It was the longest silence Coco had ever experienced where she was relatively sure no one knew what was going on. All she knew was she was standing in the middle of a circle, she was sweating, the air smelt like an old folks' home fucked a Bath and Body store, and there was some really weird cosplay shit going down right now.
'… Please tell me I'm hallucinating,' Coco wanted to make the most logical explanation so she could pretend none of this was happening. She touched her forehead for a moment and felt that, no, she wasn't as hot as before so heat stroke was crossed off the list. She also didn't have a bump on her head. 'Am I old enough to have dementia yet?'
Sounding far too internally comfortable for dementia to be a legit explanation, she instead decided that maybe it would be a good idea to figure if these… people were real?
"… Um. Hello?" Coco started, hoping that breaking the unbearable silence would make her feel more confident. It actually didn't make her feel any better…
"Hi!" The cheery girl looking one responded.
"Milly!" The other short red one with black and white stripped horns said under his breath, looking stressed as he didn't move his eyes off of Coco. He looked more scared of her than she was of him. "Don't talk to it! Maybe it's dangerous…"
"Oh fuck it," the tall one said, slapping his forehead before looking over at Coco with an angry look. "What the fuck are you doing in my summoning circle!"
Coco jumped a little at that and immediately began to sweat. Summoning circle? What? Like a portal? Like a Star Trek teleporting thing? What the hell, are these nerds or cult members?
On further inspection, she saw all three of the people around the circle looked only vaguely like a person. Their height was about that of a human, the two smaller ones being only a little taller than you while the other definitely towered, and their facial features were similar to regular people. But, their skin… is red… and definitely not painted… And those horns look too real to be crafted… Are those claws? And… tails…
'I'm surrounded by actual demons.' The realization struck her too simply, as if the shock wouldn't make her want to pass out. 'Holy fuck, what are a bunch of demons doing here?'
And that wasn't even the weirdest part yet.
"Uh, hello!" The tall one said impatiently, now resting his hand on his side and giving a side glare from his corner. "It's very rude to ignore people. You kind of just ruined our reverse summoning, so what the fuck are you doing inside my property?"
"Did we do this right?" The short one with stripped horns said, looking down now at what looked like a script and reading through it again. "The directions didn't say anything about a carrier. Unless we picked something else up by accident."
"What were you doing in the living world by yourself?" The cheery looking one asked. She didn't seem clueless, just curious. Seeing as this was all new to her.
"…" Coco stayed completely silent for a moment before looking around the room quickly with just her eyes. It was dark, there were candles everywhere, but it was obvious to her that she was standing inside an office room with all the blinds shut and impromptu cult-shit going down. "… What are you guys doing here?"
"I could ask you the same thing." The tall one said, crossing his arms and pointing over at her lightly. "You know going to the land of the living is a top offense! What kind of idiot creep are you?"
"Sir, they could say the same thing about us," the shorter one pointed out.
"But we got permits for that," the spunky one said, then turning to the taller one. "Right?"
"Sort of," he brushed off before looking back to Coco. "Look, we didn't go to all this trouble just to bring back a stupid little imp. So what the fuck have you messing around with and have you seen an impossibly uncontrollable source of magic stored in a book?"
"Again with the details…" The small complained, smacking himself and sighing.
It took a few seconds for Coco to realize that these guys weren't acting the way they should if they actually meant to kidnap a human. In fact, the way they were talking to you…
'Oh my god,' Coco's eyes went wide for a minute and she almost had a heart attack. 'They think I'm a demon too!'
Whether this was a good thing or not was irrelevant. There was still too much shit that hasn't been answered, like how the fuck is this all happening?
"She doesn't smell like an imp," a random wold girl in the corner said, looking up from her phone to just stare blankly at Coco. "How the fuck did you shit heads mess this up and pull out this random dick bag?"
"HOLY FUCK IT'S AN ACTUAL FURRY!" Was the first thing that spilled out of Coco's mouth.
With that, Coco lost all feeling her legs and tumbled outside the circle on the floor. She was now officially a disheveled mess. Her jacket was half off her shoulders, her bag was half opened, she noticed her devil horns were tilted so she took one hand to quietly fix them, and the book rested on her lap.
It was then that Blitzo, Moxxy and Milly all saw the book actually did come through!
"The book!" Moxxy said, automatically turning around.
"Haha!" Blitzo excitedly did a fist pump and smiled. "I knew I could do it! Okay, you little poacher. Hand over the book back to us and we'll let you leave this office mostly alive~"
Coco went wide eyed at that. 'Mostly'? What the fuck. They just randomly pulled her from one place to another and now they want her book and to possibly torture her? She saw the looks on all of their faces, they were all cold and too eager to cause harm. Something they obviously knew how to do well and enjoyed doing.
Taking the initiative, Coco carefully began to stand up. She was slightly off-balance and unsteady from shock and fear, and the three other demons slowly creeping towards her did not help. She held the book up carefully with both hands in front of her chest and they all stopped. Now, it felt way too much like a Mexican stand off that Coco forgot to bring a gun too. She looked around everywhere. The was very limited furniture to hid behind and only one window that looked liked like it was pretty old and fairly close to her.
"…" Weighing her options, Coco decided to do something stupid. "Catch."
She chucked the book over her head and then threw it straight threw the window! The three demons were momentarily distracted by the breaking glass that Coco slipped by and quickly jumped out the window to follow it as well.
"Hey!" Moxxy shouted after seeing the girl jump before he could get his thoughts together. "She's getting away!"
"Then we gotta stop her!" Blitzo shouted out the obvious.
Coco barely overheard all of this as she had crashed on to an old, rusted out fire escape that was too stories down from the window. She was lucky it had broken her fall, but when she pulled herself up she felt the whole metal frame begin to shake.
"Oh fucking," she couldn't finish that statement because just then the railing tore off of the brick wall and the whole thing tumbled to the ground. "CHRIST!"
When the three demons got to the window together, they saw nothing but rubble bellow them that lead to a trash alley. Nothing could be made out since it was so dark and the sounds from the surrounding Imp City made it too hard to distinguish anything.
"She's gonna get away with the book!" Milly said.
"Why didn't you do anything!" Moxxy shouted at Luna.
"I didn't know it was my job to fix all of your screw ups," Luna said, rolling her eyes and glaring over at Moxxy.
"Let's save the regular staff insulting for later!" Blitzo growled before gesturing to the door. "Come on! We gotta go and get them!"
Coco groaned lightly and picked herself up by her shoulders. When the railing fell, she landed in a pile of trash next to the dumpster and ended up with only a few bruises. While she gestured around to find her bag, she instantly grabbed on to the book that was laying on top of her bag right next to her.
'They're after this thing.' She held up the book close to her to look at it again. It wasn't glowing red anymore and seemed as normal as any big heavy book as before. 'What do they want this for? Where did this book even come from?'
Not taking the time to sit around and be found, Coco got up and tried to start running. But as she began moving she realized her ankle hurt as if she had sprained it!
'GUH! Must have happened when I was in the circle,' Coco remembered being tossed and turned, possibly rolling her ankle in the process. 'No! I gotta get out of here!'
Carefully limping over the fallen railing and trash, Coco pulled herself through the alley and on to the closest side street where she began to run as carefully as she could away from the scene.
'People,' she thought, looking around for any sign of life and any direction that would take her to the closest population. 'I need people! I gotta find someone, get out of here and find some people before those red demons find-'
She had been limp-running for maybe fifteen minutes before she stumbled onto a busy intersection that… made her realize she hadn't been paying attention to the color scheme of this whole city.
She saw no 'people' but more of the strange, altered detentions of disfigured demon beings all walking around. They wore clothes that were the most extreme versions of themselves and were all interacting with each other in the strangest ways possibles. The buildings and signs on the buildings only looked vaguely normal, and on closer look she saw they were mostly like bad puns for either drugs, sex positions or some kind of violent act. There were ads for normal stuff followed by some of the most extremely uncomfortable looking things, being hawked by other demons. The smell was a mixture of humid air, blood, pollution, and something that reminded her of China.
She realized she was no longer in Edinburgh anymore. Hell, she realized she probably wasn't on Earth anymore.
"Oh fucking hell," Coco slapped herself on the face and inwardly groaned as the worst realization swept over her. "I'm in fucking Hell…"
"Hey!" The familiar voice of one of the demons rang out behind her a few blocks back. "There she is! Get her!"
Coco ducked into the nearest crowd of people and quickly started to mush into the crowd of demons like she was a part of a flock of sheep. And it was a good thing she did too because she heard the sound of a shotgun firing before it hit some random demon across the street in the face!
'HOLY SHIT THEY'VE GOT WEAPONS!" Coco mentally screamed as she instinctively started to move with the crowd to get as far away from here and them as possible. 'Fuck me. Fuck this. Fuck everything.'
Blitzo got to the place in the street ahead of the other three, standing there and scanning the area to see he shot yet another not-innocent bystander/druggie.
"Damnit," he growled, going up to the demon and picking him up to look and badger him for information. "You seen a small, weird looking imp around here? Which way she went?"
The guy didn't respond either because he was dead or too far out to comprehend anything. Or maybe just getting shot in the face fucks everybody up?
"Goddamn it another useless one," Blitzo complained, letting him fall to the ground and standing up again to see the other three catch up to him. "The fuck is taking you all so long! We lost her again!"
"Sir, it would have been better to have kept her in the office instead of scaring her away." Moxxy managed to get this out through heavy breaths. He really needed to start upping his cardio.
"Sweetie, you should sit down for a minute," Milly said, patting his back before looking back up at Blitzo. "Can't we just do another reverse summoning portal? It worked last time!"
"And get even more exposure that we possibly lost one of the most dangerous artifacts in Hell?" Blitzo sarcastically offered. "Uh-uh, Milly. We're gonna do this the old fashioned way. With a gun and a hound."
"I can't smell her out like this," Luna complained, looking angrily at Blitzo as he tried to get her to follow a sent. "Shit, it's enough that that trash covered all of her human scent, now I can tell the difference between one demon and another!"
"Well we've gotta try something!" Blitzo shouted, gesturing outwardly around the whole city. "We've gotta find that little book thief and cut off her arms before she-"
"Wait a minute wait a minute wait a minute!" Moxxy interrupted before standing up straight and looking at Luna. "What do you mean her human scent?"
"We did just pull her out of the living world," Milly suggested. "Maybe all that human scent's from there?"
"No," Luna said, crossing her arms and looking down at them aggravated. "She smells completely human. The book pulled her threw. I also smelt some kind of curse or whatever, not like I care really."
"Wait," Moxxy panicked, already starting to sweat. "So you mean… we pulled a human out of the living world and now we lost her in the middle of imp city on a Friday?"
Everyone there stood there and slowly started to panic because they just fucked up so much that it's inconceivable that anyone could ever fuck up worse than this.
"This is stupid," Luna said, turning around to go back to the office. "I'm gonna wait until the dumb human decides to come back."
This left the three of the standing there weighing their options. Blitzo stood there slightly confused, pondering the impossibility of this along with his options. Milly stood worried, listing all of the ways a human could die in the middle of hell and all of the impromptu genocide that would spring from willed up excitement. And Moxxy was going down this list of all of ways they would get punished when anyone finds out what they've done and how this all happened…
"Alright, look," Blitzo said, summoning everyone's attention and straightening out himself. "Whatever the fuck is going on, that girl's got our book. And we gotta find her before some other asshole decides to kill and eat her."
"But how are we going to find her, sir?" Moxxy asked, still relying on his formal sense of office politics even though he was exasperated. "Imp City is huge! She could already be across the neighborhood or even being stabbed at this moment!"
"That's not the positive mindset I want to see from you all today!" Blitzo scolded Moxxy, pumping up his chest and resting into a relaxed smile. "Now, what we need is an upbeat spirit and I'm sure we'll conquer it no time! So what if we've lost one measly little human in a sea of demons! We can find her before night time, no problem!"
"But sir, how are we suppose' to find her out here alone?" Milly asked, holding out her hands for ideas as she looked concerned. "Without Luna, we can't sniff her out on our own!"
"Come on, Milly!" Blitzo said cheerfully. "It can't be that hard to find one measly little human out here. She sticks out like a sore thumb! Besides, there's three of us and only one of her. She can't get too far out here on her own!"
"And what do you purpose we do with her when we find her, sir?" Moxxy asked, glaring over as he found this entire situation impossible. "We can't just let her go in here or back to the living world. Do you suggest we kill her and risk getting exposed for having a human enter Hell without going through standard protocol!"
"Mox! Calm down!" Milly was immediately by his side, prepared to either comfort or smack him. Whatever seemed more necessary.
"Shhhh~~ shhh~~" Blitzo mockingly tried to comfort Moxxy by grabbing him from behind and carefully rubbing his horns. "Now, now Moxxy. No need to get your tail in a knot. We'll take good care of the human and make sure she leaves hell remembering nothing about what happened here or our little book fiasco."
"Stop touching my horns," Moxxy ducked out of his embrace and walked back beside Milly.
"How are ya' gonna' do that?" Milly asked.
"A simple, easy spell from the book that'll cover everything." Blitzo said before turning away as his expression started to become more twisted. "I'll make sure this event is only a nightmare that constantly haunts her in the back of her mind and slowly drives her insane until she's resting unpeacefully in a grave. When I get my book back, I'm gonna make sure she regrets ever picking it up and send her back to wherever the hell on Earth is!"
"Florida?" Milly asked.
"What? No! I meant… well… is she from Florida?" Blitzo returned back to normal. "That would be a bit ironic."
"We really need to get a background check agent for our targets." Moxxy sighed, pinching the skin in-between his eyes for emphasis. It had become a pain trying to distinguish them all from one another.
-In another part, but not so far away, of Hell-
Coco barely got out of that crowd alive. She had been squished, squeezed, most definitely groped and suffocated about seven times before she managed to squeeze past into an open clearing. From there, she limped her tired ass to the closest rest stop that looked like a restaurant. Not willing to take the risk of actually talking to someone or trying any food from here, she snuck back behind all the strangers and found her way to a public bathroom. Blessed with the small luck that it was actually open and unlocked, she swept herself in then took what looked like a 'Bloody Floor' sign and used it to stop the door shut from the inside.
'This is the worst fucking possible thing to ever happen in an eternity of bad things that could ever happen.' Was the solemn statement that summed up this whole past hour.
The bathroom was as gross as any regular public bathroom but with more blood in it than usual. The smell was awful, but could mostly be ignored if you didn't look over at the toilet. Coco wanted to crumple down on the floor and have a good screaming fit, but she didn't want to risk getting HIV by touching anything in here. So she settled and went over to the sink to see if the running water looked potable. She was honestly surprised to see the water looked clean and didn't smell like natural gas was pumping through it.
'Thank… whoever for small miracles.' She really had to start thinking things through now that she was in a place that defied all logic and had her questioning her spirituality again. 'God might not exist but at least I know Hell exists.'
Coco carefully washed her face under the running water. With the day she was having, she needed to feel any bit cleaner and calmer than she did before. It was not surprising to her that Hell was both obscenely hot and humid. It made her hair frizz her more than usual and the too formal-like attire to stick to her from sweat.
Thumbing through her hair, Coco looked for the best way to wear the devil horns. Seeing as they were the only thing helping her to pass as an imp aside from the fact her eyeliner was starting to drip down and make an interesting eye pattern. As she messed with her hair, she noticed the right arm side of her dress shirt had long rip extending from her shoulder to her wrist. It must have happened when she was falling on the fire escape from earlier.
"Damnit," Coco cursed under her breath. She was beyond the normal reach of exhausted and had landed at feeling totally out of sorts as she moved to examine her shirt. "As if I don't look crappy enough already. Come on, just give me one less thing to-"
She stopped as soon as something even more disturbing caught her eyes. Running down from her bicep and ending at the inside of her wrist was a huge, strangely organized tattoo that… seemed… to be kind of be moving?
Coco stopped and stared at her arm. What was this?
When she looked at the mirror she also noticed something at the edge of the back of her neck. Her left hand quickly flew back and she immediately felt the outline of a circle like a branding on the back of her neck.
Her heart stopped for a moment and her eyes went wide.
"I've got… a tattoo…" she began before looking down at her arm. "I've got some kind of demon marking on me… And I don't even remember getting it…"
Panicking, she ripped open the sleeve of her shirt to look closer and recognized the design on the top half. It was the same illustration as on the cover of the book. Two intersecting pentagrams with an apple in the middle and seven empty circles surrounding it. Only one of the circles had a red ring around it like it was outlined in red ink.
There was strange script and eyes that fell down from her arm in a red and black pattern until it stopped at the inside of her wrist. There, at her wrist, was what looked like a very simple compass like tattoo that just had one thin hand pointing straight across from her. When she looked over in that direction, she saw the book lying there by itself next to her bag and discarded denim jacket.
"What are you," she said, picking up the book and immediately flipping through it. "No notes. No table of contents. No nothing! It's like somebody started writing you in some insane, crazy way and just left it that way!"
The book had nothing inside it to explain itself or any of the reasons why this was happening. Coco closed the book and let out a long sigh before looking at the cover of it.
"Look," she said, staring at the circles and studying it. "I know I'm… talking to a book. But. If you can… point me in the right direction? Maybe a page to explain where I am and what I should do? That would be really helpful."
As if the request itself was an order, the book promptly opened itself and flipped to an exact page where a bookmark laid. Coco stood there and gave several hard blinks before she could compressed words again.
"… I really shouldn't be surprised by this." She said to herself, leaning in to look at the book. "Crazy shit seems to be happening for a reason today."
Swallowing the logical side of her brain that was screaming, she indulged her natural curiosity and started reading. It was less of essay and more of map of the general area. In it, she saw the layout of what was titled "Imp City" and all of her moves since she was summoned here. As she thumbed past that page, she found another page that had directions for both 'summoning' and 'reverse summoning' things to "The Living World".
"No wonder they want this book back," she said, closing it and buckling it shut. Feeling like it was dangerous to have this book out in the open now, she quickly stuffed into her bag and let out a deep sigh. "Alright, this is some… crazy shit. Shit. I've got… to figure out… a plan. What to do next?"
Coco's mind was empty and blocked from making ideas. All of the stress and exhaustion made it impossible to think along with how thirsty and hungry she's become. She realized how impossible it was for her to even get this far on her bum ankle without getting found out.
'If there was someone else here I could talk to this would be so much easier to deal with,' she told herself, trying to think of anyway to get out of this mess and find a way back home. 'Just someone who could help me get out of here and make a decision about what to do next.'
She stopped when she remembered that strange voice from earlier that had been talking to her when she was still in the summoning circle. Where did it go? She definitely didn't feel like there was anything really inside her that was ready to talk, but then she looked at her arm and realized that must have something to do with it.
"Okay, let's see." She went to the mirror and looked all over her arm at the tattoo, its figure a mix of circles and squiggly symbols that sometimes looked like script and sometimes looked like eyes. "If you left a calling card for me somewhere around in here, now would be a really good time to show up…"
Coco searched for a few minutes until she was guided down by the lines and looked again at her inner wrist. The circle did look like some kind of odd compass, except that it didn't have the usual north-south places. Instead, the design looked even more ominous. On one side of the compass was an apple image and the other was also an apple, except it was inked in black. Then at the top was a small Y and at the bottom was an N. There was a needle that was right now pointing at the top, but it didn't seem like it was actually pointing at anything. Weird, since earlier it looked like it had been pointing towards the book.
'This is a weird kind of design to have going on,' Coco touched the compass outline on her wrist and followed along the images. It just felt like skin to her, which was surprising since the whole thing should feel like it doesn't belong there. 'Wonder what this thing is supposed to mean? Let's see, the book sometimes talks about space and knowledge, soooo…. What could a compass be used for?'
Just as she was scanning her wrist, the door began banging and being pounded on from the other side! The sound of rough fists on the door made her jump up.
"What the fuck," a deep voice resonated behind the door and growled. "HEY! Hurry it the fuck up in there! Some people need to take a shit!"
"And shoot up some shit!"
"And fuck some shit!"
Between the yelling and what could all possibly be read as death threats, Coco was now completely terrified. There looked like only two options on how to get out of this: One was go out the door amongst the demons, and the other was crawl out the small window that was near the top of the room. She had to make a decision now!
Just as she began sweating more bullets, she noticed down on her wrist something was moving. When she held it up and looked down, she saw the needle had now moved and was pointing towards the door! It was moving a little in a motion like it was being shaken.
'Okay, definitely not normal,' Coco freaked out a bit then shook her head. She could only get scared by one thing at a time now, and she chose to be more afraid of the the demons currently trying to beat down the door. 'Never mind! This is not good. I gotta get out of here now! I bet that door won't even stay up for another minute…'
At that thought, Coco noticed a fine line had swooped up from the needle and pointed up towards the Y. She stared at it for a moment, before coming to some logical thoughts.
"Um, so I guess Y means yes," she said, still looking at her wrist. The line did not move from the spot. "So, okay. Should I try to open the door?"
The line immediately swung down and landed on N.
"Okay," Coco calmed down a lot after seeing that. "Then… Should I go out the window?"
Then the line swung back up to Y.
Coco stood there for a few more seconds and listened to the thundering sounds of even more bangs and beatings on the door. So, a decision had been made.
"… Alright then."
Coco had to stand up on the toilet in order to push out her bag, the book and then pull herself up to get through. The window was small, and it was awkward to crawl through, but she was able to wiggle herself through when she realized how more afraid she was of other demons than uncomfortable.
'Really hope there's a soft landing,' was Coco's last thought as she fell through.
Her luck was strong, but not strong enough for it to actually be pleasant. She landed inside a dumpster, this time luckily on a soft pile of trash bags. The bags were soft and squishy, she felt something moist inside. The smell meant nothing anymore. It was unpleasant. But mild compared to the pain in her foot and the sense of complete and total disappointment that comes from feeling actually glad that you feel in the trash.
"… My life… is absolute trash…" Coco responded, her exhaustion finally catching up with her as she found herself in a dumpster for the second time today. She had somehow found herself in hell, had a tattoo randomly appear on her, can remember a distinct non-imagined voice, is being hunted by demons. "All of this hell for a fucking book…"
She laid there for a good five minutes until the smell of moist, hot trash became unbearable. It was then she knew she had to figure out something to do.
"…" She held up her wrist and looked at the compass. So far, it was the only thing she had to bounce ideas off of. No one to talk to. No one to ask her what she thought. And only one absolutely stupid idea left. "I should go back there now, shouldn't I?"
The little line came back and pointed back up to Y. The needle had stopped moving and just pointed across the dumpster, where Coco saw that both her bag and book had landed. Sighing, Coco tried to carefully get up and grab her things, then threw them out of the dumpster and jumped out as well. The landing hurt her foot a little bit, but by now she was used to the pain.
She stopped and looked back down at her cursed-wrist-compass (that she was currently trying to find a shorter name for). She gave it a slightly irritated glance before now asking a new question.
"There's no way you could somehow show me how to get back to that place?"
At that, the thicker needle moved from where it was pointing towards the book, and then firmly pointed across towards the street.
"…" Coco decided, if crazy shit was going to keep happening, she would at least follow the thing closest to her beating arteries. "Okay. Let's see where this takes me."
-Back at IMP-
Luna had been sitting in the office alone for an enjoyable hour. She checked her emails, ate Moxxy's lunch, ate Blitzo's lunch, drank the rest of her lunch, and has been idly flipping through a back issue of Hell Hound Monthly.
She had been pleasantly bored until she started to smell something horrible.
"What the fuck," Luna said, looking around alarmed, what the fuck could be making that smell all of a sudden!
It was even worse as the smell seemed to be getting closer and closer, more intense with the second. Just then, the door opened and the human girl came into sight. A ragged, tired sight who looked completely exhausted and one her of feet swollen.
And she stank. Horribly.
"GET THE FUCK OUT OF HERE!" Luna shouted, chucking a box of tissues at her, the smell so unbearable and anger inducing. "You smell like shit! You're gonna make me barf!"
"I don't like it either!" Coco shouted back, the tissue hitting her on top of the head but that didn't really bother her compared to every single thing that's happened tonight. "You think it's bad! It's not my fault trash is the only safe thing here!"
"Go take a fucking shower!" Luna shouted, covering her entire snout and pointing behind here. "I can't smell this shit any longer!"
"You think I'm gonna just gonna do that!?" Coco said outraged. "I'm not a giant idiot!"
She withheld "you bitch" only by actually biting her tongue. Luna then threw a sort of towel at her and turned.
"UGH! Satan! Just take a shower! I'll get you some of Blitzo's old clothes!" Luna said, at her honest last straw. "God! Just take a fucking shower already!"
Coco couldn't bring herself to say 'no' again. She didn't even bother consulting the compass. One can only stand their own trash soaked stink for too long before they'll take any measure to feel clean. The shower place was just a simple office bathroom with two open doored stalls for taking quick showers. It looked like the place was used a lot, judging by the strange red streaks all around the drainage hole and on the walls. But… Coco wasn't caring about that right now.
She was in the shower for a good 45 minutes, finally having a something to make her relax under. She couldn't lie, the shower was a great thing right then. She used every kind of soap she could find there, shampoo, conditioner, body wash. She even found herself humming to herself a little through it.
She was not surprised to see Luna had left her bag alone, the book sitting in there obviously left alone next to her jacket and other items. She was surprised to see her clothes gone, most likely thrown away. And instead, replaced with a couple of different oversized outfits, plus a pair of regular tights. She ended up settling on wearing a long dress shirt (obviously the tall guys), the black tights, a red tie tied around her waist like a belt, and a small black waist coat jacket that fit fairly well. They all had strange red steam-punk like designs over them, but they looked pretty snazzy.
Coco walked back out into the same room as before and stood for a moment looking at Luna. Now that she was clean, she wasn't sure what else she should do. It's not like this particular… demon had been exactly awful to her earlier. But, she didn't know if it was a good idea to be hanging around here like this either.
"The other idiots should be back soon," she said, not bothering to look up again. "Since you don't smell like absolute shit, I guess you can wait here."
"Oh, um," Coco looked awkward before blushing. "Thanks…?"
She took a seat near the wall with the windows and sat quietly. As she looked around, Coco realized this place looked sort of like any regular small office building. Although, the place really just reminded her of one of those detective offices from those 1950's pulp fiction novels.
"So uh," Coco started, feeling like talking would make this feel less awkward. "What kind of office is this?"
"IMP," Luna said, not feeling awkward at all. "Immediate Murder Professionals. A hit agency."
"Oh," Coco immediately felt more awkward and nervous.
"You should keep that curse mark covered," Luna said, still not looking up from her magazine. "It won't go away, but it'll be one less stupid thing to look at."
"Oh! Uh!" Coco saw the tattoo was showing more and pulled the sleeve back down to her wrist. She still had the compass showing, but figured most of it should be covered. "Right. Sorry…"
"Cute horns," Luna commented. "Buy them a dollar shop?"
"Yep," Coco said, leaning back. "At least they fooled all of Hell."
After that, Luna said nothing and so did Coco. Luna kept switching between reading her magazine and scrolling on her phone, while Coco went to flipping through the book again and trying to read some random pages. While she was able to follow some parts more than others, the whole thing was actually overall unreadable. They stayed like this for about an hour before the other three imps came back in.
"All fucking day…" The tall one said, throwing the shot gun over to a corner of the room and dragging behind him the other two exhausted looking imps. His expression was tired, haggard and annoyed as he quietly slumped past the chairs leaving Coco noticed. "We searched all over the city and came up with nothing!"
"Let's face it sir," the small boy one with stripped horns said, also walking over and then leaning against the wall. "She's lost out here. Or we lost here. Either way, the book is gone…"
"Can't we just call someone to help us find her?" The girl asked, standing next to the boy and then pressing her head to his shoulder. Her long salamander like tail falling on his feet as she sighed. "I'm sure she'll turn up with the book somewhere…"
"And tell them what, Milly?" The tall one said bitterly, turning with obvious exasperation with his back to Coco and looking at the other two angrily. "What? That we lost an ancient, powerful book and then summoned a human girl who then ran away with said book? You realize how that makes us look like fucking idiots! Or how much shit we'll get from Stollas and all those other assholes once they find out what we've been messing with? We'll be lucky to get out alive without out tails chopped off! Not to mention IMP falling completely under!"
Coco just sat there quietly wondering how none of them have noticed she was here yet. She looked over to Luna and gave a questioning expression, to which Luna help up one finger to tell her to be patient.
"So you think there's nowhere else you can find her," Luna said half heartedly, not putting much effort into riling him up.
"Oh, like she'd just show up here after all of this!" He continued to complain, obviously going into an irrational panic-anger episode. "Like she'd just waltz in here, book and all, and just present herself after we spent all fucking day looking for her! Because that would be just the lucky break I'm looking for right now!"
"So you don't think there's anyway she'd come back here?" Luna prompted, starting to give a small, smug little smirk.
"Oh, I wish!" He formally said, crossing his arms over his chest and starting to pout before sighing. "I'd give anything to have her come through those doors right now! No murder. No torture. Hell! I'd even say nice things if it meant that book would be back here!"
"So you'd do anything?" Luna continued to prompt, now starting to smirk even wider. "Even send her back to the Living World? Not bother her ever again?"
"Ha! That's not even the half of what I'd agree to!" Just to that he began to lean over his desk and bend in a bit. "Dinner! Movie! Gold! Fuck! If it would get her to come back here with the book, I'll bend over, pull down my well tailored pants and let her go ahead and-"
"AHEM."
Coco coughed loudly to interrupt the tall one before he said anything she'd regret hearing later. Luna had already helped set up the terms of his agreement, so she was satisfied now with making her presence known.
All three imps stopped looking tired and immediately perked up and looked over at Coco. The flash of surprise seemed etched on their faces as they had all stopped making coherent thoughts through the mixture of exhausted relief. Coco, deciding it would be a good idea to introduce herself, stood up from her seat and walked a few steps over. She held the book in one hand by her side and cleared her throat be turning to look up at them.
"Um, hello." Coco gave a small, polite smile and took a deep breath. If she was going to make a deal with a demon, she should probably tell them her name. "Um, I'm Coachella. People call me Coco for short. Um, I want to go home. So, if you take me back home and promise never to hurt me, my family or any of my family down here, then you can have this book back."
Coco held the book out in front of her as a peace offering, proof she wasn't lying and that she had also heard the whole thing earlier. The first one to speak up was Luna.
"How do you know if you've got family down here?" She asked, looking skeptical.
"Half my family's white," Coco deadpanned. "There's gotta be a few of them down here."
He held the book out for another minute, seeing the other two imps walk up to the tall one and stand next to him on either side. Seeing as he looked like the boss, Coco gestured the book closer and he took it carefully from her. Slowly opening the book, he scanned to make sure everything seemed right and that nothing was missing along with the other two. When the girl saw that everything looked fine, she turned and smiled at Coco.
"Oh thank you!" The girl imp cheered, running up and hugging Coco tightly while lifting her off the ground. "I'm just so glad everyone's here and safe! You are such a life saver, sweetie!"
"Milly, put her down!" Moxxy said, looking up at Coco who was now starting to turn a deep shade of red like the two of them. "Can't you see you're suffocating her? We're not supposed to kill her anymore."
"Oh!" Milly put her back down on the ground and smiled at her. "Sorry 'bout that, sweetie!"
"It's okay…" Coco breathed in deeply and slumped over a bit as she took in air. Now delirious from the head rush, she somehow decided she wanted to know their names. "I'm okay… Um, you're?"
"Milly!" Milly said, smiling brightly. "I'm an employee here! That over there is Luna-"
"Don't care," Luna said, now paying attention to her phone again.
"This is Moxxy-"
"…" Moxxy just stared with a half glare and didn't say anything.
"And this is Blitzo!"
"The 'o' is silent," Blitzo said, still flipping through the book for some reason.
"I didn't think there was an 'o' in it…" Coco said confused, turning to look at the two other imps. "So, you think you can send me back home? Back to the… uh, Earth?"
"Of course!" Milly snapped happily with a proud grin. "We do it all the time! Now that we've got that book back, everything can go smoothly!"
"If we hadn't lost the book in the first place none of this would have ever happened," Moxxy looked at Coco lightly for a second before crossing his arms and giving her a careful glare. "You know you'll never have to speak of this ever again, right?"
"Oh, I plan on never remembering a single thing that's happened today for the rest of my life," Coco assured him that this event has been completely traumatizing and she planned on repressing every single minute of it.
But even with this, Blitzo seemed completely focused on the book and wasn't even looking up from it. Coco noticed that he wasn't looking for the directions on summoning circles that were all near the front. He was now scanning all of the pages near the back with such careful interest that it was freaking her out a little. Coco was about to ask why this was taking so long when Blitzo's expression changed to something dark.
"Okay, you did something stupid." Blitzo told Coco, dropping the book to the ground before he pointed a finger at her. "You made a deal with the fucking book!"
"What?" Coco asked, now both scared and confused. Did she hear him correctly.
"Alright, where's the curse mark?" Blitzo said, walking over to her and pulling her arm over, instantly finding the tattoo and pulling the sleeve all the way up.
"Hey!" Coco tried yanking her arm back but found that demon strength was no joke as she tried to pull out of it. "Let me go! What are you doing!"
"The fucking shit," Blitzo then pulled her up off the ground and held her arm up in the air as he began examining the whole arm length tattoo. "It's a fucking seal! You made a fucking deal so tight it's locked in your fucking skin!"
Coco dangled from the ground awkwardly and didn't move because she didn't know how to react. What was he talking about? What's happening?
"What the hell is that?" Moxxy walked over to Blitzo and looked up at her arm. "I thought you said the book wouldn't make a deal with a human?"
"It won't but it looks like the human decided to write her name in it and offer it a deal," Blitzo said, glaring at Coco. "What the hell! You just pick up any old random demon item off the street and decide to put your name on it?"
"Hey! I bought it in a book store!" She said, her arm starting to hurt as she dangled over the floor. "Can you put me down now?"
Blitzo let her stand on the ground again but didn't let go of her arm. Now both Milly and Moxxy were looking over at the tattoo and examining it.
"That's one complicated seal mark," Milly said, turning her head to look at Blitzo. "How are we supposed to send her back to the Living World with this?"
"We can't," Blitzo said annoyed.
"WHAT!?" Coco shouted, trying to take her arm back but couldn't. "What do you mean you can't? I thought you said you could open up a portal!"
"We can but you can't leave!" Blitzo explained, gesturing to her arm with a pissed off glare. "You signed a deal with an ancient being that lives in that book! Now you can be separated from it! Way to go, idiot!"
"Hey! It's not my fault I had to do it!" She yelled back at him, pointing at herself and then at Blitzo. "If I didn't make a deal with that book then I would have died in that circle! That you made! And I'll die here, so send me back home!"
"Oh my god, how do I explain this to a human with no concept of moral real-estate laws?" Blitzo sighed then rubbed his face and gave Coco a blank look. "The book belongs in hell and you signed a deal with it that makes you a part of it. Now, you belong to the book. That means, you belong here because the book belongs here."
"That makes no sense!" Coco shouted, more angry about how grammatically incorrect that was then the idea of being stuck in hell now. "It's a book! A book that I bought, at a discount! I don't belong to it! It belongs to me! The other way around! So, take me back home!"
"UGH!" Blitzo groaned. "Humans are impossible to deal with!"
The apparent seal that was etched into her skin was like a lock, the key lost somewhere with no one having any idea where to find it. Because she belongs to the book, Coco's now stuck here in Hell with the ability to use the book but not the ability to go back.
"There's got to be someway around this," Moxxy said, standing next to Blitzo as he looked at the seal. "Lots of deals come with loopholes! I'm sure if we can find one, we can send the human back to the Living World and the possession won't matter."
"I'm possessed!?" Coco freaked out.
"Oh, stop whining about it!" Blitzo said, rolling his eyes. "Humans and making a big deal about possessions! You guys sign property taxes and agree to shit like marriage and mortgage payments, but you're a little uncomfortable when you do the same thing with a demon?"
"What if we just cut off the arm?" Milly suggested, still smiling. "If she doesn't have the seal, then it shouldn't be a problem, right?"
The ever so causal mention of cutting off her arm made Coco panic and fear flood through her veins. Apparently, whatever magic was living in that tattoo felt that and it turned on something that hadn't happened before. All of a sudden, one of the seven circles near the pentagram light up and a ring of fire blew out from around Coco and forced all three of them across the room!
The fire disappeared just as soon as it showed up, leaving only the trace of sizzling air and Coco standing there with a wide confused expression. All three imps had been thrown and had all hit a different wall in a different part of the room. The all slide down and landed on the floor roughly.
"What the-" Moxxy said, sitting up and rubbing his head. "What was that?"
"Protection spell," Blitzo said, rubbing her arm and groaning slightly. "Looks like that seal doesn't like the idea of its free ride getting hurt that much… Must be there to protect the human from someone killing it."
"So, what are we gonna do?" Milly asked, laying upside down against the wall with her arms splayed out. "We can't send the human back now if she has to stay here…"
Coco stood silently there, looking down and seeing a singed circle burnt around her, the shock of learning she now had some sort of new invisible protector registering as the weirdest part of today. In fact, the whole plethora of shock that had been built up from the moment that first circle had been made had caused her to just clear her mind and forget to register the fear.
When she looked down at her wrist, she saw the needle pointing towards the book that was a couple of steps outside of that same circle. Stepping out and picking up the book, Coco held it up and had to come to the realization that she was, in fact, stuck in hell with four demons who didn't seem like they'd kill her but weren't too keen on having her around either. She also knew that even though there were demons all around her, that she had no idea what was actually possessing her or if keeping the book would actually help her understand what was going on.
And, in the end, Coco decided if she was going to have to stay here, even if it was just for the time being until everyone could figure out what to do next, she should just roll with the punches and improvise how to survive this.
"Can't we all just talk about this over dinner?"
