The new hotel was stunning.
From the outside, Harlene could barely take it all in without falling backwards. She was almost sure it was significantly taller than the original hotel, though she hadn't been too close to it in her time in Hell. It had only become an important landmark within the last few months when the small staff, few guests, and entirety of Cannibal Town stood against Heaven's exorcist army and miraculously sent them crawling back to Heaven.
From the inside, it was pristine. All high ceilings and bright, welcoming lights. She had easily followed Angel's voice through the front foyer to a beautiful bar.
Harlene and Angel Dust sat knee to knee on swiveling barstools being tended to by a winged cat-like demon that Angel introduced as Husk. She immediately decided that she liked Husk. He was blunt but decidedly honest and he really seemed to care for Angel. She had even managed to get a couple of smiles out of him.
Angel turned to Harlene with a sly grin on his face, "So how's the job? Screwin' anyone interestin' lately?"
Harlene considered his question for a moment and decided that she could be honest with Angel. He was a fellow sex worker, after all.
She knew the whole city would find out soon enough, anyway. The Vees themselves had started some sort of press action plan to make a show of all of it. Something about being a united force in the urban distract. Even though she was nowhere close to the status of Overlord, she did manage to hold her own in the Vees' territory.
The agreement to go "public" with Vox was somewhat selfish. She knew it would bring her club tons of new business, hopefully dissuade creeps from causing more trouble at said club, and—well it seemed to make the television demon happy. When he was happy, she was happy.
Harlene knew Angel Dust didn't particularly care for politics, but gossip on the other hand, "I've been seeing Valentino's sugar daddy for years now, actually."
The spider demon's mouth hung completely open, stunned silent for longer than Harlene has ever seen him quiet. Husk even stared, concern touching his brow. She sipped her sweet pink drink—one of Angel's favorites—and waited patiently for him to recover.
"Vox? You're fuckin' VOX?"
Harlene playfully shushed him, laughing. It wasn't exactly a secret; the city gossip rags have been talking about it for the last year or so. The two had managed to keep quiet about it for a while, even with Lapine's growing popularity. That is, until she was caught stepping out of V Tower with him. The papers really ran those photos into the ground. She even had to hire more bouncers for the club to keep reporters out.
What the press didn't know is the exact nature of her deal with one third of the Vees. All of them assumed she got the short end of the deal, that her soul belonged to Vox.
She'd let them keep thinking that.
"I always thought he was too…" Angel twirled one of his upper hands, searching for the exact word.
"Professional?" Harlene suggested.
"Heartless?" Husk offered.
"Uptight," Angel completed, "For well, anythin'…fun."
She gave him a withering look, "Angel. You know me. I only have good sex."
Angel rolled his eyes at her retort, "How did ya even manage somethin' like that?"
"It's a years-old deal made over too many drinks. I own a portion of all his assets, and he gets me in bed twice a month," she waved a hand at Angel's stunned expression, "I honestly had no idea who he was at the time, he just visited the bar I was working at. I kept up with him one for one in glasses of scotch. He's an old-timey fucker, that's all it takes to impress them."
"I can't believe you're fuckin' Vox," Angel repeated, much more quietly this time, "He's one o' the Vees! I mean, I got there first but I hope you're enjoyin' it much more than me."
Harlene nearly choked on her drink, remembering Valentino's earlier interruption. She found the moth demon irritating at best, absolutely abhorrent at worst. He had a nasty tendency for violence towards the souls that he owned and the thought of it made the rabbit demon's stomach sour, especially when it came to Angel Dust.
When she met the spider demon, it was by chance. They bumped into each other in the halls of V Tower. She noticed bruises forming on his face and tended to him before complaining about it to Vox. She liked Angel, felt a kinship with him because of their shared vocation, "No, Vox is a total gentleman. But Val's a piece of work. He's still pissed I won't join his studio."
Angel shrugged his top set of arms, "He's just mad losing out on an asset," he added an apologetic look at the term, "And can ya blame him? You got the whole innocent bunny girl thing goin' for ya. Perverts eat that shit up. But you're better off, bein' the boss of your own club an' all the streamin' you do. I wish I was born in the time of cam girls."
Harlene was about to argue against her innocence when a chipper voice sounded from behind her.
"Hi there!"
Harlene spun on her barstool, already having prepared a smile for the trio of people behind her. A familiar habit from years of service work.
"Are you one of Angel's friends?" Charlotte Morningstar waved cheerily. Harlene recognized her from news broadcasts and advertisements. She was pale, blonde, and incredibly smiley. The rabbit demon was taken aback by her overwhelming warmth. She hadn't met a single person in hell who was quite so…bright.
"Are you going to break our walls?" A deadpan voice sounded from the princess's immediate right. A woman with impossibly long white hair adorned with a big red bow eyed Harlene with suspicion. This must be Vaggie, the fallen angel and Charlie's partner.
She paused, taken aback by the question and unsure if she heard correctly, "Your…walls?"
"She's kidding. We've just had horrible luck with people breaking down our walls," the Princess passed over this explanation with a hand gesture as if it were a completely normal statement, seemingly unaware of Harlene's furrowed brow, "I'm Charlie! This is my hotel! And this is the hotel's manager and my girlfriend, Vaggie!"
Harlene wasn't sure if she should bow or…curtesy? Was demonic royalty similar to human royalty? Even so, she didn't think it was possible to offend the Princess. From what she had heard, Charlie was as close to an actual Heavenborn that Hell had, being half Angel on her dad's side. The rabbit demon decided on standing and waving back, "Harlene, it's nice to meet you both. Who's your tall friend?"
"Tall friend?" Charlie tilted her head to the side before following Harlene's gaze over her left shoulder, "Oh, yes of course. This is the host of the hotel, Alastor!"
Alastor. Harlene carefully fixed her smile on her face. This was the demon that Vox spent the last few months ranting about. The dangerous, irritating Alastor. Infamous radio demon.
She wasn't sure how Charlie hadn't noticed him hovering behind her, his presence was incredibly strong and the air around him seemed to crackle with electricity. Maybe the Princess was just used to his threatening aura. He was dressed almost entirely in red, grinning with pointed teeth. She thought he felt a little more animal than person, not so much in form but in attitude.
"Pleasure to be meeting you, quite a pleasure!" Alastor sounded exactly as he did on the radio, slightly staticky and incredibly boisterous. His flashy tone mixed with the transatlantic affect cut through the initial intimidation that Harlene felt.
Was he serious? Was anyone else aware that his "accent" was entirely for show?
Amused, her smile widened by the smallest amount. The demon seemed to notice, his deer-like ears twitching and his eyes narrowing ever so slightly. He stood nearly a head and shoulders above her, studying her face with hungry red eyes.
Harlene—still smiling—extended a hand. The gesture almost felt as if it cut through the tension in the air, "Harlene."
Instead of shaking her hand, the radio demon dipped down to take her fingers in his and gently pressed them against his lips.
Harlene was used to this kind of behavior. A big part of her job was to flirt and be flirted with. She giggled at first, a secondhand reaction to a move that she had seen countless times.
Then she caught Angel's bewildered expression in her peripheral vision, his mismatched eyes darting from Alastor to Harlene to where the two's hands met. Charlie and Vaggie seemed just as shocked, mouths open with wide eyes. This must not be typical behavior for the radio demon. The others' surprise made Harlene blush slightly, but she was determined to meet Alastor's eyes again.
His eyes.
A spark of recognition passed through the rabbit.
"I'm sorry, Alastor. Have we met?"
Alastor's eyebrows raised a fraction, flashing his wide grin from behind her fingers, "My dear, you must recognize me from my radio show."
Harlene highly doubted this. Her brain was stuck on something about his eyes specifically.
Still, her smile turned into a smirk recalling the last broadcast she caught. Vox accidentally shut down power for the entire pentagram in his anger. Anger which she tended to. In turn, she had nursed consensual electrical burns in the shape of clawed hands for a day after that, "Yeah, that must be it."
Alastor cocked his head to one side, studying the upturned corner of her mouth.
Harlene noted that when Charlie tilted her head earlier it was almost puppy-like, imbued with genuine excitement and curiosity. This red demon's movement was more like a cat observing a bird before striking.
Harlene was used to this type of look. A lot of her clientele were demons who got off at how she looked like prey: wide eyes, curvy frame, and cute ears. Her smirk melted into a serene smile, playing as if she hadn't seen the change in his expression.
The taller demon's eyebrows raised, more noticeably this time, though he continued to meet her with an unwavering grin and released her hand.
"Anyway!" Charlie interjected, seemingly looking to break the tension, "Were you looking to check in to the hotel?!"
Harlene hated to disappoint such an enthusiastic face, "Oh, no I'm sorry. I'm just here visiting Angel before heading to the club."
"Ooh a club?" Charlie clasped her hands together, "Like for dancing?"
"Somethin' like that," Angel laughed, "Harlene owns the most popular sex club in the Pride Ring."
Charlie hesitated, "Oh. Oh! That's very…entrepreneurial."
Harlene found herself giving a genuine laugh at the strained compliment, "Thank you, Princess."
"Lapine is a great place for people like me," Angel Dust continued, a note of wistfulness in his voice, "Harlene takes good care of her people."
The rabbit demon smiled gratefully at Angel. Before she could thank him, she heard a staticky laugh track.
"Lapine! That's delightfully on the nose, don't you think?."
Alastor's eyes were narrowed in what Harlene recognized as a challenge, flashing between her expression and her rabbit ears.
She smiled, albeit a little ruefully. He clearly liked a good battle of wits. If he wanted to play, she would have no problem keeping up with him.
"Oh, you speak French. I'd love to hear that accent more, cher."
Harlene heard a noise like radio frequency spiking and watched in delight as Alastor's smile became strained. She deliberately picked the Louisiana Creole term of endearment, figuring it was a good enough guess considering his mannerisms. It seemed she was right.
A small figure by Alastor's ankle distracted her. The tiny demon smiled up at her, a singular eye wide with curiosity and enthusiasm.
Harlene waved off Alastor with a hand, ignoring the incredulous raise of his eyebrows, and knelt to talk to her face to face, "Are you Niffty?"
The cyclops nodded with a manic giggle, "I clean the hotel."
The rabbit demon laughed, "So I've heard. I also heard you took a chunk out of Valentino," Harlene noticed her confusion and added, indicating height with a hand, "The tall moth fucker."
With this Nifty cackled, "Oooh the bad boy from the club. I took a part of him for my collection."
Harlene laughed, not knowing exactly what Niffty meant by "collection" but enjoying the idea of her ripping out a chunk of Valentino's collar anyway. The rabbit demon extended two of her fingers and a thumb to shake the demon's tiny hand, "I like you, cutie. You're fierce."