Me and Miss Spider

by wantedthehighway

A mysterious entity with a god complex lures a lonely little boy in New Orleans into her web; Alastor's relationship with his mother is unlike what anyone had imagined; Charlie's philosophy is tested by her trying new client; the troupe tries not to be duped in a face-off between two con artists; and surprising family secrets come to light. (CW: abuse, racism/sexism)

17. Ugly

NOTE: Warning, serious angst ahead. Also, I get some people may not be as invested in the Mimzy character's bit of the story, so the TLDR version of the first couple pages is 'she gets her ashes back, vents, warns Vaggie to break up with Charlie if the princess seems too beldam-brianwashed, and also suggests they assassinate Terri with holy bullets. Which would be...y'know...a pretty bad idea. (Laugh track.)

[X]

[May 2020, Hell, rewind about an hour]

The rainbow of vibrant neon signs decorating Drinkin' Place glowed and flickered with added pizazz. Extra bodyguards and bouncers, armed to the teeth, lined doorways and roamed halls, but the show went on— incorporating the establishment's most elaborate stage effects and even freshly-choreographed numbers. A troupe of glittery, smiling, but bitterly displeased dancers expecting serious overtime pay performed Alice Francis's 'Shoot Him Down.'

Nifty was wrong. Mimzy was afraid—but her terror was outfitted with frothing rage and noxious 'alpha female' vibes. Sure, let Terri come feel like a moron for believing Miriam couldn't accomplish anything without her! That was what Mimzy Glam focused on when she opted to stay open. She smartened up into a fringed white beaded dress nicer than her 'work uniform' and sat down in plain sight to enjoy the show. The periphery of her vision fixed on the basement club entrance while the heel of her highest stiletto boots (she needed to feel taller) clicked challengingly.

Then more memories flooded back to full emotional capacity. And they got worse. And worse. And WORSE.

Mimzy didn't remember when she'd tottered into the VIP lounge and roped it off for seclusion. Or how so many glasses already littered the table. Or when her fury shattered like she'd once watched Terese's false face crack and she started weeping—not because she thought the beldam would arrive, but because she likely wouldn't.

Context clues read Terri was around for days. If she hadn't pursued by now, she wouldn't. They weren't arch-enemies; she wasn't important, just some chicken who'd never laid eggs. Yet here was Mimzy—bawling because Terri wasn't emotionally invested enough to come physically and mentally brutalize her again. (Jeering laugh track.) The club owner smudged mascara on folded forearms where her head rested on the table between trembling shoulders. Even her birth mother never made her cry like this…

The flapper opened her handbag and idly thumbed the cold metal of a pistol inside. At least, Mimzy consoled herself as a sneer formed between tear-streaked cheeks, if Terri did arrive and see her like this, she need only feel embarrassed for as long as it took to plant some lead in the creep's skull. And Miriam Gamble had excellent aim.

-x-

After intensive screening for signs she might be disguised Terri, two bouncers guided Vaggie to the lounge. "Huh," the moth muttered, scanning walls as they progressed toward the lower level. Most popular 1920s-'30s performers were represented, yet: "Shocking lack of Mae West in here."

The large Komodo dragon-like bouncer chopped his neck and whispered in a low, throaty voice, "Eemay Estway doesn't exist in this establishment."

"Somebody called the boss a 'knock-off' once. She threw a temper tantrum, shattered every frame. We were steppin' on stray shards for weeks!" complained his raccoon-like coworker.

The next act wouldn't perform for a while, so now the trio had to muscle their way through an unpleasantly crowded dance floor to reach the lounge, where the bouncers pushed aside ropes and cracked the door silently. Vaggie sympathetically winced at the sight of Mimzy, whose head—again resting on her folded arms—was haloed by 5 empty or half-empty glasses. The bouncers' thoughts differed. "Phht. Pathetic," the dragon mumbled.

"Uh…read the room?" Vaggie whispered.

"Ha! We'll learn to read the room when she does! There's a reason this lady's got no close friends besides…him." The racoon's snout wrinkled disapprovingly of Alastor. "She's stone cold, makin' folks work tonight." Clearly word spread that Mimzy knew Terese personally and the witch might 'visit.' "Most've us got families. Not our fault she doesn't!" The coworkers swiftly departed.

Vaggie hesitated before creaking the door open wider and softly calling, "Ma'am?"

The woman who looked up was more haggard than Vaggie expected. The local celebrity always looked immaculate in photos, but now her white dress was stained with spilled cocktails; her normally pale face was flushed and puffy; and heavily running mascara created the gruesome illusion that her inky black sclera dripped pathetically from their sockets. "Miss," she slurred back crankily.

"I'm sorry to bother you… We haven't met, but I'm—"

"The princess's girlfriend." The couple often made it into the tabloids, plus Alastor's complaining. "You let Terri McGyver into the rehab?!" Miriam seethed.

"Listen, Nifty found the voodoo doll Al used to bind her, and when I saw it, I thought— Clearly, I thought wrong! Not my finest moment. I haven't convinced Charlie to throw her out yet."

Mimzy's angrily hunched shoulders drooped in astonishment. "She hasn't kicked her out yet?"

"Charlie takes criminal rehabilitation very seriously. …I'm here because…" Vaggie slid into the opposite side of the black velour booth and steeled herself. "Nifty sent me with something only you should have." The moth demon revealed the urn from the handbag slung over her shoulder and nudged it across the table.

Mimzy blinked twice, connecting dots. Then she tilted her head back to slug her remaining drink, coughing as it went down the wrong pipe. (Louder jeering laugh track.) "When did—" Hic. "—she find that?"

"Earlier today. In a big trunk in his room—"

"Sh-iii-III-IT!" the singer wailed, banging the table, nearly disturbing the container and rattling glasses. That explained the sudden shift in her feelings and memories! "He said he moved my body, back when he had the trunk retrieved before the storm so it wouldn't let her out if it was flood damaged. If this was the easiest way, whatever, but to hoard it?! And to— H-he used it for something I don't like, I know it!" She blinked and massaged her temples. "I feel…different today."

The blonde blinked away her alcohol-blurred double vision to examine the urn judgmentally. Not inscribed—he couldn't've slapped a 'beloved departed' on there? Clearly shined regularly—was that respectful, or even creepier? "If he hadda do this, coulda been a gold one," she grumbled of the silver.

The nitpicking was peak egotistical Mimzy Glam, but also to distract herself from the point causing her throat to close, her breath to quicken, her pulse to thrum in her ears. This settled it: Alastor didn't muddle her memories—reducing them to mere semantic facts without emotional impact, so they easily faded into the backdrop—to psychologically protect her. He wanted to evade blame for not intervening! And he literally stuck her in a box?! Just like—

No, this was a mistake; it couldn't be! The flapper opened the metal container, peered inside. …Ashes. (Womp, womp.) Suddenly, Mimzy thrust it out to arm's length, nostril's flaring. "Why the godforsaken hell do they smell like Baileys Irish Cream?!" she squawked in confusion. "Did he drink some?!"

"It…is Alastor," the silver-haired moth mused unhappily of her colleague's cannibalistic tendencies.

"Stop, stop!" Mimzy begged, face green, neon magenta pupils warping into sickly spirals in her black sclera. "I did not realize this ingredient was included in Alastor's insanity cocktail, or I wouldn't've ordered it! …Oh, don't look at me like I fell offa turnip truck! I know he's crazy, just— He didn't start out like this!" Miriam's view crept back to her slightly unzipped handbag, where the child Alastor doll lay safely beside her handgun, always with her. "I've known Al since we were kids…" Vaggie's next question fell garbled and muted in Mimzy's ears as she thought of the nefarious but surprisingly sweet gremlin who hadn't yet wronged her, who was merciless with strangers but loyal to friends. She strained to force this square peg into the round hole occupied by the adult who'd do this. "Huh, sorry?"

"I said I'm glad I was able to reach you, but why are you open? Aren't you concerned she'll bother you?"

"Hasn't yet…" Vaggie couldn't quite pin down the complex emotion in Mimzy's voice. "Which is…weird, actually, since I've got, uh, stuff she might want." Miriam tugged her purse protectively into her lap.

"Really? I haven't seen her hesitate to harass anybody. That's…almost like she's afraid of you."

The women chuckled together. Then Mimzy said thoughtfully, "Maybe she should be." She thunked her handgun onto the table. The singer's brain defaulted to murder as a viable solution whenever she couldn't process negative emotions, but, eh, everyone has flaws?

"Ahhhh haha," laughed Vaggie uneasily at the drunk unstable lady/firearm combo. "Is, uh, the safety on?"

"You live with Anthony Ferruccio, huh? That loudmouth spider blab anything about my side business yet?" Vaggie stammered out uncertain sound effects, then the club owner secretively finger-gunned and 'pew-pew'd. In Hell, an arm's dealing business could never be large enough to attract the attention of the dangerous main providers bent on holding a monopoly. Mimzy struck the perfect balance with her side gig, which was small and private but attracted a handful of regular customers, including Angel Dust and Cherri Bomb. "I deal in specialty items." After a quick swiveling of magenta irises side to side, Miriam opened the barrel.

"Holy—" wide-eyed Vaggie whispered, recognizing the tell-tale markings and faint white silver sheen of the bullets.

Mimzy clicked her tongue. "Exactly! Once, Al brought me some Exterminator spears that'd recently impaled him. Four, and he survived but was very banged up, so not invincible. He got some of his powers from her, so… Betcha she takes a lot, too, but if we kept hittin', she'd go down." (Canned audience hisses, nervous laughter, and one long "dooooon't!") "I've collected a bunch over the years since then. Inspired me, y'know? You bein' the princess's bodyguard… Betcha got a little stockpile yourself?"

"Are you asking me to plot an assassination with you?" Vaggie clarified, good eye narrowing disapprovingly at how this uncharitable idea had considerably boosted Mimzy's mood. "Look, maybe this is Charlie's influence talking, but barring self-defense, I don't agree with murdering even a— Well, y'know— She's still a person."

"I was a person, wasn't I?!" Mimzy growled, her furiously squeezing fist threatening to crack a glass. "But she—"

The singer looked deadly serious, recalling whistling wind and pitch void behind cracks in the creature's mask. "—is a dark, cold PIT." Vaggie's brow wrinkled at the intensity. "C'mon, what're you uncomfortable about? Al says you were ready to stab him on day one! Anyway, if that psycho wants Charlie—and I'll bet she does—you're in danger, too."

Miriam ominously dragged a finger from the edge of her eyes—those empty-looking black holes—tracing a dark mascara tear. "Why'd'ya think I'm stuck lookin' like this, huh?" the singer rasped. Must've been part of her punishment, for this uncomfortably on-the-nose demon presentation to embarrass her eternally, always reminding her how her neediness, gluttony, and greed left her susceptible to Terri's bribery and flattery.

Now this was an entirely new, terrifying implication. Vaggie swallowed and probed, "Would it help to talk about it?"

"I'll talk to this guy." Mimzy swirled imaginary alcohol in one of the empty glasses.

"Eh, I think you've talked 'his' ear off already. …Alastor mentioned Terese pretended to be your friend for a long time, then ruined your business because she didn't get exactly her way?"

"Oh, so he's noticed. That's refreshing! Yup, the c***'s favorite game is 'Chutes, Ladders, and Pulling the Ladder Up Behind Her!' I'd've only kept my business if I pumped out grandkids. She loved saying I only had it because of her." Miriam stood, chest heaving passionately, slammed a glass aggressively on the table, then motioned around at the club in general. "Be thrilled to watch her explain this!" Vaggie frowned down at the hair-thin, spidery fractures appearing the glass tabletop cover and noticed for the first time that the black, white, and silver art deco pattern she'd at first perceived as random geometric shapes actually comprised of many overlapping glass slippers.

"What else did he say?" Hic. "Anything?" The flapper's tone fell between rage and tremoring hope.

"Nothing else. Nothing to explain…" Vaggie mimicked Mimzy, drawing a streak under her own bad eye.

Sustained silence. Mimzy had never spoken of it out loud. Not even back when her memory was foggy from trauma but intact—it was too agonizing. She'd tried to just move on. Now the whole sordid affair was forcibly dredged up, more searing than ever. "…They knew I'd killed my brother." Oof. The remorse still stung. "I shouldn't've, but…that's unrelated. …They were already like my…Other family? Family so loyal they'd help me hide a body! Guess it was a red flag that they were so willing and…like…comfortable with it? But at the time, I felt…lucky. I felt…loved."

Her voice cracked, pale hands fluttering over her nose while she composed herself as Vaggie frowned sympathetically.

"And then she and I resumed his business. Together. Because she altered his will. And not a goddamn soul could prove it. But they knew—that's important. Now she almost had her family business. I just needed to become family. And then I didn't. I don't even understand why it mattered! We were…hap— UGH!"

Mimzy rose again from the booth, began pacing, drunkenly stumbling in the high heels.

"So. She ruined everything that made us happy, just so I wouldn't have an income. Then when trapping me didn't work and she knew I was pleadin' with Al to see she was a monster, she—" Swallow. "She had access to implicating evidence, and she must've clued in some of Jack's old friends, because they descended as a—" She chuckled uncontrollably through the morbid details. "—f***ing lynch mob and hung me from a tree in my own backyard!"

Vaggie's jaw dropped. "…Do you…know she orchestrated it? Had you bumped off?"

"Oh, I do, because I woke up here nearly a solid year later, and Alastor confirmed he had to rescue me from—" She choked it out. "—a locked box in her storage."

"…Shit," said the moth, understanding why the urn must've hit extra hard.

"Guess she kept me because she's a possessive nutcase, and her son took after her. And based on Al's program today, I learned something new. Sounds like she does this—" Mimzy gestured at her eyes again. "—to trap souls. And to trap the soul, she needs to do it almost immediately. Implying that t*** stood somewhere nearby—"

"And watched," Vaggie mouthed it with her in awe. "But…why then… You're not afraid of her?"

"I'M TOO ANGRY TO BE AFRAID!" Miriam bellowed, channeling every ounce of hate in her tiny body.

Vaggie flinched as, just for an instant, the combination of the blonde's rumpled yet fashionable presentation, her pitch black sclera, and the knife-sharp downward curve of her heavily-lipsticked sneer reminded Vagatha of Terese. Sweet Seventh Ring, there were three of them? What would she do with three of them?!

The club owner resumed, "After figuring it all out, Alastor never. Brought it. Up." She touched her cheek just beneath her eye again thoughtfully. Mimzy didn't doubt Terri could've laid just as convincing a visual and tactile glamour over her body as she had over her own button eyes for her human disguise. Otherwise the corpse's missing eyes would have caused a big stir and certainly clued Alastor in. It still agonized her that he hadn't suspected a thing or refused to. That he'd never admitted so later. An uncharacteristically flat, sullen voice left the singer as she stared into her empty gin and tonic glass. "He stood by 'er the whole damned time…"

Suddenly, the flapper hurled the glass at the ground, shattering it and kicking the side of the booth violently, screaming in drunken wordless fury as Vaggie recoiled. She inevitably fell over due to drunkenness, stilettos, and glass on the floor. The moth sprung up to scoop the drunk woman up and rest her back in the booth, inspecting her arms and legs for shards while the blonde sniffled.

Rageful as Mimzy Glam was, she was also a pitiable sight. "Hun, I'm so, so sorry this happened to you," Vaggie soothed. "Can I do anything?" The moth's hands gently tapped the huffing woman's shoulders before moving down to remove her acquaintance's heels, which looked painful and could only be adding frustration.

Mimzy vastly favored men, but being touched, and the thought of being held and caressed by anyone was welcome. Plus, her resentment was morphing into a spiteful brand of playfulness. (And she was hardly better at learning from past mistakes than Terri.) Mimzy managed a flirtatious smile through sparkling tears. "I know how you can cheer me up, Flutterby." She leaned on the table with forearms pointedly framing her impressive cleavage before pressing a hard kiss to Vaggie's cheek. "Help me make Alastor really mad."

Vaggie irritably poked the flapper in the nose, making her pinwheel drunkenly back into her seat. "Hard pass."

"Calm down, I'm teasin'!" Mimzy half-lied, sulking. She ached for hands on her shoulders again. Even Alastor's sounded appealing…until the pleasant thought morphed into a nightmare of her ex-fiancé pushing her by the shoulders into a trunk and locking it. Nevermind, Mimzy decided, skin prickling—maybe she didn't want to be touched.

"First of all, now is not the time for you to be coping that way. Plus, I'm kinda terrified of any rumor spreading that'll make Charlie believe I don't love her anymore," Vaggie explained. "She tried proposing recently, and…I said nothing and let her walk away because I was nervous. We haven't talked about it yet."

Looking down at the table in shame, Vaggie didn't see panic flash across Mimzy's face. The singer grabbed the moth's shoulders and shook. "What're you thinkin'?! Don't marry that girl!"

"Excuse me?!" Vaggie snapped, pushing her off.

"In a perfect world, this'd be all about how you feel for Charlie Morningstar. But it's actually about chaining yourself at the ankle to Lucifer Morningstar for all eternity!"

Fair point, Vaggie thought, shuddering automatically at flashbacks of second-hand embarrassment: Lucifer, strutting around his own theme park, cockily introducing himself to customers as, "You know…the war hero." (Womp, womp). Lucifer, tactlessly taunting a child he'd just beaten at Extermination-themed paintball, "HA! You DIED!" Most citizens sneered behind his back, resentful to be so desperate for distraction from terrible living conditions that they willingly handed money to one of the main causes. "I love Charlie enough to tolerate him," Vaggie insisted anyway.

"Anyone that unwilling to evict Terri doesn't completely have your back!" Mimzy warned. "If you won't part with Charlie, you've gotta get McGyver outta your way." She waved the pistol again. "Ain't as simple as talkin' your girl outta this. The witch eliminates all competition. And Charlie may well stand there and pretend she ain't seen shit."

"She'd never!"

"That's what I thought, Flutterby."

"Marrying Charlie is the best idea I've ever had, thanks," grumbled Vagatha. She focused on trying—to no avail, judging by the reflection in the well-shined pistol—to scrub the lipstick stain off her cheek. A noticeable pink smudge remained. "Goddamn, Mimzy, what's your makeup made of?!"

"Performers sweat a lot, babe. The shit's gotta stay on."

"Look. Final answers: Not plotting an assassination with you. Not breaking up with Charlie. Go. To. Bed." The moth softened the stern command with, "You've had a really rough day." Vaggie made hopeful eye contact with an imp waitress entering the lounge to retrieve glasses. "Can anyone take her to bed?" Acutely aware that Mimzy Glam was usually surrounded by cameras, Vagatha wouldn't risk escorting her to the penthouse apartment herself.

The imp responded snappily, "Yup, pretty sure anyone can." (Ba dump chick.)

"Sally, you're fired," said her boss.

"Only if you remember in the morningggg!" Sally Mae trilled, stacking empty glasses on her tray.

"Think about what I said," Mimzy directed at Vaggie, stuffing the gun back into her bag. Her manicured hand lingered above the urn as she pondered what to do with this abomination she hadn't asked for. Then a mischievous glint flickered in her magenta irises. "Hey, Sally, y'ain't fired anymore if you go dump these in the glitter cannon for me." Sally Mae, questioning nothing, left with the mystery urn and a chipper salute. "Now all my fans can have a piece 'a me," the flapper explained to mortified Vaggie.

"Weren't you bothered by one of your fans having a piece of you?"

"One of them hoarding all of me to use for witchcraft is a wildly different ballgame!" Mimzy smirked. "I think he'll have a hard time doing that now. I'll be a bit too widely distributed."

Oh. Vaggie nodded as she grasped the plan to make the ashes not only difficult to re-gather but impossible to use by intermixing them with the sweat, hair, and other genetic material from random customers crowding the dance floor. "Not bad, Mim… Should you consider how to handle it if Alastor confronts you later?"

Mimzy knew Alastor was capable of extreme violence, but he'd never threatened her. Then again, he'd also ignored Mimzy's warnings about his mother out of professed undying love…then hammered a nail into the woman's heart later. "Guess I'd better go get the dogs…" It was disrespectful in context, she thought guiltily, but also the only deterrent that might work.

Vaggie nodded emphatically. "Yes. Go to bed, keep your dogs around, and don't attempt any assassinations. I completely understand now why you want to, but getting even isn't worth the risk, hun. I don't want you in that lunatic's line of fire again! If she's not gonna bother you, for Satan's sake, just accept the gift!"

After wincing at Vagatha's rather unfortunate choice of words, Mimzy grumbled but conceded that she'd at least have to sober up to scheme properly. "Sure. …Thank you. Tell Nifty so, too. And…make sure she's okay." Mimzy didn't like to wonder if Alastor would hurt Nifty, but…

Vaggie mirrored Mimzy's grimace. "I will."

Departing through the boisterous dance floor, Vaggie spotted Sally loading the cannon. "Ahhhh, nononono—" The moth didn't dart to the stairwell fast enough to beat the echoing BOOM! She stiffened, eyes closed and lips pursed tightly, as its contents rained on her and the cheering crowd. No partygoers noticed anything unusual about the confetti/glitter mixture, except one guy remarking, "Does anyone else smell Bailey's?"

[X]

Alastor rested on his bed, but his mind continued whirring mile-a-minute. The swamp slowly deconstructed in the suite's second room as he prioritized energy conservation. The illusion of a deep blue starry sky warped, swirled, was sucked into its own little invisible black hole to reveal a humidity-damaged ceiling for which he'd owe Charlie. The murky swamp water's miraculous mass evaporation didn't help the drywall's condition. On the silt-smeared, water-damaged carpet, a very annoyed alligator snapped up other store-purchased wildlife now flopping helplessly aground.

He was rationing so he could devote more energy to compensating for his damaged language center and speak normally. Even that small handful of verbal stumbles earlier had felt humiliating to the prideful radio host. And he'd probably need to ration even more stringently soon, because now the Radio Demon felt a freezing ice pick in his chest—such a precise 'nothing one second, searing pain the next' event, Al knew he'd taken another mysterious, grueling loss. After Rosie, far more of the Hellions than he'd have expected, Nifty acting so painfully shifty and nervous around him lately, and Charlie…

Charlie! It hadn't seemed so bad before, but now Alastor stewed over their rooftop conversation. He forgot all concern or sympathy the princess had expressed, remembering only her ostensible judgment, her questioning why he'd 'stoop to [Terri's] level.' While she coddled Terese like a troubled kid who needed a hug?! The NERVE!

How could this feel so debilitating after one day? Was Terri correct that he simply wasn't hardened to the effects? The Radio Demon detested this. He was used to being able to laugh things off easily over the last few decades. It was out of character to start imbibing so early in the evening, but he needed a drink. He shouldn't be tipsy when he met Miriam. But she hadn't called yet… Alastor decided to take a drink and an hour-long power nap.

Approaching the bar, the deer demon was briefly distracted from the day's challenges by the sight of Husker drinking…a coffee? "Do you have an appointment later I don't know about? Bit late for you to sober up for something. You know you need to inform me of your schedule, Husker," Al lectured.

"It's got some whiskey in it," Husker interrupted brusquely and resumed sipping. Experimenting with what changes he could make with his hex undone, the bartender had dumped small amounts of hard liquor into beverages all day simply to ward off withdrawals. So far, it wasn't going terribly.

"Care for something stronger?" Alastor plopped onto the barstool and gestured at the shelf of libations behind his employee. "Join me!"

Husker narrowed his bright orange eyes and glared with hate, not the usual watered-down resentment. His fur even bristled. "'M good. Waddya want?" snapped the cat, fleetingly baring teeth.

Alastor's intrigue quickly mutated into a concerned, painful gnawing in his stomach. "My, this is new. Since when do you try cutting back?"

"If I remember correctly, last time was several decades ago, before I met you. Hearin' your nasally f***in' voice again, I'm startin' ta remember why."

Alastor planted his bony elbow on the bar, chin in hand, and leered up at the feline. "I do love our banter!" Husker refused eye contact, tail bristling further, and failed to notice that Alastor's cheeks seemed a bit more sunken, his eyebags deeper and darker than usual. "Aww, perhaps Sourpuss does need a treat!" Al sacrificed some energy to teleport one of the few fish the unhappy alligator locked in his suite hadn't eaten. "Friend! I brought you a fish. Where should I put it?" He slapped his other hand suggestively with the dead animal.

The stag would not be getting a "put 'er there" today. Husker exhaled slowly, still refusing to look at Alastor. "We're not friends. I don't like working for you. I don't like YOU. Understand?"

Heavy silence. "…You'd be happier somewhere else, then?"

"You kiddin' me? Try anywhere else."

Alastor's sharp yellow teeth ground in his fierce perma-grin, stiff as a bear trap. "You're a more imaginative sort than I'd assumed, then. I can't conceive of where else you'd go or what you'd do that would improve matters. Have crime bosses on your back for the insane debts you rack up gambling when I'm not there to 'negate' them? Spend all night alone in a dumpster behind whatever bar or casino you'd just emptied your wallet in, instead of enjoying fun shenanigans with your trusted friends and partners?"

Husk barked out a laugh, shaking his head. "Trusted?!"

Uncontrollable outrage bubbled up in Alastor. He'd normally have been mildly irritated by Husker's refusal to pander, but this was something else entirely—something needy and desperate. "This is as close to a family as you'll ever have again, after yours left because you gambled away their home!"

"Uhhh. I wasn't tryin' ta replace my family. Don't know what you're on about." Husk shot Al the 'crayyyycrayyyy' look and whipped a 'projection' flash card out of his vest pocket.

"What the—?! Where—?" spluttered the affronted Radio Demon.

Husker smirked rather nastily. "Snatched it off Charlie to make fun of Legs once."

Alastor shook his fist with characteristic melodrama. "I. Vow. To BURN Charlotte's inane F***ING flashcards!"

Husker blinked. He hadn't imagined it, the cat decided after an astonished mental replay—zero radio static censored the profanity. "…Did you just cuss?"

Alastor's shoulders slumped as he sneered with half lidded eyes at Husker the same way you'd look at a waiter who'd just asked if you really needed both a potato and noodles. Truthfully, the expression reminded Husker of Terri. "We're both in Hell, Husker. Are you perfect?" the deer demanded.

That was…even weirder? Caught off-guard, Husker steered back to absent-mindedly answer Al's earlier query with: "Uh, whatever. …If life with you's so enjoyable, how'd you know I'd have to be blasted out of my mind to tolerate it?"

"…Just what do you mean by that?"

Shit, he'd misspoken! The cat nervously fiddled with his suspenders, controlled the widening of his eyes and returned matter-of-factly, "I mean you're always shovin' drinks in my face, Al."

Alastor squinted at Husker's abandoned mug of barely boozy java. "No." He ret urned to grim eye contact with the feline. "I don't think that's what you meant." Husker's sudden desire to drink less. Alastor's gradually worsening dull ache that felt like a black hole inside of him. Combined, these phenomena implied the cat discovered the hex. But how? He had no access to his voodoo doll. Only—

Husker intuited Al's conclusion, accepted he couldn't be un-convinced, and simply began uneasily, "Nifty—"

"Nifty," echoed Alastor. It felt like someone grinding broken glass into his heart with work cleats.

Husk was stiff as a board, tail flaring behind him in mixed intimidation and protective agitation. "She looked into it as a favor for me because she's actually my friend. She pushed back, too, you should know! Because the numbskull respects you or something!"

Alastor didn't register this last tidbit at all. At some point, Husker realized, he must have served himself, because a glass of bourbon and ice now occupied the bar. The Radio Demon stared at his own reflection in the amber liquid, as if conversing with himself, not Husk. "She doesn't trust me?" the stag scoffed.

"Is that a serious question? I mean, she found—!"

"I know what she found," Alastor growled with emphasis, neck elongating and cocking to the side unnaturally, as the red dials in his now obsidian black eyes swung erratically.

The bourbon glass slammed on the table, hard enough for a cube to fly out and a few drops to sting the gambler's eyes. Husk blinked and realized radio warping and static normally accompanied Alastor's aggression, but now they were strikingly absent. Didn't matter. Alastor remained very intimidating.

"I know about everything she found. But you DON'T KNOW, and neither does she! Context, sir, is what is missing!" Alastor hissed, growing taller to loom threateningly, leaning forward on the bar with too-long arms. The resemblance to a Wacky Waving Inflatable Arm Flailing Tube main failed to be remotely funny as the Radio Demon scruffed his servant easily by the neck like a helpless kitten. "I KNOW what's best. NOT YOU. Your lack of trust and appreciation after all these years, when I've evidently treated you two as far more special than mere debtors or employees, is sorely troubling. All my charity toward you, and you have the nerve NOT TO TRUST ME?"

These weren't radically unusual intimidation tactics for Alastor, and his tone stayed even while harsh. However, the content of the boss's speech was too personal, wounded—not like the composed, secretive Radio Demon at all. But the most worrisome sign of all that something was amiss? The boss's shadow creature, Ferdie, who normally mirrored its master's dramatic posturing enthusiastically from behind, was instead peering around Alastor's elongated torso with its black ears folded back, cocky leer replaced by an uneasy frown.

Husker realized Al wasn't currently predictable enough for bluffing or gambling. As he decided Nifty was correct about Alastor being ill, he was suddenly afraid, on everyone's behalf. "Let's negotiate!" he choked out frantically. "If you think we're not serviceable anymore, we'll default! We'll give ya whatever we can right away, and we'll leave. We'll keep our mouths shut. I-I'll give you whatever you want for Nifty, just let her leave with me!"

"I don't want you to leave. I want you to remember your manners!" the deer hissed. "You can't buy your way out of your agreement. You'll have to work your way out. And you can have fun finding food and lodgings elsewhere during your remaining service, since clearly you don't need me, right?" Radio static and warping returned, but the sound effects seemed suspiciously like an afterthought, Husk noted, just before Alastor dropped him face first onto the unforgiving granite countertop. The Radio Demon resumed his normal stature as his employee picked himself up and hissed in pain, rubbing where bruises would surely form on his snout beneath fur.

Seeing that flying off the handle didn't help his argument, Al coughed and resumed calmly, "In any case, Nifty is literally priceless to me. Which is why you have nothing to worry about, my good man." Alastor chuckled and patted the cat's back like nothing had happened. "We simply need to have a conversation."

"Alastor. Nifty seems to think you're…not yourself. For once I think that twit is right." Husk raised one sharply clawed paw. "Don't do this right now. If you hurt her—!"

Al interrupted dismissively, "Since you're the one who tried turning my most valued employee against me, you hardly need to be present for it." That, and Husker's fear didn't negate the searing pain of the fierce hatred underlying it. Alastor's head pounded—the kind of headache one develops when desperately hungry. He had to get the hatred away from him, immediately. "I have a different favor you can perform. I'll come get you when I feel like it." Just as Al snapped his fingers to vanish the cat demon from the room, Husk could've sworn he heard an agitated grumble of, "Go out and get some milk, you useless bastard!"

Husker now found himself in a vaguely familiar room—still in the hotel, to his momentary relief. He soon recognized the area Alastor's personal swamp normally inhabited was drained. The giveaway was the agitated alligator stationed near the opposing wall. How fast could those things run again? "F***ck me," Husk whispered as the gator's eyes flitted toward him and its scaly olive snout twitched with interest.

Two floors down, Alastor chuckled with a self-satisfied smirk and slapped the fish against his palm. It likely would've distracted the gator long enough for Husk to slip through the door. "Bet you wish you'd accepted this now!"

[X]

What she'd feared all afternoon finally occurred—the pager buzzed. Nifty knew it would eventually. If memory served, she and the boss rarely spent this much time apart nowadays. She was usually within arm's reach, like a—Nifty winced—almost like a dog…

The maid squeezed the vibrating dinosaur electronic in her tiny palm and breathed deeply in and out, walking at an uncharacteristically slow pace between her hotel room and the boss's office. Every hallway and stairwell seemed longer—even accounting for the cyclops's wonky depth perception—as Nifty tried dismissing her presumably irrational dread. He'd certainly reprimand her harshly, might add more time to her service. She absolutely wouldn't be employee of the month for a while. But their friendship could survive this with time, right? Surely he'd never hurt her?

When Nifty creaked open the door to Alastor's room, several things were immediately worrying.

For one, her boss wasn't cross-armed and stern, nor was he sitting in a spin chair with the lights off ready to flip a switch and swivel around comedically—both in-character Alastor possibilities, depending on his mood. Instead, the Radio Demon was slouched over the open trunk—theTRUNKohSHIT—looking…deflated. One hand supported him on an edge of the open box, while the other slowly, rhythmically thunkthunkTHUNKed his false cane against the floor.

The scent (It always stunk just a bit in here; there was a swamp in the next room) had changed as well, from swamp smell to molded carpet. And there was an agitated thumping, growling, claw clicking, and…another sound she couldn't identify…behind the closed door that was normally ajar. "Yes, Chester's understandably upset," Alastor spoke, voice abnormally flat. "I may have to rehome him. We'll see. At least I've found him a toy to make up for his troubles."

"You leathery shit, I'll make you into boots!" rang beneath the door. Then that fourth sound—loud, frantic wing-flapping, Nifty realized—a slap, and the enraged grunting of a gator kicked squarely in the snout. "Husk?! You'd feed him to the alligator?!" Nifty wailed.

"Please. I have more faith in Husker's survival skills than that! He'll simply learn a lesson while occupying Chester. Now, can you tell me, dear, why this trunk is empty?" asked Alastor without regard for the commotion.

"B-but—!"

Nifty's concern went ignored. Alastor stared intently, redirecting her concerned eye if it strayed toward the closed door with a stern gloved pointer finger. "Young lady, I truly need you to show your math. You elected to sabotage someone today, quite craftily. Of everyone in the household you could've chosen, given our current concerns, it was me?" The cane THUNKed. "What did you do for Terese today, hmmn? Clean her room? Serve her breakfast in bed?!"

Nifty scrambled for the right words. "H-husker asked me to look because he had…questions. And then I did because I thought…I could tell him there was n-nothing to worry about! That's…what I… Why did you do that with my heart?"

"To protect it. Exactly as I promised."

"B-but…when I removed it, I—" Nifty's boss's eyes flared and she quickly switched gears, hearing Husk curse again alongside fearsome snapping. "Well, why would you hex Husk like that? He's your friend!"

"Precisely!" Again, Alastor looked indignant, not his usual cheeky self. "I know he thinks it's a joke when I call him my dear friend, which is QUITE HURTFUL!" he projected for Husk's audibility as he battled the alligator. It sounded strikingly unsarcastic. Was Nifty's boss emoting? "But it isn't. The thing is, he's simply not competent to care for himself, but he's also too stubborn to let me care for him unless—"

"He's drugged?"

"For his own good!" Alastor argued, visibly indignant, like he really believed he was talking sense. "Liver damage is of no concern! Not as if he can die again! Use your head, Nifty!"

Nifty raised her hands in protest but quickly dropped them again. It was no use. "…What about Mimzy? Th-the urn? I'm sorry, I just— d-don't understand why that was necessary—"

"There were a lot of protections around that urn," Alastor responded tersely. "I'll also ask you if anything came out of the bottle when Husker opened it. He did open it, I assume."

"I-I don't remem—" No. Wait. Nifty's pupil contracted. "…D-dust?"

"Ashes," Alastor snapped. "You see, Nifty, Husker was taking Miriam's drinks."

"…What?"

"Husker was already an alcoholic, so I barely disturbed his quality of life, but I improved hers considerably! Her business might've gone under, she could've ruined her beautiful voice. And she was probably safer. When one's friend is both a heavy drinker and a gun enthusiast who collects blessed rounds, and one's father committed suicide by blowing his brains out while intoxicated, one tends to worry a great deal!"

Al had never trauma-dumped like this before—barely shared any personal details, really. Nifty was silent with shock.

"Her building hasn't suffered any damage the whole time she's owned it. You think that's a coincidence? Now do you understand how you've imperiled your own friend?!" Nifty's boss guilt tripped.

"They're both my friends, though," she whimpered defensively, tearing up. "I didn't want to hurt anybody!"

"Well. You hurt me. How's that? You've wildly disappointed me. I thought we were a team!"

Too raw, emotional. Un-Alastor-like. "U-unduly affected!" the cyclops stammered, pointing emphatically.

"Really? I'm not having a natural reaction to being betrayed, hmmn?"

"Boss, we need to focus on getting the cane back. You're ill. Please, just ask Charlie for help!" the maid implored.

"Ask for help? I asked for help when I was seven, and my own adoptive mother took advantage of me. I asked my fiancée for help with my sick mother and she ran away. I asked for the help of my favorite, trusted employee." He should've remembered that he couldn't afford to lose her, but the gawping black hole inside him swallowed all common sense. "None of those asks went very well! Now where are the ashes? You'll help me recast the spells!"

"Boss, I don't want to! She shouldn't be in a box. You said that yourself, remember?" Nothing. "Remember?!"

"Where. Are. The ashes?"

Nifty stiffened her back to look brave as she unconvincingly peeped, "They've been returned." Suspicion confirmed, thought Alastor. No wonder he'd taken such a steep nosedive. Static flashed through his eyes at the paralyzingly horrible thought of Miriam's hatred. "Listen, I didn't want to hurt you, I just care about my friend!"

"You're going to go there with me," said Alastor quietly but forcefully, after a barely muted hard swallow, "and help me explain it was to protect her."

"You can't go talk to her now! If she gets upset and you get upset—! Well, you just said the protections are all—"

"How. Dare. You—" Her already significantly taller boss rose above the elf-like maid, horns twisting like rose bushes. "—even consider that I'd hurt Miriam!" For Nifty to think that…how she must hate him! Even her fear, compared to her usual abundant affection, hammered Alastor with sharp withdrawal-like hunger pangs and chills. "It's you who's put her in danger! …Sorry, but I simply can't have you causing more mischief today!"

With one monstrously large hand in full demon form, Alastor swept Nifty off her feet and dumped her into the open trunk, which supernaturally expanded as she fell inside. This roughened the fall's impact by transforming the short trip into essentially a fall from a tall tree. The maid cried out in pain as she landed on her arm atop the hard oak wood with a cr-ACK. Then, whimpering while putting pressure on the injured appendage, Nifty scrambled against the trunk's back, cowering up in wide-eyed terror at a wooden wall rising many times her height, with her master towering even higher—high enough, from her vantage point, to snatch an airplane from the air like a fly. It wasn't the box that had grown, she realized, since he still seemed proportional to it. He'd shrunken her to the size of one of the dolls.

…One of the dolls…

Then the lid crashed down like thunder and swallowed her in darkness.

Alastor listened to the maid kick and wail fearfully inside the trunk. "I'll let you out when you've remembered how to be a loyal employee!" he enunciated, frustrated, like she was being melodramatic. "Now, don't hurt yourself hammering like that! You know the room is soundproofed, and I'm going to let you out just as soon as you remember how to take instruction! You know you're still my favorite!" The Radio Demon looked genuinely offended by her yelling and crying, as though she were the one who'd stuffed him in a box. "…See you soon."

Alastor turned to see Ferdie's shadow form cast over the door across the room, as if to impede him. "This had better be because you're eager to get going," the deer said sternly. The shadow's neon blue mouth twisted down in immense displeasure. "You have a problem with this? They'll be just fine, you fool! I'm merely corralling them for now!" In Alastor's haze, it didn't occur to him that shrinking Nifty as she fell meant he'd dropped her far and hard enough to break bones. Nor was he cognizant that Husker could only hover near the ceiling for so long. Ferdie begrudgingly accepted this and made one last feeble attempt to help the little boy he'd connected with long ago regain his rationality. The shadow remolded into Miriam's silhouette. "Yes, precisely, I need her back."

Now Ferdie opted for Alastor's old, preferred signifier of friendship from his childhood, before it became tainted by the adult's dealmaking—he mimed a handshake. A cycle repeated a few times: Point at Alastor (you), point at himself (me), briefly Miriam's silhouette (her), handshake (friends), palm raise (stop). 'I'm looking out for my friend. I'm looking out for your friendship with Miriam. I'm worried about you. Stop.'

"You, think I'll hurt her, too?" the stag hissed. "How could you think such a thing of me! You're my oldest friend!" His shadow companion's mistrust ached. As he approached, Ferdie magnified until towering toward the top of the doorframe. "Quiiiite the bluff, my good man," said Alastor. "But no dice."

Al knew, if not from nonverbals alone but from intensifying hunger-related nausea and head-pounding, that Ferdie was distinctly un-aligned with him, enough to sever their connection. And he'd learned that this type of creature, when not spiritually tethered to a chosen master, was largely restricted by the light in its environment, like a real shadow. As he'd approached the door, he'd moved closer to a lamp and obstructed its light, naturally enabling the creature to grow by piggy-backing on Alastor's 'true' shadow. This critter couldn't do jack shit at the moment.

"I suppose you need to remember how to take instruction as well." Alastor utilized some low-energy magic to put the shadow in its place. First, with a snap of his fingers, he extinguished every light in the room, leaving only his own softly glowing LED eyes to illuminate a faded, shrunken Ferdie (trying to stay within the light) on the door. Al outstretched one hand behind him, and into it flew a black square box—tall, thick, opaque, fully light blocking. The deer demon had expected he'd never need to use this box, but he was always prepared for anything. Lightning quick, he slid the base under Ferdie and slammed the top over, then carried it to a table across the room with his own eyes lighting the way. After gently setting it down, he magically teleported and lit a small tea candle inside. The unstable, rippling shadow stumbled across the material, disoriented in the flickering light, howling forlornly.

Quite a demeaning way to be neutralized, with a mere box and tea candle. But, Alastor thought, he could've trapped and abandoned the creature in total, suffocating darkness, erasing its independence and agency entirely, which would likely be even more claustrophobic, so: "I think I'm being awfully humane right now."

[X]

"I need to talk to Charlie. Alone." Vaggie glared daggers at the beldam, hand to hip, as the woman squeezed her girlfriend's shoulder in a possessive way that made acid rise in the disgusted moth's throat.

"Hello to you, too, sweetheart," Terri answered snappily, then immediately homed in on Vaggie lipstick-smeared cheek. The moth could've sworn her buttons twinkled merrily. "My, what have you been up to?" she giggled, pointing. Charlie followed the trajectory of Terri's index finger and squinted.

"Encountered a drunk weirdo. I corralled her—no worries!" the moth explained hastily, blushing. Charlie nodded in acceptance, snickering, and Vaggie sighed in relief. Or semi-relief. Her good eye turned back to Terri, who smiled fakely and drummed her fingertips against her hip. 'Huh,' thought Vaggie. 'So it begins.'

Charlie motioned Vaggie into the business office while sternly mouthing at Terri 'no spying.' 'Of course!' Terese mouthed back pleasantly, performatively ascending steps to her hotel room while spying through Vagatha's glass eye.

Vaggie shut the door and "So"ed, but overzealous Charlie interrupted, thrusting a bouquet in her girlfriend's face with a wide smile. "I brought you these!"

Vaggie examined the elaborate flower origami. "…You got them from her?" Charlie grinned harder in desperation. "You did." Charlie grinned harder. "Babe, you look like Alastor, dial it back. …You went back there?"

"I had to, didn't I?" Charlie argued.

"…I guess," Vaggie acquiesced, remembering Terri's prisoner. "Uh. Sorry to cough up more bad news, but Nifty confirmed Alastor's hexing patrons, and I've just returned from returning Mimzy Glam's stolen ashes to her." Charlie cocked her head like she was hearing a foreign language as her frown twisted in disgust. "Yup, you heard correctly. Nifty said she'd show us the others when I got back."

"I just got back here. Haven't seen Nifty yet…" Charlie reported numbly, eyes distant with concern.

"You comfortable waiting if we can't find her soon? I think it's entirely reasonable to search his room right now."

The princess groaned. "…Yeah, I agree. I'll do that, soon as I—" The notorious optimist perked back up. "It's handy you shooed her off because—" She semi-fibbed, mouthing, '—I have the way to free Tom now.' Charlie removed Tom's amber-encased eyes from her safe and rattled them showily like dice before cracking them like eggshells. Vaggie thought 'yuck' just before the freed eyes deteriorated rapidly into dust—a more pleasant clean-up. "Done!" Charlie whispered victoriously, blowing a kiss into the air for good luck.

(Spying Terri was dumbfounded at first, lead weight in her heart over Charlotte's betrayal…but she wasn't concerned about Tom. This gave him the opportunity to leave, but the beldam still bet her Internet-famous ass that when she returned to the den, he'd be on the couch eating pizza and getting high to old Fraggle Rock episodes. Tom Navidson, summoning enough self-esteem to leave? Please!)

"Oh thank goodn—! Wait… When did you put that in there?" Vaggie asked.

"Oh, uh, before? Just…wasn't sure exactly what to do with them yet?" Charlie's nervous demeanor made the dubious explanation sound even shadier. "And! I think I've placated Terri. Simple as saying I wanted to 'adopt' her as my Nanna! No one else has to interact with her again!" the princess reassured. "I'll visit her in her den. Maybe she'll cooperatively leave the hotel if I promise that."

Vaggie wilted, heart pounding. "You WHAT?" Did that drunk flapper have a point? "O-okay, hun, so, just to be clear, after she lost you two tenants, you're willing to take time away from treating the patients you have left, who might have a shot, so you can walk on eggshells for that time bomb?" Vaggie tugged her own hair. "I can't believe you were willing to speak to her after Baxter and Criminy left!"

Charlie closed her eyes and pursed her lips. "Vaggie… Look… The hotel…doesn't matter anymore. It's going to fail."

Reality. Had. Broken. Vaggie was dazed for a solid 5 slow seconds before gasping, "WHAT? You can't say that! I know you think I doubt the hotel's mission, but it's important to me because it's important to you! Don't give up!"

"No, I don't mean in premise it would fail. I mean it has sunk, gone under. The money is gone."

"Even your dad was that offended by you letting her stay here?!"

"Huh? Oh. No. Um. …He stopped making payments earlier this month."

Vaggie melted at the sight of tears welling up in Charlie's eyes. "Sweetheart, I'm so sorry… Why didn't you tell me?!"

"I…didn't want to hear you say you told me so." Were those flickers of resentment on the hotel owner's face?

"What?! You make me sound like Alastor!"

"No, that's not how I—! Look, if it makes you feel better, my offering to be Terri's 'family' seems to have distracted her from her attempt to rent me out her 'house' to run the hotel, with obvious strings attached. That would've made everything wayyy worse, so I think I de-escalated things pretty effectively—"

Vagatha spluttered. "Why's this the first time I'm hearing about—?!" Blink. "Hold. On. You told her about the funds ceasing?" The flapper. Had. A point!

"No, she found out by snooping!"

"Charlie." Vaggie swallowed. Her one rose quartz shaded eye met Charlie's intensely. "Listen. I'm begging you to stop speaking to that madwoman."

"But—!"

"She's dangerous! She's too unstable to even keep allies! She turns on them all! Alastor was her own son! Mimzy was her best friend, and she insists the woman ruined her business because she wouldn't marry her son, had her bumped off, then kept her soul in a goddamn box, Charlie—captive like this poor Tom guy was, but in a coma, no less! Alastor had to rescue her! When Al's the hero, you know the villain's a terrible person! Hell, I was her ally once—I freed her!"

"What's she done to you?" Charlie asked, perplexed.

"Huh? J-just a few minutes ago in the hall? You saw! She clearly thought it'd be funny if we fought!"

"Might be a misunderstanding…" The 'pipes' groaned loudly.

Unbelievable, thought Vaggie. Whatever. Redirect. "Regardless, picking fights is hardly the worst thing she's willing to do. What Mimzy said really worries me, babe."

Charlie was surprised by her normally assertive, bold girlfriend's nervous, twitchy demeanor. "You can't mean you think I'd let her hurt you?"

"I don't mean you'd let—" Vaggie cleared her throat and whispered, embarrassed, "What if I said she scares me?"

"I'd say that's not like you. You're not afraid of anything!" Charlie patted Vaggie's shoulders encouragingly, then spun and tugged the moth's arms around her. "You're my big strong protector!" Charlie didn't realize how dismissively her well-meaning jokes were coming across, that she sounded…kind of like Alastor.

Vaggie unwrapped her arms and backed away. Charlie turned again to face her with a hurt frown. "Babe… Please get rid of her. I'm afraid." No response, just more confused blinking, like Vaggie was speaking gibberish. "I'm afraid of what she'll do to you when she finds out about Tom," Vagatha tried.

"What can she do to me? I outrank everyone here." Then something obsessive, rabid, almost Terri-like crept into Charlie's face. "I'm going to help her, whether she likes it or not."

In frustration, Vaggie emotionally blurted, "Ha! Wow! Things Charlie Morningstar is afraid of—her girlfriend saying, 'I told you so.' Things Charlie Morningstar is irrationally unafraid of—the manipulative witch she's just met destroying her hopes and dreams and isolating her from everyone she loves!"

The princess's blood red eyes flared. "Oh! Another showtune from 'Charlie's Insane' the musical! I get it!"

"Right now, yes, I think you're suffering from temporary insanity!"

"Thanks for finally admitting it!" The blonde waved her girlfriend off, turning toward the office door. "Fine! Go shack up with Mimzy Glam! She's a legitimate businesswoman, right? Verrrrry well-adjusted from what I understand."

"You can't actually believe I'm into Alastor's trigger-happy, alcoholic situationship!? She's filled with so much absinthe, I don't know how she lights cigarettes without catching fire!"

cr-EEAAAK went the old house settling.

[X]

Elsewhere, Terri noticed the sound as well, with additional context. This was a very old building, but pipes and settling didn't sound like that. This was more of a stretching, warping sound, and there wasn't enough space within the walls to allow for the faint echo that followed. …Couldn't be. Could it?

She turned the knob of her hotel room's closet, revealing a plain matte black, deep hallway. Yes, Terri had achieved two rare successful direct connections between the Other World and Hell today, but this hallway didn't appear to lead to her house. (Instead, it opened into a wide, pitch dark anteroom.) And even if it had: "I don't believe I said you could do that," Terri reprimanded the Thing grimly.

The last time the Hallway started brute-forcing its own connections without pre-existing rabbit holes had been…during the Navidson incident, when it briefly repossessed her because she'd been dying. This shouldn't be possible. She should be perfectly able to control it now! Sure, she'd taken considerable damage from Alastor's afternoon radio show… And maybe Charlotte's affection did less to replenish her and more to simply distract her from how ill she was feeling than she'd thought? (Plus, it was possible she'd taken another very serious hit— 'NonoNO, don't be ridiculous, you have not lost Tom. He's home waiting for you. You don't need to check now, there's nothing to fret about…') But despite these factors, Terese was still far healthier than the comatose state she'd been in back when the Thing gnashed its way through the boundaries of the universe and violently attacked Karen Green!

The Hallway had summoned the strength to behave independently back when it tried to sabotage Alastor, whose love it viewed as a roadblock to its goal of reintegrating Terri… Could it be attempting the same now because of Charlie?

No matter the correct explanation, the beldam would keep a close eye on this development. "I always kick you back in your grave," she snarled into the void. 'Kick you back in your grave,' the echo whispered back at her. Terri slammed the door shut in anger. The noise barreled back three times louder, and the door rattled as an unknowable force slammed it on the other side, earning a startled gasp.

The woman who normally responded to threats by growing taller seemed to shrink into herself. Resentment about Tom was swiftly forgotten for now; Terri felt an intense need to return to Charlie's side.

[X]

Charlie stormed out of the business office with Vaggie close behind. The arguing women barely noticed Alastor barreling down the hall (seething quietly, "Lost my own shadow—unbelievable!") until he careened straight into Charlie. "Wh— Al?! Why are you sprinting down the hall?!"

"It's what people do when they're in a hurry to get somewhere, dear," Alastor snapped. Before she could ask why he didn't teleport, Al's attention was captured by Charlie's flower crown of origami apple blossoms. His eyes flashed with furious recognition. "What is this?!"

Stunned by his intensity, Charlie uneasily queried, glancing toward Alastor's cane, "Al, y-you've turned that thing back on since you got it back, right?"

Her business partner glared back with a mystifying amount of abject disgust, drawing hurt tears to Charlie's eyes even before he seized the flower crown and shredded it as she gasped. "Preference!" scoffed Alastor, who was raised by a mother who loved gardening during an era when it was still common to know flower meanings. "Ha! She! Doesn't! Have! Favorites!" The carnation pin was ripped from her red blazer next. "She's nobody's mother, Charlotte! The sooner you learn, the better!"

"Alastor!" For Satan's sake, he looked ready to foam at the mouth! Charlie seized the overlord's hands, and it snapped him out of his fit. Slivered pink, white, and red construction paper fluttered to the carpet like confetti. She swallowed hard but refused to admit what the trinkets meant to her. "I'll disregard how wildly unnecessary that was, because, y-you seem unwell, Al. Can you talk to me? Please?"

The deer demon lingered in the nutritious concern offered by her grasp. But his offense to their earlier conversation intruded and he tugged away. "No time. I urgently need to see B—" Alastor forcefully, fakely hack-hemmed as he tried to cover up the near associative word slip as well as his panic that it was still happening. He'd almost said 'borogoves.' "—Mimzy."

Vaggie vocalized weakly, then cut herself off; saying anything was a bad idea. But now Al spotted the stain on her cheek in Mimzy's lipstick shade and gawped at her, gobsmacked. "Are you looking for ways to provoke me, Vagatha? Are you trying to fill a Bingo card?!"

The moth's head swung desperately between Alastor and Charlie. "She was very drunk, okay? I corrected her and sent her to bed! Nothing happened!"

Alastor was enflamed further. This evidenced that the protective spell had fully lapsed and Vaggie had likely gone there to deliver the— "You." One might expect, in his condition, that Al would whiff the barest hints of camaraderie from normally unavailable Vaggie, who shared a common enemy. But no. He only saw that lipstick stain and felt attacked. The stag's stomach growled as he skulked toward the moth, stretching with each footfall. "All I've ever done is tease you, Vagatha. A playful jab now and again. Why then is it your mission to ruin my afterlife?"

Charlie stepped between them, horns creeping from her hair and eyes aglow. "You wouldn't be threatening my girlfriend, would you?" Al glared sourly and slowly reduced in size. "Look. I don't know what your problem is today, Alastor, but I'm going to ask you to leave and come back when you're ready to operate like a functional adult!"

Alastor was already chuckling darkly at the irony of this when he noticed Terri perched at the top of the stairs where she'd flocked to be nearer to Charlotte. The beldam watched the drama unfold wearing a shit-eating grin. Now he outright guffawed and pointed, drawing the women's attention to the onlooker. "Oh, hello, Terese! Enjoying the show, are you?" Terri manifested a bag of popcorn and sassily munched a handful. The middle finger of Al's gloved hand twitched upward ever so slightly. "Let me get this straight, Princess. You consider her a functional adult? You're asking me to leave while you've allowed her to stay?"

"She isn't the one acting like a complete psycho right now!"

Vaggie quietly groaned and face-palmed while Alastor snarked: "Charlotte, I feel quite validated to learn you're precisely as whip smart as I always believed."

"Well, what? Explain what she's doing right now? Compared to you?"

Alastor's laughter finally died. With gloved hands spread wide, gesturing at the hotel's décor of dancing bears, elephants, and starred clown balls, the deer demon boomed, "She's watching her circus! Don't you understand?!" He turned on his heel and marched toward the hotel exit to the unnatural groaning of wall piping.

Conflict-averse Charlie drooped once he was out of sight. "Was I too hard on him?"

Vaggie rolled her eyes. "No, babe, someone needs to tell him when he's acting like a man baby. That said." She glowered at Terri. "Care to tell us what's wrong with him?"

"She has a point, Terri," Charlie added sternly. "Alastor's rude, but normally in a very different way. Something's really troubling him. You are his mother. Can you guess?"

"Couldn't tell you. You asked me to stay out of his hair, remember?"

Charlie shook her head and planted it in her palm, frustrated with everyone. "I'm going to go look for Nifty…"

When the two women ascended the stairs and passed Terri at the top, Vaggie paused to stare into her black buttons and whisper, "I hope you watched that whole interaction very closely, ma'am," of Charlie's immediate intervention against hostility toward her girlfriend. With a self-satisfied smile, Vaggie caught up to Charlie. Her long silver hair swayed behind the delicate mesh-gloved arm she pointedly wrapped around her girlfriend's waist.

[X]

Charlie paced around the hotel for at least 30 minutes searching for Nifty before Vaggie gently convinced her to cease procrastinating. "Where are we off to now?" Terri inquired, emerging from the shadows.

"Bwah! Stop spying!" Vaggie yelped. "We're checking for evidence of hexing in your son's hotel room."

Terri's face lit up. Wanting to discourage their fruitless feud, Charlie advised, "I don't think we need you for th—"

"What if I can offer insight into something you find?" The pair lacked energy to argue, so all three proceeded to Al's suite, where Charlie's override of the door's security spells opened a powder keg of commotion.

At first, Nifty's banging was overshadowed by Husker's profanity-filled raging and wing-flapping and his alligator combatant's growls. Flipping on the lights and opening the 'swamp room's' door was immediately deemed a bad move. "SHIT!" cried Vaggie in surprise at the snapping reptile, immediately calling her spear to her hand like Mjölnir.

Chester roared. "Oh, I don't like that tone at all," the beldam responded. She approached and snapped the lizard's neck with shocking ease, dropping the body and smoothing her dress out primly. This was her second alligator felled after Jimmy told her she couldn't wrestle a—! Well, she supposed he'd said crocodile, but they weren't that much bigger, right? Definitely not cheating. "Charlie, let's grill tonight! It's been ages since I cooked gator. Hope it—"

"Not now, Terri!" gasped Charlie, attention now captured by Nifty's racket.

Terese observed Husk resting his paws on the ground for the first time in an hour. "Never expected rescuing a cat."

Husker slicked back his ruffled head fur. "Gotta say, that take-down did something for me. You're a hell of a woman. What're you up to later?"

"Keep pushing it and I'll pick up where the gator left off."

Charlie focused as a ruby glow surrounded the trunk and wasn't prepared with how ferociously Nifty would spring out as the lid lifted. Still the size of one of the voodoo dolls, she latched onto the princess's face, shrilling indecipherably. Charlie tugged her off, 'oh'ed remorsefully as the shrunken maid fell to the ground, and quickly returned her to full size. Now the bruising and swelling in Nifty's left arm was much more visible. The blonde gasped, "What hap—?!"

In a display of rage not seen since she killed her ex, the redhead lunged at where Terri stood in the second room's doorway, fighting tooth and nail to break Husker's quick restraint, pain in her arm be damned. "GIVE IT BACK! GIVE THE CANE BACK, NOW! He'd never have done this if— You need to give it back or he could hurt Mimzy!"

Vaggie's good eye widened as she did the math, then clapped her hands together. "That tracks."

"But you gave that back days ago, right?" Charlie demanded, gawking at Terri. Silence. "RIGHT?"

Terese didn't explain yet but retorted, "Please, Elf, it's been less than a full day. Anyway, my Button would surely surrender if there was a chance he could harm—" The beldam cut herself off, spotting Nifty's damaged arm for the first time. Her head swiveled between the open trunk across the room and the redhead in consternation. Wasn't the elf…Alastor's favorite? "Wait… What happened h—?"

They were interrupted by the cacophonous BANG and vibrations of a tremendous explosion a few blocks away.

Charlie hopped forward as something fell off a table behind her and shattered at her heels. When the tremoring stopped, she curiously flipped the picture frame laying face-down on the floor. Behind cracked glass was a photograph—taken by Nifty given the upward tilt—of Alastor and Mimzy swing dancing happily together to Alastor's shadow band playing on Drinkin' Place's flashily neon-ified dance floor. "…Oh no," mouthed Charlie.

Vaggie broke the stunned, anxious silence. "I mean… It's Pentagram City. That could be…anything? Maybe Pentious is back on his bullshit?" A hyperventilating Nifty frantically dialed Mimzy to no answer. "I-it's Alastor, maybe someone else pissed him off on the way there!" Vaggie argued hopefully. But as the ominous black plume hovering over the skyline grew larger and darker, it more clearly originated from exactly the zone where Charlie, Nifty, and Vaggie hoped not to see it.

Terri emitted a long, low whistle. "Oh dear… Mr. Ethics really is having a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day."

The beldam's tone problem snapped Nifty, who seethed, "I'm sorry I helped you!" Her eyes watered as she removed none other than the rusted nail from her pocket. She'd been carrying it around, literally clinging to it like the hope that she'd done something good. No more. With her good arm, she chucked it directly at Terri's face, where it hit the gasping witch directly in her left button. "GO ROT!" the cyclops shrieked, bolting from the room with Husker following like a devoted big brother close behind, yelling concernedly, "Kid, your arm!"

Outraged Terri doubled in size immediately and moved to confront the maid, only to be yanked harshly back by the wrist with a searing neon red lasso. The beldam turned back and huffed at Charlie, who uttered, "Don't you dare."

"Glory be, another Ghost Rider," the villain complained theatrically.

Firetrucks began wailing in the distance. "Explain yourself!" Charlie demanded. "Al doesn't have his cane, does he? What point were you trying to make with this stunt?!"

Terri sniggered and returned to her default form's baseline height. "A very amusing one." Then, from Charlie's perspective, the witch seemed to zone out. She was enthused to spy hilarious evidence that Alastor now appreciated precisely how difficult it was to be her!

-x-

Terri identified what probably caused an explosion of this magnitude. During a heated argument, just as she'd often done, the boy had vented his anger by exploding the range…instigating a chain of worsening blasts in a gigantic, industrial grade diner kitchen.

The eruption's force shattered most glass in the vicinity. Scrying through the innumerable shards that were once Drinkin' Place's windows and serving glasses captured a mosaic of different angles of the flame-licked wreckage. It resembled the site of Carrie White's ruined prom, complete with severely injured or temporarily 'dead' partygoers pinned beneath collapsed tables; twitching like malfunctioning robots in fire sprinkler puddles into which lights and soundstage equipment had fallen; or simply fallen as flaming husks, shrouded in thick grey smoke. She heard desperate high-pitched howling and scratching somewhere. The sprinklers pounding the ground in unison, followed by high power fire hoses, hammered the witch's ears like the heaviest of thunderstorm downpours, compounded by the crackling fire and buzzzzzzzing of doused electronics.

Alastor and Miriam were not here, Terese determined (with an unexpected amount of relief). She found them outside, in the outermost end of the parking lot, at the edge of the explosion's range. The beldam didn't immediately realize which reflective surface she scried through now because Alastor's appearance distracted her. Despite the roaring flames she'd just witnessed, he was soaked to the bone by sprinklers and looked decidedly unvictorious, staring zombified…down the barrel of a gun.

Yes, that's what she was looking through… Mimzy was holding it. She, too, was dripping wet. Inky mascara streaks mixed with black demon blood, sparkling water droplets on her cheeks and her dress's shimmering beads almost concealed that she'd suffered small amounts of glass shrapnel. Terri had a clearer view now of the burning building behind Miriam, whose back faced the unbearable image of her home and business burning to the ground—now quite literally—a second time.

Terese heard a soft click, and the image of Alastor tremored as his voice murmured morosely but…almost encouragingly: "Well? …Go on, then." Silence. Then an agonized, rageful scream from Miriam. Terri spotted the cloth child Al doll being hurled violently to the ground before the pistol was shoved into a dark space.

More glass shards showed Miriam's (painfully bare) feet stumbling away. She shrieked with her operatic voice's full force in panic, presumably at arriving firefighters, "Get the dogs out, GET MY BABIES!" Her dogs… "The safe should keep the fire out, right?!" Yes, of course, Miriam wouldn't trust the banks. She hadn't lived to see the stock market crash, but the rash of suicides afterward likely made an impression. Every cent was probably stashed away somewhere in that burning building.

Alastor's sleeve dripdripdripped on the ground like teardrops as he lifted the doll, blank-faced. Then he glitchily blipped out of the scene—so mortified he'd sacrifice a burst of energy to teleport just to avoid being seen.

-x-

Full consciousness returned to confused Charlie, Terri uttered dryly, "Well… I'd imagined that would be much funnier."

"What the f***ck would be funny?!" Vaggie roared, arms flailing angrily. "You helped ruin that woman's life again! Think that earns you overtime game points or something?!"

"You don't have a clue what you're talking about," Terri spat.

"I know you pretended to be her friend, then destroyed her business, had her bumped off, and stuck her in a box!"

"SO WE WOULDN'T FIGHT ANYMORE!" the witch barked. "As long as she was awake and coherent, we would've fought, no matter what, so I put her to sleep! All I did was put her to SLEEP!" she insisted emotionally, then promptly disappeared, ripped out of the air in patchy chunks like a doll ripping itself apart in anger.

"…What?" uttered Vaggie, who couldn't begin to connect those dots. Could Terri truly believe that was 'all' she did?

"Where did she—? I'll bet she— Oh, SHIT!" exclaimed Charlie, who found herself juggling two disasters. She needed banish Terri for bad behavior eventually but delay the witch's departure for now. If Terri had just returned home to discover Tom gone, it could uncontrollably escalate things before she could help stabilize Alastor's drama! 'One problem at a time,' she coached herself, rapidly forming a checklist.

First things first? Put out the literal fire. The tremoring had disturbed something else on the same table the picture fell from. After whiffing smoke that seemed much closer than the cloud in the distance, Charlie spotted the first clearly-visible flames eating through the sturdy dark box. She speedily doused it with a teleported water pitcher from the kitchen, then lifted the lid. Immediately beneath was a flipped tea candle, and Charlie's eyes were soon drawn to unleashed Ferdie's frenetic zipping around the walls, across the floor, and out the door. "Ferdie?!" Alastor locked Ferdie up? Charlie's ruby eyes drifted back to the trunk. Alastor locked Nifty up? "I need to check on them… All of them," she whispered worriedly.

"Go do what you have to, hun. I'll, uh, work on…this…" Charlie turned toward the Vaggie's voice. Her girlfriend was out of view inside Al's bedroom closet. Charlie approached to peer inside. Under the dim overhead pull-string light, the moth demon slowly removed sabotaging pins in the head and heart of a doll resembling one tenant, the first in a line. The princess stepped back, feeling like she'd just swallowed a bag of ice. The possibility of her own 'business partner' sabotaging her hadn't sounded unrealistic when it was first raised, then confirmed, and she'd passively resigned herself to it. But it hadn't felt real until she saw this. It hurt. She turned her back on the closet, tearing up, and felt Vaggie's arms enclose her from behind. "Don't cry, please…"

"Do you think I'm an idiot?" Charlie whispered. "For feeling…surprised?"

Vaggie spun her around and raised herself on tiptoes to rub noses with her girlfriend, remembering to be gentle. "No. It's fair for you to be disappointed. …Go do what you do best and take care of people, okay?"

The shorter woman's statement hit a nerve as Charlie remembered their earlier discussion, how she'd waved off her partner's fear. She kissed Vaggie's cheek and remorsefully gazed deep into her rose-colored eye. "I need to delay her going home if I can, so the Tom drama doesn't magnify this drama… But I will ask her to leave soon. Promise."

"Thanks… Will you still talk to her?"

Charlie sighed at her feet. "…Maybe not. We'll see."

-x-

The princess found Nifty curled into a ball on a dayroom sofa between KeeKee (the housecat) and Ferdie. Husker—sorely in need of a drink despite his nullified hex—sat beside them, pounding a tall glass of red wine held by tremoring paw. He offered a bitter, minimalist account of what happened to each of them. The bartender cast a shady glare when Charlie advised them strongly against leaving the premises to avoid Alastor, because she could keep them safer where they were ("I know, I know, point made!" she admitted at his snort.), but he nodded in agreement.

Throughout the exchange, Nifty remained non-responsive. She robotically stroked her pet with her good arm as Charlie casted the broken one, not a peep uttered. KeeKee briefly left and returned to drop the gift of a dead mouse in the redhead's lap; she half-smiled without enthusiasm and lied back down. Ferdie protectively cloaked her like a blanket, looking on edge, tremoring like a shadow beneath a shallow body of water's rippling waves.

Angel Dust texted that Mimzy and her dogs were with Cherri and he intended to check in after work. After pleading from Charlie, he promised to stop by Alastor's old Radio Tower apartment to see if the ailing overlord was camped out there—if nothing else, proof that Anthony Ferruccio still didn't fear much.

Still no outburst from Terri, to Charlie's relief, so she continued ticking chores off her list. She left a rambling voicemail on Radio Tower's landline pleading with Alastor to indicate he was okay, and multitasked throughout by roaming halls for Terri, hoping against hope to locate her on the hotel grounds. No sign of the witch in her designated hotel room… It was a stretch, but Charlie checked next where she'd found her last time—at the rooftop carousel.

[X]

Sure enough, there was Terese, pouting alone on the back of a large black carousel wolf. With the benefit of context, Charlie now understood what was so appealing about this spot. As one of the highest points in Pentagram City's skyline, it offered an unobstructed (as they could be behind purple pollution haze in Hell's night sky) view of the Eyes, whose gaze passed stoically straight through the beldam.

It occurred to Charlie in a flash: Not only was Terese delusionally convinced Charlie's Grandfather was her brother… Had she built herself that walk-in eye chandelier monstrosity so she could pretend to make eye-contact? Yiiiiikes.

Softened by how tragic this was, and, frankly, relieved to see the beldam hadn't left the premises yet, Charlie grit her teeth, quieted her rage, and leapt onto the carousel again. She landed on a second, white wolf directly behind her patient and addressed Terri in the tone of a disappointed kindergarten teacher. "Care to answer my question yet? What prompted this?"

"…Alastor knows I have an affliction weakening me even when I'm food secure, and he still judges me for struggling to control my hunger. I deduced he has a power-drain of his own—that bullet ripped up his impulse control and language centers. Without his cane, he saps a lot merely to speak normally and maintain self-control—obviously both very important to him. I thought being so out of control might show him how I feel." At Charlie's gawping stare: "I'm going to nurse him back to health, I'm only disciplining him. I temper my justice with mercy!"

No point remarking how unethical that was. Once she worked her way out of the cloud of disgust, the princess uttered in confusion, "Terri… I haven't known Alastor long, but even I'd think he's too stubborn for that to work. It's—"

"Like I don't know him at all? Yes, I get it, I get it!" the beldam snapped. "I do so much watching and still don't know a thing about anybody. I should be my own circus act!"

"Remember what you said about your brother being too focused on getting even and making you feel like he did? If you're hurt by it, why emulate it? It's clear you've come here to get even with Alastor. You haven't tried doing anything else." No response. "You wanted Al to see what being you is like? From the look of things, you got the results you wanted. But you sound dissatisfied. Why's that?"

Because things weren't supposed to get this severe, Terese admitted privately to herself. He was Mr. Ethics! No matter how much stress he was under, he didn't stoop to drowningthousandsofchildreninabathtub, ohnopleasestop, stopit'shappeningagain— "Honestly? I thought he'd give up before doing something like that," Terri admitted.

"Then what was the point? Are you being honest with yourself about why you really did this?" Charlie therapized. Crickets. "How'd he deteriorate so fast?"

"…I crossed him strategically against the people whose respect mattered to him most. The majority of his power comes from me, so, he operates like me, you see."

Charlie understood, remembering Terri explaining that respect was her primary sustenance earlier that day. "So…do you mean to say…you tried eliminating everyone who loved him…but you?"

"…I suppose." Deep inhale and exhale. "…I thought…he'd remember he needed me."

Suspicion confirmed. "Terri," Charlie sighed. No response from her morose patient, who still stared intensely at the expressionless Eyes in the atmosphere … Then, something finally clicked for the therapist. After a long pause, Charlie ventured: "'Mr. Ethics' was a strange thing for you to call Alastor earlier."

"Is it? He rarely shuts up about us degenerates deserving our comeuppance."

"Terri…is this even entirely about Alastor?"

"Everything is all about Alastor. You've met him, correct?" After Charlie pulled a 'displacement' flashcard out of her blazer pocket and waggled it suggestively: "Excuse me? I'm not retaliating for anything that brat didn't do himself! I'll remind you once again that he successfully locked me up for 90-some years!"

"That's not exactly what I mean. I think he reminds you of someone, and that's part of what keeps this fire burning." The beldam harrumphed. "Come on, that's why you're so attached to him, isn't it? Did you ever go after any of the other kids—" Terri opened her mouth. "—with the goal of taking them back after getting revenge, not only to kill them? Did you once feel even a fleeting urge to apologize to the others?" Terri shut her mouth again.

Charlie continued, "You need to learn how to interact with people without repeating mistakes! You'll probably never reconcile with Alastor. In fact—" The princess raised a finger. "—when you give his cane back, I advise you chuck it at him from a few yards off and sprint rather than speak to him again. It's possible to let a relationship or a fight end and peaceably part ways without it becoming a lifelong obsession or…h-hoarding people's souls or sticking people in boxes so they can't leave you! Or making people sick to 'prove' they need you, for crying out loud, Terri!" At last Charlie visibly showed disappointment, slumping forward in exasperation and nearly shouting, black nails raking through her gold hair. "I'm sorry I'm raising my voice, but can't you see it makes no damned sense?!"

It was unlike Terri not to argue, but she didn't protest the therapist's words. Finally: "…I think I am going to need to speak to him one more time. …I genuinely want to apologize, Charlotte."

Too good to be true… But Charlie couldn't quash flickering embers of hope in her heart. "I'll supervise—"

"Don't you think we deserve privacy?"

Charlie's eyes sparked as she thrust her hand out sternly for a shake. "Give that back without harming him, then leave him ALONE. Or I may find myself incapable of speaking to you again. …I've made an ass of myself trying to help you!" The blonde softened. "…But I still want to, Terri. Even now…" She rubbed her red blazer sleeve, gazing off to the side. "So, can you do this one thing for me? Please? …As my friend?" The princess's heartfelt begging could've melted an iceberg.

"…Agreed." Again, highly suspect, but Charlie knew Terri meant it for once—the witch actually shook.

"Once you do this, I'll help you with these interpersonal skills. Maybe…at your place? You know, at your convenience." Charlie didn't outright state Terri would be banned from the hotel yet, lest it cause an outburst, but to her relief, the woman nodded in apparent subtle understanding. "You're lucky I'm willing to. Vaggie's against my seeing you."

"Is that right? She thinks I'd hurt you?"

"She thinks you turn on all your friends. I can't exactly blame her after what Mimzy reported. …She also seems to think you'd hurt her." Long pause. "That would be a very bad idea, FYI."

"Wouldn't dream of it, Charlotte."

"…Go do what you have to do, Terri. Come right back here. Please."