Note: Some House of Leaves characters feature in this story. Sparknotes version: In the late 90s, a photographer shoots a documentary about a supernatural event in his new house, where a Hallway appears and inexplicably continues to grow into a complicated maze. The Hallway appears to hunt by preying on people with frayed social relationships and separating/isolating them further from loved ones. Tom, the photographer's brother, is one of the casualties of the Hallway, which devours him as he rescues his niece from it. The Hallway seems offended by a shadow puppet performance in which he called it 'Mr. Monster' and depicted it as a dragon, because it pointedly breaks his hands before it kills him.
For those here from the Coraline fandom without much Hazbin fandom knowledge: Mimzy is a character who only had a non-speaking cameo part in the pilot but is a favorite of the creator, who intends to include her in the show. From what I can tell, she appears to be a cross between Roxy Heart and The Penguin. There's a longstanding joke that she's Alastor's simp, but based on the creator's doodles, it seems to be the other way around.
[X]
[May 2020, Hell]
Al's sudden spark of irritability wasn't only related to Charlie's invasive questioning. Rewind to the rehab center.
Unamused by his, "Glad you accomplished so much while I endured that," Charlie icily returned to the dayroom's door to lie in ambush while Alastor tried the second story. Determined to stay until the scheduled end of the visit, the princess only spoke to less than a dozen people.
While Charlie returned their guest passes, Alastor heard a man whispering to his companion. The two watched him through the corners of their eyes. One of them looked unnervingly familiar, and he was snickering. Despite the many things about Alastor that were admittedly ridiculous, once people knew who he was they never snickered. Intrigued, Al pulled their conversation through his radio speaker at low volume and spied.
The conversation was garbled, but he deciphered: "...From that Thing… Not his... What a twerpy sell-out…"
Al's ears rang as his teeth ground in silent outrage, but he snapped himself out of it. Well. The man could speculate as much as he wanted, but nothing changed the fact that Alastor's power could crush him. Al couldn't clear things up with the jackass now, with Her Royal Ethical Nitpicker around, but later… No, he reconsidered. As much of a delight as it would be to terrorize him personally, it might only reinforce the heckler's opinion that Alastor leaned on his powers for everything. Not that that mattered! But… Should he instead illustrate his real power was influence? He had minions, whose service he claimed not with force but with manipulation and rhetoric. No...That wasn't right, either...Was that worse, to send Husk or Nifty? Why was he wasting time dwelling on this?!
Alastor's thoughts were interrupted by a pang of something empty, like hunger, then by an aid calling into the dayroom, "Bert, your daughter called. She'll be in tomorrow."
The atmosphere became tangibly awkward.
"...Thanks, Kevin," Bert called back.
'Well,' thought Alastor cooly. Few other words came to mind, only silent, withering judgment. This also interrupted his plans. Bert deserved a beating, but it would be distasteful to wrong the girl. No matter—it meant he could stop thinking about it, as he should've long before.
Which was, of course, not what he did.
"...Not her mother?" Alastor butted into the conversation, turning around bouncily, heels to balls of feet. "Just her?" Silence from the two men. Alastor hummed a low hum that transformed into a laugh. "At least some things in my life have changed in the last century. One hundred and twelve whole years… How many 'one week sober' chips would that be? Can you fill a storage unit yet?"
But Kevin could giveth and Kevin could taketh away. Attempting to seize Al's attention for Charlie, who waited for her colleague at the front door, the aid loudly projected, "Alastor McGyver," from the hall. Al internally winced, looking like someone had poked him directly in the eye.
Bert looked more taken aback by this than by Alastor's roasting moments earlier. He was surprised and infuriated enough to have worked out that his son had allied himself with the Thing he'd discovered in the house before he died, apparently in a bid for power. But it had formally adopted him? Legally, definitively erased Bert and Camille as the parents? That roasting Al had heard through his radio speaker came from a place of envy, disappointment, and rage that the competitor had succeeded, and now it was seriously stoked. Bert no longer looked intimidated. In fact, he looked ready to foam at the mouth.
Alastor, meanwhile, recalled pummeling an intake imp on the day he arrived in Hell, after receiving his new government ID. "That is not my name. And this," he'd said, motioning at the radically different skin tone of his demon appearance, "is not my ethnicity. It is wrong." Had it been a different year, the beleaguered customer service imp might've thought, 'The Karen haircut's spot on, though.' The imp was entertained yet again by someone's surprise that they didn't look the way they wanted to in Hell. He replied innocently, "I'm sure this happens to adopted children all the time," not realizing he'd said the forbidden word, and was promptly thrown against the wall by a shadow tentacle as the bellow of an enraged elk burst from Alastor's radio speaker. Al supposed briefly that the witch squeezed a few last microaggressions in, but later conceded it was likely Hell's algorithm successfully finding things that would bother him. His manifestation as a prey animal and his racial identity going completely ignored just happened to be related to Terri McGyver's influence on his life.
"Never use my full name," present Al ordered Kevin and marched away without another word to Bert.
After Alastor and Charlie shared a walk back to the hotel, Al tried to fight the urge to zero in on Husker but failed. "Cheerful as ever, I see," the deer demon teased the grimacing bartender cat. "You could crack a smile occasionally."
"Why should I? I'm stuck with you," Husker grunted.
'Bleh, stuck with you, bleh,' a cartoonish dumb ogre voice mocked Husker from the radio speaker. "I will ask you to smile at least once today," Al said, holding out his hand.
"You're not gonna get me to promise that." Husker batted his boss's hand away. "Scowling's one of the only goddamn freedoms I have left."
"That's an exaggeration. Does the cranky kitty need more milk?" Husker's fur bristled. "Ohhhh, Husker." Al produced another beer bottle from thin air.
"Ugh, what?"
"Got you another one, friend," Al announced, spinning the bottle in one hand. "Where should I put it?"
Husker squinted. "What?"
"I got you. Another. Beer. Where should I put it?"
Confused, Husker held out one paw. "Put 'er there."
"Put 'er there?! Alright!" Al cried victoriously with an arm pump, before aggressively high-fiving and then shaking Husker's open hand.
"Shiiiiit," Husker groaned just before his frowning mouth was magically turned upside down.
"HAHAHAHA! Told you I'd get you to smile whether you wanted it or not!" Alastor cackled as Husk looked at him hatefully. "Oh! I suppose I forgot how uncomfortable that is." Al reversed it with a snap of his fingers. "My mistake."
Husker dumped the entire beer bottle on Alastor's head. "I never waste booze. But that was worth it." He turned his back, pretending Alastor didn't exist.
"I have news!" Completely undeterred, Alastor teleported down through the floor on his side of the bar and up again on Husker's side. "When you do that, I'm still here," he said, leaning forward into Husker's face, grinning widely and more stiffly than usual. "And in case you've forgotten, I will be for a while."
This oddly tense moment was interrupted by Nifty, the tiny single-eyed speed demon, who pranced into the room in a whirlwind of dust, fuzz, and bloodstains covering her blouse and poodle skirt. Bloodlust was one of few things that distracted her from her compulsion to clean. "Forty-two!" she squealed in delight- the number of mice and rats she'd killed under the hotel that day. She didn't know why the boss was quite so vigilant about the rodents, but Nifty was glad to oblige.
"A new record! Fabulous work!" her boss praised, abandoning Husk to pat her head. "Thank you so much, my dear. I'm glad you're a good mouser, since the cat is useless." Husker threw up his middle claw and proceeded drowning out the sound of Alastor's big yapping mouth with vodka. "I do have one more favor to ask you, Nifty, darling. I'll be out for a while tonight, and I'd like you to—" Al whispered in her ear.
It was a strange request, but she didn't mind fulfilling it. "You got it, boss!"
Charlie paused to glance curiously at the beer-soaked Alastor as they crossed ways. "Does he seem more unhinged than usual today?" Husker asked the princess as she approached the bar. "Or...eh...not more, but a different kind of unhinged?"
"Maybe I shouldn't have asked him to come to that event table," Charlie admitted. Mother's Day was so difficult for her, due to hers and Lilith's distant relationship, she'd forgotten how hard it must be for Alastor. Whatever mother figure he'd been mentioning to the hotel residents was clearly someone whose company he missed. She must be in Heaven, because he spoke as if he hadn't seen her since he was alive.
"The ladies'll cheer him up," Nifty said hopefully.
Ah, Rosie and Mimzy. That explained the rarely-heard sound of a shower in Al's portion of the second floor. It didn't surprise Charlie that Al would create an excuse to visit Rosie, who he seemed to view as a surrogate mother/big sister figure. "I hope so, Nifty." Seeing Alastor in such a tiff felt just as strange to Charlie as it had felt to Al to see Charlie steeped in gloom. "He doesn't seem quite right..."
[X]
Al's plan had been to catch up with Rosie on the way to see Mimzy, but her department store's floral section was swamped with customers seeking last minute Mother's Day arrangements, and she had an understaffing issue lately, so she couldn't be bothered. Oh well. Repurposing Mother's Day flowers was a decent idea, though. Al skipped the line by playfully snatching a bouquet out of a customer's hand (taking care to levitate it in front of himself rather than touch it, lest the plants wilt) and replacing it with the going price plus $2 for having to wait in line again. The customer shot a deadpan glance at the overlord and gracefully accepted that this was happening.
Charlie was onto something. He may not have been fully aware of it, but Al indeed gravitated toward Rosie as a quasi-mother or elder sister figure. So it figured that today she would be absent through no control of her own, as his birth mother had been.
Alastor's hope was that Camille's final destination had been Heaven, but he'd searched Hell, too. Still, it was a large country, the size of a large planet, with an overpopulation problem. It was also culturally common to assume a different name, partly borne of the desire to start fresh in a new place, but also because they were in all in Hell for a reason and it helped keep enemies off one's tail. Or, in some cases, one's loved ones, if you were embarrassed by something you'd done, or if things had ended sourly. But after Alastor gained notoriety in the Pride Ring, having taken no new name, and heard nothing from Camille, he decided she either wasn't there or didn't want to be found. (Or, he tried not to wonder, she didn't want to speak to him. Did she infer what Bert had, and become insulted?) Disappointing, but…it was what he was used to. Hardly a tragedy, he told himself.
At least he'd found one familiar face down here.
His friend's club, Drinkin' Place, was a strange but endearing mish-mosh of things that catered to customers hailing from the 1910s through 1950s, primarily, although anyone could easily entertain themselves there. The main floor was a bar with the expected dart boards and pool tables as well as a few slot machines, and even a pinball machine or two. The basement was the jazz club. The top floor was an old-fashioned diner. They all operated, frequently exchanging clientele back and forth amongst the floors for hours, 24/7. The place drew plenty of foot traffic, having become a famous local landmark. This was partly because it was the oldest building left standing in the neighborhood, as the only one never felled by the frequent natural disasters and other catastrophes Hell was famous for. And partly it was due to the eccentric owner's infamous mood swings, boundless overconfidence, and comically strict budget. There was a framed candid photo of Mimzy and visiting Greed Ring Overlord Mammon on one wall, in which she pointed gleefully at herself with one hand and at him with the other, grinning into the camera like a ham, as Mammon mistakenly activated one of the booby traps she'd set up to keep folks in the diner from stealing creamers and grimaced at the dart in his hand. He must have been a good sport, because he'd signed the picture.
Throughout the establishment were framed images of beloved performers from all decades, slightly favoring the 1920s flapper era from which the owner hailed. Amongst the items in the collection, there was one oddball that stood out. It was, inexplicably, a large framed movie poster depicting Jamie Lee Curtis as Laurie Strode in the original Halloween horror classic. "Babysitters in horror movies are pretty badass," she'd explain to anyone who asked about it. "They're paid peanuts, and they're just regular janes without superpowers or combat training or anything, but they manage to save cute little kids from sadistic monsters." This was a very random-sounding, unsatisfying explanation, but few people pressed further.
Mimzy was too busy running the operation to perform as much as she once did, but he caught one of her stage appearances as he entered the club and sat near the back to avoid distracting the audience from her. To be fair, as distracting as Alastor's presence often was to people, it was hard to detract from Mimzy. For a woman so short, the spunky, curvy blonde commanded a lot of attention. She finished with, 'That's All,' which was hardly standard fare for Hell, but it was one of her stand-bys, and no one complained because it was a difficult song to dislike. Al stood with the applauding audience and moved to teleport the roses onstage but nicked the tied end of the bouquet with his snapping fingers. They landed on stage already withered. Al's eye just barely ticked in frustration. Mimzy looked down, pressed her hand to her mouth, and stifled a laugh. The audience tittered. "Ya dried 'em for me already! So kind of you! I'll press 'em later!" She made eye contact with him through the crowd and waved.
On the nights he spent here, somehow, after a few hours, he always ended up alone with her in the VIP lounge in the same small, single-benched booth that required them to snuggle in together, as they were doing tonight.
"Forgive me, but...you look a little tuckered out."
"Ah, yes. It's been...a day."
"Slightly less successful overlording?"
They were alone, so he confided, "Considerably less successful overlording." He wouldn't detail any specifics out loud. No 'I saw my father today, and after the last time we saw each other, the tactless heathen picked a fight with me! The nerve!' No 'I could barely frighten a flock of grade schoolers, who laughed in my face.' No 'My employee/psychological crutch of a dad replacement doesn't respect me.' No 'I think my business partner secretly finds me embarrassing. I mean, I find her embarrassing but she's not supposed to feel the same way! The gall of that woman!' (Canned laughter.) And especially no 'It's that horrible day again' or 'I keep talking about her, and I don't know why.'
Luckily, Mimzy knew him well enough not to press with questions and handed Al more wine instead. "Oof. Thought you didn't have bad days anymore."
"It appears now I do. But it's getting better," Al assured her with a wink. "Your kitchen, as usual, is fabulous, and I needed something to eat." The diner food was helping, but that separate, empty feeling that mimicked hunger was helped much more by Mimzy's attention.
"Maybe you should be resting," she said, patting her lap as if suggesting where he might want to rest his head.
"But I missed you yesterday," he replied, not taking the bait.
She grinned. "And I missed you yesterday."
"Apologies. Hotel obligation. Surprised myself by konking out like a light afterward."
"Somethin' that small can take you away from me?"
He hummed. "Well…" Al brushed one ankle against hers in a sensual but comically reserved game of footsie. "...nothing could 'take me away' from you." Mimzy barely controlled a blush before he continued, "That's why I left 'me' with you, after all." She laughed off her disappointment. Of course, it was a joke about the doll. "How is the little one?" Al asked.
"Surprisingly tame, considering he used to run me ragged."
"If it makes you feel better, for a girl only 5 years older than me at the time, you were the most effective child wrangler Mother ever hired."
A tense pause. Confused static crackled behind Alastor's eyes as he ruefully wondered what had compelled him to blurt that. Mimzy looked...stunned, nauseous, affronted. Her face briefly reddened, her magenta eyes flashed, and her hair seemed to stand on end, perhaps due to static electricity emanating from Alastor. They both pushed past it and pretended the offending person hadn't been mentioned, for the sake of enjoying their evening.
Mimzy smiled warmly and tried lightening the mood, returning attention to the doll: "It was really sweet what you did, while you were retrieving him."
Alastor truthfully stated that he requested the imps move her body before the hurricane. However, he willfully misled her to believe she was now buried in a beautiful countryside somewhere, rather than tucked away under his bed—now in a proper urn, mind you! (Canned audience 'yiiiiikes.') "No trouble at all."
"Still think you're a terrifying stalker for havin' me dug up twice," she teased, sticking out her tongue playfully. It certainly would be terrifying if not for context.
"'Stalker' seems an intense judgment," Alastor chuckled before a flicker of bashfulness was betrayed on his face as he noticed the shadow giving him away.
Mimzy glanced out of the corner of her eye at the wolfish shadow creature that gawked at her and panted in the hope of being petted. "Hi, Feeeerdie," she cooed fondly and scratched it under the chin, causing it to limply flop into her lap, trembling with joy as she mimed ruffling its theoretical chest fur. Now trying to take the mood somewhere else entirely, referring again to the doll, she continued, "It's hard for me to leave him in a closet all alone, though. Sometimes I give him a little cuddle at night."
Al raised an eyebrow and shot her an 'Oh, I see you're going to try it—come at me' look with a challenging, closed-mouthed smirk. Ferdie's leg ticked happily.
Mimzy couldn't help but wonder aloud, "I'm just curious. Can you...feel it? If I hug him?"
Wait...was that only partly said for humor value? This actually happened? Caught off guard, Al uttered, "I...maybe?" He considered. "Possibly. In fact...last night. Were you…?" That would explain how he'd fallen asleep so easily.
Mimzy hadn't expected this degree of accuracy. She anxiously brushed some hair behind her face. "Hehe. Must've been me."
"Ah." He looked to the side; she looked to the opposite side. Al interrupted the silence with a practical question. "He can't see, right?"
"Huh?"
"The blindfold. It's left on?"
"Oh. Yeah." Before she could tame her inner troll, she blurted, "Why, what would you like him to see?"
Alastor was effectively out of commission for about 5 seconds as a whistling sound effect emitted from the radio speaker. Mimzy burst into victorious giggling. Ferdie made a wheeze-like laughing sound, rolled over, and took his cue to depart after giving Mimzy an affectionate lick on the cheek.
"Madam," Al gently play-scolded her, "you are doing it again."
"You thought I would change?"
"That is a child, madam," he teased, referring to the doll. "You're going to get—" He whispered. "—cancelled," and they 'pffffffft'ed together.
"This is Hell, the only place safe from cancelling," Mimzy asserted. "I can be as bad as I want!"
In the silence that followed, Al remembered this was something she was actually sensitive about. "Come now, darling. Quit fretting. When we started seeing each other you were about 30 and I was almost 26. I assure you, you're a regular cougar, not a vile one. I always was a cat person."
She play-batted at him but then asked considerately, "Want me to quit it?"
When they found each other in Hell decades ago, they were so overjoyed to see each other again that they chose to prioritize repairing the friendship and ignore past drama. In fact, even though they frequently flirted, they avoided directly addressing their relationship history as much as possible. Even after the handful of occasions they inevitably wound up sharing a bed, things reverted to the status quo quickly.
"It's no problem at all, we all have flights of fancy that get us excited for a while and naturally wear off. You got over it. I got over it. It was nothing special- Not to say you're nothing special. You're...remarkable. To be clear...Mmph!" Mimzy had unexpectedly kissed him. He might argue this, but that sounded like a 'don't stop' signal to her. Al was distracted for a moment, obviously enjoying himself, then gently guided her away. "Please don't do that."
Oof. That was a genuine 'stop' signal. "Why not?" He seemed like he could use some TLC today.
"You're being cruel to your date," Al said, suddenly stern.
"Eh...Guess I am…" She'd originally said she'd planned one and she could only spend a bit of time with Al, but an hour and a half passed and she still hadn't left.
"Please go. Have fun."
Mimzy started to scoot out of the booth, then paused and asked, "What if I cancelled?"
"That would still be rude, since you've already made him wait."
She gave him a 'come on' look. "Really, Al? What do you care about this random joe?"
"I just think you could stand to be more considerate."
"Oh, yeah, that seems like number one on your list of priorities when you're messin' with folks' shot at redemption."
This helped Al lighten up again. He rolled his eyes. "I play practical jokes. I'm not actually sabotaging anything. No such thing exists to sabotage."
Mimzy leaned on her elbows on the table with a curious grin. "I'm still tryin' to figure out what you're really there for. I do believe it's for fun, because these squares sound like real crack-ups to me, but I know there's gotta be something else."
"What fun is it if I spoil the plot?" He winked. "Although… sometimes I do wonder myself. I'm attending one of the Princess's benefits tomorrow, which of course means I need to be on because, unless I steer, the whole thing will be a drag and a marketing failure." Yes, he was describing the benefit he had already attended that day. This lie would give him an easy escape hatch by making it sound like he needed to turn in early. She was playing a good game today; he would lose if he kept playing much longer.
Mimzy sing-songed, "Yoooouuuu're the one who roped himself into it!" while inching closer to him in the booth again. "You chose the downer straight-edge business yourself, chump. You could be having fun with your best friend every night instead—" She booped his nose. "—if you'd run this place with me...like we thought about."
"You make it sound like it would be smooth sailing."
"You're saying I don't make a good partner in crime?"
"No, you've always been a good partner in crime."
The two of them were snuggled against each other in the booth now, a bit giggly although they weren't that drunk.
"...Just...not a good partner?" she asked. Al was not sure there was anything uncompromising he could reply with. Mimzy cupped his face with one hand and dropped the playful charade. "I can do better, Cookie." She kissed him again, more deeply.
Usually Alastor could take or leave this kind of physical intimacy. It could be fun occasionally if someone else initiated, but he never felt motivated to actively seek it out himself. Mimzy, though, was one of the few people in the known universe who was brave enough to make a pass and possibly earn a response. And he remembered this type of thing was far more important to her than it was to him. As long as it captured her attention, he might allow this to continue, if... "What about—?"
"Shhh. Forget it." She kissed him again, and he pulled her forward, allowing her to sit in his lap.
Alastor concluded, victoriously, that there was no date- she'd intended to make him jealous. His characteristic pride soared back to its normal levels. Now this was the sort of turnaround the day needed! Famously flirtatious Mimzy, with an orbiting circle of groupies at her constant command, choosing him, felt—
Outside, there was shouting from a bouncer. They were blissfully unaware of the commotion until Nifty, rolling at high speed like a little Sonic hedgehog, chopped through the door like a circle saw, then popped upright to saluting attention with a perky, "Evening, boss!"
Alastor and Mimzy separated themselves immediately in awkward silence.
Al shot Nifty a look that read 'What in the seventh circle are you doing?' He opened and closed his hands, unsure of which hand gesture was right, and finally said, "Ggggooood evening, Nifty, my dear." Mimzy stared hard into Nifty's single yellow eye, reminding her friend that this was like trying to woo a Victorian preacher's daughter and now she would have to start over again, and assuring Nifty silently that she would pay dearly for this cock block.
Nifty stared back with wide-eyed enthusiasm, taking it as a fun challenge, before addressing Al. "You said make sure you left by now, so here I am," she said in a playful dramatic voice, "to escort you home, my liege."
Mimzy turned slowly to face Alastor, barely containing her laughter. Hoping he could keep containment, Alastor said, "Ah, yes, this is a little in joke we share, although sometimes people could remember there's a time and a place for—"
"Nope, nope, I remember you were very serious," Nifty interrupted, painfully oblivious. "You told me—make sure you were out of here by 11:59PM on the dot because 'nothing good ever happens after midnight.' And I've always heard it as 'nothing good ever happens after 2AM,' but I do appreciate your abundance of caution. I mean—" She giggled. "—if I'd been left here long after 10PM I'd have been three men down by now!"
"...Well, I learned something today," Al uttered, sounding not at all pleased to have learned it.
Mimzy dissolved into laughter. "So did I! Awwww, Cookie." She grinned up at Al mischievously. "You really don't trust me at all, do you?"
"I think what Nifty means to say is I need to be at that benefit tomorrow."
"The one you were at this morning?" asked Nifty.
'I'm docking your pay,' Alastor loudly thought at the maid.
'You don't pay me,' she smilingly thought back, decoding him easily.
"Phht. Sure," Mimzy said with a knowing smirk. Al opened his mouth. "Good luck getting me to forget this," Mimzy cut him off with a chuckle. Al closed his mouth again in resignation, re-opened it to say goodbye, but was dragged away in a whirlwind by the cyclops. Mimzy waved with a single crunch of her fingers, mouthing 'Bye.'
It would have been a cute, if embarrassing, interaction to leave on, if Nifty and Alastor had not run into the fellow arguing with the bouncer to get in and see his date. Long-distance eye contact was made. Alastor had been so convinced for just a minute there that this had been faked. For her part, so had Mimzy—she was so pleased to see Alastor that she had legitimately forgotten that she'd made an actual date.
Seeing someone else leaving the lounge, the man hollered, "Seriously?!" before recognizing Alastor and throwing up his hands with a mixture of fear and outrage. "You know what, she's all yours! Maybe you can get her under control!"
Alastor quietly seethed behind his uncrackable smile, but his expression didn't need to change for Nifty to know there was about to be a problem. "Ohhhh, boss. Stay calm," she whispered futilely.
Alastor waited patiently until the man sat down in his car and then, with a snap of his fingers, casually combusted the engine. The vehicle erupted into flames as its owner- who could suffer but not die due to the state of his soul- catapulted himself from the car and ran flaming around the parking lot like a chicken with its head cut off. A very chipper Alastor quipped, "To the owner of the black Sunfire, you left your lights on!" before striding out of the club, refusing to look Mimzy in the eye again.
Mimzy watched the commotion unfold and melted into the booth, hiding her face in her hands and accepting that she'd be drinking alone, probably heavily, tonight. Close to a century of this now. It was her own fault at first, but surely by now...? Well. He wouldn't even give her the opportunity to apologize! How could she correct things if he wouldn't talk about it?
[X]
"You could have used the pager, Nifty." Yup. Al had a pager now. It was a big step.
Nifty sing-songed, "You would have ignoooored it!" Al refused to admit that she was right. "I did do what you told me to do, Boss." Nifty wore a smug, triumphant smile.
Al's smile became more genuine again. Nifty was correct. Give this woman an award! "...Yes. Yes, you did. Splendid job, little lady." He administered a quick pat on the head.
Nifty rose on tip toes, leaning into the pet like a cat. "What's the deal with you two?" She was hopeful, even though she thought a direct answer was unlikely.
"I don't know what you mean," Al replied innocently.
"There seems like there's…" Nifty wiggled. "...tension."
Nifty had some thoughts. Their dynamic seemed best illustrated by their trademark sins—Pride and Gluttony. Gluttony was appealing to Pride because she amassed lots of sparkly things and made good arm candy. But as you might imagine, Pride wasn't enough for Gluttony; she needed much more attention. This would wound Pride and seriously threaten his sense of superiority, causing him to lash out, or at the very least ignore Gluttony, who would not be able to tolerate it and would draw him back in. Pride would react with, 'Aha, of course, she finally sees how special I am!' and be caught off guard all over again when she continued running around. And she'd be mystified again when he was offended, because he (defensively) behaved like he didn't need her. Nifty knew they were both smart enough people to see the merry-go-round they were on, but they seemed willfully blind.
(Angel Dust had theories, too. The ex-mobster spider demon had met Mimzy at parties—and mysterious business dealings about which he wouldn't elaborate. He liked the ex-bootlegger instantly, and already had a good enough feel for her to tease Al, "Smiles, I dunno what to tell ya. It wouldn't matter if you had the power of God 'imself, you wouldn't stand a chance with that chick."
"Not sure what you mean."
"Oh, c'mon."
"I'm not pursuing her, but what's your point?"
"She's playin' the opposite of the game yer playin'," Angel explained. He saw himself in Mimzy, which was how he intuited: "It's not even about how much she likes ya. It's about not bein' dominated. If you win her over, she loses. I'm willing to bet she'd rather be alone forever than let 'erself fall for somebody. Why d'ya have ta chase that one?"
Stewing in some childhood memories, Al silently thought 'Now that you've pointed that out, it actually makes a great deal of sense why I chase this one.' Aloud, he said, "Oh, Angel, it's adorable how you start projecting when you get a few drinks in you," and gestured at Husker.)
"That's your romantic compulsion, Nifty. You're seeing things where there aren't any," said present Alastor. "We've just been good friends for a very, very long time."
"You watch her every Thursday." Al consciously overrode the reflexive folding of his deer ears. Had this little psycho followed him? She had not; Mimzy had told her about it. "I've never seen you take from her. Only give. You've never tried tricking her into service, even though I'll bet you could."
Alastor laughed. "I don't know about that. She's familiar with most of my tricks by now. She taught me some, in fact. Of course, I don't mean any judgment. I'm just saying she's...gifted at affecting emotions—as any performer is!"
Nifty wore a crooked, intrigued grin. "Uh huhhh… Well, if she's so tricksy, why not tame her?"
Al tried to decide if Nifty was taking things to a weird place again, like when she tried to explain hentai. "Excuse me?"
"Make a doll, I mean."
There was a long pause as Alastor wondered why in the universe Nifty would invite this explosive question into the conversation. "I would never do that."
"Why not?" Nifty asked, playing hard ball.
Al considered a number of responses before settling on, "She wouldn't be her anymore." Which still sounded too vulnerable, after it left his mouth. This time his ears folded back before he could prevent it.
"Awww, c'mon, boss," Nifty said sweetly. "I won't tell." But Alastor donned a stubbornly indecipherable expression and refused to say more.
They encountered Husker as they entered the hotel. Having done some thinking in response to the Mother's Day theories Charlie had pitched at him for Alastor's mood earlier, the cat demon had decided, begrudgingly, that maybe he could have pretended to be friendly just once. So as a still visibly tense Alastor walked through the front door, Husk attempted to offer, congenially, "You look like you could use another one."
"Nope," said Alastor, falsely but forcefully.
"Maaaybe he could," Nifty said agreeably. "He had a water bottle on the way home."
"Nifty, I am not your teenage son."
A wild Charlie appeared, wrapping her arms around him. "Al!"
The deer demon looked like an egg could be fried on his forehead. "Five. Foot. Rule."
"I'm sorry I asked so many questions earlier, I wanted to— Did you drink more than usual?" she asked in sisterly concern. "Is he drunk?" she turned to ask Nifty.
As if this helped answer Charlie's question, Nifty replied, "He was with Mimzy."
Charlie's face lit up. "Oh! How—?"
In a single fluid motion, Alastor reached his right arm to the side, gripped the drink handed to him by Husk, and performatively sipped while departing up the stairs.
"Make sure you're not hung over!" Charlie called.
"Drink more water!" Nifty added helpfully.
"If everyone could not try to mother me, it would be outstanding!" Alastor called as he disappeared at the next landing.
Charlie cringed, clearly seeing how they'd made it worse. "Oof. Let's not bug him for a while, guys."
[X]
Alastor's legs continued working robotically, but his brain was fizzling. Days were not supposed to feel this bad anymore. It wasn't that bad, though—he should be able to shake this right off. Just some laughing children, his jackass father, Mimzy playing hard to get, as usual. All things he'd experienced before. But he was very used to the feeling of being on top nowadays. He rarely had a day filled with this many indignities now, so his tolerance was low. And it was the worst possible day for this pattern to bash him over the head. Again, he felt...hungry.
Upon entering his room, he shut the door and froze against it. A large trunk sat across the room. He knew he wanted to look in it, but also knew he was tipsy, approaching drunk. Still, he sipped the characteristically strong drink Husk had prepared and continued staring down the box. Why did he want to look? Why did it matter if when he looked in the box, and the box inside the box, and the box inside the box...the voodoo doll in there had changed from a brunette to a blonde or redhead, from short to tall, from curvy to spindly? What if there was nothing left inside the box? What if she was—?
Al breathed deeply and pressed the tips of his fingers against the bridge of his nose. Why was he thinking about this? Why had he talked about her- really talked about her- today, without the rosy filter normally laid over mention of her? Why did he keep mentioning her compulsively in conversation? In Al's mind, it was clear that she had cursed him somehow to regularly say kind things about her. This was what allowed him to tolerate the strange, reflexive intrusions into his thoughts and dialogue—the comforting idea that they weren't authentically his. It was beyond him to consider that he might actually miss the old hag.
But the fact that he so desperately wanted to peek inside the trunk dredged up an uncomfortable truth—he sometimes still wished to seek comfort from her. It was especially tempting to, after running into Bert. And he couldn't stop wondering how he'd feel if the box were empty.
Nonono, he told himself. Do not look in the box. It doesn't matter what's inside the box. It doesn't matter...what's inside...the box…
Why was the room spinning?
[X]
When her vision un-blurred and she found herself still in her armchair, Terri sighed. Just moments ago, she had felt so certain that she was performing again. Isolation and hunger-induced madness was creating some bizarre fever dreams, but even the ridiculousness of singing 'Maybe This Time' to an audience of terriers was less undignified than her current reality.
There were periods of time when it was hard to tell what was happening in a daydream and what was real. The distinction was less important to Terri than it would have been to a human—who would argue she was existing in a vegetative state—because she'd never had a true 'body' anyway. But she had to admit, it was a bad sign. She was hibernating for long periods, now, to conserve energy and escape both emotional agony and painful hunger pangs, now that all of her rations were gone.
She'd been confined to the den by this binding spell for...over 90 years? Could that be right? She'd been certain for the first few weeks, then a month or two, that it couldn't hold her. Even with the power he took from her, the boy only bore a fraction of what she'd possessed at the time. But she'd willingly made herself weak for him, so there was little chance of getting out unless he decided to free her. Surely that would happen any week, right? She'd expended energy watching him, and he'd seemed incredibly lonely, like he might crack. Still nothing. Sometimes she'd interrupted the radio's music with 'I Don't Want to Set the World on Fire'—suitably apologetic, she thought, but it received no reaction. A year or so after being trapped, when she realized the humans' stock market had crashed, she thought she'd at last be out in no time—he'd realize he needed her. But no. Every day for the next several years, she went on believing, 'This will be it,' even after he finally left the house.
One day it appeared he could no longer stand to live there. He started silently crying out of nowhere (highly irregular behavior for him) in the middle of trying to read the paper, and murmuring, 'I'm sorry.' Her heart leapt for a second, as she was playing the song again. Was he responding? But, no, he wasn't apologizing to her—he was apologizing to his birth mother for trying to replace her. Terri somehow knew this, deep down, even before he started packing, which revealed that he made sure to take any keepsake related to Camille—who he could barely remember—and leave behind anything related to Terri—the woman who'd raised him. Within a few weeks, he found someplace else, and that was that. He was much harder to watch after that. He'd abandoned a paid-off home, which he knew couldn't sell at the time, in the throws of an economic disaster. That was how much he hated feeling her there on the other side of the wall.
Well then. She guessed that was it.
Terri didn't like thinking about 1933. Pity he died so close to where he buried the box. What a sound… But it was only so dreadful while hearing it live. After the first few mental replays, as she concluded she was destined to starve, it became funny. At least that bloodsucking brat suffered, too! The comfort was short-lived, though, as she realized how much better off he'd be now, where he was, than his peers, because of the power he stole from her. The smug, conniving bastard didn't deserve it.
The beldam had mixed feelings about still being 'alive.' If she could in fact really die. It was possible that she could only be put into a state of permanent hibernation until revived...if revived...but she didn't exactly want to test the theory. Terri couldn't help being impressed with herself for holding out this long, but knew starvation was imminent if nothing changed. The end was both anxiety-inducing and...appealing, to tell the truth. After all, her existence was miserable, and she felt twinges of inappropriate glee over how her death would inadvertently unleash the Thing on those she hated. But she also resented that disappearing into the yawning mouth of the primal Thing—of which the consciousness 'Terri' was only a part—unleashed far more power than she commanded while retaining pseudo-independent consciousness.
She'd been effectively reminded of this the last time it absorbed her. Ostensibly it took her as a type of collateral, she told herself, as it was too worrying to admit that her vague memories weren't of being spat out willingly but of clawing and biting ruthlessly to escape. Either way, she'd woken again after the Hungry Thing claimed some food at the penultimate remaining door, circa 2000. It was like a perfect time jump. She saw nothing, heard nothing, felt nothing, and knew nothing, and then jarringly all of these senses came flooding back and she bolted upright in the same armchair she had collapsed into an indeterminate amount of time ago, croaking hoarsely with her long-unused voice. Her body was trying to shout random pieces of dialogue that didn't seem to have come from her own mind, as though she were echoing something else, and her fingers seemed to be tapping a Morse S.O.S. signal on the arm of the chair.
There'd been a lot of good prey at that door, luckily for her and the Thing. The door, which had previously been a crawl space intended to lead from a human child's bedroom to the Other Parents' bedroom, had apparently expanded. From what she managed to piece together later, her subconscious had gone in direct pursuit of a woman named Karen, who Terri realized she'd seen once before from the bottom of a well. But then a number of very interesting prey walked onto the premises, all of whom were filled with deep emptiness or who had demonstrated great courage in life, making their fear highly valuable. She accomplished three kills, four if you counted the cat. The professional outdoorsmen she consumed immediately. The comedian, Tom, seemed good with children, so she thought he may make a good assistant; she hung onto him. Terri celebrated her continued longevity with some whimsical mean humor, mounting a plaque bearing the hunter's name—Holloway Roberts—where one might mount a deer's head. (Technically, she argued with Echo at the time, as this one had killed himself, she was honoring his best shot!)
The most valuable person at that doorway was the photographer, Will, even though she never caught him, because he went on to provide her with additional sustenance that made for a feast even more nourishing than her active kills. It was horror, wonder, awe, fascination, by hundreds! The photographer had even supposed she was a god—bless his heart. She'd learned this later, scrying through the eyes of a child's doll left in the living room after bedtime, while the parents watched the infamous footage of the Thing's destructive force, which had been branded as a sophisticated mockumentary.
Unfortunately, the brief international obsession with the photographer's film petered out, as fads do, and for many of the people initially fascinated by the 'monster,' awe rotted away to bitterness at whatever the insidious hallway represented to them. She was still a universally despised, one-dimensional storybook villain. Their hatred quickened her descent into starvation again. Within a decade, she was so weak she was reduced to mere parlor tricks, forced to rely heavily on the understandably disloyal rations to play other roles, and unable to think clearly enough to strategize well. You would never have guessed what she once was, she was so pathetic in that defeat, bested by the meager effort of one very boring blue girl. It ranked in the top five lowest points of Terri's long life.
She'd gone long periods without sufficient sustenance before, but nothing like this. (It was not the longest stretch of years she had gone with so little to eat, but the longest she'd gone at such a low power level.) Terri believed those kills at Ash Tree Lane, Virginia, and the photographer's film had helped carry her this far, but she had a hypothesis about another hidden factor that kept her alive. She both did and didn't want to be true, because it involved people she wanted to forget. Not that she could, completely. Sometimes when something roused her from hibernation, she'd waste energy reconstructing her corporeal body and the house in a frenzy, sprinting for the door in a disoriented, confused half-dream, expecting a familiar voice. Still expecting to feel another body throw itself against her and wrap its arms around her, making her feel like she mattered, even as the small, pathetic dot in the universe she had become. Still wasting energy on him...them…mostly him… Literally killing herself with it, at this point. Good job, Terri. But still, she wondered—were the last shreds of someone else's love helping her persist?
More immediately than expected, Terri received the barest beginnings of an answer to this question.
Something had changed. It prickled around her edges. She didn't know what it was, but it was significant. The piece of her that accepted data flow started to prick up again. She tried shutting it down to conserve energy, but it was like an emergency broadcast blasting through. Fleeting puzzle pieces of sensory information reached her. The visuals were dark, the audio mostly static, but there was tactile data getting through. It was a sensation of being...held, prompting a rapid-fire rollercoaster of emotions: 'That's...beautiful…it's been so— No. It's not real. You're dreaming. Stop.'
But the sensation was stable, persistent. The visuals brightened slightly as the perspective changed, facing away from whatever had been blocking the scrying device. The room was dark, but didn't look like a child's bedroom, so a kid somewhere hadn't found an old doll. Once the static returned, she realized it had briefly quieted; it hadn't been messy data, but a true sound ofstatic. Through the noise, she recognized a faint melody, despite how fragmented it was: 'I Don't Want to Set the World on Fire.'
He still had the doll! And the binding was partially released! 'Don't waste your energy,' Terri thought, but her synthetic heart pounded with hope. She wasn't sure yet if it was hope of reconciliation or revenge. But hope.
[X]
Al woke the next morning unclear on what had occurred. At some point in the night he'd gotten sick, found his way to the bathroom, and never made it back. He'd opened his eyes to face the indignity of his cheek resting against a toilet bowl on only two other occasions, and both times, he'd been alive. The human liver was a puny thing, but he didn't have that excuse now. Pathetic. Another healthy dose of humiliation. At least it probably couldn't get worse.
Yet he felt a strange foreboding, as if something very bad had happened that he needed to fix immediately. Probably just hypervigilance that jabbed at him when he felt not in control. This was why he rarely had more than three drinks at a time… What the f*** had Husker handed him? A double Long Island Iced Tea? For the love of sin! The acrid scent of vomit hit him, especially overpowering since he'd actually bathed yesterday. In fact...dammit, it wasn't just in the bowl. He'd have to waste a free ticket by bathing for a second day in a row. Particularly after an entire day of looking like an idiot, he was much too proud to be caught dead reeking of vomit after all the ragging Nifty and Charlie had given him. He picked himself up and resentfully turned the faucet knob.
(One of many punishments for the sin of Pride was a curse causing the inability to maintain hygiene without feeling the licking of Hell flame on your skin. Alastor's unique set of abilities allowed him to override this and other punishments to a degree. He could manage a certain number of showers per year while enduring bearable discomfort, and he spent most of those on the days when he visited Mimzy—a fact that, regrettably, most of the household had noticed.)
Head throbbing and ears ringing, he tried to put it together. The long string of embarrassment and disappointment culminating in the mysterious Very Bad Thing. The advertisement, the children, Charlie, Bert, Husker, Rosie, Mimzy, Nifty, the box.
The. BOX.
Pieces reassembled for him as Alastor noticed the sound. Emitting from the radio speaker in his cane next to the shower was a broken, staticky, but recognizable rendition of 'I Don't Want to Set the World on Fire.' A nice song, but not one he particularly enjoyed because of personal associations. The song had snapped him in 1928, when it insistently interrupted the radio stations left on in his house. Well-versed in the era's popular music, Al knew he hadn't heard it because it hadn't been written yet, so it could be coming from only one source. After her twenty-seventh play of the obnoxious false olive branch, Al angrily abandoned the house, so the con woman couldn't easily hurl lies as he tried relaxing in his own home. Why was it playing n—? SHIT.
The. Box. Was. OPEN.
And that meant that the box inside the box, and the box inside the box...was open. He knew because he had a flashing, vivid memory of what was now inside. It had changed since the last time he saw it, only a few months after he'd reclaimed it, consumed by the worry that there might be deterioration inside. That day, it had been a tall, slender blonde with just-below-the shoulder-length hair in a deep blue dress with beige diamond polka dots, a beige apron, and a green ribbon around the center, blue buttons for eyes, and a rounded stitched nose. The doll was now closer to, but not identical to, what it had looked like when it was originally shut in the series of boxes in 1928. It reflected a short, curvy woman with a dark bob cut, brown button eyes, a pointed stitched nose, and a black cocktail dress with white circular polka dots. To his relief, he recalled that the thick twine was still secured tightly around it, although it had regrettably frayed on the side just above the right hand.
There were several booby-traps in those boxes. Exactly how determined had drunk Alastor been to get to this monstrosity? ...Had he been cuddling it in his sleep? Prickly numbness briefly overshadowed his hangover. He quelled legitimate panic, which would be completely unacceptable. The mere fact that he'd dreamed of sleeping with it nestled against him was an unwelcome shock, but there was no urgent cause for alarm. There was no way in Heaven he'd opened that box. The vision in his head resembled the original doll so much because it was a picture his brain devised in a dream.
There would be nothing in his bed when he left the shower, Alastor assured himself. And the box would be closed.
[X]
There would indeed be nothing in the bed and the box would be closed, because while Alastor was passed out in the bathroom, Nifty had already made it in and out. Sisterly concern prompted her to knock on his door to check on him, and when there was no answer, she couldn't resist just a tiiiiny peek... OCD activated! As she whirled through the room eradicating dust, she thought she'd do a small, kind favor for her friend, who'd had a shitty evening, and take the sheets today. She rolled them up, bounced off the mattress, and as she landed on the floor, the disturbance knocked the precariously-balanced open lid shut again with a click.
Nifty noticed nothing amiss until she heard a heavy thud and metal clink when she dropped the wadded sheets into the washer. She yanked them out again, rifled around, and discovered the source. One of the boss's poppets was stuck bundled inside the sheets. Apparently he'd been sleeping with it, but perhaps not affectionately. He may not have wanted to take eyes off it, because the doll was in a notably heavier binding spell than usual, wrapped tightly in layers of twine several inches thick. The most eye-widening detail was the presence of the nail. Not a pin but a large, very old-looking rusted nail was hammered messily straight through the heart region.
Nifty sat on the unused drier as the washer operated next to it, dangling her short legs off the side, and mused over the doll. If this was what it appeared to be, it seemed so unlike the boss...and very unflattering, she thought, frowning. Most of his relationships with women seemed much friendlier than his relationships with men. Even with Mimzy—with whom he seemed to share historical drama—he was amicable. But Al was Mimzy's simp, she thought in amusement, before casting her gaze down at the doll again. This woman seemed not so lucky. Maybe the boss really did have a tumultuous, spicy love life she wasn't aware of! But what could the woman have done to prompt this?
Nifty tenderly touched the edge of the nail, thumbed the twine. It was so tempting to free her. What if this was the beginning of a beautiful love story that ended in forgiveness? Nifty shook herself out of it. No, she had her head in the clouds again. Things weren't always like that. She would force herself to assume the boss had a good reason for the binding spell, but…she couldn't resist at least removing that horrible nail.
Just after she finished, Nifty was startled by an aghast exclamation of, "What is that?" She jolted and looked up, pupil dilated, as Vaggie hovered over her, distracted from her laundry by the fate of the voodoo doll's target. Before Nifty could formulate a response, the moth demon yanked the poppet out of her hands. "Is this Alastor's?" Vaggie examined the layers of twine knotted around the doll with disgust and produced a pocket knife.
"Wait! There...there might be a good reason for the binding!" Nifty argued. "We don't know who that is!" Vaggie disregarded her and continued working on the knots. In an attempt to placate her, Nifty explained, "I took the nail out!"
"Nail?" Vaggie looked to Nifty's side and spotted the item in question on the drier top, then paired this image with the hole in the left chest area of the doll. "Holy shit! Sickening!" This had to be confiscated. Vaggie held the doll high above her head as she walked, ignoring the shorter demon's frustrated hopping and grunting next to her.
"Vaggie. We should be careful! We have no way of knowing what she did!"
Vaggie lacked an ounce of curiosity about the woman's behavior. It was Alastor. Likely this woman was a blameless victim, whom she should free. "What she did? Please. I hope she ripped his heart out!"
[X]
The shut box was a relief; the bare bed, less so. Yet another puzzle that his pounding head was not in a state to solve. Ugh. Well, probably all this meant was that he never opened the box and Nifty's tendency to mother people had kicked too far into overdrive. It all depended on how much Al believed his 'memory' of last night wasn't a dream. Surely he hadn't turned to her for comfort, even in a heavily intoxicated state, right? He needed to be sure, for the safety of everyone in the household. Alastor stayed as composed and steady on his feet as possible while descending the stairs to find Nifty and spotted Husk at his typical post. "What was that?" he hissed at the cat.
"From the look of it, a little more than what you needed. My bad," Husk replied, not looking terribly interested.
Al spread his arms impatiently, still expecting an answer to his question.
Husk mustered some enthusiasm. It was sort of an interesting specialty item. "Insider secret," he said with a sneaky grin. "Some crazy imp bounty hunter claims to have found kegs of this stuff in a condemned house's basement while doing a job in New Orleans. From Prohibition. Stuff knocks you on your ass, which is crazy, because it was clearly made for living mortals. He's been selling small bottles at exorbitant prices as a side gig ever since. 'Mother's Moonshine,' he calls it. Says that was what was stenciled on the side of the kegs. Ring any bells for ya? I was wondering if you might've been lucky enough to try some back in the day."
Dammit, Blitzo! Alastor was overwhelmed by the pure, unfiltered absurdity. After decades of successfully keeping the entity contained, she may have been freed simply because his drunk ass was being a wuss after getting hammered on her homemade moonshine. He'd either lost the statistical lottery or a truly malicious joke was being played at his expense. "You gave me this with your measuring stick based on rumors?"
"I knew it was kickass stuff for sure. But I also thought you didn't have anywhere to be today and you looked miserable last night." Husk shifted sheepishly. "And I thought that imp was joking about using a dropper for serving sizes... Hehe."
"Husker. Do me a favor, and don't ever worry about me again," Alastor said tersely. "You've made matters much worse." Husker raised an eyebrow as Al mouthed cryptically, "Something happened."
"I'd assume you drunk texted Mimzy, but I know you don't have a phone."
"We need to track down Nifty before her cleaning compulsion does us all in. I'm concerned she's made off with something dangerous."
Nifty, of course, swore up and down that she'd seen no poppet, and hoped Vaggie was right and the woman posed little to no danger.
[X]
Terri convinced herself it wasn't another dream, remotely watching the cyclops remove the nail from her heart. She felt some relief already. With her reasoning and emotions evening out again, she decided revenge was what she hoped for. As the moth girl with the glass eye cut her free, the beldam stood from the armchair, new strength flooding her. Terri was actually touched to witness such an untraditional display of mercy from demons, unaware that they resided somewhere specific in Hell that fostered it.
She barely had time to crow in celebration before someone else started to celebrating with her, in his own silly way. The piano, out of nowhere, played the distinctive piano riff to 'In the Dark of the Night.' "Can it, Tom," Terri ordered. The piano abruptly stopped. "Do you honestly think I'm that campy?" There was more silence. Then with obvious sarcasm, the piano picked up the melody where it had left off.
Mercy of mercies, she did have some company. The other rations were gone, but much of Tom—who'd played the role of the last Other Father—remained. Not enough to speak, but enough to act like a playful poltergeist, teasing and communicating nonverbally, usually through shadow images. She'd waited to eat him as an absolute last resort. At first, she'd found him offensive, but over time found him great for morale. You'd think Tom would be more rebellious and that she might crack down harder, and that was often the case between 2000 and 2010, especially immediately after his traitorous behavior during the Coraline humiliation. But with only the two of them left, eventually, two perfectly complementary cases of Stockholm and Lima syndrome developed, making her dread a time when his positive regard might run out and she'd be forced to consume the rest of him. But now maybe she wouldn't have to!
"Going to give this a minute of thought before I move, love." Terri approached a cabinet and unlocked a drawer containing a document that was yellowed with age. She flipped through it, searching for anything that may prohibit her from seeking retribution. She had to be cautious—any further loss of power right now would surely kill her, and she refused to go down so close to the opportunity for a dramatic come-back. From the way she read this, he had abandoned everything agreed upon; he had what he took when he left, and that was it. She could seek as much damned vengeance as she wanted! After she recharged a bit and could afford the loss that came with overriding a promise, she might even try reclaiming power. If he'd multiplied it since leaving, the gain would probably well offset the cost. Sweet.
Her button eyes returned to the contract. It was a strange thing to look at now. The collection of papers in her hands had started their life as a very formal type-set document, with a neatly handwritten amendment here and there at the end. But over time, it had developed a number of unofficial joke scribbles and doodles in the margins, which were very clearly banter between two loving family members. After one or two of these caught her eye, she was forced to seal the document away again before she could fall down a rabbit hole.
Tom ceased playing stereotypically villainous songs and switched to a more somber but still aptly vengeful tune called 'Angry Johnny.' It was too on-the-nose. "I've changed my mind. Kindly satirize me again," Terri joked, trying to beat her emotions down. The keys stopped moving and Tom shadow-projected a broken heart, seeming to try to suggest to her that it was okay to cry. "No. If there's one thing that idiot Bert ever said that I agree with, it was, 'If you cry, the bastards know they've won.' The boy hasn't won yet. I won't even accept a tie."
Tom was concerned. What could be gained from Terri battling the child again, now that she was finally free? She should move on. But roughly 90 years of slow, painful, humiliating deterioration emotionally fueled Terri to pursue retribution. Not just in this one particular case. She wanted a real, lasting change to her circumstances in general. But specific plans and long-term goals could come later, after she re-stabilized. For now, a short term goal—reminding someone to mind his manners.
Terri wouldn't annihilate Alastor. She'd find him, establish herself in his circle, and chip away at his afterlife, shattering any impression of power, confidence, competence, ability, autonomy he'd painstakingly constructed and drag his reputation on the ground like roadkill caught in a tire until it was pulp. See what she could get him to offer, any demeaning monkey dance, dangling the possibility that she'd be placated. And finally reclaim power and leave him to suffer amongst the rest of the peons in Hell on the same level, defenseless. Humiliation was the only form of punishment to which this particularly stubborn child had ever responded. Maybe after another 90 years she'd consider them even. Yes, in fact, she would, because she tempered her justice with mercy. She may even share the power again. Everything would go back to the way it was, and maybe they could ride her new wave of ambition together, if he behaved.
But before she could do even that, she had to get her energy up and her blood sugar balanced. Time to pay a certain Final Girl in Oregon a special visit.
Terri didn't even want to use energy to teleport right now; she'd come in the back door to the Pink Palace—the well. Tom lurked behind her, seeming concerned. "I'll be back to check in, Tom. I know you're like a ferret—you need a buddy at all times," she said, shooting a fond glance back at him. Terri opened the door which would theoretically lead into the apartment, but instead saw the image of a long, dark tunnel. Around the edges of the closed top came hints of moonlight. Terri knew that wood was old and rotted. But just in case she was mistaken and someone had replaced it with newer wood, she retrieved the hunter's memorial plaque from above the fireplace to hold above her and help her shatter the barrier. At the velocity with which she'd hit it, this should do the trick. "I'll get you that buck, Holloway, don't worry about it."
Terri prepared for the feeling of freedom, wriggled into the crawlspace with the plaque above her head, and then the strange gravitational force took her. She whooped like a child on a rollercoaster as she burst through the barely-stable wood at the top. Panting, she stood in the moonlight. She was out, and it wasn't a dream! Terri was reminded of how strangely pleasant this world could be as she absorbed the sights, sounds, and smells of the spring night, traipsing through the humans' garden. She almost worked herself into a rosy, freedom-fueled euphoria...until viewing the kitchen window in the housing complex's ground level. The Jones family still lived in the house. This should have pleased her; it was why she'd come. But watching now-young-adult Coraline give Mel a warm, caring Mother's Day hug and a kiss on the cheek as she presented her with cake, Terri felt violent flames of envy consume her. What right did they have to a happy family? What made them better than her?!
She'd relish the terrified expressions, screams, and bloodshed later. At the time, it was a rageful blur. Once sated, she rested for about an hour, took a finger's taste of icing from the top of the uneaten cake, and exited to proceed with business. Should part one of the humiliation mission entail breaking Alastor's murder record in a single evening? No—she shouldn't make herself sick. But right now, Terri could still have some more to eat. Conveniently, a morsel appeared.
She heard the hiss and turned to see her grimy little nemesis. "Ah, Pluto. Fancy meeting you here."
"How are you out?"
"Does it matter?"
"Planning some revenge?"
"What does it look like?" She gestured at the bloodshed visible through the window. The local police would have a field day trying to figure out which animal had done this.
"What was all that talk about changing your story and not wanting to be the bad guy anymore?" The cat narrowed its eyes at her. "It was one of the only things I ever heard you say that sounded like it may have had the slightest merit to it."
"That was fool's talk. Every bit of sentimental drivel that came out of my mouth back then was a result of falling into the trap that terrible, manipulative boy laid for me. Back then, I was a loser. Tonight, I become a winner."
"I'd pay to see that."
"Sadly, tickets are all sold out." Before he could run, with terrifying agility, she snatched him around the middle in a large, claw-like hand and dropped him into her long throat like a snake eating a mouse.
For years she'd tried to catch that cat, but now she realized she'd failed only because her heart wasn't in it. Despite being insufferable, he'd been a thing to banter with when there was no one else. But she could no longer stand his constant, snobbish criticism. The guilt-tripper was finally gone for good, and she could proceed in peace. First points earned at the beautiful beginning of what was sure to be a thrilling game.
[X]
Alastor registered a few unusual things when he awoke the next morning. The first was the drool-worthy smell of pancakes, eggs, and bacon cooking. The second was the sound of a brass band. Al's eyes shot open. The shadow players. That. Couldn't. BE. He wracked his mind for a believable way for those things to be down the hall playing without him controlling them. Was it a vivid dream? Had he sleepwalked? As he became more lucid, a more threatening connection crystalized in the form of a woman's voice singing the first few lines to 'Jeepers Creepers.'
Alastor's brain had a serious disagreement with itself. The majority insisted prior planning was needed before broaching the threat. A much smaller part emotionally— hysterically, even—appealed that the voice was the most beautiful sound it had ever heard. It persuaded the rest. Al found himself walking down the hall like a zombie. He made it most of the way to the kitchen before Nifty's call of, "Morning, Boss!" snapped him out of it.
"Hey, Al, who's the babe?" Husker asked.
Flickering to attention, he asked, "Excuse me?"
"The one you brought out your welcome wagon for." Al couldn't admit that the players weren't at his command. He waved Husker off without a reply. Husker irritably mumbled, "What the shit?" behind him.
Al approached the kitchen doorway, maintaining a distance while peering around the corner at an angle. He caught a flash of polka dotted silk blouse and red ribbon, which was all he had to see to be forced to remind himself he could not, in fact, die again of cardiac arrest. He backtracked a few steps for a different angle and spotted Charlie and Vaggie whispering to each other around the corner of the doorway on the other side of the kitchen. Al pulled their whispers through the radio static.
"I didn't check her in," Vaggie said. "Neither did Angel. Or Husk. Or Nifty."
"Well... one of them must have checked her in, or else this is hands down the weirdest home invasion I've ever witnessed," Charlie argued. "It had to be Al. That's his band playing, and they act like they know her. But I could swear he was still asleep, and I don't think he'd walk out on one of his guests."
"Well, it's like you said. What home invader sings while they cook you breakfast?"
"Snow White?" The two women giggled.
"I'll grant you this," Vaggie said. "I've never seen anyone in Hell besides you act like they thought they were living in a Disney film."
All jokes aside, this confirmed that no one knew who'd let her in. Al was not surprised. She had not been let in. She had let herself in and proceeded in her typical petty yet insidious style. She had casually, subtly illustrated her ability to override his power by making his band play, while heavily suggesting she was someone who was supposed to be here and endearing herself to the rest of the household with food. That was what had just happened. And no one would believe it in a million years. Dammit.
Alastor eyed Husker and Nifty. Ugh. First things first—give the employees the heads up. It would all come out eventually, but he could be vague about it for now. He strode back to the bar area with the feigned carefree attitude of someone who had had a great deal of practice. "Ah, look, the big shot returns. Too good for us now to even say good morning?" Husk asked. Meanwhile, Nifty sported an even shiftier look in her eye than usual, piquing Alastor's suspicion.
Al walked behind the bar, and, with a smile, swiftly grabbed both by an ear and pulled them over and behind it in looney-toon-esque fashion. Husk began flailing his arms in indignation. Alastor shushed them, looked very seriously side to side, took a breath and motioned with one hand up as though signaling that they needed to suspend some disbelief. After a short pause, he said humorlessly, "She's here for my firstborn."
Nifty and Husker shared 3-5 seconds of dead silence before concluding it was a joke. The single greatest, most straight-faced, sophisticated and contextually layered joke that Alastor had ever made. They burst into uproarious laughter, forcing Alastor to briefly mute them. "What's so funny?"
"Al, you rarely make me laugh, but I've gotta hand it to you. That line and that delivery were both..." Husker mimed a chef's kiss.
"I'm serious." In reality, he was sure this wasn't the specific reason for Terri's appearance, although she might whip out an alternative she'd been known to present to prospective prey: 'Want to be safe? Find a replacement.' Even more likely, she was hoping he'd have children she could threaten to extort him, or simply hoping to humiliate him in front of them. But it was a good red herring to distract his employees from details he didn't feel like sharing yet, or details that might cause uncontainable panic.
Husk and Nifty collectively made the 'can't tell if' face. "But...Boss…" Nifty said. "You don't have any children?"
Something about the simple, unrepentant obviousness and her adorably naïve confusion made Nifty's sentence the perfect work of art. "That's...very observant, Nifty," Al choked out before dissolving into muffled wheezing laughter behind one hand. He found himself appreciating Nifty—he'd really needed that.
"Has he lost his mind?" Husk asked.
Nifty mused out loud, "I've often wondered if this is how he cries."
Al wiped away a few black tears. "I'm done. Nifty, you're...a special one... Back to business. She's an old enemy. I'll not waste time on the whole opus. I've had her in a binding spell for the last 90-ish years. She'll not be pleased that after all that time I have no child to cough up, so she'll be willing to take whatever else she can get."
Semi-sarcastically and semi-seriously, Husker said, "Wondering why we shouldn't just let her overthrow you. I could be up for some new management."
Alastor 'tsk-tsk'ed. "Not this new management. This is a degree of passive aggression and grandiosity that I guarantee will tire you quickly."
"No change, then?"
"I'll address that later, Husker. What I'd most like to know is how she's here." Alastor twisted himself angularly to tower over Nifty with eyes like dials. Nifty tapped the tips of her fingers together and gave him her best innocent look, but if anything, she looked even shiftier. "I know how you like fiddling with the dolls, Nifty."
"I only pulled a 'just kiss' that one time!" Nifty whined.
"What have I told you? About messing with the dolls? Or entering my room?"
"I just wanted to help! I could tell you had an awful night!"
"Or trying to mother people," Al continued. "It's uncomfortable."
"We didn't know!" Nifty defended, regarding the doll. "The optics were not good for you, to tell the truth!"
"Who's 'we?'" Static crackled as Alastor identified the most likely other party. Ohhhh yes, that tracked.
Nifty threw her hands up. "She walked in and drew conclusions!"
"You let her take it?" Alastor hissed.
"I wasn't going to take the binding off. I trusted you to have a reason." Nifty looked tearful. "I just wanted to take the nail out."
Al internally sighed. Nifty could be so sweet it was hard to bear in mind she was in Hell for a reason. "That's more than she deserved, but very kind of you." He did appreciate that she had faith in his rationale. It softened him. "Look... if you help me remove her, I'll let it go. No more time added to your service." Nifty still looked gloomy. Al tried to hype her up. "Ready for duty? Valued colleague? Employee of the month?"
With a teary eye, Nifty whispered, "I'm still employee of the month?"
"You're always employee of the month. Look at your competition!" Al pointed at Husker, who had completely tuned out of the conversation, giving no fucks, and was 75% of the way to his first blackout of the day.
Nifty's smile returned. "Ready, boss." Recognizing the seriousness of the matter, she asked, "And if we don't get her out of here?"
"Then it'll probably be moot. None of us will be escaping service any time soon."
For the boss, this was a grim sentence indeed, Nifty thought. He rarely sounded that pessimistic. "What do we do?"
Al considered. "A lot of factors have changed, so I don't think it would hold the same power this time around, but it's probably worth finding the doll. Just so she can't take it back, if not to use it to lock her up again."
"I'll bet Vaggie hid it pretty well."
Al considered that worse still, she may have cast a protection on it. Vagatha seemed like the type to get into spellcasting trying to make herself feel powerful during an edgy teen goth phase. (Canned ironic laughter.) "If we can convince her that her girl's in danger, she may hear us out."
"This woman's a threat to Charlie, boss?"
"She's a threat to the whole household, Nifty. But, yes, I'm afraid if there's anyone here she'd like to go after once through with me, that person is the Princess."
Once through with him? He never used language like that regarding adversaries. Nifty wasn't sure Alastor was fully aware of what he was saying right now, which could only speak to the degree of anxiety he was concealing. What he said next made her more concerned still.
"And Nifty… This is a lot like 'nothing good happens after 12AM,' understood? If I seem...unduly affected in any way, try your best to get my attention."
"Will do. ...Ready for business, Husk?" Nifty chirped energetically.
Husker became vaguely alert, belched, and grunted, "Come get me when it's time for my new employee orientation with the Ass Man's Fantasy Doll."
"Lovely sentiment, Husker. This is why you're not employee of the month." Al turned back to Nifty. "Luckily for us, her signature move when re-entering combat is to behave as if nothing significant has happened, preferably while endearing herself to witnesses who have no context. This gives her the satisfaction of making me look like a lunatic, but it does buy us time to plan before she strikes. Now…" Alastor donned his 'war face' grin. "Let's go get some breakfast."
Nifty resumed her own 'war face' smile as they stood to head toward the kitchen, but she crinkled her nose a little as she heard more warbling, unsteady white noise than usual emitting from the radio in her boss's cane. (Alastor didn't notice, mentally repeating to himself reassuringly, 'She's like any other predator animal, just make yourself look big.') Hesitantly, knowing he didn't care to be touched and that he treated the radio as a part of his body, Nifty reached up and gently dialed the volume down for him. Al looked down, realized what had happened, and then fleetingly squeezed Nifty's shoulder before continuing forward.
Nifty was busy focusing on Vaggie in the background, trying to make some sort of meaningful eye contact, so she missed what came next.
Terri—flamboyant as ever in a 50/60s-style, black suspendered pencil skirt with white polka dots over a cherry red blouse—came into full view for Alastor as she motioned Charlie and Vaggie toward the set table, flashing her perfect doll smile at them. Then she faced away from the two women and caught sight of him. She locked eyes with him for the first time with a closed-mouthed smirk that slowly parted to reveal not the typical, pointy-toothed grin of the average hellion woman, but rows upon rows of the sharpest knitting needles, layered like shark teeth.
[X]
Note: I know it probably seems like he's too easily aggravated by some of this stuff, but his reactions will make more sense as context is added.
Also, to 'House of Leaves' fans, What I enjoy about Tom Navidson's role in this story is the implication that this exchange occurred at some point:
OTHER MOTHER: Tom-othy, you're on piano duty.
TOM: How, you shithead? You broke my hands!