[Shoutout to Thunderstrike16 for the reviews! I love hearing from my readers.]
While Elida wished she could believe in the inherent goodness of humanity, she wasn't an idiot. She knew Vox couldn't be trusted, at least until she knew him better. So, she took a few precautions before their meeting at the Coven's headquarters. She downed a potion of protection, the same thing she'd used at the Cannibaltown Anniversary Ball, and hid a panic device in her pocket. If she pressed the button and didn't type in the right code quick enough, it would alert Alastor that she was in danger. He hated that she'd agreed to these meetings at all and insisted on staying nearby until Elida was safely back at the hotel.
They took Alastor's limousine to the Rose Quartz, where they found the Hag hanging a tiny leather pouch on the doorknob. It was wrapped in twine and sealed with red wax. It looked a bit sticky. Alastor didn't have a clue what it was, but Elida guessed it was a fresh warding pouch. You needed to change them out now and again.
"Hello, sister," Elida greeted happily.
The hag didn't look away from the leather pouch, but began speaking, "The mother, the maiden, the crone. The father, the bachelor, the throne. From the first for the two until they're three. For five the six have to turn into seven. Sun and stars, moon is ours."
Elida didn't know what that signified, but she knew how to respond when one of her own began speaking in riddles. You had to play along, or you'd never get anywhere. "You give us one, two, three, four, five, six, and seven," Elida replied, "Yet I've come down here all the way from Heaven. Will you kindly let me in? I come with the purpose of a hazbin."
"Blue and red, both are dead. One day, it will all come to a head," the crone stated as she opened the door.
Alastor didn't bother trying to make sense of whatever the witches were saying. He was more of a voodoo guy. Their words were all gibberish to him.
The Hag took some kind of mossy green oil and drew a rune on each of their foreheads before she allowed them to cross the threshold. It made a sizzling sound. The oil soaked into their skin and disappeared within seconds. Only after the traces of green were completely gone did the Hag step aside to let them in. A different witch was burning sage around the restaurant area, smoking up the place with the scent of dried herbs. There weren't too many patrons eating there that day, and the few who were there were clearly members of the coven, pouring over grimoires, munching on their meals, and tinkering with strange magical objects. Two of the younger-looking demonesses were making out in the corner. No one bothered them.
"What rune did you draw?" Elida asked. The Hag hadn't performed whatever ritual that was any other time they'd visited, and she was curious what it had been for.
"Don't worry about it," the Hag brushed her off. "It's not gonna make your pretty little face break out or wrinkle, you'll be fine."
That wasn't why Elida wanted to know, but she clearly wasn't going to get a straight answer today, so she dropped it. "Is our guest here yet?"
"Not yet."
Elida checked the time on her phone. They were fifteen minutes early. "Can I get a milkshake or something while we wait? I'm craving something sweet and fruity."
"I'm sweet and fruity," the witch with the sage flirted at her, "You can have me while you wait."
"Ask again after dinner," Elida replied, her tone light and teasing. The sage witch just winked and went back to what she was doing.
"I'll get it," a different witch called from the kitchen area. "What flavor?"
"Strawberry, please," Elida called back.
"That's such a basic bitch answer," the kitchen witch replied.
"Dragon fruit, then."
"We don't have dragon fruit."
"Well, what do we have?"
"Strawberry."
The other witches snickered and cackled at that. Elida loved these women so darn much. She moved to sit at an empty table near one of her sisters, so Alastor politely pulled out her chair. He'd tried to convince her not to come, but she'd given Vox her word, and that was that. Elida's sister was muttering to herself, notes scattered around her as she worked on writing a new spell in a grimoire.
"Why are we so empty today?" Elida asked.
The grimoire witch glanced up momentarily, "Hm? Oh. We've got a big party showing up soon. They wanted the restaurant and ritual area booked out for the night. Some imp wedding, I think, I don't know I wasn't paying much attention." She continued studying the tome, so Elida didn't bother her any further.
When the witch from the kitchen came out with Elida's strawberry milkshake, which they served in a black pewter mug engraved with arcane symbols, she offered to share with Alastor. He might prefer salt over sugar, but that didn't mean he never enjoyed it, so he summoned a second straw and had a taste. It was delicious, just like everything the coven ever made.
Vox walked in to see them both sipping on their straws at the same time, like some cheesy 60's rom-com. His irritation spiked instantly at seeing Alastor's shit-eating grin, but he kept his demeanor calm. He needed these meetings to go well.
"Elida!" He greeted her with a familiarity that made Alastor's eye twitch. "It's nice to see you again."
"You too. You've got the best memes. Ten out of ten," She said with a little laugh. They'd been texting back and forth to get to know each other a bit better while they found a meeting time that worked. They were both busy people with businesses to run, after all.
Alastor stood politely when she got up, as was the proper thing to do when sitting at a table with a lady. His shadow moved across the room to loom menacingly over Vox's stupid flat head. He pictured pressing the off button on a remote and seeing Vox drop dead to the floor.
Elida went to shake her guest's hand. "I brought a surprise for you."
"Oh? Should I be worried?" Vox teased, working very hard to ignore the Radio Demon practically snarling at him from only a few feet away.
"You strike me as a video game guy," Elida continued, leading Vox to the eavesdrop-free room they'd prepared.
"Guilty," he confirmed, "Though you'd be hard-pressed to find one I haven't beaten already."
"Bet," She winked. When the door was shut, she waved her hand, and a console appeared. Vox didn't recognize the brand. It was smooth, gold, and very very shiny. "I brought one from home. How do you feel about multiplayer adventure games?"
"I don't often have a player two," he said, which was a lie. Velvette would play games with him all the time when she wasn't taking selfies or flipping people off. She liked MMO's where she could cuss people out over her headset.
"This game in particular is a lot of fun, but still chill enough we can talk while we play. Sandbox type. You up for it?"
"Oh, I am SO in!" Vox was a tech bro at heart and was happy to leap at the chance to play on a system he'd otherwise never get to try.
Elida had chosen an open-ended collaborative game as a way of seeing what kind of choices Vox would make when the stakes were low. There were a million different ways to play, and she'd be able to learn a lot more about him than she'd get from his words alone. She'd commissioned a specialist in Heaven to analyze the gameplay and provide her with insights on the psyche of her co-player. They didn't know why she wanted it, but they likely just assumed he was a living relative of hers or something. She didn't explain, otherwise their analysis could have been tainted with prejudice from Vox being a demon. She wanted clean information, and luckily, angels had a tendency to trust each other pretty readily.
They sat down, controllers in hand, and their virtual adventure began. "So," Elida said as they designed the characters they'd be playing for countless future hours, "Tell me your story."
While the Ambassador and Alastor's hated rival hid in their magically protected room, the witches cleared their spaces up and prepared the dining area for the incoming wedding party. Alastor stayed put and finished Elida's shake. No imp would be stupid enough to try to ask him to leave, and he wasn't going away until his doe was away from that prick. He went where he wanted, and everyone else just had to deal with it.
Something exploded. His ears perked up as he heard a violent volley of screaming and clanging coming from the kitchen. "FUCK! GOD FUCKING DAMN IT STUPID CUNT BITCH BOOK WHAT THE FUCK!?" He sipped the last dredges of the smoothie with a satisfying slurp.
The Hag poked her head out, "Hey, shoulder pads," she looked at Alastor, smiling from his table, "You're a Louisiana man. You know French?"
"Who's asking?"
"This bridezilla bitch insisted on some off-menu fancy-pants dish or some shit, I don't fucking know. The recipe is in French, and apparently some amateur moron put it on the same page as their spells. Get your ass in here and help us decipher it." The other witches were still shouting and running around behind her, releasing an impressive volley of swears and hissing as they tried to put the kitchen back together.
He stared at her wrinkled face for a few moments for comedic effect, grinning at the hilarious chaos. The Hag stared back. Eventually he shrugged, "Why not? Get me an apron." He stood up and removed his jacket, folding it up and hiding it under the host stand. "Why would they give you a separate recipe when your menu is already immaculate?"
"They stole the book from a living witch during some drug run in the human world and assumed we'd be the only ones who could pull it off."
"Were they right?"
"Maybe if the tome wasn't in fucking French."
"Ah well, C'est la vie. Let's see what we have here."
Ignoring the other women bustling about putting out a rather angry looking fire, Alastor reached into the flames and grabbed the recipe book. It remained unsinged. The handwritten cursive letters were small and cramped, packing far too much information onto each page. It was no wonder they'd gotten things mixed up. The book was all over the place.
Still, it was a simple thing to extract the information he needed and ignore the rest. "How many people will be dining with us?" He asked, eyes still scanning the ingredients.
"The mother of the bride doesn't think anyone will actually come, but they want us to cook for 300. Luckily, they paid in advance."
"You don't have room in here for 300 people."
"I know. I have eyes."
"Very well. We need shallots, butter, and mushrooms. You," he pointed to a witch whose eyebrows had been singed off, "Get several pounds of Gruyère and grate it. And you, with the tacky hat, I need fresh lemons." Luckily, he was in a room full of magic users, and summoning the tools and ingredients they needed was a relatively simple thing.
He barked orders clearly and precisely, expecting to be obeyed. And he was; the Coven did what they were told without complaint, happy for the help from someone whose palate they trusted. He'd developed a sort of rapport with the coven, even before Elida came along. Throwing her into the mix only strengthened his association with them. It's a shame he didn't bother learning their names. Maybe he'd care enough to try one of these days.
With Alastor able to read the recipe, the dinner went seamlessly. He snickered to himself when he caught the groom gawking open-mouthed at seeing the famous Radio Demon preparing his wedding meal. People had the funniest expressions of terror and awe when they saw his face, especially in places they didn't expect to find him.
Several hours and one sobbing bride tantrum later, there were still 290 plates of perfectly cooked and expertly presented Gratinéed Scallops sitting around when the few guests who'd bothered to show up eventually left. Alastor and the witches also made a myriad of tantalizing side-dishes and desserts. All of it was practically untouched, except for the cake, which had ended up thrown against the wall in the bride's fit of violent rage at having no guests show up. Alastor thought that little part of the event was particularly entertaining; He didn't even feel like killing anyone.
After the pathetically small party was over, Elida and Vox reemerged from their meeting room, laughing and chatting like a pair of old pals. Suddenly Alastor's bloodlust returned with a vengeance. Vox would have the Ambassador's soul over Alastor's twice-dead body.
Having done his part playing head chef, he wasn't in the mood to help clean up, and the witches on shift were sitting down for a well-earned break. So, when Elida went to find her smiling friend, she and Vox saw him sitting cheerfully on a stool, surrounded by women, all chatting and giggling at his jokes. A few of them were braiding his hair, weaving flowers and twigs into it like a crown. He let them. He liked these girls.
"Well, someone's got rizz," Elida teased, seeing her sisters cooing over him.
Alastor didn't know what that meant, but Vox did, and the sour expression on his face was all Alastor needed to know. He responded to her with a charismatic wink, just to piss his rival off. "Hungry?" He asked, "There's a whole feast left over. It's rather expertly made if I do say so myself."
She looked over at the table laden with abandoned food, taking notice of the giant pile of smashed cake smeared on her coven's wall. "Did no one come?"
"Can't say I'm surprised," the Hag said, "That bitch was fuckin' nuts. I feel bad for the groom."
"That's so sad…" Elida frowned at the wasted food. "What are we going to do with-" She gasped as an idea formed in her head, "Oh! Hey Allie, you remember that one spot you took me to a few days ago next to all the homeless people?"
"There are a lot of homeless people in Hell, darling. You'll need to be more specific."
"With the tents, near the edge of the city."
"Ah yes, next to that godawful sushi place we tried." Alastor had left a sizeable gash in the so-called chef's chest for the insult that demon had inflicted on his taste buds.
"That's the one," Elida moved toward the kitchen to look for some to-go boxes, "Let's bring this to them. No sense in it going to waste."
Vox thought that was such an obnoxiously heavenly thing to do, but he saw a chance and leapt on it, "There's a lot of food there. If you need help, I'd be more than happy to provide a few extra hands." His voice was dripping with false charity.
Alastor did not like that at all. "Don't be silly, I have it well in hand. I'm sure I can provide my Elida with anything she might need."
"Now now, you've been up and about making all this, surely a charitable angel such as her wouldn't possibly ask more of you." The lights began to flicker, and a tense electric magic made the hairs on everyone's neck stand up. "She can trust me." Vox reigned it in when he realized he was making sparks on his fingertips. He couldn't kill Al right here, that would mess up the whole thing. But damn, did he want to…
"Ha ha! Nonsense. I've been her helping hand for months now." Alastor's shadow grew more menacing as his shape began to shift and warp, all sharp angles and grinning teeth. "She really doesn't need some overgrown iPad butting into her affairs." His antlers got a little bit longer.
"Can you two chill the fuck out before I kick you out of my restaurant? Jesus…" The Hag grumbled at them, annoyed.
Elida rolled her eyes; These men were acting like children. "You'll both help." She handed them each a stack of carry out boxes and started scooping bits of each dish into one of them. Alastor wanted to beat Vox to the punch, so he got up right away and began making reasonably sized portions of his delectable creations, letting his black tentacles of magic speed the process along.
Vox thought this was a stupid waste of time, but there was no way he'd let Alastor win at something this petty. He sent a few texts, changing the routes of a few nearby delivery drivers in his employ to swing by the Rose Quartz for an impromptu pickup. Several blocks down, a demon got run over by a terrified driver that was trying desperately not to end up on Vox's bad side again.
Once the meals were packed and moved to the tent city, Elida began handing the meals to the hungry souls one at a time, making sure to look them all in the eye and offer them her most comforting smile of encouragement. They weren't used to charity, and a lot of them were wary, but most of them accepted the gift without a fuss, just happy to ease the rumbling in their stomachs.
Both Vox and Alastor summoned a small army of helpers to disperse the boxes, each of them working to one-up each other. Tensions got a bit high, and they seemed about ready to break the helper façade and tear each other to shreds. Finally, after one backhanded quip too many, Vox swung. He tried to slash open Alastor's smug face when Elida stepped in. She couldn't have the collateral damage of two battling overlords killing the very people she was trying to feed.
She cast a thick wall of ice between the two, capturing Vox's swinging hand and encasing it within the spell. He was surprised to find himself genuinely stuck, the ice holding him firmly in place. She was more powerful than he'd given her credit for. Both overlords turned to look at the object of their spat, shocked to see a look of calm anger on her face.
Alastor thought it was all rather… chilling. He chuckled internally at his own joke, but the humor got lost when he heard her speak with a tone so cold and hard it caught him completely off guard. She was almost scary. He'd never seen her scary. Was he… was he into that? He looked her over with a bit more respect than before. Why was his chest burning again like it had at Rosie's ball? Was he afraid of her, like he was with Zestial? No, that wasn't it. It was something else, and he didn't like not being able to tell.
"Let me make this abundantly clear to you both," She began, voice as icy as the wall she'd conjured, "You will not, under any circumstances, fight with one another when I am around." The usual softness in her voice was gone. She meant business. "Vox, if you attack Alastor, I won't meet with you ever again. Alastor, if you attack Vox, I won't allow you to escort me around anymore. Do. You. Both. Understand?" She kept the terms of her command simple and to the point, setting a clear boundary that was impossible to misinterpret.
Alastor managed a, "Yes ma'am." Working very hard to keep his voice level.
Vox visibly had a boner and just looked at her with his mouth open stupidly for a minute. Finally, after a very shocked pause, he collected his dignity and stood up straight, "Of course, Madame Ambassador, my apologies. I don't know what came over me."
"Good." She put her arm down and let the ice wall disappear, freeing Vox's hand. "Now, if you two are done, I have hungry mouths to feed. You can either help or get out of the way." She turned and went back to work, the usual sweet smile returning to her face as she knelt to hand a child imp their own portion.
Once the tension had eased back down, Elida placed herself strategically within earshot of Vox while he pretended to care about what they were doing. She couldn't have him and Alastor leveling a portion of the city in a physical altercation, but she could still use their rivalry to her advantage. They wanted to ingratiate themselves to her for her power and position, and she knew it, so she let out a dramatic and melancholy sigh right when the final box was given away.
"Oh, I wish there was more I could do. There isn't enough for everyone." She let her eyes go all big and misty and sad. "If only I could do this more often…"
Vox was listening, just like she'd hoped. "You know," he began, mistakenly thinking it was his own idea, "I could probably help with that." He wanted to gain her favor. He needed to give her something that Alastor hadn't already done.
And that was how Heaven's Ambassador manipulated an Overlord of Hell into opening a soup kitchen.