Leslie had long, long periods of waking dreams - solid hallucinations that seemed out to get her - only interrupted with twitching and the occasional blurry, staggered trip to the bathroom. Sometimes there was a new plate of food by her door, but she didn't touch it.
So many dreams.
She saw a dazzling whiteness above her bed, moving like Tinkerbelle and raining sparkles.
"What's going on?" she asked it, knowing it would know.
"You left your family," it said.
No, no she hadn't. She had died. I couldn't help that…! But the light moved hither and thither, taunting her. She felt waterlogged, heavy and useless. Her brain played the exchange on repeat, repeat, repeat.
She was dancing, and the erstwhile blank room was a forest of unblinking eyes. In her periphery, they seemed to advance, but retreated when she faced them. Drunk, dizzy spinning. Take me out of this. Butterfly, butterfly.
A clawed hand took one of hers, lifting Leslie out of bed - hadn't she been standing up? A shadow - Alastor's. They were waltzing together. But his bones were so thick, so cold… She felt them through his skin.
"You're not like him," she said, trying to convince herself. "You're not. Not at all." His answer was to give Alastor's twisted grin. Then he shrank, lightning-fast, and became Niffty. "Huh?" Leslie said as they danced.
"What? At least I'm more appropriate as a dance partner, height-wise," Niffty tutted. She began to lead. "You're just having a fever, that's all. Grab a shower and get out of those damp PJs; you'll feel better."
Leslie blinked. "Is this your power, turning up in people's hallucinations? Or is it just me?"
"Ehhhh, I'm prolly not the person to ask." Niffty gave her a twirl and dipped her; Leslie never knew she had such strong forearms. "Y'know," Niff said, "you should probably eat, too. Gotta get that strength up! Bad stuff coming!"
Bad stuff?
Now she was plunging into a deep pit, with screaming at the bottom. Now her brain gave her a VoxTube playlist she sometimes watched to go to sleep. Weird, how the mind threw up random things for mental occupation.
Now Alastor carried her back to the bayou, in that gangling coathanger-shoulders way. There was nothing sexy in the air; that illusion was gone, and she was afraid. No, no, no! Put me down! They struggled in the mud, smacking and grasping for each other's arms.
"You're going to be my coat!" he said, eyes agleam.
Leslie squeaked and yanked her hand free, then punched him in the face. While he crouched there, clutching his nose, she got up and escaped, mud caked to her. Too easy? He had to be right behind her. There were humans. Leslie forgot what she was as she ran to them, crying sanctuary. The humans yelled about a rabbit-monster, shot her in the kneecap, and then finished the job with a bullet to the neck.
Warm blood. Tasty blood.
Leslie cried when she was back in the room. Fat Nuggets was there and she stroked him, scratched behind his ears until she fell back asleep.
Bill Nye reruns, ending with bites to her shoulder that she only felt, never saw.
She woke up, covered in gravy; what she presumed to be Fat Nuggets was actually her dinner from hours ago. A quick trip to the bathroom to hose down.
More rolling and twitching.
Then the most terrifying of all… it felt so real. Leslie woke from more humdrum nonsense to the sound of scratching. As the bedside lamp flickered on by itself, she saw an ink drawing on the wall, floor to ceiling, etched with the spidery thinness of a serial killer's hand. A human-looking doll with crosses over its eyes, and its facial features and other appendages circled.
Right beside it all, a mess of words was scratched, still in that thin inky hand.
ALWaYS BETRAYED!!! AlWaYS… I WANT MY sWEEtPEA! LET ME SEE or I'LL DIE!
Leslie stared in horror as more words scraped into the wallpaper. Now the script was thicker, blacker, more deranged and bleeding ink.
YOU lUCKY FLeSH-EATER BAsTARD! HARlOT!! THiEF! I PROMISe I WILL GET YOU!
The bulb smashed and plunged her into blackness. Leslie's hands gripped her ears, finding only cold comfort. Stop it! she raged in her head. Leave me alone! Candle smoke was in the air as she whimpered, covering her face. This was it. Leslie prepared to die.
The image of a face flashed beneath her closed lids, with the wrong colors, like an afterimage. It had white holes for eyes.
Leslie screamed.
And then the light came back on.
She peered out between her ears, saw the bare lightbulb of her lamp, with maybe a hairline crack. The drawing on the wall and ceiling remained, but the scratching died down. For the first time, she was aware of faint musical thudding from the floor below... as though someone were using the reception hall's speakers.
Leslie stayed still, her arms and legs drawn in for fear of creeping shadows. As soon as it was safe, she stood up. She had to get rid of this before anyone saw - if it was real.
It had to be real. A warning.
From the Eyeless Horror.
Summoning what little strength she had, Leslie wobbled over to tear down the wallpaper.
o - o - o - o - o
Vaggie was worried.
For some time, she'd noticed Leslie's decline. Leslie had grown steadily more reserved in recent months, jumpier even. She drank. Her class attendance dwindled (part of it, Vaggie imagined, was the teaching job and all the extra preparations thereof, but still). She continuously suffered from night terrors… and many times, Leslie left a room in apparent fear or pain.
Baxter put the recent freakout (with a side of broken mirror) down to hallucinations from the abyssavirus. "Her labs reveal no naughty substances," he announced... not that Vaggie suspected it much anyway. But how to explain the rest of it?
Maybe it was stress, from adjusting to Hell in general, or the impending extermination, or those past incidents with Kain and Decider, which were hardly her fault. Vaggie even wondered if there was some conspiracy going on: a plot to drive a vulnerable sinner to despair. In any case, she needed help.
The trouble was, Leslie was a hard woman to help: reluctant to admit anything was wrong. If you asked her how she was, you'd get cheery platitudes; with further pressing, you got excuses and defensive statements. She shot down friendly suggestions to see the therapist… and still the night-screaming continued.
Something was wreaking havoc with that girl… and now she was stuck upstairs with a virus.
"I swear when things calm down," Charlie said, "we'll stage an intervention. But right now, we have graffiti in the lobby, and then I need help with the hall. Razz and Dazz went to get my favorite tablecloths from home - you know the nice burgundy ones?"
That was three days ago. Vaggie was impressed the planned night of frivolity came together at all, what with three sick guests, and the extermination a week away. Surely it was best not to bother. When all of Pride had shuttered in rueful anticipation, why should the hotel be any different?
But this dance night seemed to be important to the other two. Alastor certainly pitched in: organizing, inviting, moving furniture and cracking jokes with Charlie. All the while, Vaggie hung back, feeling like a wet blanket. That's fine, she thought, you go ahead and raise my girlfriend's spirits. Such great friends they were.
Truth be told, they were an hour into the event and it was going well: more attendees than expected, all having some fun. The Magnes were right. Inside of every demon was an urge to party; even - no, especially - in the face of their own mortality.
Dressed in the same frock she'd worn for Charlie's birthday, Vaggie stood at the bar, taking it in. She watched their guests groove, sway and cavort. She watched Angel and Cherri Bomb silly-dancing. She watched Niffty go around with a card trick Husk had taught her (the other demon's chosen card, one of three, would be "magically" transformed into one which said 'Buy Me A Drink').
Finally, she watched Alastor and Charlie talking together, perched on the stage. Their empty glasses rested between them - a former cognac and virgin raspberry mojito respectively. The distance was too great, and the music too loud, to hear them, but anyone could see they were talking with energy. When he told another joke, it made Char wheeze and slap her knee. Well, not quite - it was more a repeated punching of her upper thigh, like an allergy-sufferer stabbing themselves with epinephrine. She only did that when she was really tickled by something.
Vaggie wished she'd never suggested this party.
"Maybe I'm jealous," she confided in Husk.
"Fuck you telling me for?" he said with a scowl. Husk had his own reason to be upset; he and the other barman were working together, and he hated the other barman. He hated working with anyone. According to him, bartenders were the most disagreeable, snobbish, self-important assholes on the planet.
"I'm telling you because… you know Alastor. You know what he's like."
Their discussion was interrupted as Craig sidled up, ordering a Southern Comfort with lime and lemonade, and Husk deftly poured, then rolled the bottles over his wings, back onto their respective shelves.
"Listen," he told Vaggie, "you got no reason to be jealous."
"I know. I know about Al."
"Nah, on any level. I don't think he can handle real women. Or real men, come to that."
Vaggie turned, puzzled. "What do you mean?"
"Ahhh, somethin' Angey fukken said, I dunno. Like if he was gonna have someone, they'd be below him. Some bitesize ineffectual demon, like a duckling or a mouse," Husk said, rolling his eyes. He pointed at Alastor and Charlie, still laughing together. "Yer girl's too powerful. Too fukken… too much of a match."
Even when Husk was giving assurance, he had that grizzled, insulting tone of voice. Vaggie hopped on a stool and swiveled to face him. "But you don't understand, Husk. Where does that leave me?"
"Ah, fer fuck's sake." Husk reached over and stretched out her eyepatch. "Get over there," he ordered, "grab yer woman and remind her what makes you so fukken amazing." And he released the patch, letting it twang back into place.
As Vaggie sat, having the revelation, he slouched away. Probably bored of conversing. But he was right. It could be done. Just go over there, she thought. Go over, let her have one evening of fun, and no matter what happens next week…
"We tried," Vaggie finished aloud. "No-one can say we didn't try."
With fresh determination, she cleared the floor, ducking around a group of three dancing in unison, and slid up to Charlie and Alastor.
"Hey Beanpole," she greeted Alastor, and gestured to their guests. "Is this what you call a fiery pit of failure?" The prick gave her a condescending smirk, but she spoke again, before he could retort. "Char, let's go do our routine!"
Charlie's blessed face lit up. "From last Navidad?"
"Yeah, yeah, c'mon!"
Abandoning the dregs of her cocktail, Charlie took Vaggie's hand and led her to the center of the room. Vaggie nodded to herself, still riding that determined wave. This was going to be their routine, and only two people in the world knew all the steps. They'd dance like idiots and be happy. She was so focused on her plan that the kiss from Charlie came as a surprise.
"Thanks for being so great," she said, and kissed Vaggie again, on the forehead this time.
Vaggie smiled. Could their cantankerous old barcat really have given such simple, yet effective advice? Whatever was the world coming to?