Consciousness returned with a pounding headache and a feeling like all of her limbs were made of lead and tied on with rotting thread. Loona muttered and tried to roll over, only to immediately flop onto the floor, having left her perch on a couch. She blinked a few times in confusion. Where the hell was she? And then the answer, along with a drum-like pounding on her skull, came in the form of more alcohol than she had ever drunk in one sitting in her entire life.
And lots of drunken singing.
"Kill me," Tiff's suffering voice came from the floor nearby. Likewise prone and splayed across a great deal of the apartment's floor was the host of this Hound Party. Several of the other guests were using her ribs as a pillow on both sides.
"Don't think I will, girl," Vortex smoothly answered from the doorway, having to swing his head farther than most on account of his blinded eye to see all involved. "Big turnout, huh?"
"I want to die," Tiff muttered.
"Tex?" Loona asked, shading her eyes from the nearly nonexistent light, to show the Pedigree Hound looking thoroughly amused at the scene that he had come home to. And that finally did some basic math in Loona's head, and told her she'd spent the last fourty hours drinking. "Did you come back early? 'Cause if you didn't... this is kinda embarrassing."
"Naw, they handed Mayday a bunch of bitch-work, and until my contract is up, I gotta keep her drunk-ass in line," Vortex said. He leaned down to nuzzle Tiff for a moment. "Love ya', babe."
"If you loved me you'd kill me," Tiff answered.
"Maybe. If I loved you more, I'd get you a bacon-bucket," Tex said. Every set of ears in the apartment, no matter how obliterated, perked up and turned toward him at that. "Do I have any takers?"
"Bacon bucket?" Reggie, a young, one-handed Hound asked.
"Bacon bucket!" Lissa, Reggie's current partner, dragged herself to an unsteady stand.
"Bacon! Bucket!" a chorus went up in the room. Tiff just wearily clapped her hands over her ears and moaned. And so it was that the least hung-over carried the most hung-over on their shoulders down into their various vans and cars, and formed a convoy to one of the more odd restaurants in Hell. It was called 'Denny's', despite no Denny being involved in it. And as far as its topography was concerned, the restaurant fell from the sky and landed here, crushing a Chapel of Satan in the process. Everything from the parking lot to the building itself was at a slight slant. And even though the sun was up, they still played host to so many drunken and hung-over wastrels that the inside had to be expanded to several times the area of the outside to hold them all.
"Get us a table for twenty five! And start running out bacon buckets!" Vortex said with a pleased tone. The imps quickly scrambled and pushed some tables together, and by the time the Hellhounds managed to get most of their number more or less into seats and more or less upright, the first bucket landed. Vortex spared no ceremony, and with a heave, spread its contents across the plastic sheets of the tabletop. And Loona could only stare in confusion as most of the party guests abandoned any sort of civility to consume cured pig with incredible haste.
"Oh. That makes me feel alive again," Tiff said, after shoving a second handful of crispy bacon into her mouth. "You don't want any of that?"
"I'm fine, thanks," Loona said. Tiff then grabbed what was in front of Loona and ate that, too. The table was almost clear by the time the next bucket landed. This one, though, got passed around. "Do all of your parties end like this?"
"The good ones do," Tiffany said. She leaned back in her chair, to the sound of the spine of it snapping. She didn't fall off, but the chair was still ruined. "That's one of the things that us Hounds always have to remember. Our lives can be taken from us at any time by a bunch of idiots and assholes. Live well, party hard, screw who you want to, and eat all the bacon you can get your hands on," she put truth to word by dumping all of what remained in the second bucket into her maw when it reached her, before chucking the now empty bucket away. "We don't have the luxury of winning wars. But we still outlast everyone. We were the first living, thinking things to be born in Hell. We were here when God chucked the Leviathans here, and we outlasted them all. We were there when God built Heaven. We were there when God Sang his Angels into being. We were there when the first Imps oozed out of the Abyss, and when the land gave birth to Fiends. The only things older than Hellhounds, are Elder Devils and Hell itself. And we'll still be here when all of the others are gone," she said proudly.
"We aren't that old," Loona said.
"Your schooling lies to you," Tiffany said. "Isn't that right, Tex?"
"You'd be surprised how much history gets white-washed so they have the excuses they use to put us down," Tex said, depositing two new buckets of bacon and ham onto the table. "Most books don't even mention the Leviathans. And I looked."
"And you need to eat, Miller. Malnutrition is most of why you're so tiny," Tiffany said, grabbing a fist full of pork and passing the bucket on to Loona.
"I'm fine. Really," Loona said.
"Or are you so used to being hungry that you forgot what full feels like? Eat!" Tiffany said. So Loona rolled her eyes and pulled a sizable chunk of fried ham out of the bucket and did as commanded. It really was a greasy cure for the common hangover. And it did hit the spot. "Food, beer and company; what Hellhounds are famous for."
"I think I'll pass on that last part," Loona said.
"I did notice you kept your distance from people," Tiff said, leaning in. "Did somebody hurt you like that? Because if they did, just say the word and we'll rip his balls off for you."
"It's not like that," Loona said, though she was admittedly touched by the genuine offer to murder on her behalf. "I've got a blood disease. I was born with it. And I really don't want to spread it around."
"Canine Leukemia?" Tiff grimaced.
"Syphilis," Loona said. Tiff blinked at her, then gave an impressed look.
"I keep forgetting how tough Millers are," she said. "I'd have died at five years old if I had that piece of pox. The fact that it barely seems to bother you is exactly why Hellhounds need bitches like you. Don't ever let anybody shame you for being too tough to die. You're a combat-veteran of a war fought within your own body against an enemy that's been there as long as you've been alive."
"I guess I am," Loona said. Tiff offered a wide, fang-filled grin.
"I've heard through the grapevine that your boss is preparing for war. Should I be worried?" Tex said, plunking a bucket between Tiff and Loona.
"Oh, he's not even thinking about Mayday at all right now," Loona said.
"So he's he going against now? An Overlord? Baphomet? Nathan Birch?" Tex asked.
Loona felt her good cheer dying. Tiff seemed to pick up which one killed it, too.
"Fuck that guy," Tiffany said. "If he comes after you, he'll have to fight through us first."
"No, he won't have to fight at all," Loona said.
"We've outlasted the Leviathans. We'll outlast Birch," Tiffany said, crushing some particularly dry bacon into crumbled bits. "Any man who calls himself a Hound's owner will end up being eaten by one. No matter his bullshit powers, he's still just a Sinner. And that means he can bleed. If he can bleed, he can die. Don't give up hope, Miller. There's always a way to kill the evils in the world."
"Now let's get some bacon into you. You need to get some meat on those bones of yours," Tex said, shoving the bucket in front of Loona. And to his credit, that bacon did look really good right now.
The ice-cube melted almost instantly when it landed in Sam's mouth. The sensation of warm water finally quenching the desert feeling of his tongue pulled him back into coherence, and away from that recurring nightmare of disappointment, and a long fall. He swallowed almost on reflex, only just managing to not choke himself on the paltry amount.
"Apoc?" Sam asked.
"The one and only," Apoc answered. "Feeling a bit less dead?"
"Vaguely," Sam rasped. "What... what happened?"
"Do you remember the Exorcist in the hotel?" Apoc asked.
"Yes," Sam said. Another ice-cube, melting swiftly into a quarter-mouthful of water.
"Then you know exactly what happened. I thought you were better at formulating questions than that," Apoc said. The damp cloth over Sam's eyes was lifted away, and the room was barely lit by a candle. The thing called to mind a log cabin, raw timber slotted into place and plugged with lichen. The room had enough space for the bed he was on – which his feet dangled over the end of – an end table with a bowl of ice-cubes in it, and a small, bronze mirror. Apoc was seated on a stool that would have blocked the door if it were to open.
"Don't... be a fart... Apoc," Sam said.
"If you're inquiring as to the aftermath of your grisly wounding, you very nearly died. True Death, to be specific. There's no coming back from that one. Didn't I tell you not to get on the wrong end of a Seraphic Steel weapon?"
"You did," Sam said.
"And still you get into a cage-match with an Exorcist. An old Exorcist, but still an Exorcist," Sam rolled his eyes, only to find that they felt rather dry as well. He weakly reached for the cloth and dabbed it to his eyes. They still felt grainy and sticky, but it was an improvement.
"Why am I... not dead?" Sam forced the question out.
"I called in some favors," Apoc said. "Some favors that weren't strictly mine to call in. But therein lies the interesting bit of making oneself beholden to a Most Ancient Law. By assuming one responsibility, I made myself immune to another responsibility. What is the Law of Proxy, Sam?"
"The Proxy Can't... Be Punished For... For the Will of His Master," Sam quoted. He blinked at the goat. "You made yourself... a proxy, and passed the buck onto somebody else?"
"Nailed in one," Apoc said.
"Who?"
"Nobody that matters," Apoc said.
"No. No dodging. Who is your Master?" Sam pressed. Apoc sighed, and scratched at his forehead.
"Charlotte," Apoc said. Sam just shook his head in reproach. "Don't give me that look. She is the single person in all of Hell that Lucifer WILL NOT inflict horrible vengeance upon for the failure of maintaining his sacrosanct status-quo. And frankly had I failed, there are far worse fates than being bound to the Redeemer Princess."
"If I got stabbed... how'd I live?" Sam asked.
"Sacrifice," Apoc said. He leaned forward, lifting the blanket and showing the binds that covered Sam's chest. They were slightly pinkened by blood. "Think of it like a graft. Part of who you were was cut out. And I had to replace it with something compatible. And that did not come cheaply. Hence my need to call in an incalculable debt."
"...Still hurts," Sam muttered. The burn of it still pulled at him with every breath.
"And it will continue to hurt for the remainder of your days, I imagine," Apoc said. "That wound will take decades to heal, and the scar will remind you of the one time you tangled with an Exorcist for centuries to come, on the case that you last for centuries. You might need to take it easy for a while. That wound will tear open again if you push yourself. It won't be as bad, don't get me wrong, but it's always a pain to have to clean a bloody shirt every time you bend wrong.
Sam nodded. "Why were... why were you at the hotel?" he asked.
"Rest, Sam. I've got to get a ride back to the city," Apoc said. "After all, your friends are probably worried about you, and I've got four hours to get you back before I've broken my word. I don't intend to sacrifice my word for a sour cuss like you, after all," he said with a light-hearted shove to Sam's shoulder, then shifted the stool and opened the door.
"Wait... why were you at the..." he coughed a bit, feeling a hunk of something hot land on the floor by his bed amidst thick grey dust. It smoked black and oily for a moment. By the time he stopped coughing, Apoc had already closed the door and moved on.
Chapter 9
You Are Where You Belong
It was appropriate that the junk-dealer's directions led Striker to a snake pit. He always felt right at home in such places. It was a hot, dry expanse of the Pride Wilds, right up next to the Pride Wall that got hot gusts that traveled along the barrier out of Wrath. A perfect place for something had cold blood and a need for secrecy. The guards were pitiful creatures, egg-like in every way that mattered, including how easy they were to crack.
There was almost a moment of pity for them. Fragile things did not last long in hell. And their maker had made them fragile indeed. But that moment never came. Striker did not pity fools. With the gate 'guards' dead and spilling their yolks onto the sandstone, Striker glided easily across terrain so much like his homeland, ascending cracks and navigating nooks that one could have thought an imp of his size couldn't have managed. In the end, he had an overview of the once-Overlord's fabrication yard, showing the naga-like Sinner hard at work, building something that would have been futuristic a century ago, while hurling abuse and insults at the eggbois that worked for him.
It was always fascinating to see his prey in the moments before they knew he was there. To see what they considered worth time and effort. To get a grasp of their priorities. Ordinarily, he would only get that sliver of their lives before he ended them. Today, well... Today might end differently for Sir Pentious. Time to be personable.
It was an act of volition to have his spurs rattle when he landed inside the yard. Instantly, as though he'd been waiting all this time for an intruder, the naga-lord turned to him, his hood flaring wide. "Who goes there!" Pentious hissed at him. Good ears on the snake man. Maybe a good sense of paranoia as well.
"Somebody looking for some answers, though fortunately for you, not out of your hide," Striker said, putting on his cocky grin as he strutted toward the Sinner who towered over him, and yet still slinked back with his hood wide. "I'm given to understand you've had a tussle recently with one of the Overlords of Pentagram City. One that didn't end so well for ya."
"You want to know about the bomb-hurling whore? That classless harlot is going to run everything I built in West Pentagram into the ground within a month!" Pentious said with bombast, hood furling now that he seemed to think that he wasn't going to get shot. "Just when I have everything in place for a power-play that would have put me on the same footing as Jingo, that pyromaniac prostitute ruins all of my plans!"
"I don't give a rat's hump about Cherri Bomb," Striker cut him off before he could really get off onto a tear. He pulled a chunk of ruined airship and tossed it onto the ground in front of the naga. "I am here because you then got into a fight with Alastor, the Radio Demon."
"Oh. Him," Pentious wilted a bit, for a moment at least, before he pulled himself up to his full height and forced Striker to lean back to keep looking him in the eye. "I will find a way to have my revenge on that upstart. It took me months to get that ship flying the way I wanted it to! Do you know how hard it is to calibrate a dirigible engine with the wind patterns that flow through Pentagram city? IT'S VERY GODDAMNED DIFFICULT!"
"Yes, I'm sure it is," Striker said. "So why did–"
"I should have known that the striped freak would have put his back into a corner; catamites like him are only good for one thing. But to run to the Radio Demon? What could he even use to bribe that scarlet abomination? He has no money, no prestige, and his body would appeal to the interloper as much as a salad would to me! But I was so sure that I could take him. Burn him out of his hiding place for the temerity of what he'd done! If it wasn't for the interloper..."
"Uh huh," Striker said. "Where was this again?"
"What?" Pentious finally leaned back, as though realizing that he'd been allowed to go off on a rant. "Oh right. It was some ridiculous looking hotel. Resilient, too, because it didn't collapse after my first salvo!"
"A ridiculous looking hotel," Striker said.
"Yes. And then there he was, the same man who ruined my Unification Plan sixty years ago! Just standing easy as you please! My Thaumaturgical Cannon should have wiped that smile off of his face, and smeared it all the way from Lucifer's Palace to the Pride Wall. But no. He had to go use his tendrils to rip my ship apart!"
Striker turned away, letting the snake-man continue to rant and ramble, since honestly he had no reason to kill the idiot and bullets cost money. This wasn't new information to him. In fact, this was simply corroborating something that he'd already been told. That the fight took place just outside the Happy Hotel, a ludicrous pilot project by the Princess of All Hell to try to redeem Sinners and get them into heaven. And Alastor's presence there was not unnoticed. So what did he stand to gain from all of this? Was he looking for a way to get out of Hell entirely? Was he looking not to stride the Rings of Hell, but to break the walls of heaven? Because if he was, he might just have to tell Birch to sit on it and spin; Satan would love nothing less than a breach in his arch-enemy's defenses to crop up, especially if he hadn't needed to do anything to put it there.
But the chances of that were remote. And Alastor's current abilities were terrifying enough. For now, he just had to keep looking into things. Talking to people. Making them talk to him. Whatever the Radio Demon thought he was hiding, Striker would suss it out, sooner or later. After all, he was the most talented imp in Hell. This kind of work was exactly what someone like him was built for.
The knocking on the hotel doors pulled Wendy's attention away from where Charlie was doing her best to try to get Angel Dust to focus on something other than a yo-yo. In some ways, the six-armed mafioso was like a child; petulant and capricious, and without any significant wellspring of attention-span. Charlie glanced to the door, but wrangling Angel Dust seemed a full time concern. Wendy got up in her place, and moved to the doors. The door in the frame was drastically out of place, without any of the stained-glass or intricate woodwork. Just something to keep the draft out. She had to open it to see who was going to ruin their day. But contrary to her grim expectations, the door opened to reveal Sam in a wheelchair, with the Goat of the Apocalypse standing behind him ready to push him forward.
"Hello. I'm a touch early," the goat said.
"Charlie?" Wendy yelled over her shoulder. "The Goat of the Apocalypse is back!"
"Oh shit, is Sam wit'im?" Angel Dust's attention now latched onto something that wasn't Charlie and pulled him out of his chair. "Sam! You there pal?"
"For the record," Sam said, looking utterly shitty, but considerably better than dead, "...ow."
"Holy shit! Guys! Sam's back!" Angel bull-rushed Wendy out of the way and tried to hug the wheelchair bound sinner, only to have his crippled arms get in his way, so instead he opted for a side hug and started to pull him toward the aperture.
"Sam's alright?" Vaggie sounded as she usually did – skeptical of anything which wasn't outright hostile and murderous towards anything that was. "Well ho-lee-shit, he is alright."
"Not alright, merely on the mend," the Goat interjected. Considering his hair was barely red and had coal-like streaks of black in it, and his eyes were the color of dying embers, no kidding.
"First piece of good news I've had all fuckin' day," Husk said, his perpetual scowl tilted up into a satisfied smirk, then he immediately thumped the pillar which was all that remained of the bar and had a bottle slide down its filigree into his hand.
"I was so worried!" Charlie said. "Are you sure you're okay to come back so soon? You almost died!"
"I have two hours left on my clock, Princess," the Goat said. "I'm not going to let a traffic-jam render me a liar."
"And it really is him, right?" Vaggie asked. Angel got a momentary concerned look, then experimentally prodded Sam a few times.
"Quit it," Sam said, waving Angel away with a left-arm that was still regrowing a hand.
"Yeah, I think it's him, babe," Angel said.
"It's him," Wendy agreed. Sam gave her a weary nod of thanks at that.
"Yup. That's the damned fool who threw himself at an Exorcist," Husk added.
"It would seem there's something of a consensus that this is in fact Sam, and he is in fact not dead. Charlotte Magne, to whom I owe a Pledge of Responsibility of The Father and Mother," the Goat's voice suddenly boomed. "Be it that its duration was stipulated as not more than seventy two hours, be it that its principles were a return of Sinner Samuel to the Happy Hotel in improved health within that timeframe, be it that no fetters or restraints, physical or otherwise be imparted upon Sinner Samuel, does this pledge meet with the satisfaction of the Binder?"
"Yes. Yes it does," Charlie said.
"Then this pledge has reached its conclusion. This matter is now closed, and shall not at any point in the future be contended by either party," he cleared his voice, which returned to his usual timbre. "I'm glad it worked. I have very few friends, Princess. I would not like to lose another one."
"I'm sure," Vaggie said, as Charlie moved to guide Sam into the lobby, which was currently being rebuilt. The damage that Sam and the Exorcist had wrought, either together or independently, was immense. Honestly, Wendy liked the thought of putting something new in here. The hotel needed something a bit less bleak in terms of an entryway.
"Vagatha, if I could borrow you for a moment. We need to have a word," the Goat said.
"About what?" the most human of the Damned in the room demanded, arms crossed before her chest.
"Your office?" the Goat gestured. Vaggie glared at him with her one remaining eye, then motioned for the goat to follow him into the small office she had off of the lobby. Wendy, though, followed where the others were now clustering around Sam, parked as he was beside the chaise-lounge.
"You sure you're feelin' alright there champ? Yer hair ain't exactly blazin' red," Angel Dust said.
"I feel like shit. Which I'm told is an improvement over feeling dead," Sam said. "Can I get something to drink? I feel like I gargled sand."
"Liquor or something boring?" Husk asked.
"He likes rootbeer," Charlie offered.
"Yeah, that'll get rid of the feeling like he just deepthroated a mummy," Angel said.
"And you'd know all about that, wouldn't you?" Husk asked.
"Damned right I would, pussycat," he said, trying to snap a pair of finger-guns but instead offering a pained wince as his attempt ripped at something that was only very slowly regrowing.
"Can I see the wound? Is it baaaad?" Niffty popped up in their midst, trying to lift Sam's shirt. He slapped her little hands and she tittered as she darted away.
"I'm so sorry that this happened. I thought that this place was safe, and..." Charlie began.
"You were right at the time you made the offer," Sam said, in the wake of a drink from his can. "I was the one that peeled open the can of whoop-ass that landed on me. That thing being out here is on me, not on you."
"You don't understand. I tried to clear this place out of anything that was harmful when I got it. And I didn't even know that bunker was even there!" Charlie said. "Before you mentioned it, I never even noticed that the elevator missed three floors!"
"The Weepstone must have carried a Obscuratism hex, then," Alastor said, standing apart from the scrum, but still sharing the room with it. He idly fiddled with the microphone on his cane. "Specifically it must have been tuned to prevent the hellborn, such as yourself, from perceiving it. Thus why Samuel was able to open a door you didn't even notice was closed."
"See? No problem," Sam said.
"I still feel bad," Charlie pointedly pouted.
"You know what we need? A comin' back party," Angel said. "Ain't every day somebody comes back after gettin' stuck by an Exorcist."
"We don't exactly have what we need for a big party. Not with... well," Charlie gestured to the lobby around them.
"Come on, boss, we gotta celebrate!"
"I'd just be happy with a meal and a nap," Sam said.
"That I can manage!" Charlie said. She then flit her way over to one of the side doors which led toward the banquet-hall. Or it once was a banquet hall; now there was a ship's propeller taking up most of the space.
"Gotta say, torch-top, you got balls from here to the ground, comin' at an Exorcist with yer bare hands," Angel said.
"Didn't want it to pop Niffty's head off," Sam said.
"Kid, you ran into a fight against something everybody in Hell knows enough to run away from, for the sake of a woman you hardly know," Husk said, drinking from the bottle of something so potent that Wendy could smell it across the room. "People who do that kinda shit end up going to the other place, not here."
"I'm getting a feeling that I should have gone to Purgatory instead of Hell," Sam said.
Husk gave a grunted chuckle. "Well that's your shitty luck, ever since Purgatory fell into the Abyss back when."
"I'm serious. When I was... well, dying again... I think I remembered what happened at the Gates."
"Bullshit," Angel said.
"Bullshit," Husk said.
"Bullshit," Wendy said
"Fascinating," Alastor said, at the same time as all three of the former.
"I'm serious. I think it was Saint Peter and... somebody else," Sam said. "They pulled my heart out, and cut something out of it... then kicked me down here."
"That had to have just been a coma-dream," Angel said with a shake of his head. "Nobody remembers their Judgment.
"You... don't?" Sam asked.
"Not a lick," Husk agreed with a shrug. Sam turned to Wendy.
"Don't look at me. I just remember falling out of bed, unable to puke, and then I was landing in Hell," Wendy said with her hands up and warding.
"And you?" Sam asked.
"It has always been my greatest regret that I could not have a reel of the bearded old putz having to read through my vast, incomparable array of blasphemies and sins," Alastor said. "If nothing else, I would have loved to immortalize his look of horror and disgust for all eternity!"
"I see," Sam said. He was silent a moment, then turned to them. "And how close have any of you come to dying since you landed in Hell?"
Everybody shrugged. Except Angel. Sam turned to him, first as though to glance past him, but his eyes got stuck. And as Sam stared, and Angel seemed lost in his own private world, Sam's hair finally lost its last black streaks and returned to blazing red, and then went further, approaching yellow.
"...must have just been a coma-dream, after all," Sam finally said, pulling his gaze off of Angel Dust.
"Still, sounds like you figured out where you fucked up, upstairs," Husk said. "Spill."
"Insufficiently actively good," Sam said dryly.
"Sounds like horseshit to me," Husk said.
"It does, doesn't it?" Sam finished his can and set it on the floor next to the wheel.
"It does. I fleeced and stole from everybody I could reach. Might have been bullshit to drop a swindler in Hell, but here I am," Husk said.
"Hey, I killed a bunch of dickless assholes, so I earned my spot here, fair and square," Angel Dust said.
"Suicide is a mortal sin," Wendy gave a nod. Sam grunted.
"And let's just say that this suit used to be white..." Alastor said adjusting his scarlet bowtie, with a huge grin on his face.
"Wonder what Vaggie did..." Sam muttered.
"Prostitution and murder," Husk said. "What? Just because I don't care doesn't mean I don't listen."
"The table's cleared! I got my guys cookiiing~!" Charlie's voice came from the dining room.
"Well, I guess that's our cue to take it into the least-used room in the hotel," Husk muttered, not waiting for anybody to follow him as he headed under the ornate, slightly burnt arch. The Radio Demon spared a gauging look at Sam before he faded into the shadows and vanished from sight.
"I'd push ya, but I'm pretty sure somethin' ain't healin' right," Angel said. "I ain't been able to pull anything outta the Seven And Eight since the fight. Although right now, I guess it's kinda the Seven and Nuthin', ya figure?"
"I know how that goes," Sam said, raising an arm that ended one hand short of where it ought.
"S'pose ya do. Now I better get in there before she makes somethin' godawful. Seems like I'm the only bitch in this house who can cook a meal that don't taste like a hooker's shoe," The spider-demon gave a shake of his head and departed, leaving Sam and Wendy in the lobby.
"And you look like you're about cry. Something I need to know about?"
"I'm not..." Wendy began, but Sam's slight head-tilt told her that he saw through her strong face. "I'm... I'm sorry."
"Sorry for what?" he asked.
"For doing nothing to help you," she said. "I saw the fight. Through the hallway, I saw it. I saw that thing rip you apart... and I just cowered and hid," she said, her weighty shame entering her voice for the first time in recent memory. "I... I didn't..."
And he reached out, taking her wrist in his hand which radiated like a hot water bottle. "It was not your responsibility to keep me safe, Wendy," Sam said, sternly. "Were you a soldier in your last life? Or a police officer? A bodyguard?"
Wendy let out an unsteady laugh. "Far from it. I was a botanist."
"So what would you have accomplished by running into a fight between a desperate man and a furious angel?" Sam asked.
"...probably got myself mangled or killed," she said.
"Exactly," Sam said. "You did the smartest thing that you could have done in that situation; you didn't put yourself in a position where you could come to great harm for nobody else's benefit. If I had to worry about you and Vaggie at the same time, I might not have been able to hold that thing's blade out of my guts as long as I had. And that would have made me a great deal deader right now. So stop chastising yourself for failing to do the stupidly brave thing that nobody expected of you."
Wendy nodded, scrubbing away the tear she hadn't wanted to shed with her other wrist. "Thanks. I think I needed to hear that," she said. "I could have used a friend like you when I was alive."
"Well, if my understanding of the timeline is right, I died when you were a kid," Sam gave a shrug.
"You know what I meant, you fart," she said, getting behind him and pushing him toward the dining room.
"It also speaks to a glut of deeply unpleasant people. I'm not that good of a friend," Sam said.
"And if I believe that one, you've got a bridge to sell me, I take it," she said. Sam turned a look over his shoulder, but didn't respond to that. As she approached the arch, the door opened, and the Goat was leaving, not quite in a huff, but with a clear bad mood. Well, whatever that was, wasn't a problem of hers.
When the goat closed the door behind him, he reached up and pounded on the door a few times, noting the muted sound it made. The window, having been replaced, made it so pretty much nothing short of a jet engine starting in here would register to somebody so much as standing on the other side of the door. It seemed to be to the goat's liking, because he immediately turned and clasped his hands in front of himself, not even bothering to go toward the chairs that lined one wall.
"So what is this about?" Vaggie asked.
"You need to stop speaking ill of my profession in public," the goat said.
"Excuse me?" Vaggie asked, cocking a fist on her hip.
"Up until now, you've kept your opinions on the Dealmaking profession for the most part consigned to behind-closed-doors and to people who either have no stakes in it, or are so outside the established tradition that they don't care whether you bring their livelihood into disrepute. But you keep offering bile and vitriol to my line of work. I have tried to be magnanimous, to allow such things to slide. But if particular players were to see me allow some of your comments be voiced without harsh response, it would not make me appear magnanimous. It would make me appear weak. And I am not going to allow you to make me appear weak."
"You're not in a position to make demands of me," Vaggie said.
"Because of your conjugal connection to the Princess of All Hell?" the goat asked. Then he scoffed. "I could only care less about that if you paid me to, and even then, I would be hard pressed. Don't stand in the way of the business of Hell, and Hell will not stand in the way of your business. Simple quid pro quo. And for the record, I am not the one who cost you your eye."
"What?" she asked.
"Why you hate Dealmakers so much. When you were in new to Hell, you got entangled with one. Karasnikov, if I've heard rightly. And he took you for a mile. The 'penalties' included much of your demonic power and potential, as well as 'half of your light'," he tapped his left eye, which made Vaggie scowl harder. "And if you hadn't earned the attention and affection of the Princess of All Hell, you would have stood to lose even more. I am not Karasnikov. In fact, I am the reason he is dead. Stop treating me like Karasnikov," the goat said.
"I think you're just trying to salvage your ego from your last big fuckup," Vaggie changed the subject.
"What happened with Sam was a near-catastrophe, not a 'fuckup'," the goat said. Then he paused. "Ordinarily, I would say 'in terms of what you can understand', but I know that you're actually rather bright, so I won't besmirch your intellect with that kind of platitude. Rather, I will say this in terms of what you are willing to believe. You think me incapable of having friends? So be it. Then accept that I hold in Sam a storehouse of value that is of intense importance to me."
"What do you want him for?"
"Why should it matter to you? I'm not going to stand in the way of his path to heaven," the goat said. "Granted that you seem to accept that I hold great value in Sam – friendship notwithstanding – you must therefore understand that I will pay almost any price to see that his storehouse of value is not diminished, or especially not liquidated. As much as I do appreciate the work you are attempting to do here with this hotel, to the very notion of finding a way to bypass Purgatory and get a Sinner into Heaven, if I believed that doing so would maximize Sam's potential, I would tear down this building, brick by brick."
"You wouldn't dare. Not against Charlie."
"You don't know me at all," the goat said. His head tilted and his eyes narrowed. "But I have a feeling that I do know you. A woman forced into prostitution by the realities of collapsing late-capitalism in Central America, which was especially painful for you given your orientation. Ordinarily, the fact that you killed your pimp would have actually been a positive in the eyes of Heaven, if you hadn't been quite so cruel about how you did it. Castrating a man with a broken bottle and shoving it up his anus? Biblical, I suppose. Burning him to death on his own mattress, destroying the building and snuffing out two other lives in the process? Somewhat frowned upon. While one of those lives was his junky 'girlfriend' and thus little of value was lost, the other was a twelve year old child. It was your callousness that landed you in hell. Killed a few days later by six bullets to the chest by policemen, left to die gasping with collapsed lungs in a back alley. I see little has changed from when you dropped that lighter."
"How did you learn all that?" Vaggie asked.
"My clients include the Ars Goetia and the Deadly Sins. My information network is vast," the goat said.
"That isn't who I am anymore," she said.
"Prove it, Agata," the goat said. Vaggie's eye twitched at the mention of her deadname.
"How? What could I do that would prove it to you? You've already shown you don't believe in redemption," Vaggie said. The goat gave a muted chuckle at that.
"I do believe in redemption, actually. But it only comes to those who want it more than anything else. Those who burn with a need of it. And very few such souls live long after the Long Fall. You latched onto the opportunity that the Princess offered as a shipwrecked sailor clings to a chunk of wood. But until you clean your own house, you have no business telling others theirs are untidy. Keep your comments about my profession to yourself in the future. And if you feel a need to retaliate, do it against anybody but Sam," the goat said.
Vaggie glared at him, but said nothing as he turned. He almost made it out the door before he paused.
"For what it's worth, good luck in finding redemption. Many in Hell would be furious at the thought that they'd been here so long with a way out. And the impotent rage of evil people is deeply satisfying to me," he said, and then perhaps the most dangerous being to come into the hotel left her in the office with her thoughts.
Sam's appetite hadn't returned, so he ate little of the meal. Still, being around people who were genuinely happy he was around gave a nourishment all its own. When the merriment died down, Sam quietly wheeled himself into the elevator, and made for his room. Despite having done exactly fuck all today, he was still so goddamned tired.
They said that nobody remembers their Judgment, and yet Sam's now lingered in his mind like a wound. And the things he'd heard, the things he saw... what had they done to him? What had they expected of him? Was it that Heaven was full to the seams as well, and they could only accept the very best? After all, Heaven would not abide something as gauche as an Extermination each year. And if even a few percent of all souls ended up in Heaven, considering the rules of demographics, that meant that billions upon billions upon billions of 'sufficiently good' people were dwelling on the other side of the Gates. As many as Hell hosted on New Years Eve, if not more.
When he recontexualized Heaven like that, there was a sort of sense that he didn't get into it. He'd spent his entire life with his head down, trying not to cause problems. The last time he dared to dream something, to try to be something, was before his mother died. Like his Judgment in his mind, her death was a lingering wound on his family, one that festered until it claimed all of them, in different ways. Dad became cold, then cruel, a ghost of his former self. His brother fell into barely-functioning alcoholism. And his sister vanished one day and was never heard from again. Whether she ran away or simply died, Sam never learned.
After that, eyes down, don't cause a fuss, endure what you can, hide from what you can't. Heaven had expected defiance from him.
"The gift of rage," Sam said to his empty bedroom. "I wish I was as strong as you were."
If there was one comfort Sam had, it was that his mother absolutely had not come here. Before that indifferent monster left her dead on the pavement and drove away, she had been... something special. Something Heaven would have been proud to host. And that expectation seemed to have been passed to him as well. By surviving quietly, he had abetted the rise of evil in the world. He said nothing and endured the Maniac. He said nothing and endured the Pig. He said nothing and endured the Slumlord. If he had rebelled against any of them, they probably would have killed him on the spot... but that would have been enough. Enough for Saint Peter to say 'he failed, but he tried'.
Guilt settled onto Sam's shoulders, not at his failure to chicane his way into Heaven, but instead that he just... let them stay up there. The Maniac still ruining lives. The Pig still abusing those he was supposed to protect. The Slumlord ripping people's hearts out through their pockets. And there was nothing he could do to stop them, now.
He hit the remote for the television in the room, intending on falling asleep to some hell-born inanity. Maybe catching an episode of My Worst Angels. But instead, the screen clicked on at the start of a commercial.
"Hi there! I'm Blitz – the ø is silent – and I am the founder of I.M.P!" the long-horned dickhead who held him at gunpoint said from the television screen. "Are you a piece of shit who got yourself sent to hell? Or are you an innocent soul who got FUCKED over by someone else?"
"The fuck?" Sam said, as the commercial went into a brief testimonial from a murderer.
"Well luckily for you, thanks to our special access to the living world," the imp continued, holding what looked like an Ars Goetia Grimoire in his hands. How in the shit had he gotten ahold of one of those? "we can help you take care of your unfinished business by taking out anyone who screwed you over when you were a-live~!"
And then the commercial began its jingle. Immediate Murder Professionals. A bunch of imps who against all common sense had gotten a way to make portals to the Living World, without any oversight from the Ars Goetia or the Deadly Sins. Apoc wouldn't know whether to shit or go blind if he knew about these people.
Even still, a notion formed in Sam's head. Maybe his business wasn't unfinished as he thought. While it was already too late to stop him from coming to Hell – he was here, that was that – he could at least stop any more harm from being done by the monsters who beat him into submission in his life. The instant he landed in Hell, he made a vow, upon his mother's name, that he would never quash his rage ever again. And now, he had a way to make something right. On the smallest scales, in possibly the worst way... but right. And as he thought, the jingle reached its end.
"Kids die for freeeeeeeee~!"
He didn't listen to what was actually on the television. His mind was elsewhere.
Despair sets in, when people's hopes are out of reach. The simplest way to avoid that despair is to not have dreams, but few are so hollow. So instead, remind yourself of the extent of your grasp. Know yourself, and the limits of your abilities, even when pushed to their utmost. And then kill those dreams that lay outside of that grasp. Take comfort in new dreams, within your new world, the one that you may shape to your will. You are where you belong, when your might can change your destiny.
-Litany of the Church of Satan against despair.