Me and Miss Spider

by wantedthehighway

Alastor's relationship with his mother is nothing like what anyone had imagined; Charlie's philosophy is tested by her incredibly trying new client; the troupe tries not to be duped while caught in a face-off between two known con artists; and surprising family secrets come to light in a Hazbin Hotel story with some very special guest stars. (CW: abuse, racist/sexist behavior)

3. Unsuccessful Overlording

Note: Some House of Leaves characters also cameo in this story, but it's not important you know much about it. Worst that happens if you aren't aware of it is you lose a small handful of jokes/references.

[X]

[May 2020]

Al's sudden spark of irritability was not related to Charlie's invasive questioning alone. Let's briefly rewind to the rehab center.

Unamused by his, "Glad you accomplished so much while I endured that," Charlie icily made her way back toward the door to the dayroom to lie in ambush while Alastor gave the second story a try. Determined to stay until the scheduled end of the visit, she still only succeeded in speaking to less than a dozen people.

While Charlie was returning their guest passes to the facility, Alastor heard a man whispering to his companion. The two seemed to be watching him out of the corners of their eyes. This wouldn't have been an unusual event if it weren't for the fact that one of them looked unnervingly familiar, or if he hadn't been snickering. Despite the many things about Alastor that were admittedly ridiculous, once people knew who he was they never snickered. But Al wasn't offended, just intrigued. If he tried, he could pull conversation in through his radio speaker. He used the trick now.

The conversation was garbled, but he could make out: "...From that thing… Not his own… Twerpy sell-out…A DEER… HAHAHAHA...Nothing before that-"

Al lost track of the conversation, stuck as a word repeated in his head: Nothing, nothing, NOTHING.

He snapped himself out of it. Well. The man could speculate as much as he wanted about where the powers came from and have any opinion about how much respect Alastor deserved, but none of those considerations were practical in the long run because they didn't change the fact that Alastor's power could crush him. His laughter could not change that. Al couldn't clear things up with the jackass now, with Her Royal Ethical Nitpicker around, but later…

No. He reconsidered. As much of a delight as it would be to terrorize him personally, it might only reinforce the heckler's opinion that Alastor leaned on his powers for everything to get things done. ...Not that that mattered! But… Maybe he wanted instead to illustrate that his real power was influence. He had minions, whose service he had claimed not with force but with manipulation and rhetoric and careful exchanges. ...No...That wasn't right, either...Was that worse? To send Husk or Nifty? Why was he wasting time thinking of this at all?

Alastor's thoughts were interrupted by an aid calling into the dayroom, "Bert, your daughter called. She'll be in tomorrow."

The atmosphere became tangibly awkward.

"...Thanks, Kevin," Bert called back, pretending nothing uncomfortable had happened.

'Well,' thought Alastor cooly, but very few other words came to mind to follow it. Just silent, withering judgment. This also interrupted his plans. Bert deserved a beating, but he thought it would be distasteful to wrong the girl. No matter- it meant he could stop thinking about it, as he should have minutes ago.

Which was, of course, not what he did.

"...Not her mother?" Alastor butted into the conversation, turning around bouncily, heels to balls of feet. "Just her?" Silence from the two men. Alastor hummed a low hum that transformed into a laugh. "At least some things in my life have changed in the last century. One hundred and twelve whole years… How many 'one week sober' chips would that be? Can you fill a storage unit yet?"

But Kevin could giveth and Kevin could taketh away. In an attempt to seize Al's attention for Charlie, who was waiting for her colleague at the front door, the aid called, "Alastor McGyver," from the hall.

It was now Alastor's turn to internally wince, looking like someone had just poked him directly in the eye. Bert looked more taken aback by this than by Alastor's roasting moments earlier. He was surprised enough to have worked out that the Thing he had discovered in his old house before he died had apparently shared its power with his son. ...But it had formally adopted him? And, by Satan, what a ridiculous name.

Alastor, meanwhile, was remembering pummeling an imp working in intake on the day he arrived in Hell after being presented with his new government ID. "That is not my name. And this," he'd said, motioning at the radically different skin tone of his demon appearance, "is not my ethnicity. It is wrong." The beleaguered customer service imp thought privately, 'The Karen haircut's spot on, though,' and was entertained yet again that someone was surprised they didn't look the way they wanted to in Hell. He replied innocently, "I'm sure this happens to adopted children all the time," not realizing he had just said the forbidden word, and was promptly thrown against the wall by a shadow tentacle as the bellow of an enraged elk burst from Alastor's radio speaker. Al supposed briefly that the witch had managed to squeeze a few last microaggressions in, but he later conceded that it must simply be Hell's algorithm successfully finding things that would bother him. That absurd name, his manifestation as a prey animal, and his racial identity going completely ignored all just happened to be related to Terri McGyver's influence on his life.

"Never use my full name," present Al ordered Kevin and marched away without another word to Bert.

After Alastor and Charlie shared a walk back to the hotel that was much more silent than usual, Al tried to fight the urge to zero in on Husker but failed. "Looking as cheerful as ever, I see," the deer demon teased the grimacing bartender cat. "You could crack a smile occasionally."

"Why should I? I'm stuck with you," Husker grunted.

'Bleh, stuck with you, bleh,' a cartoonish dumb ogre voice mocked Husker from the radio speaker. "I will ask you to smile at least once today," Al said, holding out his hand.

"You're not gonna get me to promise that." Husker batted his boss's hand away. "Scowling's one of the only goddamn freedoms I have left."

"That's an exaggeration. Does the cranky kitty need more milk?"

Husker's fur bristled.

"Ohhhh, Husker." Al produced another beer bottle from thin air.

"Ugh, what?"

"Got you another one, friend," Al announced, spinning the bottle in one hand. "Where should I put it?"

Husker squinted. "What?"

"I got you. Another. Beer. Where should I put it?"

Confused, Husker held out one paw. "Put 'er there."

"Put 'er there?! Alright!" Al cried victoriously with an arm pump, before aggressively high-fiving and then shaking Husker's open hand.

"Shiiiiit," Husker groaned just before his frowning mouth was magically turned upside down.

"HAHAHAHA! Told you I'd get you to smile whether you wanted it or not!" Alastor cackled as Husk looked at him hatefully. "Oh! I suppose I forgot how uncomfortable that is." Al reversed it with a snap of his fingers. "My mistake."

Husker dumped the entire beer bottle on Alastor's head. "I never waste alcohol. But that was worth it." He turned his back and appeared to be pretending Alastor didn't exist.

"I have news!" Completely undeterred, Alastor teleported down through a portal in the floor on his side of the bar and up again through a portal on Husker's side. "When you do that, I'm still here," he said, leaning forward into Husker's face, grinning widely and more stiffly than usual. "And in case you've forgotten, I will be for a while."

This oddly tense moment was interrupted by Nifty, the tiny single-eyed speed demon, who pranced into the room in a whirlwind of dust, fuzz, and bloodstains covering her blouse and poodle skirt. Bloodlust was one of the only things that could distract her from her compulsion to clean. "Forty-two!" she squealed in delight, referring to the number of mice and rats she had found and killed under the hotel that day. She didn't know why the boss was quite so vigilant about the rodents when they rarely made it into the building to bother them, but Nifty was glad to oblige. She found it a fun little passtime.

"A new record! Fabulous work!" her boss praised, abandoning Husk to pat her on the head. "Thank you so much, dear. I'm glad you're a good mouser, since the cat is useless."

Husker threw up his middle claw and proceeded drowning out the sound of Alastor's big yapping mouth with vodka.

"I do have one more favor to ask you, Nifty, darling. I'll be out for a while tonight, and I'd like you to-" He whispered in her ear.

It was a strange request, but she didn't mind fulfilling it. "You got it, boss!"

Charlie paused to glance curiously at the beer-soaked Alastor as they crossed ways. "Does he seem more unhinged than usual today?" Husker asked Charlie as she approached the bar. "Or...well...not more, but a different kind of unhinged?"

"I'm starting to think I shouldn't have asked him to come to that event table," Charlie admitted. "He's definitely...off." She supposed that Mother's Day was so difficult for her, due to her distant relationship with her own mother, that she had forgotten how hard it must be for Alastor. After all, whatever mother figure he had been bringing up to the hotel residents in casual conversation was clearly someone whose company he had enjoyed, and she must be in Heaven, because he spoke as if he had not seen her since he was alive.

"The ladies'll cheer him up," Nifty said hopefully.

Ah, Rosie and Mimzy. That explained the rarely-heard sound of a shower turning on in Al's portion of the second floor. It didn't surprise Charlie that Al would come up with an excuse to go see Rosie today, especially. Charlie had never commented on it out loud, but from what she could tell, Al seemed to behave as if he saw Rosie as a replacement mother or big sister figure. "I hope so, Nifty." Seeing Al in such a tiff felt just as strange to Charlie as it had felt to Al to see Charlie steeped in gloom. "He doesn't seem quite right..."

[X]

Al's plan had been to catch up with Rosie on the way to see Mimzy, but this would clearly not pan out. Her department store's floral section was swamped with customers trying to buy last minute Mother's Day flowers, and she'd been having a bit of an understaffing issue lately, so she couldn't be bothered. Oh well. Repurposing some Mother's Day flowers might not be a bad idea, though. Al skipped the line by playfully snatching a bouquet out of the hand of a customer who was leaving the store (taking care to levitate it in front of himself rather than touch it, lest the plants wilt) and replacing it in their hand with the going price plus $3 for having to wait in line again. The customer shot a deadpan glance at the overlord and back at their own hand, and gracefully accepted that this was happening.

Charlie was onto something. He may not have been fully aware of it, but Al did indeed gravitate toward Rosie as a quasi-mother or elder sister figure. So it figured that today she would be absent through no control of her own, as his birth mother had been.

Alastor's default assumption was that Camille's final destination had been Heaven, but he had searched Hell, too, just in case. Still, it was a large country, essentially the size of a large planet, with an overpopulation problem, especially in the Pride Ring, where the human souls resided. It was also culturally very common to go by a different name once one arrived. Part of this may have been driven by the basic psychological desire to start over in a new place, but there was a more pragmatic reason- they were in all in Hell for doing something unpleasant, and it was desirable to keep one's enemies off one's tail for as long as possible. Or, in some cases, one's loved ones, if you were embarrassed by something you'd done, or if things had ended on a sour note. However, after Alastor himself had gained notoriety in the Pride Ring, having taken no new name, and had not heard from Camille, he decided she either wasn't there or didn't want to be found. Disappointing, but…it was what he was already used to. Hardly a tragedy, he told himself.

At least he had found one familiar face down here.

His friend's club, Drinkin' Place, was a strange but endearing mish-mosh of things that tried to cater to customers hailing from the 1910s through the 1950s, primarily, although anyone could easily entertain themselves there. The main floor was a bar with the expected dart boards and pool tables as well as a few slot machines, and even a pinball machine or two. The basement was the jazz club. The top floor was an old-fashioned diner. They all operated, frequently exchanging clientele back and forth amongst the floors for hours, 24/7. Throughout the establishment were framed images of beloved performers from all decades, slightly favoring the 1920s flapper era from which the owner hailed.

Amongst the items in the collection, there was one oddball that stood out because of how prominently it was featured, how different this one's specialty was from the types of performers Mimzy tended to highlight, and the specific selection of image to represent this actress. It was, inexplicably, a large framed movie poster depicting Jamie Lee Curtis as Laurie Strode in the original Halloween horror classic. "Babysitters in horror movies are pretty badass," she'd explain to anyone who asked about it. "They're paid peanuts, and they're just regular janes without superpowers or combat training or anything, but they manage to save cute little kids from sadistic monsters all the time. I'm a fan." This was a very random-sounding, unsatisfying explanation, but few people pressed further.

Mimzy was too busy running the operation to perform quite as much as she once did, but he caught one of her stage appearances as he entered the club floor and took a seat near the back, as he usually did, to avoid distracting the audience from her. To be fair, as distracting as Alastor's presence often was to people, it was hard to detract from Mimzy. For a woman so short, the spunky, curvy blonde commanded a lot of attention. She finished with, 'That's All,' which was hardly standard fare for Hell, but it was one of her stand-bys, and no one complained because it was a difficult song to dislike. Al stood with the applauding audience and moved to teleport the roses onstage but nicked the tied end of the bouquet with his snapping fingers. They landed on stage already withered. Al's eye just barely ticked in frustration. Mimzy looked down, pressed her hand to her mouth, and stifled a laugh. The audience tittered. "Ya dried 'em for me already! So kind of you! I'll press 'em later!" She made eye contact with him through the crowd and waved.

On the nights he spent here, somehow, after a few hours, he always ended up alone with her in the VIP lounge in the same small, single-benched booth that required them to snuggle in together, as they were doing tonight.

"Forgive me, but...you look a little tuckered out."

"Ah, yes. It's been...a day."

"Slightly less successful overlording?"

No one was there but her, so he confided, "Considerably less successful overlording." He would never detail any of the specifics out loud. No 'I saw my father today' or 'I could barely frighten a flock of grade schoolers.' No 'my employee/psychological crutch of a dad replacement doesn't respect me' or 'I think my business partner secretly can't take me seriously.' And especially no 'It's that horrible day again' or 'I keep talking about her, and I don't know why.' He had a hard enough time admitting those things to himself.

Luckily, Mimzy rarely pressed with questions because she knew him well enough not to bother. She handed him more wine instead. "Oof. Thought you didn't have bad days anymore."

"Well, it appears now I do. But it's getting better," Al assured her with a wink.

"Maybe you should be resting," she said, patting her lap as if suggesting where he might want to rest his head.

"But I missed you yesterday," he replied, not taking the bait.

She grinned. "And I missed you yesterday."

"Apologies. Hotel obligation. Surprised myself by konking out like a light afterward."

"Somethin' that small can take you away from me?"

He hummed. "Well…" Al brushed one ankle against hers in a sensual but still comically reserved game of footsie. "...nothing could 'take me away' from you." Mimzy barely controlled a blush before he continued, "That's why I left 'me' with you, after all." She laughed off her disappointment; of course, he was making a joke about the doll. "How is the little one?" Al asked.

"Surprisingly tame, considering he used to run me ragged."

"If it makes you feel better, for a girl only 5 years older than me at the time, you were the most effective child wrangler Mother ever hired."

There was a sudden tense pause. Al looked regretful and also...confused...stunned...nauseous? Mimzy looked...mildly disgusted, affronted. They both quickly got over it and pretended the offending person had never been mentioned.

Mimzy smiled warmly, trying to lighten the mood again. "It was really sweet what you did, while you were retrieving him."

Alastor truthfully stated that he requested the imps move her body before the hurricane. However, he willfully misled her to believe she was now buried in a beautiful countryside somewhere, rather than tucked away under his bed- now in a proper urn, mind you! "No trouble at all."

"Even though I still think you're a terrifying stalker for havin' me dug up twice," she mocked him, sticking out her tongue playfully. It absolutely was terrifying when you thought about it, but if anyone could have a sense of humor about this, it was Mimzy. As cute as she looked, she was tough to rattle.

" 'Stalker' seems a bit too intense of a judgment," Alastor chuckled before a flicker of bashfulness was betrayed on his face as he noticed the shadow giving him away.

Mimzy glanced out of the corner of her eye to make eye contact with the wolfish shadow creature that was gawking at her and quietly panting in the hope of being petted. "Hi, Feeeerdie," she cooed fondly and scratched it under the chin, causing it to limply flop into her lap, trembling with joy as she mimed ruffling its theoretical chest fur.

Now trying to take the mood somewhere else entirely, referring again to the doll, she continued, "It's hard for me to leave him in a closet all alone, though. Sometimes I give him a little cuddle at night."

Al raised an eyebrow and shot her an 'Oh, I see you're going to try it- come at me' look with a challenging, closed-mouthed smirk. Ferdie's leg ticked happily.

Mimzy couldn't help but wonder aloud, "I'm just curious. Can you... feel it? If I hug him?"

Al realized that her previous statement was only partly said for humor value; apparently this was something that actually happened. He was caught too caught off guard to not answer automatically and sincerely. "I...maybe?" He considered. "Possibly. In fact...last night. Were you…?" That would actually explain why he had fallen asleep so easily.

Mimzy had not expected this amount of accuracy. She anxiously brushed some hair behind her face. Her flirtatious jokes kept getting her into messes. "Um, yes. Hehe. If you sensed something, that must've been me."

"Ah." He looked to the side; she looked to the opposite side. Al interrupted the silence with a practical question. "He can't see, right?"

"Huh?"

"The blindfold. It's left on?"

"Oh. Yeah." Before she could tame her inner troll, the next question burst out of her mouth. "Why, what would you like him to see?"

Alastor was effectively out of commission for about 5 seconds. A whistling sound effect emitted from the radio. Mimzy burst into victorious giggling. Ferdie made a wheeze-like laughing sound, rolled over, and took his cue to depart after giving Mimzy an affectionate lick on the cheek.

"Madam," Al gently play-scolded her, "you are doing it again."

"You thought I would change?"

"You keep threatening to."

"Never."

"That is a child, madam," he teased, referring to the doll. "You're going to get-" He whispered. "-cancelled," and they 'pffffffft'ed together.

"This is Hell, the only place safe from cancelling," Mimzy asserted. "I can be as bad as I want!"

In the silence that followed, Al remembered this was something she was actually sensitive about. "Come now, darling. Quit fretting. When we started seeing each other you were about 30 and I was almost 26. I assure you, you're not a vile cougar, just a regular cougar. ...I always was a cat person."

She play-batted at him but then asked considerately, "Want me to quit it?"

When they found each other in Hell decades ago, they were so overjoyed to see each other again that they chose to prioritize repairing the friendship and ignore past drama. In fact, even though they frequently flirted, they avoided directly addressing their relationship history as much as possible.

"It's no problem at all, we all have flights of fancy that get us excited for a while and naturally wear off. You got over it. I got over it. It was nothing special- Not to say you're nothing special. You're...remarkable. To be clear...Mmph!"

Mimzy had unexpectedly kissed him. He might argue this, but that sounded like a 'don't stop' signal to her.

Al was distracted for a moment, obviously enjoying himself, then gently guided her away. "Don't...please don't do that."

Oof. That was a genuine 'stop' signal. "Why not?" He seemed like he could use some TLC today. She wished he'd let her at least give him a cuddle.

"You're being cruel to your date," Al said, suddenly stern.

She blushed, ashamed, "Guess I am…" She had originally said she'd planned one and she could only spend a bit of time with Al in here, but an hour and a half had gone by and she still hadn't left.

"Please go. Have fun."

Mimzy started to scoot out of the booth, then paused and asked, "What if I cancelled it?"

"That would still be rude, since you've already made him wait."

She gave him a 'come on' look. "Really, Al? What do you care about this random joe?"

"I just think you could stand to be more considerate."

"Oh, yeah, that seems like number one on your list of priorities when you're messin' with folks' shot at redemption."

This helped Al lighten up again. He rolled his eyes. "I play practical jokes. I'm not actually sabotaging anything. No such thing exists to sabotage."

Mimzy leaned on her elbows on the table with a curious grin. "I'm still tryin' to figure out what you're really there for. I do believe it's for fun, because these squares sound like real crack-ups to me, but I know there's gotta be something else."

"What fun is it if I spoil the plot?" He winked. "Although… sometimes I do wonder myself. I have to go to one of the Princess's benefits tomorrow, which of course means I need to be on because, unless I steer, the whole thing will be a dreadful drag and a marketing failure." Yes, he was describing the benefit he had already attended that day. This lie would give him an easy escape hatch by making it sound like he needed to turn in early. She was playing a good game today; he would lose if he kept playing much longer.

Mimzy sing-songed, "Yoooouuuu're the one who roped himself into it!" while inching closer to him in the booth again. "You chose the downer straight-edge business yourself, chump. You could be having fun with your best friend every night instead-" She booped his nose. "-if you'd run this place with me...like we thought about."

"Oh, you make it sound like it would be such smooth sailing."

"You're saying I don't make a good partner in crime?"

"No, you've always been a good partner in crime."

The two of them were snuggled against each other in the booth now, a bit giggly although they weren't that drunk.

"...Just...not a good partner?" she asked.

Al was not sure there was anything uncompromising he could reply with.

Mimzy cupped his face with one hand and dropped the playful charade. "I can do better, Cookie." She kissed him again, more deeply.

Alastor seriously considered allowing this to continue. Usually he could take or leave this kind of physical intimacy. It could be fun occasionally if someone else initiated, but he never felt motivated to actively seek it out himself. Mimzy, though, was one of the few people in the known universe who was both brave enough to make a pass and actually likely to get a response. And maybe, he considered, some closeness wouldn't be so bad...just for a little while. He briefly broke the kiss. "What about-?"

"Shhh. Forget it." She kissed him again, and he pulled her forward, allowing her to sit in his lap.

Alastor concluded, with a jolt of victory, that there was no date- she had intended to make him jealous. His characteristic pride soared back to its normal levels. Now this was the sort of turnaround the day needed!

Outside, there was shouting from a bouncer. They were blissfully unaware of the commotion until Nifty, rolling at high speed like a little Sonic hedgehog, chopped through the door like a circle saw, then popped upright to saluting attention with a perky, "Evening, boss!"

Alastor and Mimzy separated themselves immediately in awkward silence.

Al shot Nifty a look that read 'What in the 9th circle are you doing?' He opened and closed his hands, unsure of which hand gesture was right, and finally said, "Ggggooood evening, Nifty, my dear."

Mimzy stared hard into Nifty's single yellow eye, reminding her friend that this was like trying to woo a Victorian preacher's daughter and now she would have to start over again, and assuring Nifty silently that she would pay dearly for this cock block.

Nifty stared back with wide-eyed enthusiasm, taking it as a fun challenge, before redirecting her attention back to Al. "You said make sure you left by now, so here I am," she said in a playful dramatic voice, "to escort you home, my liege."

Mimzy turned slowly to face Alastor, barely containing her laughter, about to completely break composure. Hoping he could keep containment, Alastor said, "Ah, yes, this is a little in joke we share, although sometimes people could remember there's a time and a place for-"

"Nope, nope, I remember you were very serious," Nifty interrupted, painfully oblivious. "You told me- make sure you were out of here by 11:59PM on the dot because 'nothing good ever happens after midnight.' And I've always heard it as 'nothing good ever happens after 2AM,' but I do appreciate your abundance of caution. I mean-" She giggled. "-if I'd been left here long after 10PM I'd have been three men down by now!"

Midway through the rant, Alastor was ready to strangle the tiny cyclops, but he was now too awkwardly distracted. "Well, I learned something today," he uttered, sounding not at all pleased to have learned it.

Mimzy dissolved into laughter. "So did I! Awwww, Cookie." She grinned up at Al mischievously. "You really don't trust me at all, do you?"

"I think what Nifty means to say is I need to be at that benefit tomorrow."

Again, painfully oblivious, Nifty asked, "The one you were at this morning?"

"Phht. Uh huh," Mimzy said with a knowing smirk. Al opened his mouth. "I won't forget about this," Mimzy cut him off, bluntly. "Jokes will be made at your expense." Al closed his mouth again in resignation, re-opened it to say goodbye, but was dragged away in a whirlwind by the tiny speed demon. Mimzy waved with a single crunch and un-crunch of her fingers, mouthing 'Bye.'

It would have been a very cute, if embarrassing, interaction to leave on, if Nifty and Alastor had not run into the fellow arguing with the bouncer to get in and see his date. Long-distance eye contact was made. Alastor had been so convinced for just a minute there that this had been faked. For her part, so had Mimzy- she was so pleased to see Alastor that she had legitimately forgotten that she'd made an actual date.

Seeing someone else leaving the lounge, the man hollered, "Seriously?!" before recognizing Alastor and throwing up his hands with a mixture of fear and outrage. "You know what, she's all yours! Maybe you can get her under control!"

Alastor quietly seethed behind his uncrackable smile, but his expression didn't need to change for Nifty to know there was about to be a problem. "Ohhhh, boss. Stay calm," she whispered, futilely.

Alastor waited patiently until the man sat down in his car and then, with a snap of his fingers, casually combusted the engine. The vehicle erupted into flames as its owner- who could suffer but not die due to the state of his soul- catapulted himself from the car and ran flaming around the parking lot like a chicken with its head cut off. A very chipper Alastor quipped, "To the owner of the black Sunfire, you left your lights on!" before striding out of the club, refusing to look Mimzy in the eye again.

Mimzy watched the commotion unfold and melted into the booth, hiding her face in her hands and accepting that she would be drinking alone, and heavily, tonight. Close to a century of this now. It was partly her own fault at first, but surely by now she'd done her penance and then some? How could she correct things if he wouldn't even talk about it?

[X]

"You know...you could have used the pager, Nifty." Yup. Al had a pager now. It was a big step.

Nifty sing-songed, "You would have ignoooored it!" Al refused to admit that she was right. "I did do what you told me to do, Boss." Nifty wore a smug, triumphant smile.

Al was still aggravated but was slowly getting over it as he came to terms with the fact that she was right, and...by Satan, was she ever right! Give this woman an award! "...Yes. Yes, you did. Splendid job, little lady." He administered a quick pat on the head.

Nifty went up on tip toes to lean into the pet the way a cat would. "What's the deal with you two?" She was hopeful, even though she thought a direct answer was unlikely.

"I don't know what you mean," Al replied innocently.

"There seems like there's…" Nifty wiggled. "...tension."

Based on what little she had observed, Nifty had some thoughts. From what she could tell, the dynamic was best illustrated by the sins the pair wound up in Hell for- Pride and Gluttony. Gluttony was very appealing to Pride because she tended to amass a lot of sparkly things, making her good arm candy. But as you might imagine, Pride was never going to be enough for Gluttony. She needed a lot more attention than that, which would wound Pride and seriously threaten his sense of superiority, causing him to lash out, or at the very least ignore Gluttony, who would not be able to tolerate it and would draw him back in. Pride would react with something along the lines of, 'Aha, of course, she finally sees how special I am!' and then be caught off guard all over again when she continued running around. And she would be mystified again when he was offended, because he normally (defensively) acted as though it didn't matter and he didn't need her. Nifty knew they were both smart enough people to see the merry-go-round they were on, but they seemed willfully blind.

(Angel Dust had theories, too. The ex-mobster spider demon had met Mimzy at parties only twice, liked the ex-bootlegger instantly, and already had a good enough feel for her to tease Al, "Smiles, I dunno what to tell ya. It wouldn't matter if you had the power of God 'imself, you wouldn't stand a chance with that chick."

"Not sure what you mean."

"Oh, c'mon."

Alastor tried his best not to take the bait but couldn't help but bite. "I'm not pursuing her, but what's your point?"

"She's playin' the opposite of the game yer playin'," Angel explained. Angel saw a bit of himself in Mimzy, which was how he intuited this. "It's not even about how much she likes ya. It's about not bein' dominated. If you win her over, she loses. I'm willing to bet she'd rather be alone forever than let 'erself fall for somebody. Why d'ya have ta chase that one?"

Stewing in some childhood memories, Al silently thought 'Now that you've pointed that out, it actually makes a great deal of sense why I chase this one.' Aloud, he said, "Oh, Angel, it's adorable how you start projecting when you get a few drinks in you," and gestured at Husk.)

"That's your romantic compulsion, Nifty. You're seeing things where there aren't any," said present Alastor. "We've just been good friends for a very, very long time."

"You watch her every Thursday." Al tried to consciously override the reflexive folding back of his deer ears. Had this little psycho followed him? She had not; Mimzy had told her about it. "And I've never seen you take from her. Only give. You've never tried to trick her into service, even though I'll bet you could. And I could imagine why you'd want to. She has a lot of influence."

Alastor laughed. "I don't know about that. Being able to coerce her, that is. She's familiar with most of my tricks by now. She taught me some, in fact. Of course, I don't mean any judgment by that. I'm just saying she's...gifted at affecting emotions- as any performer is!"

Nifty wore a crooked, intrigued grin. "Uh huhhh… Well, if she's so tricksy, why not just tame her?"

Al tried to decide if Nifty was taking things to a weird place again, like when she tried to explain hentai. "Excuse me?"

"Make a doll, I mean."

There was a long pause as Alastor wondered what in the universe would make her think it was appropriate to invite this explosive question into the conversation. "I would never do that."

"Why not?" Nifty asked, playing hard ball.

Al considered a number of responses before settling on, "She wouldn't be her anymore," and realizing as soon as the words left his mouth that this was the most compromising possible response. This time his ears folded back before he could prevent it.

"Awww, c'mon, boss," Nifty said sweetly. "I won't tell." But Alastor dawned a stubbornly indecipherable expression and refused to say more.

They encountered Husker as they entered the hotel. Having done some thinking in response to the Mother's Day theories Charlie had pitched at him for Alastor's mood earlier, the cat demon had decided, begrudgingly, that maybe he could have pretended to be friendly just once. So as a still visibly tense Alastor walked through the front door, Husk attempted to offer, congenially, "You look like you could use another one."

"Nope," said Alastor, falsely but forcefully.

"Maaaybe he could," Nifty said agreeably. "He had a water bottle on the way home."

"Nifty, I am not your teenage son."

A wild Charlie appeared, wrapping her arms around him. "Al!"

The deer demon looked like an egg could be fried on his forehead. "Five. Foot. Rule."

"I'm sorry I asked so many questions earlier, I wanted to- Did you drink more than usual?" she asked in sisterly concern. "Is he drunk?" she turned to ask Nifty.

As if this helped answer Charlie's question, Nifty replied, "He was with Mimzy."

Charlie's face lit up. "Oh! How-?"

In a single fluid motion, Alastor reached his right arm to the side, gripped the drink handed to him by Husk, and performatively began to sip it as he departed up the stairs.

"Make sure you're not hung over!" Charlie called.

"Drink more water!" Nifty added helpfully.

"If everyone could not try to mother me, it would be outstanding!" Alastor called as he disappeared at the next landing.

Charlie cringed, clearly seeing how they had made it worse. "Oof. Let's not bug him for a while, guys."

[X]

Alastor's legs continued working robotically, but his brain was fizzling. Days were not supposed to feel this bad anymore. He understood that it had not been that bad; he should be able to shake this right off. But he was very used to the feeling of being on top nowadays. He rarely had a day filled with this many indignities now, so his tolerance was low. And it was the worst possible day for this pattern to bash him over the head.

Upon entering his room, he shut the door and froze against it, staring down a box across the room. He knew he wanted to look in the box, but he also knew that he was tipsy, approaching drunk, and despite knowing this, he kept sipping the characteristically strong drink Husk had prepared and continued to stare down the box. Why did he want to look in the box? Why did it matter? Why did it matter if when he looked in the box, and the box inside the box, and the box inside the box, and the box inside the box, and the box inside the box...the voodoo doll in there had changed from a brunette to a blonde or redhead, from short to tall, from curvy to spindly? What if there was nothing left inside the box? What if she was-?

He breathed deeply and pressed the tips of his fingers against the bridge of his nose. It didn't matter what was inside the box. Why was he thinking about this? Why had he talked about her- really talked about her- today, without the rosy filter normally laid over mention of her? And for that matter, why did he keep mentioning her compulsively in conversation? In Al's mind, it was clear that she had cursed him somehow to regularly say kind things about her. This was what allowed him to tolerate the strange, reflexive intrusions into his own thoughts and dialogue- the comforting idea that they couldn't really come from him. It was beyond him to consider that he might actually miss the old hag.

But the fact that he so desperately wanted to peek inside the box began to dredge back into his awareness the uncomfortable truth that... he sometimes still wished to seek comfort from her. He tried to tell himself, it didn't matter what was inside the box. It didn't matter what was inside the box. It didn't matter what was inside the box...It didn't matter... what was inside... the box…

Why was the room spinning?

[X]

When her vision un-blurred and she found herself still in her armchair, Terri sighed. Just moments ago, she had felt so certain that she was performing again. Isolation and hunger-induced madness was creating some bizarre fever dreams, but even the ridiculousness of singing 'Maybe This Time' to an audience of terriers was less undignified than her current reality.

There were periods of time when it was getting harder to tell what was happening in a daydream and what was 'really' happening. The distinction was less important to Terri than it would have been to a human- who may have been tempted to argue that she was basically existing in a vegetative state- because she'd never had a true 'body' anyway. But she had to admit, it was probably a bad sign. She was hibernating for long periods of time, now, trying to conserve energy and escape the painful hunger pangs, now that all of her remaining rations were gone.

She'd been confined to the den by this binding spell for...over 90 years? Could that be right? She had been certain for the first few weeks, and then the first month or two, that there was no way it could hold her. Even with the power he took from her, the boy only bore a fraction of what she'd possessed at the time. But other factors were at play, related to the fact that she had willingly made herself weak for him, so she was forced to accept that there was little chance of getting out unless he decided to free her. But surely that would happen any week, right? She still expended a bit of energy watching him, occasionally. He seemed incredibly lonely, like he might crack. Still nothing. A year or so after being trapped, when she realized the humans' stock market had crashed, she thought she'd at last be out in no time- he'd realize he needed her. But no. Every day for the next several years, she went on believing, 'This will be it,' even after he finally left the house.

One day it appeared he could no longer stand to live there. He started silently crying out of nowhere (highly irregular behavior for him) in the middle of trying to read the paper, and murmuring, 'I'm sorry,' but he wasn't apologizing to her- he was apologizing to his birth mother for trying to replace her. Terri somehow knew this, deep down, even before he started packing, which revealed that he made sure to take any keepsake related to Camille- who he couldn't even remember- and leave behind anything related to Terri- the woman who had raised him. Within a few weeks, he had found someplace else, and that was that. He was much harder to keep an eye on after that, and eventually she didn't want to expend the energy to try. He had abandoned a paid-off home, which he knew couldn't sell at the time, in the throws of an economic disaster. That was how much he hated feeling her there on the other side of the wall.

Well then. She guessed that was it.

Terri didn't like thinking about 1933. Pity he had to die so close to where he buried the box. What a sound… But it was only so dreadful while hearing it live. After the first few mental replays, as she came to the conclusion that she was destined to starve, it started to become very funny. At least that bloodsucking brat suffered, too! The comfort was short-lived, though, as she realized how much better off he would be now, where he was, than his peers, because of the power he stole from her. The smug, conniving bastard didn't deserve it.

She had mixed feelings about the fact that she was still 'alive.' If she could in fact really die. It was possible that she could only be put into a state of permanent hibernation until revived...if revived...but she didn't exactly want to test the theory.

Mostly, Terri was grateful. She had survival instincts that kicked in like everything else, and although she was hardly in death throes yet, she knew that actual starvation was not far off in her future if nothing changed, and she feared the end like anything would. On the other hand, she understood, rationally, that the loss of consciousness would not be terrible, and tried to look forward to it. It was only anxiety-inducing while you were still aware of the impending loss- consciousness was a f***ed up thing that way. She felt some resentment over the fact that disappearing into the yawning mouth of the primal Thing, of which the consciousness 'Terri' was only a part, actually seemed to unleash far more power than she could command while she retained a pseudo-independent conscious state. (Or at least it would until that being, too, entered a state of hibernation.) How was it possible to be jealous of herself?

But there was a lot to envy, as she had learned the last time it absorbed her- ostensibly as a type of collateral- until the Hungry Thing managed to hunt itself some food at the penultimate remaining door, circa 2000. It was like a perfect time jump. She saw nothing, heard nothing, felt nothing, and knew nothing, and then jarringly all of these senses came flooding back and she bolted upright in the same armchair she had collapsed into an indeterminate amount of time ago, croaking hoarsely with her long-unused voice. Her body was trying to shout random pieces of dialogue that didn't seem to have come from her own mind, as though she were echoing something else, and her fingers seemed to be tapping a morse S.O.S. signal on the arm of the chair.

There'd been a lot of good prey at that door, luckily for her and the Thing. The door, which had previously been a crawl space intended to lead from a human child's bedroom to the Other Parents' bedroom, had apparently expanded. Not only that, but such was the Thing's determination, the door had multiplied, which was something Terri hadn't believed it could still do. From what she managed to piece together later, her ocean-like subconscious had gone in direct pursuit of a woman named Karen who Terri realized she had seen once before, when said woman was about 13 years old, from the bottom of a well. But then a number of very interesting prey walked onto the premises, all of whom were filled with deep emptiness or who had demonstrated great courage in life, making their fear all that much more valuable. She accomplished three kills, four if you counted the cat. The first two- the professional outdoorsmen- she consumed immediately. The third she kept as a long-term ration/servant; the comedian, Tom, seemed good with children, so she thought he may make a good assistant. Terri celebrated her continued longevity with some whimsical mean humor- she mounted a plaque bearing the hunter's name- Holloway Roberts- in the same spot where you might mount a deer's head. (It could be construed as kind, she argued with Echo at the time. Technically this one had killed himself, so she was honoring his best shot!) The most valuable person she found at that doorway, though, turned out to be the photographer, Will, even though she never caught him, because he went on to provide her with additional sustenance that made for a feast even more nourishing than her active kills- it was horror, wonder, awe, fascination, by hundreds! The photographer had even supposed she was a god- bless his heart. She learned this only down the line, scrying through the eyes of a child's doll left in the living room after the child went to bed, while the parents watched the infamous footage of the Hungry Thing's destructive force, which had been branded as a sophisticated mockumentary.

But to her dismay, the brief international obsession with the photographer's film petered out, as fads do. Not only that, but for many of the people initially fascinated by the 'monster,' awe rotted away to reveal bitter hatred and resentment underneath for all that the insidious hallway represented to them. At the end of the day, she was still another universally despised, one-dimensional storybook villain. Their hatred only quickened her descent into starvation again.

In a decade's time, she was weakened to the point that she was reduced to mere parlor tricks, forced to rely heavily on the understandably disloyal rations to play other roles, and unable to think clearly enough to strategize well. You would never have guessed what she once was, she was so pathetic in that defeat, bested by the meager effort of one very boring blue girl. It ranked in the top five lowest points of Terri's long life.

She believed those kills at Ash Tree Lane, Virginia, and the photographer's film had helped a great deal, in the interim, to carry her this far. But there was something else she wondered about that made her feel...confused and...hopeful. She had gone long periods without sufficient sustenance in the past, but nothing like this. (It was not the longest stretch of years she had gone with so little to eat, but the fact that a large chunk of her power had been seized from her before she became trapped in the den had caused her to starve much faster.) She had a hypothesis about a hidden factor that may be keeping her alive- and it made her cringe. She both did and didn't want it to be true, because it involved other entities she wanted to forget. Not that she could, completely. Sometimes when something roused her from her hibernation, she'd accidentally waste energy reconstructing her corporeal body and the house in a frenzy, sprinting for the door, still in a disoriented, confused half-dream, expecting to hear a familiar voice from the hallway. Still expecting to feel another body throw itself against her and wrap its arms around her, making her feel like she mattered, even as the small, pathetic dot in the universe she had become. Still wasting energy on him...them…mostly him… Literally killing herself with it, at this point. Good job, Terri. But still, she wondered- were the last shreds of someone else's love part of what allowed her to last this long?

Much more immediately than she could have expected, Terri received the barest beginnings of an answer to this question that had long plagued her.

Something. Had changed. It prickled around her edges. She didn't know what it was, but she knew it was significant. The piece of her that accepted data flow started to prick up again, and she tried to shut it down to conserve energy, but it was like an emergency broadcast blasting through. Fleeting puzzle pieces of sensory information reached her. The visuals were pretty dark, the audio was mostly static, but there was some tactile sensation getting through. It was a sensation of being...held. This prompted a rapid-fire rollercoaster of emotions lasting only a few seconds: 'That's...beautiful…it's been so- No. No. It's not real. You're dreaming. Stop.'

But shockingly it did not stop. The sensation was stable, persistent. And within a few minutes, the visuals grew slightly less dark because the perspective had changed, facing away from whatever had just been blocking the scrying device. The room was very dark, but she could perceive edges, and this partly answered one of her questions ('Did some child somewhere find an old doll?'), since this did not seem like a child's bedroom. The audio came back and she suddenly realized that it had at some point gone silent and had now switched back from silence to static. It had not been static before because she was getting messy data, she had actually been hearing static. Through the static she began to hear a very faint melody, which she recognized almost immediately, despite how fragmented it was. 'Moonlight Waltz,' a tune she hummed habitually that he likely wouldn't have a reason to associate with much else.

He still had the doll! And whatever binding it was in was at least partially released!

'Don't waste your energy, Terri,' she thought, but if she'd had a human heart, it would have been pounding with hope. Whether it was hope of reconciliation or hope of revenge she wasn't quite sure yet. But hope.

[X]

Al woke up the next morning unclear on what had occurred the night previous. At some point in the middle of the night he had gotten sick, found his way to the bathroom, and never made it back. Al had woken up to face the indignity of his cheek resting against a toilet bowl on only two other occasions in his entire existence, and both times had...been when he was alive, in fact. Well, the human liver was a puny thing. But he didn't have that excuse now. This was pathetic. Another healthy dose of humiliation after an entire day of more of that emotion than he had experienced in years. At least it probably couldn't get worse.

Even so, he felt a strange foreboding, as if something very bad had happened that he needed to fix immediately. Probably that was just the hypervigilance that jabbed at him when he felt not in control. This was why he rarely had more than three drinks at a time… What the f*** had Husker handed him? A double Long Island Iced Tea? For the love of sin!

The acrid scent of vomit hit him. It registered with him that the smell was even more overpowering than it otherwise might have seemed since he had actually bathed yesterday. In fact...dammit, it wasn't just in the bowl. Which meant he would have to waste a free ticket by bathing for a second day in a row. Because, particularly after an entire day of looking like an idiot yesterday, he was much too proud to be caught dead reeking of vomit after all the ragging Nifty and Charlie had given him the other night. He picked himself up and resentfully turned the faucet knob.

(One of many punishments for the sin of Pride was a curse causing the inability to maintain hygiene without feeling the licking of Hell flame on your skin. Alastor's unique set of abilities allowed him to override this and other punishments, not totally, but to an extent. He didn't completely understand how, but he didn't question it, just graciously accepted his good fortune. He could manage a certain number of showers per year while enduring bearable discomfort, and he spent most of those on the days when he visited Mimzy- a fact that, regrettably, most of the household had noticed by now.)

Head throbbing and ears ringing, he tried to put it together. The long string of embarrassment and disappointment culminating in the mysterious Very Bad Thing. The advertisement, the children, Charlie, Bert, Husker, Rosie, Mimzy, Nifty, the box.

The. BOX.

The bits and pieces started to come back together to form a picture within seconds of the moment Alastor became aware that, emitting from the radio speaker in his cane next to the shower, was a broken, staticky, but recognizable rendition of 'Moonlight Waltz.' Not the popular 'Moonlight Serenade' but 'Moonlight Waltz,' a more obscure melody that he would only associate with one thing.

The. Box. Was. Open.

And that meant that the box inside the box, and the box inside the box, and the box inside the box, and the box inside the box was open. He knew because he had a flashing, vivid memory of what was now inside- had been inside. It had changed since the last time he saw it, which was only a few months after he had reclaimed it, consumed by the worry that there might be deterioration inside, before he had gotten a better handle on himself. The last time he had seen the doll it was a tall, slender blonde with just-below-the shoulder-length hair in a deep blue dress with beige diamond polka dots, a beige apron, and a green ribbon around the center, blue buttons for eyes, and a rounded stitched nose. The doll was now closer to, but not identical to, what it had looked like when it was originally shut in the series of boxes in 1928. It reflected a short, curvy woman with a dark bob cut, brown button eyes, a pointed stitched nose, and a black cocktail dress with white circular polka dots. To his great relief, he recalled that the thick twine- five entire spool's worth- had still been secured tightly around it, although it had regrettably started to fray on the side just above the right hand.

There were several booby-traps in those boxes. Exactly how determined had drunk Alastor been to get to this monstrosity? Had he- Jesus Christ. Had he been cuddling it in his sleep? The prickly numbness- his body's stubborn refusal to accept the agonizing blow to his pride that the thought threatened him with- briefly overshadowed even the effects of his hangover. He tried to quell legitimate panic, which would have been completely unacceptable. He had dreamed this. There was no way in Heaven he had opened that box. Not only because he wouldn't, but because he flatly couldn't have broken all the way in while that heavily intoxicated. The vision in his head resembled the original doll so much precisely because it was a picture his brain had devised in a dream from existing components. Although the mere fact that he had dreamed of sleeping with it nestled against him was an unwelcome shock he wished he could deny, there was no urgent cause for alarm going forward.

There would be nothing in his bed when he left the shower. And the box would be closed.

[X]

There would indeed be nothing in the bed and the box would be closed, because while Alastor was still passed out in the bathroom, Nifty had already made it in and out. Sisterly concern prompted her to knock on his door that morning to check on him, and when there was no answer, she couldn't resist just a tiiiiny peek- OCD activated. 'Sistering' instinct also further activated. As she whirled through the room eradicating dust, she thought she would do a small, kind favor for her friend, who had just had a shitty evening, and take the sheets today. She rolled them up, bounced off the mattress, and as she landed on the floor, the disturbance knocked the precariously-balanced open lid shut again with a click.

Nifty noticed nothing amiss until she heard a heavier-than-expected thud and a metal clink when she dropped the wadded sheets into the laundry. Yanking them out again, she rifled around until she discovered the source. Of all things, a poppet was stuck bundled inside the sheets. The boss often used these, but this was an especially interesting find for a number of reasons, one being the implication was that he had been sleeping with it next to him. Maybe this was not an affectionate act; it may have had more to do with not wanting to take eyes off it, because the doll was also in a notably heavier binding spell than usual, wrapped tightly in layers upon layers of twine several inches thick. The most eye-widening detail of all, though, was the presence of the nail. Not a pin within the typical range of sizes often used on voodoo dolls but a large, very old-looking nail, which had rusted, and was hammered messily straight through the heart region.

Nifty sat on the unused drier as the washer operated next to it, dangling her short legs off the side, and mused over the doll, sifting through a lot of confused thoughts and feelings. If this was what it appeared to be, it seemed so unlike the boss...and very unflattering, she thought, frowning. Most of his relationships with women seemed much friendlier than his relationships with men, and even with someone like Mimzy- with whom Nifty suspected, though could not prove, Al shared considerable historical drama- he was amicable. But Al was Mimzy's simp, she thought in amusement, before casting her gaze down at the doll again and dramatically shifting tone- this woman seemed not so lucky. Gee, maybe the boss really did have a whole tumultuous, spicy love life she wasn't aware of! But what could the woman have done to prompt this?

Nifty tenderly touched the edge of the nail, thumbed the twine. It was so tempting to free her. What if this was the beginning of a beautiful love story that ended in forgiveness? Nifty shook herself out of it. No, she had her head in the clouds again. Things weren't always like that. She would force herself to assume the boss had a good reason for the binding spell, but… she couldn't resist at least removing that horrible nail.

Just after she finished, Nifty was startled by an aghast exclamation of, "What is that?" She jolted and looked up, pupils dilated, as Vaggie hovered over her, now sufficiently distracted from her laundry by the fate of whoever that voodoo doll was meant to represent. Before Nifty could formulate a response, the moth demon had already yanked the poppet out of her hands, asking demandingly, "Is this Alastor's?" Not waiting for a reply, Vaggie examined the doll, and the layers of twine knotted around it, with a look of disgust. She pulled out a pocket knife.

"Wait! There...there might be a good reason for the binding!" Nifty argued. "We don't know who that is!" Vaggie disregarded her and continued working on the knots. In an attempt to placate her, Nifty explained, "I took the nail out!"

"Nail?" Vaggie looked to Nifty's side and spotted the item in question on the drier top, then paired this image with the sight of the hole in the left chest area of the doll. "Holy shit!" she huffed. "Sickening!" This had to be confiscated immediately. Vaggie held the doll high above her head as she walked, ignoring the much shorter demon's frustrated hopping and grunting next to her.

Nifty felt a sinking dread. "Vaggie. We should be careful! We have no way of knowing what she did!"

Vaggie had not one ounce of curiosity about what the woman may or may not have done. She knew who she was dealing with. "What she did? Please. I hope she ripped his heart out!"

[X]

The box being shut was a relief. The bed being bare, less so. Alastor was presented with yet another puzzle that his pounding head was not in a state to solve. Dammit! Probably all this meant was that he had never opened the box at all and Nifty's tendency to try and mother people had kicked too far into overdrive. But there was still the other possibility that something else had closed the box again and she had mistakenly taken the doll with the bedding. It all depended on how much he believed that his 'memory' of last night wasn't simply a dream. Would he really have not only opened that box, but also disabled several booby traps and solved several puzzles, and then slept with that monster beside him? He had certainly had a shit day, but not bad enough to want to turn to her for comfort, even in a heavily intoxicated state. Right? Right? Ugh. He didn't like entertaining that it was possible, but he needed to be sure- for the safety of everyone in the household. Alastor stayed as composed and steady on his feet as he could while descending the stairs to find Nifty and spotted Husk at his typical post. "What was that?" he hissed at the cat.

"From the look of it, a little more than what you needed. My bad," Husk replied, not looking terribly interested.

Al spread his arms impatiently, still expecting an answer to his question.

Husk mustered a bit of enthusiasm. It was sort of an interesting specialty item. "Insider secret," he said with a sneaky grin. "Some crazy imp bounty hunter claims to have found kegs of this stuff in a condemned house's basement while doing a job in New Orleans. From Prohibition. Stuff knocks you on your ass, which is crazy, because it was clearly made for living mortals. He's been selling it at exorbitant prices as a side gig ever since. Claims the kegs had 'Mother's Moonshine' stenciled on the side, which I think is a friggin' hoot. Don't know what's stupider, that or that this nut stopped to haul about 20 kegs of absinthe out of a basement during the evacuation for Hurricane Katrina. Or at least, that's how he tells it. Ring any bells for ya? I was wondering if you might've been lucky enough to try some back in the day."

Dammit, Blitzo! Alastor was overwhelmed by the pure, unfiltered absurdity of the coincidence. After decades of successfully keeping the entity contained, she may have been freed simply because his drunk ass was being a wuss after getting hammered on her homemade moonshine. He had either lost the statistical lottery or a truly malicious joke was being played at his expense. "And you gave me this with your measuring stick based on rumors?"

"I knew it was kickass stuff for sure. But I also thought you didn't have anywhere to be today and you looked miserable last night."

"Husker. Do me a favor... and don't ever worry about how I'm doing again," Alastor said tersely. "You've managed to make matters much worse." Husker raised an eyebrow as Al mouthed cryptically, "Something happened."

"I'd assume you drunk texted Mimzy, but I know you don't have a phone."

"We need to track down Nifty before her cleaning compulsion does us all in. I'm concerned she's made off with something dangerous."

Nifty, of course, swore up and down that she had seen no poppet, and crossed her fingers with hope that Vaggie was right and the woman posed little to no danger.

[X]

Terri had to convince herself it wasn't another dream as she watched the cyclops remove the nail from her heart. She could feel the relief already, and it was becoming more clear to her, now that her reasoning and her emotions were on more level footing again, that revenge was definitely what she hoped for. As the moth girl with the glass eye cut her free, she stood up from the armchair, new strength flooding her. Terri had to admit, she was just a little bit touched to witness such an untraditional display of mercy from demons. (She had no way of knowing, yet, that they resided somewhere specific in Hell that fostered it.)

She barely had time to crow in celebration herself before someone else started to celebrate with her, in his own silly way. The piano, out of nowhere, began to play the distinctive piano riff to 'In the Dark of the Night.' "Can it, Tom," Terri ordered. The piano abruptly stopped. "Do you honestly think I'm that campy?" There was more silence. Then with obvious sarcasm, the piano promptly picked up the melody exactly where it had left off.

Mercy of mercies, she did at least have some company. The other rations were all gone now, but some of Tom- the ration who had played the role of the last Other Father, in 2010- was left. Not enough to speak, but enough to act as a sort of playful poltergeist, teasing her and communicating nonverbally, usually through shadow images. She was waiting to eat him as an absolute last resort. She had started out finding him rather offensive but over time found him great for morale. You'd think Tom would be a bit more rebellious and that she might crack down a little harder, and that was often the case between 2000 and 2010, and especially the case immediately after his traitorous behavior during the Coraline humiliation. But with only the two of them left, eventually, two perfectly complementary cases of Stockholm and Lima syndrome developed. It made her dread the day she'd finally be forced to consume the rest of him, but she'd also be glad for him- then he'd finally be at peace, which was probably what he deserved. This poor bastard had only ever wanted to make people laugh.

But now maybe she wouldn't have to!

"Going to give this a minute of thought before I move, love." Terri approached a cabinet and unlocked a drawer containing a document that was yellowed with age. She flipped through it, searching for anything that may prohibit her from seeking retribution. She had to be cautious- any further loss of power right now would surely kill her, and she refused to go down so close to the opportunity for a dramatic come-back. From the way she read this, he had abandoned everything agreed upon; he had what he took when he left, and that was it. She could seek as much damned vengeance as she wanted!

It was a strange thing to look at now. The collection of papers in her hands had started their life as a very formal type-set document, with a neatly handwritten amendment here and there at the end. But over time, it had developed a number of unofficial joke scribbles and doodles in the margins, which were very clearly banter between two loving family members. ("Puns are hereby outlawed." "I know about the feelers. Quit it.") After one or two of these caught her eye, she was forced to seal the document away again before she could fall down a rabbit hole.

Failing to read the room, or perhaps reading it a bit too well, Tom ceased playing stereotypically villainous revenge songs and switched to a more somber but still aptly vengeful tune called 'Angry Johnny.' It was too emotional, too on-the-nose. "I've changed my mind. Kindly satirize me again," Terri joked, trying to beat her emotions down. The keys stopped moving and Tom shadow-projected a broken heart, seeming to try to suggest to her that it was okay to cry. "It is absolutely not acceptable, Tom. If there's one thing that idiot Bert ever said that I agree with, it was, 'If you cry, the bastards know they've won.' This brat hasn't won yet. I won't even accept a tie."

Tom was concerned, feeling there was little to nothing to be gained from Terri engaging in battle with the child again, now that she was finally free. She should just move on. But roughly 90 years of slow, painful, humiliating deterioration had finally given Terri the emotional fuel she needed to pursue retribution. Not just in this one particular case. She wanted to generate a real, lasting change to her circumstances. Terri didn't have a specific long term goal at this point. Freedom was exciting. She'd go with the flow, see where she ended up. But she had a short term goal. First, she needed to remind someone to mind his manners.

She wouldn't kill him (or annihilate his soul, that is). She'd find him, establish herself in his circle, and slowly chip away at his afterlife, shattering any impression of power, confidence, competence, ability, autonomy he had painstakingly constructed and drag his reputation on the ground like roadkill caught in a tire until it was pulp. Slowly take, take, take anything she could get him to offer, any demeaning monkey dance he would agree to do, dangling the mere possibility that she might be placated. And finally reclaim the power that was hers and leave him to suffer amongst the rest of the peons in Hell on the same level, defenseless. Humiliation was the only form of punishment to which this particularly stubborn child had ever responded. After another 90 years- if he managed to make it that long- she'd be willing to consider them even, and maybe even share the power again. Depending on how far her new surge of ambition took her, maybe she would share even more. And everything would go back to the way it was, albeit with less free will involved the second time around.

But before she could do even that, she had to get her energy up and her blood sugar balanced. Time to pay a certain Final Girl in Oregon a very special visit.

Terri approached the door to the house in Oregon. She did not yet have enough power to expand the door. The crawlspace would have been a tight fit if she weren't, by this time, so painfully emaciated. Tom lurked behind her, seeming concerned. "I'll be back to check in, Tom. I know you're like a ferret- you need a buddy at all times," she said, shooting a fond glance back at him. When she opened the door, she saw the only opening available to her- not the locked door inside the house, but the back door. The well. Around the edges of the closed top, she could see the moonlight. She knew that wood was old and rotted. But just in case she was mistaken and someone had replaced it with newer wood, she retrieved the hunter's memorial plaque from above the fireplace to hold above her and help her shatter the barrier. At the velocity with which she'd hit it, this should do the trick. "I'll get you that buck, Holloway, don't worry about it."

Terri prepared for the feeling of freedom, wriggled into the crawlspace with the plaque above her head, and then the strange gravitational force took her. She whooped like a child on a rollercoaster as she burst through the barely-stable wood at the top. Panting, she stood in the moonlight. She was out, and it wasn't a dream!

She was reminded of how strangely pleasant this world could be as she absorbed the sights, sounds, and smells of the spring night, traipsing through the humans' garden. Terri almost worked herself into a rosy, freedom-fueled euphoria- right up until she saw the view through the front window of the ground level of the Pink Palace housing complex. The Jones family still lived in the house. This should have pleased her- it was why she had come. But right now she was watching the now-young-adult Coraline giving her mother a warm, caring Mother's Day hug and a kiss on the cheek as she presented her with cake. Terri felt violent flames of envy consume her. What right did they have to a happy family? What made them better than her?!

She would relish the expressions of terror, the screams, and the bloodshed later, in retrospect. At the time, it was all a blur. When she was sated, she rested for about an hour, took a finger's taste of icing from the top of the uneaten cake, and exited to proceed with business. Should part one of the humiliation mission entail trying to break her ex-son's murder record in a single evening? No- she knew well enough to make sure she didn't make herself sick. She should take it slow. But right now, Terri could still have some more to eat. Conveniently, a morsel appeared.

She heard the hiss and turned to see her grimy little nemesis. "Ah, Pluto. Fancy meeting you here."

"How are you out?"

"Does it matter?" she asked in a mocking, baby-talk tone.

"Planning some revenge?"

"What does it look like?" She gestured at the bloodshed visible through the window. The local police would have a field day trying to figure out which animal had done this.

"What was all that talk about changing your story and not wanting to be the bad guy anymore?" The cat narrowed its eyes at her. "It was one of the only things I ever heard you say that sounded like it may have had the slightest merit to it."

"That was fool's talk. Every bit of sentimental drivel that came out of my mouth back then was a result of falling into the trap that terrible, manipulative boy laid for me. Back then, I was a loser. Tonight, I become a winner."

"I'd pay to see that."

"Sadly, tickets are all sold out." Before he could run, with terrifying agility, she snatched him around the middle in a large, claw-like hand and dropped him into her long throat like a snake eating a mouse.

For years she had tried to catch that cat, but now she realized she had failed only because her heart wasn't in it. Despite being insufferable, he had still been a thing to banter with when there was no one else. But she could no longer stand his constant, snobbish criticism. The guilt-tripper was finally gone for good, and she could proceed in peace. First points earned at the beautiful beginning of what was sure to be a thrilling game.

[X]

Alastor registered a few unusual things when he awoke the next morning. The first was the drool-worthy smell of pancakes, eggs, and bacon cooking. Someone here had made breakfast? The second was the sound of a brass band, a familiar brass band in fact. Al's eyes shot open. The shadow players. That. Couldn't. BE. He wracked his mind for a believable way for those things to be down the hall playing without him controlling them. Was it a vivid dream? Had he sleepwalked? As he became more lucid, a more threatening connection between the two things began to crystalize and was unfortunately cemented by the sound that came next- a woman's singing. Singing the first few lines to 'Jeepers Creepers.'

Alastor's brain had a serious disagreement with itself. The majority of it insisted that some prior planning needed to occur before broaching the threat, and a much smaller part gave a very emotional, hysterical, even, appeal about how the voice was the most beautiful sound it had ever heard. Despite being completely outrageous, that part grew bigger and bigger and bigger and persuaded the rest until Al found himself walking down the hall like a zombie. He was most of the way there before he woke up the rest of the way and snapped himself out of it. Or rather, he was snapped out of it by Nifty calling, "Morning, Boss!"

"Hey, Al, who's the babe?" Husker asked.

Flickering to attention, he asked, "Excuse me?"

"The one you brought out your welcome wagon for." Al realized he could not afford to admit that the players weren't responding to a command he made. He waved Husker off without a reply. Husker irritably mumbled, "What the shit?" behind him.

Al approached the kitchen doorway, sure to maintain a certain distance while trying to see around the corner at an angle. He caught a flash of polka dotted silk blouse and red ribbon, which was all he had to see to be forced to remind himself that he could not, in fact, die again of cardiac arrest. He backtracked a few steps to get a different visual angle, such that he could see Charlie and Vaggie whispering to each other around the corner of the doorway on the other side of the dining room/kitchen. He could just barely pull in some of their whispers through the radio static.

"I didn't check her in," Vaggie said. "Neither did Angel. Or Husk. Or Nifty."

"Well... one of them must have checked her in, or else this is hands down the weirdest home invasion I've ever witnessed," Charlie argued. "It had to be Al. That's his band playing, and they act like they know her. ...But I could swear he was still asleep. And I don't think he'd walk out on one of his guests."

"Well, it's like you said, somebody had to have let her in. What home invader sings while they cook you breakfast?"

"Snow White?"

The two women giggled.

"I'll grant you this," Vaggie said. "I've never seen anyone in Hell besides you act so much like they thought they were living in a Disney film."

All jokes aside, this confirmed that no one knew who had let her in. Al was not surprised. She had not been let in. She had let herself in and proceeded in her typical petty yet insidious style. She had casually, subtly illustrated her ability to override his power by making his band play, while heavily suggesting she was someone who was supposed to be here and endearing herself to the rest of the household with food. That was what had just happened. And no one would believe it in a million years. Dammit. How should he handle this? Alastor eyed Husker and Nifty. Ugh. First things first- give the employees the heads up. It would all come out eventually, but he could be vague about it for now. He strode back to the bar area with the feigned carefree attitude of someone who had had a great deal of practice.

"Ah, look, the big shot returns. Too good for us now to even say good morning?" Husk asked. Meanwhile, Nifty sported an even shiftier look in her eye than usual, piquing Alastor's suspicion.

Al walked behind the bar, and, with a smile, swiftly grabbed both by an ear and pulled them over and behind it in looney-toon-esque fashion. Husk began flailing his arms in indignation. Alastor shushed them, looked very seriously side to side, took a breath and motioned with one hand up as though signaling that they needed to suspend some disbelief. After a short pause, he said humorlessly, "She's here for my firstborn."

Nifty and Husker shared another 3-5 seconds of dead silence before both concluded at the same time that it was a joke. Not only that, it was the single greatest, most straight-faced, sophisticated and contextually layered joke that Alastor had ever made. They burst into uproarious laughter, forcing Alastor to briefly mute them until they realized they had to cooperate. "What's so funny?"

"Al, you rarely make me laugh, but I've gotta hand it to you. That line and that delivery were both-" Husker mimed a chef's kiss.

"I'm serious." In reality, he was sure this wasn't the specific reason for Terri's appearance, but he thought it likely that she may whip out an alternative she'd been known to present to prospective prey: 'Want to be safe? Find a replacement.'

Husk and Nifty collectively made the 'can't tell if' face.

"But...Boss…" Nifty said. "You don't have any children?"

Something about the simple, unrepentant obviousness of that statement and her adorable naive confusion made Nifty's sentence the perfect work of art. And something about this combined with the overall feeling of helplessness (a feeling he was no longer familiar with) permeating the moment felt like a welcome escape. It was now Al's turn to be overcome by laughter. "That's...very observant, Nifty," he choked out before dissolving into muffled wheezing laughter behind one hand. It was hard to stop for a few seconds.

"Has he lost his mind?" Husk asked.

Nifty mused out loud, "I've often wondered if this is how he cries."

Al wiped away a few black tears of laughter. "I'm done. I'm done. Nifty, you're...a special one... Back to business. She's an old enemy. I'll not waste time on the whole opus. I've had her in a binding spell for the last 90-ish years. She'll not be pleased that after all that time I have no child to cough up, so she'll be willing to take whatever else she can get."

Semi-sarcastically and semi-seriously, Husker said, "Wondering why we shouldn't just let her overthrow you. I could be up for some new management."

Alastor 'tsk-tsk'ed. "Not this new management. This is a degree of passive aggression and grandiosity that I guarantee will tire you quickly."

"So no change, then?"

"I'll address that later, Husker. What I'd most like to know is how she's here." Alastor twisted himself angularly to tower over Nifty with eyes like dials. Nifty tapped the tips of her fingers together and gave him her best innocent look, but if anything, she looked even shiftier. "I know how you like fiddling with the dolls, Nifty."

"I only pulled a 'just kiss' that one time!" Nifty whined.

"What have I told you? About messing with the dolls? Or entering my room?"

"I just wanted to help! I could tell you had an awful night!"

"Or trying to mother people," Al continued. "It's uncomfortable."

"We didn't know!" Nifty defended, regarding the doll. "The optics were not good for you, to tell the truth!"

"We? Who's we?" There was a crackle of shrill static as Alastor identified the most likely other party. Ohhhh yes, that tracked.

Nifty threw her hands up. "She walked in and drew conclusions!"

"You let her take it?" Alastor hissed.

"I wasn't going to take the binding off. I trusted you to have a reason." Nifty looked tearful. "I just wanted to take the nail out."

Al internally sighed. Nifty could be so sweet it was hard to bear in mind she was in Hell for a reason. "That's more than she deserved, but very kind of you." He did appreciate that she had faith in his rationale but would never say that out loud. Still, it softened him. "Look... if you help me remove her, I'll let it go. No more time added to your service." Nifty still looked gloomy. Al tried to hype her up. "Ready for duty? Valued colleague? Employee of the month?"

With a teary eye, Nifty whispered, "I'm still employee of the month?"

"You're always employee of the month. Look at your competition!" Al pointed at Husker, who had completely tuned out of the conversation, giving no fucks, and was 75% of the way to his first blackout of the day.

Nifty's smile returned. "Ready, boss." Recognizing the seriousness of the matter, she asked, "And if we don't get her out of here?"

"Then it'll probably be moot. None of us will be escaping service any time soon."

For the boss, this was a grim sentence indeed, Nifty thought. He rarely sounded that pessimistic. "What do we do?"

Al considered. "A lot of factors have changed, so I don't think it would hold the same power this time around, but it's probably worth finding the doll. Just so she can't take it back, if not to use it to lock her up again."

"I'll bet Vaggie hid it pretty well."

Al considered that worse still, she may have cast a protection on it. Vagatha seemed like the type to get into spellcasting trying to make herself feel powerful during an edgy teen goth phase. (The irony of this barb was entirely lost on Alastor.) "If we can convince her that her girl could be in danger, she may be willing to hear us out."

"Is this woman a threat to Charlie, boss?"

"She's a threat to the whole household, Nifty. But, yes, I'm afraid if there's anyone here she'd like to go after once through with me, that person is the Princess."

Once through with him? He never used language like that regarding adversaries. Nifty wasn't sure Alastor was fully aware of what he was saying right now, which could only speak to the degree of anxiety he was concealing. What he said next made her more concerned still.

"And Nifty… This is a lot like 'nothing good happens after 12AM,' understood? If I seem...unduly affected in any way, try your best to get my attention. But be careful." He eyed up the 50/60s-style, black suspendered pencil skirt with white polka dots Terri was wearing over a red blouse. "I get the feeling she's noticed you already. We may need to lean on Husker a bit."

"Ready for business, Husk?" Nifty chirped energetically.

Husker became at least vaguely alert at the sound of his name, belched, and grunted, "Come get me when it's time for my new employee orientation with the Ass Man's Fantasy Doll."

"Lovely sentiment, Husker. This is why you're not employee of the month." Al turned back to Nifty. "Luckily for us, her signature move when re-entering combat is to behave as if nothing significant has happened, preferably while endearing herself to witnesses who have no context. This gives her the satisfaction of making me look like a lunatic, but it does buy us time to plan before she strikes. Now…" Alastor donned his 'war face' grin. "Let's go get some breakfast."

Nifty resumed her own 'war face' smile as they stood to head toward the kitchen, but she crinkled her nose a little as she heard more warbling, unsteady white noise than usual emitting from the radio in her boss's cane. (Alastor didn't seem to notice- he was busy mentally repeating to himself reassuringly, 'She's like any other predator animal, just make yourself look big.') Hesitantly, knowing he didn't care to be touched and that he treated the radio as a part of his body, Nifty reached up and gently dialed the volume down for him. Al looked down, realized what had happened, and then fleetingly squeezed Nifty's shoulder before continuing forward.

Nifty was busy focusing on Vaggie in the background, trying to make some sort of meaningful eye contact, so she missed what came next.

Terri came into full view for Alastor just in time for him to watch her interacting with Charlie and Vaggie at the table as she smiled her perfect doll smile at them. Then she turned to face away from the two women and toward him. She locked eyes with him for the first time with a closed-mouthed smirk that slowly parted to reveal not the typical, pointy-toothed grin of the average hellion woman, but rows upon rows of the sharpest knitting needles, layered like shark teeth.