an eyebrow. He looked like he was about to speak, but Vaggie cut him off.
“You’re either gonna stay out of the way or help.” Vaggie stuck a finger at him, almost touching his chest. “And judging by the last ‘surprise’ you had for us, I’m willing to bet staying out of the way is your form of help.”
She turned away from him to sit back down, but not before noticing the slight bob of his shoulders. Was he laughing at this?
“Fair enough.” he agreed, taking a step towards her.
“Great. Now. Give me the camera back.” Vaggie stuck her hand out, waiting.
When he didn’t comply, she moved to stand back up, but Alastor held a finger out, stopping her.
“I believe I have a better idea.” He said, leaning backward and looking over at the TV.
Unlikely. “Like what?” Vaggie let her head fall against her fist, regarding Alastor with a sneer.
He hummed again, turning around and walking in a small circle. “Well, we both know that film was unusable. Aside from Angel’s ‘acting’, no one could even remember those simple lines you wrote for them!”
That was true, but Vaggie only leaned a bit forward, refusing to give Alastor any indication that she cared.
“You could go back to filming with those fools again, but what would be the point? They’d only give you the same, sad performance they’ve already shown you.”
Alastor sang each line, seeming to make himself more and more excited. It took Vaggie a moment to admit that he was right. She wasn’t going to get the others to film a good commercial. At the same time, she had no other option.
“Ok, smartass, what’s the alternative?”
“I say,” Alastor turned back to Vaggie to put a hand over his chest. “We make a deal, in re-”
“Ha!” Vaggie stood up, rolling her eyes. “You think I’m stupid? I’m not giving my soul to a demon like you.”
“Your soul? No no, not for a silly little commercial.” Alastor laughed back, shaking his head. “Deals aren’t always for souls, my dear, and I’m much more creative than that.”
“Oh creative, that’s what we’re calling it?” Vaggie threw a hand up. “Knowing you, you’ll just find some stupid way to phrase it and take my soul anyway.”
Alastor laughed again, coming to stand beside Vaggie and clap his hand on her shoulder. She flinched back, but he held on to her firmly.
“I’m afraid you value yourself too much, my dear. I have no need for your soul.” Alastor pat her shoulder once before letting her go. “No, I only want a… well a favor, I suppose.”
Vaggie didn’t feel a need to even respond to Alastor’s games. He was an idiot if he thought he’d get Vaggie to make a deal with her over anything. As she turned around, ready to leave, the woman had already started planning how to film a new commercial. She could figure this out on her own. Maybe the commercial wouldn’t be ready before Charlie got back, but Vaggie wasn’t about to let her girlfriend down. Not when she’d need something to pick her up after talking with-
“Of course,” Alastor shrugged. “I suppose your alternative is to let Charlie come home to absolutely nothing. After she’s been out all day communing with the heavens, the only thing you have to show her is some lousy footage of her failing dream.”
Vaggie froze. Hand outstretched to push open the front door.
“If you couldn’t get the others to listen to you twenty minutes ago, why would they listen now?” he continued. “Truly, now, I am impressed that you got as much out of them as you did. But you’re not going to get anymore.”
A sigh pushed through Vaggie’s shoulders. She slouched. “I’ll figure it out.”
“You won’t.” Alastor sang, Vaggie could hear him coming up behind her. “And Charlie will see how much you’re failing as her business partner.”
He was right behind her now, standing just far enough away that Vaggie could see his shadow reaching over hers. Despite herself, she slumped down, leaning against the doorway. He was right .
“Neither of us are half as optimistic as that girl,” Vaggie nodded as Alastor spoke. “We both know something’s coming out of it. What will our poor princess do when she comes home? Distraught, panicked. What will make her smile again?”
Every part of her told Vaggie that there was another option, but she turned back around. An arm's length away, Alastor seemed to smile wider, if that was possible. The two stood in tense silence, though Vaggie wasn’t considering his words anymore.
“OK.” It hurt to push the word out. “What do you want from me?”
“Just a favor,” Alastor promised. “So long as I never have to engage in this frivolous television technology after today, I will make the commercial for you.”
Vaggie almost went to fight him on it, but he held a hand up to stop her. “A good commercial. If one outside of radio exists, that is.”
Fuck . did she have a choice? No, Charlie needed this hotel to succeed, and they needed patrons for that. Vaggie sighed, sticking her hand out.
“Fine.” She managed.
Alastor didn’t even take her hand, just snapped his fingers. More green light filled the room, taking shapes and slowly materializing into chairs, lights, cameras, and microphones. A stack of paper appeared in Vaggie’s hands, the front page only read “Script 3”. The small, imp-like demons Vaggie had come to associate with Alastor’s magic popped out from the shadows, grabbing hold of microphones and turning on lights.
More of the green glow materialized into her crew. Angel, Nifty, and Husker were suddenly present, wearing nice suits and dresses as they stumbled away from Alastor’s magic.
As she looked around, Vaggie felt herself change too. The magic tickled, it was cold and light, tracing up her body. Looking down, she saw a long, pink and gray sundress. She could feel the weight of a wide-brimmed hat on her head as well. Best not to question it.
“Alright, everyone!” She cheered, taking a minor note of the camera she now held. “We’re making a fucking commercial.”
—
“What?” Charlie’s arms dropped to her sides. “How could it not be a problem?”
Adam rolled his eyes. “Tits, we have exterminations. That’s like, my whole job. So we have that problem covered, yeah?”
He nodded, and Charlie shook her head, hands pressing down on the table. Was he kidding? Was this another prank? Charlie couldn’t see the humor in it, she opened her mouth to speak but-
“I mean, Lute.” Adam gestured to the stoic angel behind him. She was all gray, with curling ram’s horns, straight black hair, and gray wings. “How many demons did you kill yesterday?”
The angel stepped forward, still in parade rest. “An estimated 275 this year, sir.”
The number made Adam whistle, impressed. Charlie felt sick. 275 of her people, slaughtered by one angel. She knew of towns that had that many people, she’d visited towns with less . Two hundred and seventy-five. It was a fraction of the total dead, but it was a stark reality check. These weren’t just angels. These were murderers.
Not just murderers. Charlie thought. Angel, Nifty, Vaggie, Charlie knew plenty of murderers. No, She decided. These people are something else . Something worse.
Adam said something. Lute gave him a fistbump.
“How could you be proud of that? Those are my people.” Charlie found herself speaking before she knew her mouth had opened. “You know that… right?”
Adam nodded jerkily, sucking in a breath as if that hadn’t occurred to him. “Oh, yeah.” He nodded again, a smirk regrowing on his lips. “That must suck for you! Haha!”
“But,” Charlie looked between the two, trying to find an emotion between them. “These are souls. Human souls. Just the same as the ones you have up in Heaven.”
“Not the same.” Lute spat, a sneer seemed to be stuck on her face. “They had their chance and they earned damnation. That just so happens to also earn them extermination.”
“Earn?” Charlie shook her head. “You think they earned this? Over a few mistakes? everyone makes mistakes.”
“Mistakes? Angels don’t make mistakes.” Lute scoffed.
Charlie gave up on hiding her frown, scowling back at Lute. “You honestly think that?”
“I know that.” The angel insisted.
“Yeah,” Adam chuckled. “I’ve never made a mistake in my fucking life.”
It took too long for Charlie to find words. The angels both loomed over her, confident and uncaring. Lute moved from her position, circling the table with a growing tightness in her shoulders. Each step toward Charlie seemed to disgust her.
“All of you deserve the fate we give you.” Lute promised. “In fact, the only reason you’re still alive is because your daddy gave you a pardon from an exorcist’s blade.”
Me and the rest of the Hellborn. Charlie thought. But he didn’t fight for a single sinner’s life.
“How does it feel,” she continued. “to know how little you matter?”
Charlie bit her tongue. This wasn’t the time to discuss her father’s failures, this was the time to fix them. Still, it was hard not to shrink away from the angel’s unsheathed spear.
“Oh fuck.” Adam commented, looking down at his wrist. “We’re almost out of time, looks like we should get into it.”
He cracked his knuckles, looking Charlie up and down. “You gonna get into your whole spiel about saving people, or?”
Charlie jolted upwards. Okay, this is your shot . She took a breath and raced to the other side of the table, pulling notes and flashcards out of her pockets.
“Okay! Fuck, I’ve got a lot to get through, and not a lot of time. I really feel like you weren’t listening to me earlier, so I’m gonna start over.” Charlie scrambled to take hold of a few visual aids (that she’d drawn herself) to show Adam and Lute.
“So I know Hell’s population is out of control, and the main way we’ve been trying to fix it is through your exterminations, but I think a far more effective method would be redemption! If we could improve those sinners, and make them into good people, then we could move their souls into Heaven! Which would ease the-”
“Lemme stop you there.” Adam held a hand up, cocking his head to the side to make sure Charlie had stopped talking. “You think it’d be more effective?”
“... Yeah?” Charlie leaned forward, holding up her drawing of her hotel. “If we had a space dedicat-”
“No. No. Hold on, I said let me stop you.” Adam waved his hand up again, keeping it in front of her face. “As in, you’re done talking now.”
“No I’m-”
Adam continued without pause. “Yes you are. Let’s think about how long it takes to kill someone. Like 20 seconds. Max.” He brought his hand down, moving to stand. “How long will it take to redeem a demon? What makes you think that they would even change? That’s never happened before.”
Charlie pulled out a different page, shaking her head. “No, listen.”
“Sorry babe, but the rules are set in stone about this for a reason. We have a system that works.” He pointed his thumb down, smiling slightly. “Anyone in Hell is just sitting around until we kill them again.”
“What-”
Adam held his hand up again. “You’re still done talking. We’re going to continue our exterminations. They're useful, they work. I mean, they’re fun as hell, but technically that’s not important.” he laughed a bit. “Heaven likes them so much, actually, that they’ve approved a little plan of my own. It’s actually why I called this meeting.”
Instead of asking, Charlie stared at Adam, waiting for him to continue. He grinned. She flinched.
“We’re gonna do the exterminations twice a year now.” he nodded, summoning a gold scroll with the ordinance signed. Actually, all it read was fuck you I do what I want. “So we’ll see you back in six months.”
Clearly, he expected some kind of outburst. Adam grinned wide as he rolled the scroll back up, snapping it out of existence. However, Charlie had frozen in her place, mouth open as she tried to understand what Adam had just said.
Six months. The Exterminations had moved to every six months. This wasn’t a request, they were just going to do it.
Charlie managed to breathe.
They would, naturally, wipe twice the amount of people out. More, maybe. Hell was still steadily growing in population even with the exterminations. But if they doubled the amount of death, they’d shrink to nothing within the first few years.
She looked from Lute to Adam, waiting for someone to laugh.
Charlie’s breath came in deep pants, feeling something twitch inside her. Every demon had at least two forms. Exceptionally powerful demons, usually hellborn, had three. It was a step in power, it was also a step away from control. Charlie felt herself grow in size with each breath. With each pant it was harder to consider reigning herself in.
”What.” She demanded. Her voice distorted itself between her rapidly expanding vocal chords.
The building shook. Charlie was acutely aware that she wasn’t doing that. Neither Adam nor Lute spoke, though Lute gripped her spear tighter. Adam still grinned, leaning back in his chair.
Horns forced themselves out of Charlie’s skull, her perspective of color shifted into warmer colors as the whites of her eyes turned black. She was a head taller than seconds ago. Charlie shook from the dawning realization of what was going to happen.
This was genocide. Her people would be gone in a few years, and no new sinner would have more than six months before getting picked off. Charlie stepped closer without realizing it, and Adam snapped his fingers.
The building creaked with how much it shook, the walls and windows cracking. Charlie felt herself falling, shaking with the building. She drew in a breath to scream at Adam, but before she could, her vision turned black entirely. The floor threw her backwards, and she stumbled forward.
Hitting the door in front of her.
The door. The golden, crested, Embassy door. She stood on pristine white steps, surrounded by red buildings and dark skies.
Charlie drew a breath, and considered counting how many more she had left.
—-
Almost done. Vaggie wasn’t sure how long she’d been editing the video, time seemed to slow a bit as she’d begun recording. As she neared finishing, she stretched her shoulders out, grinning at her work. In a few minutes, she’d be able to send Alastor the video, and he’d give it to some local station to air. Apparently, he had a few favors to cash in, whatever that meant.
Just as Vaggie turned back to her work, she heard a knock at her door. She could see a furry, winged form in the reflection of her computer. Husker held a full glass up in offering as she turned around.
“Figured you’d want something to celebrate with.” He offered, crossing over to place the glass on her desk.
The drink was a muted green. It smelled of gin and lemon, in the middle of it sat a peppermint leaf. Vaggie smiled in thanks and picked it up, sipping it cautiously. It was bitter and citrusy, but oddly refreshing. She took a longer sip.
“Thank you,” she said quietly, setting it down so she could get back to work.
Husker didn’t respond, instead, he studied to screen, looking through the parts that Vaggie had trimmed up. His eyes landed specifically on a shot of him and Nifty, who they’d learned could act as long as she wasn’t looking at the camera.
“Think you’ll be able to fix up my shitty acting?” he asked lightheartedly.
“I kind of already did.” Vaggie hummed, clicking on the shot and letting it play. The bartender still sounded incredibly stiff, but you couldn’t tell where he was reading his lines from, which gave the impression that he was only a bit tired.
Husker laughed a bit. “That must’ve taken forever. You’re really determined to get this out today, huh?”
Vaggie shrugged, reaching over her desk for a hard drive. “Charlie’s been going through it today, figured she’d need something good.”
That made Husker nod, he furrowed his bushy eyebrows as he did. “What about this meeting she’s at? Ain’t that supposed to be something good?”
Vaggie stayed silent for a long time, uploading and exporting the video before she found her words. “This close to an extermination?” she paused, still searching. “I can’t imagine they want to just tell her that they like her idea and head home, ya know?”
Husker scoffed, but nodded, expression growing grim with realization. He rested a hand on the back of her chair. “Sweet of you to want to help her out. She seemed pretty damn jumpy today.”
“Yeah, well, she doesn’t like the exterminations.” It took Vaggie an extra moment to respond, taking the flash drive back out of the computer. “They freak her out a lot, I think she thinks it’s her responsibility to fix it all.”
A humorless chuckle left Husker, though he smiled genuinely. “You love her a lot, huh?”
Vaggie felt her cheeks heat up. She stood up too fast, accidentally knocking the chair over. Luckily, Husker was able to get out of the way before the chair hit the floor, laughing lightheartedly.
“It’s… she’s the first serious relationship I’ve had.” She cringed through each word. “I just wanna have her back through this.”
Husker held his hands up, still smiling slightly. “Wasn’t saying it like it was a bad thing. You too are the closest thing to cute you can get down here.”
Thinking he was sarcastic, Vaggie shot a glare at Husker, bending down to pick the chair up. However, the man was just smiling. Tired and apathetic as he typically was, he seemed genuine in this one moment. Vaggie coughed as she reached out for the glass of gin again.
“Thanks.” she mumbled.
Husker nodded, stepping back as Vaggie rose from her chair. Flash drive in hand, she found herself grinning. This was it, she’d done it. The commercial would be on air in an hour, tops. All she needed was to wait for Charlie to come home.
“Right. I need to give this to Alastor.” She said, holding the drive up between her fingers.
“I’ll leave you to i-” Husker froze for a moment as a whoosh of air interrupted them.
Radio static crackled and vanished before Vaggie could turn to address it. She barely managed to turn her head as the black and red silhouette loomed behind her, snatching the drive from her hand and disappearing. Absently, Vaggie thought she heard a distorted “Why thank you!” as he left.
Both Vaggie and Husker stood still for a moment, waiting for something else to happen. Nothing in the room had changed except for the now missing drive, which (Vaggie had checked) had not just been moved to some other part of the room.
“Well.” Husker checked behind him. “I guess I won’t leave you to it.”
Vaggie nodded, mostly to herself, cautiously moving back into her chair. Husker seemed to have relaxed as soon as Alastor was out of the room, but Vaggie was less sure. Eventually, Husker reached behind Vaggie for the now empty glass on her desk.
“Are you a fan of gin?” he asked, picking the mint out of the glass. “I haven’t seen you drink anything, so I just kinda guessed.”
Overcoming her shock, Vaggie shrugged. “I liked that one, I’m not a big drinker though.”
That seemed to surprise Husker, he raised an eyebrow. “Really? Is it ‘cause of the hotel?”
“No, not really. I just never…” The manager trailed off, glancing away. “It’s… uh… Charlie. She doesn’t drink either so I…”
Husker chuckled, nodding as if he understood. “You’re damn loyal to her, huh? That’s sweet of ya.”
“Yeah.” Vaggie laughed back, eyes still fixed on the carpet.
“So you man-”
Husker was cut off again by a much quieter noise. Both of them paused at the soft sound of a door opening down the hall, followed by a few cautious footsteps.
“I’m home!” Charlie called.
She sounds upset. In seconds, Vaggie was out of her chair and rushing to Charlie. She scooped her lover up into her arms and held her tightly. Charlie, clearly surprised, yelped as she was grabbed, but quickly hugged Vaggie back. The two stood there for a moment, not speaking, as Vaggie waited for Charlie to move back. When she did, the two still held hands, Vaggie looking up searchingly into Charlie’s eyes.
“How did it go?” Vaggie asked, tone cautious. “Did they listen?”
Watching Charlie’s face fall further, Vaggie squeezed her hands tighter. “They… I told them about it, but…”
Charlie barely had the strength to speak, instead pulled Vaggie back into a hug, using the weight to ground herself. Vaggie held onto her again, running a hand up and down her back.
“Whatever happened.” Vaggie promised. “We’ll deal with it.”
With a deep breath, Charlie moved back again. She nodded, they could find a way to handle this. They just needed time.
“They had called the meeting to tell us tha-”
“All done!” Alastor appeared with a snap of static energy, hands raised above his head in celebration.
Both girls jumped, Vaggie grabbing her spear and instinctively pushing Charlie behind her. Alastor stood two feet away from them, grinning mischievously. He brought his hands down to his sides as Vaggie sighed, deciding that he wasn’t a big enough threat to attack right then.
“Thank you, Alastor, when did they say it would air?” She asked.
The Radio Demon stood up straighter, shoulders back, as if he were proud of himself. “In two minutes!”
Charlie looked between the two of them, leaning slightly into Vaggie’s line of view. “What’s airing?” she asked, still glancing from Alastor to Vaggie.
“Oh!” Vaggie grabbed Charlie’s shoulders with a newfound excitement. “We made a commercial.”
“You… really?” Vaggie watched as Charlie’s eyes slowly lit up, smiling tugging back onto her lips. “While I was gone?”
Vaggie grinned as she nodded, pulling Charlie further into the hotel. “I wanted to surprise you, so we all made a commercial while you were gone. Alastor helped us get it on the air.”
“That’s…” Charlie looked around at the others, smiling softly as they all made their way over to the foyer. “Thank you guys, thank you so much.”
Charlie sat down on the couch as Angel smiled back at her. “You better be grateful, this was one of my better performances.”
“Thank you.” She repeated, nearly in a whisper.
Vaggie sat down next to her, flipping the TV over to the right channel. She knocked her shoulder against Charlie’s, smiling softly as Charlie giggled.
“We’ll talk about the meeting in a second.” Vaggie promised. “And we’ll handle it, but for no-”
“Shuttup!” Angel leaned over to bat at Vaggie’s arm. “It’s starting!”
In front of them, the TV displayed a steady shot of the front of the hotel. Vaggie stood on one side of it, with Husker and Angel on the other. Playful music accompanied the shot as Vaggie opened her mouth to speak.
“Welcome to the Hazbin Ho-”
The video changed. Not to another shot, but to a news channel. The words “Breaking News” covered the channel’s logo.
“Fuck!” Angel yelled, accompanied by the rest of the residents’ shouting and scoffing as well.
“Breaking news in Hell today!” Some pale, skinny reporter announced, the tag under her read Katie Killjoy. “We have just received news from the Heaven embassy that the next extermination will be happening sooner than ever before!”
Everyone in the room tensed. Husker even stood from his seat. Charlie sunk back into hers.
“Do you know what that means, Tom?” the reporter turned to her cohost, a shorter man in a mask.
“No!” the man exclaimed, overly rehearsed. “What does that mean, Katie?”
“It means we’re all royally fucked!”
The scene changed to one of the many clock towers in Hell, each had a countdown under the actual time. Charlie and the others watched as the timer wound down from 364 to 176, screaming echoing through the camera.
“What?!” Angel shouted, leaning closer to the television. “Why? Why the hell are they doing that?”
“Interesting indeed,” Alastor hummed.
“It’s… that’s what the meeting was for.” Charlie breathed, feeling more than seeing everyone’s eyes turn towards her. “They brought me there to warn us. They said-”
She couldn’t bring herself to talk further, instead digging her nails into the legs of her pants.
“Are you kidding?” Angel pressed, pushing himself to stand up. “Did they give you a reason?”
Charlie nodded. “They said it was for fun . That they were gonna do it twice a year now because exterminators liked killing us too much to wait.”
Everyone watched as Charlie shouted that last bit, looking up at Angel with fearful, desperate eyes. The room held still for a long moment before Vaggie reached for Charlie’s shoulder. The princess felt her eyes water before she could stop it, and soon she was pressed into Vaggie’s side, angry tears rolling down her cheeks.
—
“Shit. What the shit.”
Panic was spreading across Hell. The streets flooded with panicked sinners and hellborn, all running to check the nearest clock towers. Chaos would break out soon, every sinner would assume they’d die in half a year. They’d be desperate, panicked, worried beyond worry about their safety. Or, they’d be trying to make the most of what they had; killing, stealing, and raping their way through the next six months until roughly half of the population would be lost again.
A smart man would make money off of it.
Vox was the smartest man he knew.
“What to do.” he muttered. “What do I do?”
Vox was relatively short, for demonic standards. Slim, broad-shouldered, he paced his TV room, watching screens flash the carnage that was already breaking out among them. He’d have to capitalize on both reactions, one was much easier than the other. Vox sighed, stopping in the middle of the screens. What were people doing right now?
Buildings were on fire, corpses lined the streets, an unsurprising amount of people had sex in the middle of the road. Vox remembered his first trip to the Doomsday District, this made that look like child’s play.
“I can work with this.” He said to himself. “Revenge tactics for the murdered isn’t a bad idea, maybe some way to keep track of the people who tried to kill you. Arson isn’t anything new, we can release flamethrowers and then flamethrower-resistant windows. Give them about a month apart.”
He continued to mutter, eyes flicking from screen to screen. Vox had a habit of getting enveloped in new product ideas, sometimes too enveloped to realize his phone was ringing.
Right now, luckily, was not one of those times.“Hello?”
“Vox!” A high voice cheered. “I knew you’d pick up before Valentino, I knew it.”
The man sighed, not bothering to look down at his phone while he planned. “Hello, Velvette. Did you see the news?”
“I can’t think of a single bitch who hasn’t.” The overlord’s cheery cockney accent was hard to understand sometimes, but Vox had grown used to it. “What’s your take on the situation?”
“People are panicking,” Vox shrugged. “I wouldn’t be surprised if they start trying to make bunkers again.”
Velvette laughed, that had been a business venture from one of the darkest times in the V’s history; the 90s.
“I meant what’s your take on the extermination?” she reiterated. “Why’s all this happening?”
Silence. Vox glanced away from the monitors and towards his phone. “I’m… not sure.” He admitted. “I wasn’t too worried about it.”
“Oh, you should be.” Velvette laughed again, devious excitement clear in her voice.
Vox knew exactly what that meant. Velvette had beaten him to capitalizing on this, and she was going to hold it over his head for years. Decades sounded more likely. Vox considered his options, but gave up quickly.
“What’d you learn?”
—
“Dead.” the angel shivered. “One of us is dead.”
“It’ll be fine!”
Several voices rose against that. No one seemed to want to listen to reason.
Typical women.
Adam rolled his shoulders out. It had been the longest day he’d ever had in his life, which technically made it the longest day in humanity. Ever since word had gotten out about their little slip-up yesterday, Adam had been forced through meeting after meeting to discuss how to fix it. Every time he assured them he had plans. Every single one of them seemed skeptical.
“Are we all going to die?” Another soldier asked.
They were all in formation, but Adam was having a hard time placating them. The soldiers overlapped each other, all talking at once with the same concern. God, they all talked so much.
“HEY!” he shouted, spreading his wings out as a beacon to get their attention. “Cool it! All of you!”
That got them to quiet down enough. Adam stepped backward, looking across the hundreds of women under his command. There were enough that he could only see the heads of the rows in the back, so he climbed up on the table behind him. He spread his wings wider, the faint golden glow making him stand out in the room of all gray.
“Alright!” he shouted, he’d have to shout loud to make sure everyone could hear him. “So some of you have heard this already, but I want to make sure everyone knows exactly what happened.”
Lute stood in front of the table, slightly to his right. She was as stoic as always, frozen in parade rest. Though Adam couldn’t see her face, she knew he was just as panicked as he was.
“One of you.” He paused, trying to recall the soldier’s name. He couldn’t even recall her face. “Fucked up and died on me.”
A gasp echoed through the crowd, and several angels muttered to themselves.
“C’mon guys,” Adam muttered, much more to himself than to anyone else. “You already knew that, we all watched it happen.”
He spoke up again. “I’m sure most of you didn’t know we could be killed. I’ll be frank with you, I didn’t either.” Adam began to pace on the tiny table he stood on. “But apparently, some of those fuckers figured it out before us.”
The muttering rose. Adam held a hand up against it.
“Does this mean we’re fucked?” Adam asked. He didn’t risk waiting for a response. “No! We’re gonna be fine! And I’ll tell you why we’re gonna be fine.” as soon as I figure that out.
The gates to the training field swung open with a bang , and Adam was confronted with the worst woman in Heaven. His boss.
“And why is that?” The tall, dark-skinned woman demanded.
The Seraphim, one of Heaven’s highest-ranking angels, held her head high as she passed through the ranks of soldiers. She was easily twice everyone’s height, and towered over Adam as he stood on his table.
“One of your recruits is dead and you plan to send them all back down into danger in six months? ” the Seraphim roared at him, her voice carried easily through the field. “How do you plan to keep them safe? Why will they be fine?”
Adam blinked up at her, racking his brain for some kind of evidence. “Uh, well… because…”
He glanced to Lute for help, the woman held her spear out in front of her, looking down at it pointedly.
“The spears!” he shouted, “The spears are too… uh… primitive!”
Another round of whispers echoed through the crowd, but Adam was too far in to back down now.
“If the demons are advancing their technology, then so are we!” He cheered, raising his hands up. “Our spears are too outdated to fight against beasts that can fight back, so we’ll upgrade. We’ll move onto arrows, shields. Shit, I’m sure we could get a gun before we attack them again.”
The angel army nodded before him, seeming confident in his words. Adam turned to his boss, and the seraphim regarded him heavily.
“That would help.” She agreed. “But where will you get the resources?”
“I’m working on that now.” Adam lied. “But I don’t want to promise anything that I don’t have yet! Give me three weeks, I’ll either have the metal to work towards guns, or I’ll have a different plan. Trust me.”
The seraphim sighed, long and heavy, but relented. She leaned away from him, leaving without a word, and Adam turned back to the angels.
“We’re going to be fine!” he insisted. “So quit worrying, and everyone smile more! Ya got it?”
The army calmed, and Adam turned to Lute, waving everyone else to fuck off.
“How was that?” he asked.
Lute looked at him in awe. “Guns? Do you really plan to make guns to kill the demons?”
“What?” Adam shook his head. “Fuck no. I don’t even know how those things work. We’ll stick to the spears, and we’ll just kill everyone when the time comes. We’ll be fine.”