Chapter 12: The Epiphany
The garden was halfway done.
Apparently, waking up to your mother's screams had drilled Octavia into being an early bird. So naturally, Indigo didn't hesitate to show her the garden.
A lot of progress had been done. Fresh dirt covered the perimeter. The new fountain was made of smooth blue minerals that glowed like underwater rubies with the new piping system Capone had adjusted to the Fat Nuggets fountain. Surrounding the garden was the brand-new forged fence bearing an asymmetrical design of butterflies flying or perched on slithering vines. Pits had been dug out to make room for the upcoming magnolia trees… The pathways around the garden and the dance/dining pavilions were insane: whoever was the guy who made the terracotta butterfly tiles was insanely good at designing each tile as a different butterfly the way snowflakes are unique. The tiles created a mosaic to make it seem like the pathways were swarms of butterflies flying towards the pavilions resembling butterfly-wing-shaped-petal flowers. Mad Mats had brought over an assortment of pots with various painted tribal patterns to put around the pond and in the hanging baskets. As last minute additions, the sweetgum and eucalyptus were planted at the far ends of the Spanish steps.
"It's not much… yet…" Indigo hesitated. "What do you think of it?"
Octavia scratched behind her feathery hair. "Wow… That's not a typical hotel garden. Either it's the coolest garden idea I've seen… or I spent too much time inside the hotel, the garden is probably the most normal thing I've seen in the past 12 hours."
Indigo smiled. "Probably option 2. Anytime now, Mister Alastor will probably be 'concocting a way to properly redeem Angel Dust.'" She did jazz hands and used a dramatic tone. "I just hope he doesn't try to eat Fat Nuggets."
"Yeah… considering the pig might as well be the hotel mascot." When they walked down to the main garden level, Octavia paused to look at the fountain. "You guys have copies of it?"
"No idea." Indigo sighed. "I feel bad for laughing at Mister Alastor for Angel Dust's prank. Maybe… KOOKIE?"
Indigo gasped. Under the left arcade was one of the latest volunteers, the kookaburra demoness, Kookie Bura. She was sitting on the tiled floor, cross-legged, and eating 6 avocado toasts, 10 gyros, and a can of Australian pale ale the size of her head. Her leather jacket was being used as a floor pillow for her butt while her tail kept takeout bags in one pile. Kookie looked at the teens with her tar black eyes.
"Can I help ya?" She asked flatly.
"Uh, why are you here early… and… eating an Australian-Greek fusion cuisine breakfast in the garden… rather than inside?" Indigo frowned.
"Well, A, because I wanted to come early for more of those butterflies, and B, there's a fusion cuisine café I like getting my breakfast at on weekdays. And C, before ya even ask, I don't know if Dixie's coming. The dingo went to stay at Shreveport's crib."
"But Shreveport said they weren't friends."
"Apparently, the non-existent friendship didn't stop that reptile from hosting the dingo after he and I got evicted." Kookie Bura viciously pecked an avocado toast into oblivion.
Indigo's eyes widened in shock. Butterflies created a storm of fluttering anxiousness over her head. "You got evicted? How's that possible? Yesterday morning, you told me that Mister Alastor paid you a decent amount to pay your due bill with all those bugs you ate!"
"Ya think the landlord cared? That Mozzie immediately planned to kick us out when he found out I broke the teeth out of that knicker-sniffer of a son of his. I slept in the arena."
"The arena?"
"Yeah, the Oenpelli Arena downtown. It's a small branch of Klub Kaiju."
"Hands-on or tribute matches?" Octavia clenched her fists in excitement. Indigo was surprised by the avian teen's reaction.
"You're into fight matches?" Indigo was confused.
Octavia chuckled awkwardly. "Well… my friend Loona might have taken me to some matches when I snuck out. They're fun… especially the monster matches!"
"Uh… A blueblood who's into arranged matches." Kookie's tail pulled out some glazed donuts and tossed them at the girls. They ate the chocolate-flavored treats while Kookie Bura crunched the takeout bags into one giant ball. She swung her left hand and tossed the ball of trash over the garden, over the fence, and right into the dumpster across the street. It caught fire.
"Wow…" Indigo was stunned by the ball toss. "You fight in the arenas?"
"Me? Nah!" Kookie scoffed. "I just coach newbies and act as a commentator during games. If a fighter picks me, I kick their ass with Muay Thai. And NO, there's no problem with an Australian practicing a Thai martial art!"
"I didn't say anything… Wait?" Indigo was confused. "I thought you said you weren't in the games."
"Underground fight arenas are common on Earth, but they're a whole league in the Pride Ring." Octavia held out her hands. Pinkish purple mist swirled over her palms to create a holographic pyramid of logos. At the very top was the logo of a pink-and-green dinosaur skull. "Missy Zilla, the Overlord of Monsters, established the league when she first landed in Hell. It caused her to gain the status of Overlord when she made an empire out of those arenas. At the bottom, there's hands-on combat, where demons fight in hand-to-hand combat. Lowest just use physical strength while the hardest allow combatants to use supernatural talents. Then there's tribute matches, where the combatants are trained properties of demons: trained wild animals, robots, summoned spirits, and the most challenging, monsters. The arenas exchange combatants and tributes depending on the performances, companies sponsor the combatants depending on networks, and Missy Zilla increases her bank account through her contributions on the polls of the sin market."
"Sin market?"
"It's like the stock market, only with sin." Kookie Bura shrugged. "Demons do sins, and when they get killed for good, the sinful essences are absorbed into Hell's environment so the Rings can improve their resources."
"And it's how Overlords keep their spots." Octavia summoned away her presentation. "Take Valentino. Angel Dust's boss. He has the porn empire. His business provides actors and prostitutes for clients and performances. The business get more customers because of the erotic celebrities who go there."
"Shops make a profit on erotic products." Kookie nodded.
"Valentino gets his mullah, his status, AND he increases Lust polls for the sin market. And when demons die, their lustful essences empower the resources of the Lust Ring."
"Which will bring forth more sex products, workers, and clothing to all the other rings, and it continues." Kookie rolled her eyes.
"Not to mention the sin polls have been decreasing…" Octavia began.
"Decreasing? WE'RE IN HELL!" Indigo didn't know why she was suddenly shouting as red admirals flew out of her. "How do sins just decrease? If sins were decreasing, there wouldn't be an overpopulation crisis leading to exterminations leading to Miss Charlie's struggling rehabilitation project!" Indigo waved at the hotel.
"It's not really that they decrease in quantity, just… quality." Octavia waved away some of the red admirals. Kookie licked her lips and immediately started snatching some butterflies with her beaked mouth. "The sins are there… Just, not as sinful as they were. The sin polls were higher back in the days when everything was in black-and-white."
"But hey, things happen!" Kookie talked with her mouth full of butterflies. Indigo cringed when she realized for the first time that Kookie and Octavia, despite being avian, had actual teeth. That brought a whole meaning to the term French people used to replace 'when pigs fly': when chicken have teeth.
"I mean, these days, ya have therapists, non-profits, insurances, scholarships, food distribution, retirement plans, hippie protests, global warming awareness, vegans, and TV shows teaching johns instead of kids about the magic of friendship." Kookie kept talking with her mouth full. "Still an overpopulation crisis because sinners can do anything even by accident, but yeah, these days…"
"What were you in Hell for?" Octavia casually asked.
"Kleptomania since I first crawled to life." Kookie Bura crossed her arms. "I died during the 2020s wildfires… while I was trying to steal a koala."
With Kookie and Octavia talking, Indigo unknowingly found herself walking away from them. Thoughts whirled in her head and the butterflies flying above her formed the thinking cloud as she walked out of the garden and down the hotel's driveway.
Sin polls decreasing. Maybe that was a hint that Heaven and Hell's take on good and evil wasn't that thorough. If sin polls were decreasing in numbers the way the stock market could crash on Earth, that meant that Hell was affected by the amount of sinners who… didn't really sin.
A nasty, but realistic thought occurred to Indigo.
She still didn't understand why, but Indigo still needed to feast on envy. She ate those spices from Alastor and Rosie the way people take daily medication. If the envy polls were decreasing… what would be the chances that Rosie's resources would disappear? Indigo would go hungry! The first time she found out of her sin-eater nature, she had severely weakened. If an exterminator or another demon didn't kill her, her starvation would.
Indigo took a deep breath, closed her eyes, and reopened them. All of Pentagram City changed in her 'bug vision'. She could see the colors of the sins eradiating from the buildings and the tiny specks of sins from each demon in the buildings. Very colorful… and hard to find the purple of envy. Yet… there were colorless things in her odd vision. Buildings with lesser sin auras floating from the windows like fire incidents… and one out of 50 demons walking around the streets with only a bit of sin the size of a shiitake mushroom.
"INDIGO! TRUCK!"
Octavia's scream made Indigo snap back to her regular vision. In her pacing, she didn't notice how far she had gone and was now in the middle of the road. The driver didn't seem to care that his truck was heading towards Indigo. Without even thinking straight, and probably out of instinct from suddenly feeling the mysterious pain on her cheek, a souvenir from her death, Indigo aimed her fist at the truck's radiator.
Her expression was an irritated one as ghostly red admirals flew off her fist and around the purple glow that left her skin when she hit the truck. Vehicle and sinner were blasted down the street, a never-ending cannonball that went through numerous blocks. When the dust cleared and the glow disappeared, Indigo remained indifferent while Octavia and Kookie couldn't help but drop their jaws. Indigo's fist at the truck had sent the load flying, leaving a shockwave that broke windows in buildings until past the horizon, a nuclear-bomb-worthy cloud exploded and the smoke butterflies cleared into the sky.
"Crikey!" Kookie exclaimed. "She sent that bludger flying! It had to go across town!"
Octavia pulled out a fancy dark pink spyglass with gold linings and adjusted it to spy at the target's direction. She choked.
"What?" Kookie asked.
Octavia gulped. "Forget Pentagram City… Indigo just sent that demon and his truck to Cordayburg! Right into Charlotte Corday's mansion!"
Kookie's feathers shuddered. "Down by the border of the Wrath sector of the Pride Ring? Ya Highness, Satan will not like his sheila's turf being messed by your sheila!"
Octavia blushed and hit Kookie on the head with her spyglass. She put away her device and rushed to Indigo. "Indigo! Are you OK?"
"Yeah, why not?" Indigo was stunned by her calm behavior.
"Why not?" Octavia pointed at the direction of the explosion. "You probably nuked thousands of block windows before your fist sent that truck crashing into Charlotte Corday's town!"
"French Revolution female murderers run towns in Hell?" Indigo was surprised. "Hell's oddly progressive…"
Just then, the fancy limousine belonging to Octavia's family pulled onto the street. A towering owl demon in fancy regal clothing and a crowned hat stepped out. His height surpassed Angel Dust's even with the latter's heels on.
"Shit! My dad!" Octavia's groan caused Indigo to freak out.
"Y... Your dad?" She stuttered.
"You know, I just remembered I forgot to preen myself! Catch ya mates later!" Kookie quickly dashed back to the garden.
"Quitter!" Indigo shouted back in frustration. Octavia shooed away the red admirals. Indigo quickly straightened herself. Octavia's father rushed towards them. Indigo gulped, worried that he'd eat her alive for being near his daughter.
"Via! Thank goodness you're OK!" The Ars Goetia prince hugged his daughter tightly.
"Dad!" Octavia groaned. Indigo was confused. Vaggie wouldn't stop rambling about how Indigo was associated with the daughter of a demon far stronger than the 'pompous cheesy talkshow shitlord', yet… Octavia's dad looked like such a dork.
"Don't EVER do that!" The owl demon cupped Octavia's cheeks in his hands. "I was WORRIED SICK! I know there are problems, but do you understand how scared I was of you running off from your mother? If I hadn't an ounce of trust in Charlie, demons would have died if I found them trying to hurt you!" He hugged Octavia. Indigo heard his voice breaking. "I'd kill any lowlife that dared to touch a single feather on your head!"
"OK, Dad! You're squeezing me!" Octavia huffed and puffed for air once he let go of her. "I was fine! I knew where I was going!"
"At Charlie's hotel?" Her father glanced at the building. "You never told me you were friends of her entourage."
"I'd rather kill myself than be part of a clique." Octavia muttered. She motioned between Indigo and her father. "Dad, Indigo Caligo. Indigo, that's my dad. Stolas of the Ars Goetia."
Indigo gulped and did her best to curtsy. The Ars Goetia stared down at her, blinking his giant red eyes and smaller ones at her, as if to register what he was looking at. Indigo almost felt like the environment was darkening around her. He's gonna eat me, he's gonna eat me, he's gonna eat me…
"O…"
Indigo mentally gasped when Stolas started saying something.
Then, unexpectedly, Stolas cupped his own cheeks and his eyes just beamed like the complete dork he was. "Octavia! Why didn't you tell me you had a girlfriend?"
Both teens blushed in embarrassment.
"WHAT?"
"Dad! It's not like that! We're just friends!" Octavia waved her hands in protest.
"No, we're just friends! We only met Wednesday! It's not what it looks like, especially after a few days of being acquainted! Just shopping, dinner, and a sleepover! Nothing else!" Indigo agreed. She felt something sticking off her face. That's when she realized that her embarrassment was causing batesia hypochlora butterflies to pop off her cheek's tattoo.
A flutter of embarrassment. Indigo quickly covered her cheeks and chuckled nervously. "New stuff, am I right?"
"Yeah!" Octavia nodded. "And I think my dad and I had stuff to talk about! At home! See ya next weekend, Indigo!" The owl demoness tried to drag her father away by the arm, but it obviously didn't work.
"Octavia! Don't be so rude!" He pulled her back. "You don't want your little blue sweetheart to feel disrespected! She hosted you after that little escapade of yours! And on such short notice!"
"It was nothing, sir… It was good having a friend over." Well, the second out of two teens that would really qualify as Indigo's friends in Hell outside of the hotel staff. Another batesia escaped her tattoo after Stolas had called her Octavia's 'blue sweetheart'. But 'little'? She was relatively close to Vaggie's height. No wonder Octavia felt awkward in any conversation relating to her family. Stolas was even dorkier than Ines' dad. He would probably be one of those human parents that embarrassed their kids by showing off baby pictures on parent-teacher nights.
"How kind of you to say so, my dear." Stolas pulled Octavia in front of him. "Perhaps Octavia could return the favor by inviting you over for tea on Thursday."
"I can?" Octavia's eyes widened.
"Well of course. With, well, the mansion being less busy these days… I see nothing wrong with you inviting friends over on weekdays…"
That's when Indigo noticed it. The hesitation in his choice of words as he tried to smile. Octavia hadn't lied. He was doing what he could to be there for his daughter, but the voice showed how Stolas had screwed things up for his family. He was just as uncomfortable as Octavia was.
"So… would you like to come over for teatime on Thursday?" Octavia fidgeted her fingers.
"If Angel Dust and Mister Alastor are alright with it, I'd like to." Indigo nodded.
"The porn star and the Radio Demon are your fathers? I didn't know they were married." Stolas clasped his hands together. "Why don't you two wait here while I go ask them?"
Indigo and Octavia looked incredulously as Stolas went towards the hotel.
"Seriously? Why do you and your dad think that Angel Dust and Mister Alastor are my parents while my dad is all alone on Earth?" Indigo got irritated.
"Assumptions move around easily in Hell."
At the same time
Angel Dust walked out the front door with Fat Nuggets. Walking his piglet around the block was the best way to start this Monday morning. Plus, the faster he got out, the least likely he'd have to deal with an angry Alastor.
Of course, what he didn't anticipate was seeing Indigo and Octavia Goetia on the sidewalk… and Stolas Goetia, of all the Hellborn aristocrats, in his way. Angel Dust scowled. Octavia was alright as Indigo's friend, but like any sinner and Hellborn, he wasn't crazy about Hell's blueblood aristocracy. Always pompous about being exceptional due to being members of noble lineages dating since the beginning of Hell. The traditional elitists who frowned at the nouveau riche. Even the Three Vs didn't like due to the Ars Goetia refusing any services from 'nouveau riche Overlords'. Valentino would never provide whores for them when they had Asmodeus among their ranks. Vox could never get them to come on shows since they only did traditional theater or fancy TVs directly from the Envy Ring. Velvet just didn't bother if they weren't her social media followers. Stolas was fine compared to his kin, but with the news going on about him, Angel Dust wasn't really ecstatic to meet him. If anything, he felt bad for the imp who was being labeled as Stolas' plaything.
"Good day! You must be Angel Dust. One of the fathers of Octavia's new friend."
Angel Dust was thrown off by the Ars Goetia's casual greeting. He wasn't sure why. Either because like Alastor, Stolas was one of the rare upper-class demons to not request the spider's services, or because Stolas had just referred to Angel Dust as Indigo's parent. "Excuse me?" He asked, his accent slipping.
"I apologize. I don't frequently meet the parents of my Via's friends. I greatly appreciate the hospitality you've provided on such short notice. Surely you wouldn't mind if we returned the favor by inviting Indigo Caligo for tea this Thursday at our mansion?"
Angel Dust twitched his eye and tightened his grip on Fat Nuggets' leash. "Indigo… at your house… for tea?" He enunciated. "Ya serious?"
"Well Via seems rather fond of her. She never really got to invite that many friends over… when, you know…" The owl demon chuckled embarrassingly. "…Stella used to live in the mansion."
"I get the picture." Angel Dust didn't want to hear more of Stolas' atrocious marriage life. "Yeah, I think Indigo can come by. But just so we're clear, Mr. Blueblood?" Angel Dust walked up close to the Ars Goetia and gave him a dark look while poking him on the beak. "If you rich people hurt the kid or get her into shit like you did with that imp lover of yours… There's gonna be a problem. The kind of problem where I shove a bullet down ya rich throat. Cappiche?"
The Ars Goetia's eyes narrowed. It wouldn't have been a surprise if he snapped his fingers and twisted the sinner's neck at 360 degrees, but the most surprising was how he calmly handled it. Stolas gently lowered Angel Dust's finger away from his face.
"A fair warning," he admitted. "I can respect a protective parent."
"Indigo ain't adopted. She's a patron. Like me." Angel Dust picked up Fat Nuggets, having lost interest in walking his piglet for the morning. "And don't go around saying shit like that. The kid's still not over her whole death and her pops being alone and alive."
Stolas sighed. "I believe it."
Angel Dust expected Stolas to say more, but the Ars Goetia left it at that. The owl demon tipped his hat and started to head back. "Teatime is at 4:30pm. We do look forward to having Indigo over."
Angel Dust merely nodded. The pleasantries weren't enough for him to change the dry look in his eyes as Stolas bowed and went back. Indigo exchanged her good-byes with Octavia before the nobility drove off in their car. Indigo then walked back to the door leading to the garden.
Then Angel Dust noticed the whole neighborhood freaking out over their broken windows. He just shrugged and went back inside. Hell was just weird.
Much later in the evening
A whole day of working in the garden had worn out Indigo.
In the end, it will be worth it. The plants had been brought over and planted, and when the butterflies settled in their new environment, Indigo would show the garden to the staff in the morning and start discussing with Queenie about organizing the garden's opening night.
Lessons with Alastor were, well, informative and oddly entertaining. Learning on how demon physiology could vary for any demon: Hellborns born with physical capacities, disadvantages, and powers depending on their native Ring and sinners' skeletons being hybrids of human skeletons with those of animals associated with their personalities. It weirded out Indigo, thinking that her 'bust' area was basically Frankenstein's mix of a human chest and a thorax. She didn't want to think on how spider demons like Angel Dust had the 7 arachnid segments per legs (which would explain his flexibility). It was funny, however, when Alastor hissed at her when she asked if he had a deer tail. As for practicing her powers, they saved the direct practices for later and Alastor primarily focused on having her learn theoretic approaches and by helping around the hotel. Right now, Indigo primarily managed to understand that some powers were tapped in physiology and that somehow, she could rip the bar off the ground while (a drunk) Husk could barely lift a crate of Malbec bottles.
Vaggie had her usual rant about Indigo being invited for tea, screaming that it was an invite for trouble. Miss Charlie and Mister Alastor were the most supportive of it, suggesting that perhaps Indigo befriending and associating with the Goetia family would perhaps boost the hotel's image, receiving donations and recommendations on potential patrons (the Ars Goetia knew too many ways of acquiring servants).
Right now, Indigo was relaxing in her bed, comfortable coated in her blanket as she read Octavia's present. Beelzebub's Lepidoptery Guide for Average Amateurs was an amazing book, split in half to separate Earth's species from Hell's native ones. She geeked out over the recognizable, accurate descriptions of Earth's 15, 500 species and was amazed that Hell had 666,000 different species. And Beelzebub wrote the funniest quip.
Adamite Avaria: this Biblidinae from the Greed Ring is an obvious oddity. Green and gold coloring, typical for its native ring, the Adamite Avaria has glittery membranes that shine while in flight. Wild predators don't eat the Adamite Avaria because the glittery trail it leaves hypnotizes demons into thinking that the butterfly is made of the demon's most desirable riches. The demon will be too hypnotized and follow the butterfly anywhere, making the Adamite Avaria a perfect distraction as predators devour the demon. The Adamite Avaria has a wolf's head to scare challengers during mating season, a thorax of adamite to ward off parasites, and pheromones that smell like daffodils. Mammon created the Adamite Avaria from the waters of the River Pactolus after King Midas washed away the Golden Touch. The sole purpose of the butterfly's creation was to be given to his nephew Addison, but we all know how that turned out.
Indigo chuckled at how entertaining the ruler of Gluttony could be at writing encyclopedias. She kept reading the book, hoping to land on the page for Lapis Locustia, but another article got her attention.
Contrary to the single page descriptions of the other species, this one was a full-page spread. The first page had an illustration of the butterfly. A knowledgeable person could have mistaken it for a regular Ithomia butterfly, but Indigo knew her stuff. That Hellborn butterfly wasn't like Earth's various species of Ithomia. Its membranes were twisted into ocular outlines, as if the butterfly's purple see-through wings were filled with thousands of tiny green eyeballs squeezed onto one another. If the Lapis Locustia had locust heads, this one had the face of a miniature python with amethyst axolotl gills for antennae.
What was also unique was the second image of the full-page spread. It was the only one to picture a demon. Or, in this case, demoness. Tall and thin, probably the same waist size as Angel Dust if the latter was flat chested. The skirt of her halter-collared, purple mermaid dress was fashioned like the butterfly's wings, trailing behind her feet with encrusted diamonds creating a membrane pattern. Her opera gloves reached all the way up her shoulders. Her bracelets, choker, and dangling earrings were all made of nazar beads. Her black hair was braided with jeweled seashells. Horns like axolotl gills stuck on top of her skull and were extended like a stag's antlers. Specifically, a stag with Christmas lights since her axolotl horns had more nazar beads and butterfly-shaped-nazar charms dangling from her horns. It was hard to say what her face looked like due to the theatrical heart-shaped mask she was wearing and the butterfly wing hand fan she kept over the lower half of her face.
Indigo didn't know why, but that image of the demoness set her off. Like there was something… truly awful about that Hellborn. Curious, she read the article.
Hardystonite Hydracus: this is an Ithomia you SHOULD NOT go after. All butterfly species in Hell are dangerous, lethal, poisonous, flesh-eating, sin inducing, or weirdly interested in sitcoms, but this is THE species you DO NOT want to pin on your wall. The Hardystonite Hydracus, or 'Hardy Hydra', for short, is the most dangerous butterfly in all of Hell. Every inch of the Hardy Hydra is lethal. For starters, despite having wings stronger than steel, the Hardy Hydra has a regeneration capacity; it can fix its own broken wing in less than 30 seconds. The self-healing fluids also act as self-defense hallucinogenic poisons. Any demon unfortunate to accidentally touch an injured Hardystonite Hydracus will suffer hallucinations of the worst things they envy until their hearts can't take it, resulting in heart attacks. Secondly, the Hardy Hydra can inject venom with its fangs. Smaller prey are immediately killed and swallowed whole while bigger targets experience envious hallucinations. The victim will be unable to do anything outside living their own envious hallucinations and the Hardy Hydra will leave them at the mercy of predators. Unlike the Adamite Avaria, the Hardy Hydra is fully aware of its actions and harms bigger targets for sport. Despite being solitary creatures, these butterflies will gang up to secrete a toxic gas of envy on serious threats.
Hardystonite Hydracus were created by Invidia Ithomia, the Grand Duchess of the Evil Eye and Leviathan's youngest child. Like all the monsters in Levi's personal aquarium, Invidia Ithomia created the Hardystonite Hydracus with stellar flames from the Hydra constellation. Her idea of the butterflies was another failed scheme to gain favoritism from Leviathan and she abandoned her project to the wilderness, turning it into an evasive species. Ring leaders and Ars Goetia pay a grand reward for any sinner or Hellborn who kills a Hardystonite Hydracus. There are about 66 left in Hell as of 2019.
Butterflies… that could force demons to experience envy? And there were only 66 left in Hell.
Indigo cast off the bed sheets, sat up with her legs crossed, and put the book down. She cupped her hands together, picturing the image of the Hardy Hydra in her mind. If she could create gaudy commodores out of terracotta, twist up other bugs into butterflies, and give Nifty cleaning nightmares just by accidentally creating a swarm of butterflies out of a credenza, then surely she could create a Hellborn butterfly out of nothing, right? Especially since Indigo was an envy sin-devourer.
She took a deep breath. Indigo pressed her blue hands together and tried to imagine a Hardy Hydra no bigger than the tip of her thumbnail. She tried to focus on all the limbs growing in her palm. She felt a ball of heat in her hands, but when she suddenly felt weary, her hands let go. All that landed on her bed sheets were purple ashes and a fried-up caterpillar egg.
Indigo struggled herself to the bathroom. Swallowtails immediately flew to lift the loose shower tile where she was hiding Rosie's envy spices. Indigo nearly stumbled but she caught a bottle and drank nearly half of it until her energy went back up the way some people get jumpy after drinking coffee. Indigo took a deep breath and went to the sink to splash her face.
That's when she noticed it. The small bags in her eyes. Dark blue with ant-sized purple veins slowly disappearing as the consumed envy went through them. Indigo shuddered.
This was bad.
She had seen Mister Alastor get the occasional eye bags whenever he used a lot of his powers. If it was exactly what Indigo was thinking, it meant that if she was trying to create butterflies out of nothing, it drained her envy-fueled energy… which would make her need more envy to consume. And if Hell's sin polls were decreasing…
"I need envy…" She choked.
It was horrible. She was in a hotel in the hopes of being redeemed and figure out why she died… and she needed envy to survive. Miss Charlie would surely quick her out. And Vaggie would blame Angel Dust for turning Indigo into an addict. What was Indigo going to do? She didn't have enough knowledge…
Hold on.
Didn't the hotel's library have a level dedicated to books from the Envy Ring?