Chapter 9

Son of Aries

Vanessa was finally calming down from her crying episode. Now, she was pretty much full blown pissed. Idiot had left her broken and, before that, insulted her. Now, Vanessa was about to head to the bar to get a drink, but heard a rapping at the hotel doors. She moved over to the door, walking lopsided, and pulled it open to reveal Mary and the little shit that took her arm. The little goat boy looked at her with his goat eyes and pushed past Mary to stand in front of Vanessa. Vanessa scowled down at him, growling and mumbling curses to herself. He straightened his furry goat neck up, craning it over her head. He looked down at her.

"Hey, he wants to say something. I don't know what," Mary said suddenly.

"What do you want to say?" Vanessa growled, staring at the goat. He started to write.

'Idiot told Aries.' he showed Vanessa the note, his goat eyes staring at her.

"What?!" Vanessa screeched, her face pulled down into a huge scowl. "This is a joke. You're messing with me! You're not FUCKING with me, right?!" He shifted nervously at her words and sank his head down, trying to make himself look smaller.

The goat started to write. 'No.' He showed his note to Vanessa.

Vanessa looked at the goat boy. She felt better about him than about Idiot right now. Vanessa began to chuckle and cackle, a sadistic smile growing on her face and her pupils getting smaller. He shrank more at her outburst. She soon stopped chuckling and placed a hand on the goat boy's head, looking at Mary with a thankful smile.

"Thank you for being honest with me," Vanessa hummed, rubbing his head a little before removing her hand. He lifted his head up and stood taller. He started writing again. 'You're welcome.' Mary looked up to her apparent brother and mouthed, 'Why the fuck did you tell her?' Sure, she was upset with what Idiot had done, but still, he could have kept it to himself.

"Anyway, would you two like to come in or do you have to go back to the offices?" Vanessa asked, stepping away from the doorway. The goat boy cocked his head, he paused for a moment and looked at his 'sister', seemingly asking her what they should do.

"Yeah, I wanna crash here for a bit," she admitted to the spider demon. She looked up towards her 'brother' still not comfortable around the goatlike creature, then looking away, as to not focus on the thing. He followed Mary into the hotel, trying to keep close to her in this new environment. Vanessa then placed a hand on Jeremy's shoulder.

"I never got your name. What is it?" Vanessa said, looking Jeremy in his eyes. He wrote it down on his clipboard and showed it to Vanessa. 'I'm Jeremy,' it said in neat handwriting. He kept his head low as he watched Vanessa read it, staying close to Mary. Vanessa's eyes slid over it, a smile crossing her face.

"Well, it's nice to meet you Jeremy," Vanessa said, her eyes going back up to meet him. He raised his head, relieved that she didn't hate him like his sister. He broke his gaze from her and looked around the hotel lobby, taking in his surroundings.

"Can I get either of you a drink? Alcoholic or not," Vanessa said, gesturing to the bar. Jeremy wrote again 'I'm not really supposed to drink alcohol. So, I'll have a non-alcoholic drink.'

"Pussy," Mary said, leaving his side. He watched her leave and decided to keep close to Vanessa instead.

Vanessa trotted over to the bar and made a Shirley temple for Jeremy and poured a glass of brandy for Mary. He sat down at the bar, bending his neck so his head wouldn't hit the roof of the bar. He took the Shirley temple and started to drink, relishing in its cherry flavor. Vanessa poured herself a glass of wine and took a barstool next to Jeremy. He looked at her and tried his best to smile. She looked over at him and smiled back, showing her sharp teeth. He shrank back into his seat, thinking she was angry at him. Vanessa took notice of this.

"Oh! I'm sorry! I didn't mean to scare you…" Vanessa trailed off, not wanting to make a bad impression.

"Don't worry about him. 'Dad' isn't very… patient with us. So it's just a reflex for him," Mary stated, making her way to the bar and taking the brandy.

"Yeah. That would make sense, saying I've worked with him for a good while," Vanessa hummed, mostly to herself.

"To be honest I would have thought he would be more pampered than me. I mean. Look at him, he's a spitting image of Aries," Mary said, taking a sip of her drink. Jeremy shrank more at the comparison.

"Well, your 'dad' was sent down here for a reason, so he might as well be an ass. Jeremy. You, on the other hand, are a sweetheart and I see no reason to compare you to him," Vanessa said, glaring down the bottles in the back of the bar. He sat up a bit more at her compliment, a little guilt still sitting in his chest. He wrote on his clipboard, 'Thanks. You're pretty nice, too.' Vanessa glanced at the clipboard, then looked forward again, blushing. She wasn't that used to compliments from others and got embarrassed easily, muttering a 'thank you.' Mary huffed, even if her 'brother' was so damn sweet, it felt weird hearing it. She changed the conversation.

"Uh, so, I saw there was another taxi wreck, I'm pretty sure the driver meant it this time," she snickered, seeing it on the news. "The desperate guy didn't even die as he probably was trying to do."

Vanessa chuckled, finishing off her glass of wine and standing up to refill it.

"Would either of you like another drink?" Vanessa asked them, switching her gaze from one to the other.

"Hell yeah!" Mary responded as soon as the words left Vanessa's mouth. Jeremy shook his head, starting to write but not showing it to anyone this time. Vanessa chuckled again and took both of their glasses. She put Jeremy's to the side and grabbed Mary's, pouring brandy into the glass. She gave Mary her drink and began to clean Jeremy's glass.

"Who the hell are these people?" Angel Dust said, coming into the room. Mary looked up to the spider that entered the room and nearly spat out her drink, but forcing it down before yelling, "Oh fuck! It's the porn spider!"

Vanessa looked over at Mary and chuckled before answering Angel.

"These two are my old boss' kids. They came over and I invited them in for a drink, figuring they would want a break from the world," Vanessa said, glancing up at Angel before going back to cleaning the glass, drying it off and placing it to the side.

"Ok then," Angel responded, looking at Jeremy. Jeremy stared back curiously at Angel Dust. They looked at each other for a moment before Angel spoke again.

"What's his deal?" Angel said. "Is he shy or something?"

Mary responded bluntly. "He's mute."

"Oh. Well, anyways, I came here to check on you, Vanessa. Alastor wanted to know if you were okay. Especially after what happened," Angel said, grabbing a drink from the bar.

Vanessa replied gently. "I'm fine. Or as fine as a gal can be down here."

"Well, sweet cheeks, I've been all out of booze for a while. Sooooooo, is it okay if I take a few bottles off your hands?" Angel said, pointing finger guns at her.

"Go ahead, hun. Take however many you think ya need," Vanessa said, watching Angel Dust with a smirk.

"Hun? That's a new one. Is it okay if I call you… hun?" Angel flirted, taking bottles from the bar.

Vanessa chuckled shyly and turned away with plenty of blush on her face. "Go ahead. I'm gonna call you… hush puppy, cause those things were good as fuck where I came from." Angel chuckled at the name.

"So, where are you from, hun?" Angel asked.

"No one bothers to ask that anymore. Rare courtesy. Anywho, I'm from the Carolinas. North Carolina to be exact," Vanessa answered. Mary looked up interested now that they moved on from the 'joke flirting.' She just tilted her head, listening in to the conversation again.

"What was your family like?" Mary asked, moving her hair out of the way of her face.

Vanessa sighed, a nostalgic look on her face. "Well, let's see. I'll focus on my main family. My mom, Jade, was a sweet woman. She knew how to make her children feel loved and knew how to make a good meal. My dad, Derek, was rough around the edges, but still sweet as sugar. My brother…" Vanessa shuddered at the memory of her brother. "Gavin. He was the definition of an asshole. He never left me alone and was constantly pushing me around and abusing me, verbally and physically. Never wanna see his sorry ass again."

Mary went silent for a second taking it in. "Damn, yeah. Your brother is a piece of shit," she said, looking up at what has been assigned to her brother. "Maybe I was a bit rough on you," she muttered, hoping nobody else heard her. "But still, Vanessa, you seem like a fine person, better than most in here. What did you even do to wind up here in Hell?"

"Constant drug use, constant drinking and laziness," Vanessa hummed. She then started to chuckle. "I wanna tell y'all how Idiot died. It's fucking hilarious."

"Sure, hun," Angel replied, sitting at the bar with several bottles in his hands.

"So, Idiot was drunk off her ass and on her way home when she passed out. She had her face planted into the sidewalk and landed face down in a puddle. She drowned! In a puddle!" Vanessa said, starting to laugh. Angel started to laugh with her, nearly dropping some of the bottles of booze.

Mary cackled. "HA! Nice one I guess we know how she got her name now!" Jeremy (who is a goat thing) isn't capable of laughing, so he smirked instead.

Vanessa finished laughing, wiping tears from her eyes. "Indeed."

"Well, I got to go. Hope I get to see more of your gorgeous face tomorrow, hun," Angel stated, leaving the room.

"I guess he wanted to leave before he presented his death," Mary said, turning back to the other two after the pink spider had left. "Yeah, I don't want to get into mine, it's stupid. Not Idiot stupid just kinda dumb." Jeremy looked at Mary curiously, tilting his head.

She shook her head. "Nope. Sorry. I'm down to explain anything BESIDES death" Jeremy still stared at her, tilting his head more. "Haha! Well, hey! I bumped into this guy who looked like a dumbass bat the other day and he was all like 'oh sorry about that.' Like, who the fuck is that proper anymore, am I right?" She joked trying her best to change the topic. Jeremy wasn't satisfied with Mary's answer and he continued to stare curiously.

"Do you even know what death is?" She grumbled. Jeremy shrugged. She groaned annoyed at Jeremy's unknowing of what she thought to be such a simple thing.

"Well, okay. If you don't even get what it is, then you wouldn't understand how anyone died in particular," she said, pausing for a moment. "And I am not teaching you what it means because explaining things is bullshit." She looked back up to Vanessa after the last statement. She was hopeful that she'd say something to change the conversation.

"Anyways, it's getting a little boring here, so why don't we sit in the living room, maybe put on some TV, play some video or board games?" Vanessa said, offering for some time away from the responsibilities of life. Jermy nodded his head. 'Yeah. That sounds great,' was written quickly and shown to the two demons in front of him.

Vanessa seemed happy and light hearted as she said, "Sweet. Let's go then!" They moved to the lounge room of the hotel and settled down to decide what game to play.