The first thing she heard was the clanking of metal.
Next, she saw the helmet.
A shallow green glow followed her to the grave. All she could do was let out a muffled scream.
She could break free. The man was half her size.
That was, until she saw the white gleam of the gun.
Angelic.
"Stop wigging," her assailant said in a deep voice, "You're only making it worse."
Her security had failed. How could such a fate befall her? She had been careful. She hadn't gotten on anyone's bad side. She kept her head down.
It had gotten her nowhere. The windows to her mansion were shattered, able to make those out in the dim red sunlight.
The back of the gun glowed green while the tip displayed a fateful white. She closed her eyes.
Then there came a pop, a thud, and she was no more.
-o
-o
"Anywhere but here, please."
Octavia handed the bus driver a handful of souls before sitting down in the very back. The seats stank of mildew and overly-fruity carpet cleaner, only a slight upgrade from the flagrant B.O. that came from the other passengers.
The metal door hissed shut as rain began to fall outside.
Octavia had spent the night wandering the outskirts of the city. Her parents wouldn't have noticed her disappearance until morning. With a strong storm on the horizon, any search efforts would be delayed by at least a couple of hours. Anvil-shaped sulfur clouds cast angry shadows over the suburbs of the Wrath Ring. Occasionally, a flash of red lightning would light up the sky.
Nobody dared ask her questions as she sat. With her hair frizzled, her face greasy, and two large bags on her lap, she didn't even remotely resemble the princess persona forced upon her by her family. Octavia Goetia was hidden. Instead of the pristine dresses and heels that she had become accustomed to wearing, she wore a baggy hoodie, black sweatpants, sneakers, and a beanie, while that damned crown was rotting on her nightstand.
Obnoxious advertisements ran over the loudspeaker. The first she heard was an ad from a lawyer demon named Saul, who insisted that demons would be better off calling him. A song or two played before the next set of ads kicked off, advertising a Chilean chicken restaurant run by a self-proclaimed former drug kingpin. That was when Octavia decided to stop listening.
They exited the Wrath Ring without too many hiccups. Occasionally, they would have to drive over a corpse in the street, as was the status-quo in hell. The interior lights came on as the sky darkened with hostile and imposing clouds. An irritating fluorescent hum accompanied them.
Octavia counted twelve other passengers on the bus, their faces hard to discern over the brightly-coloured pornographic ads that lined the inside of the craft. Dirty wrappers and half-eaten food sat strewn across the dull gray floor.
A skinny imp lit up a cigarette next to her. Octavia had never been a smoker, but with her having cried out all of her available tears the night before, she needed something else.
"Excuse me?" Octavia asked in a hoarse voice, "Do you have an extra cigarette?"
The imp's eyes judgmentally ran up and down her figure. Octavia retreated further into her hoodie.
"Sure," he replied, voice flat and eyes rolling, "Pretty little thing like you shouldn't be smoking."
"Thanks," Octavia shuddered as he handed her a cigarette, "Can I borrow a light, too?"
"Needy, needy, needy."
The man gave her a lighter. She quickly lit the cigarette before handing it back to him.
Now, it should be said that Octavia had never smoked in her life before. It wasn't seen as becoming of a young princess to pollute themselves, at least according to her mother. Leave it to Stella to teach her daughter not to smoke for all the wrong reasons.
She seared one of her fingers on the tip of the cigarette. In her panic, she nearly dropped it.
Turning her back to avoid drawing any attention to herself, Octavia placed the cigarette in her mouth and inhaled.
A bitter taste coated her tongue. The burning sensation followed. Octavia struggled to take in a full breath as her body protested against the airborne poison.
Octavia ducked her head as she struggled to cover her fit of coughing. Her lungs failed to keep a bad secret. What started as some slight discomfort turned into a struggle to breathe again.
She knew that the other passengers were going to be looking at her. Of course they would be.
How did people do that every day? She had seen her father smoke, usually once or twice a week. Such a pattern would be considered tame by most of Hell. Octavia never planned on touching a cigarette ever again.
She grew dizzy as the coughing continued. It took another thirty seconds of heavy coughing for her to finally breathe normally again.
A faint chuckle rose from the back of the bus. Octavia ignored it. They weren't worth her time.
That mythical nicotine-induced relaxation never came. In fact, it only left Octavia further on edge. The humming of the engines was suddenly deafening. The lights were blinding. Fibers from her seat dug into her skin and crawled up and down her limbs like bugs.
The headache that followed only made things worse. She hadn't slept in almost a day. Her body was running on autopilot. Her whole life had been spent in a pampered dollhouse. Something as simple as a cigarette had been enough to bring her, literally, to her knees.
Octavia knew that wandering around Hell wasn't going to get here anywhere other than dead in a ditch somewhere. She would have to find somewhere to go. In fact, the only upside to her running away was getting away from Antron. She would smoke a hundred cigarettes before she so much as spat in his direction.
The driver increased the volume of the radio overhead. Another set of advertisements came on. Their piercing screeches hit her like ice picks to the forehead. She tried to tune them out, only for one particular advertisement to catch her attention.
"Hey!" a high-pitched voice chimed in, "Are you a sinner that wants to change? Has Hell got you down? Well, have I got the solution for you!"
Octavia groaned. She knew who it was. Hell's sunshine-and-rainbows princess.
The advertisement continued, "Come on down to the Happy Hotel! Here, we have a supportive community, free amenities, and a carefully crafted rehabilitation plan! Located at the corner of First and Gehenna Boulevard!"
Static came over the intercom as the advertisement concluded. A few heads around her began to turn.
With the burning in her throat and head fading away, Octavia sat back up, having noticed that the condescending glares that had once been fixated on her were gone. Heads turned back and forth as the passengers on the bus began to whisper to each other.
"...what? She's dead?" the imp who had handed her the cigarette asked.
"Ten minutes ago, yeah," another passenger said.
Someone else towards the front of the bus called out to the driver, "Hey, asshole! Turn on the news!"
The driver gave the entire bus a middle finger, but did as they said anyway.
Katie Killjoy's shrill and sadistic voice soon filled the bus as its occupants fell quiet.
"Well, Hell, do we have a story for you!" Katie said, "Inside sources tell us that Pentagram City overlord Zeezi has been found dead in her mansion! Local police are calling foul play."
Tom Trench chimed in a moment later, "Yes, they are, Katie. Riots have broken out in the capital district, with reports of gunfire coming in from police. Many believe that it was the work of another overlord. Sweet, sweet destruction!"
"Destruction indeed, Tom-"
Octavia stopped paying attention. Why would she give a shit about what happened to some prissy, stuck-up overlord? They had more power than anybody in Hell! Zeezi had it coming. She ran in the same crowd as Anthron and Valentino. Octavia knew their type. They destroyed lives for pennies. Their moral compasses followed the wind that blew the money.
"Jesus," a blue, fish-looking demon to Octavia's left said, "They actually fucking did it."
Outside, Octavia could make out the faint outline of the Pentagram City skyscrapers through the torrential downpour outside. Lightning grazed the rooftops while the winds picked up. What had once been vertical rainfall had taken a full ninety degree turn and was hitting the windows of the bus from the side.
Flashing red and blue lights soon bounced off of the front window of the bus as they drew closer to the city. Octavia watched the eyes of their driver through the rearview mirror at the front of the bus. Pupils that had been glazed over for the duration of her ride were suddenly expressive and darting back and forth.
Octavia wasn't the only one that noticed.
"What's going on?!" one of the passengers shouted.
"There's a blockade," the driver replied with a hint of annoyance, "We can't get through here."
Muffled shouts bounced off of the bus windows from outside.
"Well, no shit! What are you gonna do?!" the cigarette imp asked.
The driver angrily punched the steering wheel, "I don't know! I can't see shit in this rain-!"
BANG!
Her face suddenly hit the ground as something heavy hit the side of her bus. Swirls of black and blue danced across her vision.
Not only would she never be clean again after touching the bus floor, she was bleeding, too. A simple lift of her head revealed a large red stain coming from a spot right beneath her left cheek.
The other passengers had taken similar hits. One of them had gone through a window from the impact, with large crimson stains covering shards of broken glass on a right side window.
"What was that?" someone asked.
The cigarette imp rose to his feet, "I don't know-"
His remarks were silenced by the shattering of glass, followed by facial intimacy with an airborne brick.
Only then did Octavia hear the voices.
The shouts of demons barraged their gas-guzzling shelter. One of the lights went out as the lightbulb popped. Beside her, the cigarette imp collapsed into a heap on the ground while he bled from a large gash just under his hairline.
Through the broken window, Octavia saw the outline of the Gehenna bank, a landmark of the Pentagram City capital district. Most of the building was up in flames. No matter how hard the rain fell, the snake-like flames crawled forward as they turned the sky a belligerent red.
The angry shouts drew closer. Octavia jumped as a bullet pierced the wall directly next to her.
"What the fuck?!" a passenger shouted, "What's going on!?"
Rainwater spilled in from the downpour outside. The floor became slick and hard to walk on, with some of the panicking passengers wiping out as they tried to find a way out.
Octavia's heart rate began to pick up. Her stomach leapt back and forth, and the flow of adrenaline made her limbs tingle. Suddenly, being safe and warm within the walls of the Goetia mansion didn't sound so bad.
The driver reached into his pocket and pulled out a pistol to retaliate. Octavia dove to the ground and hid under a chair with another passenger. Shards of glass sliced her skin. Her hoodie was soon stained red with the blood running down her face.
Like a pendulum on a mortal clock, the bus began to sway back and forth as demons outside grew restless. Another window shattered. Another passenger was hit with a flying brick. Octavia grabbed the bottom of a chair and held on for dear life.
"What's going on?!"
"Shoot them! Shoot them!"
"I'm trying!"
"Don't let them in!"
"It's all the damn sinners! Blow those fucks away!"
"There's glass in my eye! There's glass in my eye!"
A symphony of agony played its terrible song in all directions, keeping time with the sharp blasts of gunshots and oiling their instruments with blood.
By that point, Stolas would have called in one of their bodyguards to take care of the situation. The Goetia family was no stranger to assassination attempts. Hell, some of them came from within the bloodline. For the first time ever, Octavia was on her own. Nobody on that bus knew who she was, nor would they bother to help her if they did.
A bullet flew through the side of the bus. The demon next to her opened his eyes and stared at her for a moment before collapsing. A quick turn of his head revealed a large chunk of missing brain matter.
Octavia's dinner from the previous night quickly found its home on the floor.
Their driver ran to the front door and held it shut. With a muscular, almost cyclops-like build, their driver was easily the largest demon on the bus. That man would eat somebody like Octavia for breakfast. He wore a sweat-stained wife-beater paired with ripped jeans with a holster on the right hip.
The riot outside showed no signs of calming down. Eight of the original twelve passengers remained, plus their driver. Most had either taken cover, or were frozen with fear. Their driver was the only one trying to protect them.
"Someone help me!" the driver shouted.
Nobody dared to move. Octavia's feet were soaked in the blood of her seat partner.
Without thinking, Octavia leapt to her feet and scrambled to the driver. Two other imps followed her lead, all of them pressing themselves up against the door.
Hundreds of demons had to be out there. Octavia's shoulders slammed against the door with each push.
"Someone, take this!" the driver hollered as he threw a gun at Octavia, "If they get in, start shooting."
"But I've never shot before!" Octavia shot back.
"Well, you're gonna learn!"
With another strong push, the bus was flipped hard onto its left side. Octavia braced herself against a railing on the right side as her constituents tumbled to the left side windows.
Rain poured in through the open windows and drenched Octavia in a disgusting rain. Sharp pains ran up and down her arm as she contorted her body to keep her balance. With one hand, she braced herself against the upper wall of the now sideways bus, while she held the pistol with another.
Two of the demons that had been at the door with her lay motionless on the ground. That only left Octavia, the driver, and two other demons towards the back of the bus.
"Get out!" the driver shouted, "It's not worth it!"
The remaining two demons scrambled for a door just as the first of the outside rioters broke through the glass.
Octavia hardly had time to react. Before she knew it, the deafening roar of gunshots bouncing off of the tight metal interior knocked her out.
Suddenly, she felt like a little girl trapped in a nightmare. She wanted to cry out for help; to have somebody else swoop in and fix her problems.
The demons that entered were large and imposing, far outshining the statue of their driver. They carried a variety of weapons, most of them firearms. Beads of sweat, rain, and blood ran from their bodies and onto the ground below.
The driver took a shot to the shoulder. He then turned around to glance at Octavia, nodding his head through grimaces to get her to fire.
Octavia fumbled with the gun and placed her finger over the trigger.
"FIRE IT, BITCH!" the driver shouted as blood poured from his neck.
Hyperventilation on Octavia's behalf only made her dizzy. Her arms were no longer hers to control.
The taller of the demons looked up at her and aimed his gun.
She choked back a sob and pulled the trigger.
Nothing happened. Only an empty click.
What?
NO!
GO OFF!
DO SOMETHING YOU PIECE OF SHIT!
She didn't know whether to cry or to scream. It should have fired. Octavia didn't know the first thing about guns, and she damn well didn't have the time to figure it out.
"THE SAFETY!" the driver hollered as the gang approached, "PULL THE FUCKING SAFETY!"
A gangster opened fire on Octavia. Without thinking, she freed herself from the ledge and directly onto a pile of broken class.
Adrenaline numbed the sharp pain on her back and side. Her hoodie took most of the impact, but it wasn't bulletproof.
Deafened by the echoes of gunshots, Octavia fumbled with the gun and pressed a small button on the side. She felt a click.
"Come on, pretty girl!" a gangster shouted, "We don't wanna hurt you!"
Octavia and the driver were backed into a corner. Six rioters surrounded them on the inside, with dozens more breaking apart the bus on the outside. The last of the lights went out. Small pools of reddened runoff lapped at their feet.
"DO IT!" the driver shouted.
Just as the other gangsters raised their guns, Octavia pulled the trigger, quickly met by two bangs as the gun pushed back against her.
One of the gangsters laughed. Another held their shoulder for a second before their eyes reddened in rage.
She had missed. With a loud clatter, she dropped the gun.
The driver, now half-covered in blood, turned his head to Octavia as he tilted his head towards the back.
"RUN!" he shouted.
The driver threw himself at the gang. Once again, gunshots followed. His face contorted into a grimace as his sides were ripped apart under the endless fire.
Octavia slid beneath the legs of one of the gangsters while they were distracted. For the first time in her life, she found herself grateful for her small stature.
The emergency door at the back of the bus had fallen open in the chaos. Most of the rioters outside were busy beating each other up, the occasional wail cut short by a sharp thud.
Octavia grabbed her bags from her seat and made a run for it. The driver let out agonized wails behind her as he was gruesomely ripped apart. Sickening rips and squishes assaulted her ears and filled her mind with terrible, terrible images.
Her right hand wrapped around the open door.
Something else grabbed her leg.
Octavia spun her head around and found the cyclops-looking gangster with his arm on her leg. He flashed his teeth at her in a terrible smile. A large gun with a black strap ran across his front side, with the dismembered body of the driver hoisted over his back.
The corpse was mangled beyond recognition. Most of his face had been ripped open or badly bruised. Bullets wounds had ripped into his side and allowed Octavia a more-than-intimate view of his organs. Both eyes were still wide open, dilated pupils staring at her with a final expression of pure agony.
"Where are you going?" the cyclops asked, "You're going with him!"
He slowly pulled Octavia backwards along the sea of shattered glass.
The other gangsters laughed as she screamed. Her fingers were raw as she clawed at the glass, desperate for something to grab onto.
"No!" Octavia cried, her voice breaking, "Let me go! Please!"
A chamber clicked behind her. Sinister laughter followed.
In her left hand was her heavy bag. It weighed about as much as she did. Octavia had never been one to lift, but with her death mere seconds away, adrenaline would have to do the talking.
Through sobs and screams, Octavia grabbed her bag and hurled it into the face of the cyclops. He recoiled and let out a flurry of curses. That, combined with the violent rocking of the bus, caused him to lose his balance.
That was her chance.
Fighting against the slant of the bus, Octavia took her bags back and hurled herself out of the back window. Only after she made it outside did she realize that she could smell smoke.
A chill ran down her spine as the torrential rain slammed down on her. The shadows of her tormentors writhed as a set of rioters poured gas through an open window and lit a match, Octavia only having been five seconds away from becoming fried chicken.
It didn't take long for the next round of pandemonium to begin.
The bus had initially been tipped over by a group of rioters. At first, she had believed there to be thirty or forty of them. Outside, she saw at least a hundred. Octavia had leapt from a sinking ship only to find herself thrown into a sea of violence.
On all sides, rioters clashed with either each other or nearby buildings. With Hell lacking any sort of competent law enforcement, matters were often left to vigilante justice. No amount of rain could bring an end to the frenzied souls. They were out for blood, vowing to continue the slaughter until they claimed the blood of their sacrificial lambs.
The Capital District was a warzone. Octavia couldn't stay. Not if she wanted to live.
Her mind quickly flashed back to the bus radio. There was only one place in the city where she could go.
The Happy Hotel.
First street was only a couple of blocks away. Octavia could make out the faint glow of the hotel's high-rise lights through the thick smoke and rain.
Octavia made a beeline for it, running as fast as her legs would take her. Fire ran through her veins as her injuries loomed on the horizon.
A wall of rioters kept her in place. They shoved past her like a lost child in a mall as bloodlust consumed them. Gunshots rang out in all directions. A terrible, dissonant yelling rose above it all; a collective wail of barbarism.
"Out of my way!" someone yelled.
"Get that one! Get that one!"
"Rip his head off!"
"Yeah! He's stacked!"
"This is for Zeezi!"
"Fuck the overlords!"
Octavia tried to squeeze through the crowd. Most of the demons were too busy basting in their flame-backlit debauchery to pay her any mind.
Holding her bags close, Octavia limped towards the outskirts of the riot, dodging bullets and knives along the way. She felt as if she was walking on hot coals. Each step was sharp and shaky.
Tauntingly, the first street sign appeared only a few feet away from her when a demon grabbed her by the shoulder.
"Hey," the imposing hellhound said in a stern voice, "What's in the bag?"
"E-Excuse me?" Octavia asked.
The demon pulled out a gun, "You heard me."
Octavia dropped her bags as the muzzle was pressed up against her neck. The hellhound placed them on his shoulder and chuckled as he began to run away.
At that point, Octavia wasn't even surprised. What better a fate of an estranged princess than to be lost in a city without a penny to their name? All she could do was hope that the rain would mask her tears.
"Thanks, bitch!" the hellhound shouted as he withdrew his pistol.
Octavia watched as the man ran away, joining the fray of violence.
For a few seconds, anyway.
One of the hellhound's friends -or, somebody Octavia believed was his friend- suddenly pulled out a gun and shot him. The hellhound took a shot to the chest. He quickly pulled out a gun of his own in retaliation.
"What the fuck!?" the hellhound shouted.
"Give me the bags, bitch!" the friend replied.
Octavia, only being a few feet away, tried to run away.
The exchange only lasted a few seconds. She counted seven or eight gunshots before it ended. Both of the squalling demons eventually shot each other in the head. Just before that, however, Octavia felt a sharp pain in her left shoulder.
She ran her right hand around the spot and watched it come back covered in blood. Octavia fell to her knees.
Shit.
It was her first time being shot. Not as painful as she had imagined it to be, but still an unpleasant experience all-around.
Her bags sat on the ground in front of her. All she had to do was make it to the hotel. She could figure everything else out later.
Octavia gritted her teeth and pulled her bags onto her right shoulder. A wince escaped her mouth as one of the straps grazed the wound. Rising to her feet brought additional strain to her battered body.
The riot moved along without her. Within a couple of minutes, they had moved down to the corner of Second and Third. Octavia decided to follow a sidewalk down First Street to the intersection with Gehenna.
Blue cameras whirred above her head on a nearby streetlamp. If she could guess, it was probably Vox trying to catch some of the carnage. She crept just out of the camera's sight and pressed on.
Without the surge of anxiety and adrenaline, Octavia's wounds began to sting, like having a hot knife on her skin at all times. She couldn't tell rainwater from blood. Her hoodie was covered in red stains. Her beanie had a hole through the top. Her bags were covered in bullet holes.
Stolas often described his journeys to the mortal world to her. Her condition reminded her of the land he called "Detroit."
Battered, bruised, and bleeding, Octavia approached the Hollywood-esque exterior of the Happy Hotel.
A bolt of lightning struck a nearby building. The rainwater burned her eyes and blurred her vision. Thankfully, the hotel was illuminated with an obnoxiously bright "HAPPY HOTEL" sign that made her splitting headache all but disappear.
There was a figure patrolling the outside of the hotel. He called out to her, but the ringing in her ears had grown to be too much to handle.
"Octavia?" the muffled voice said, "Is that you?"
You've got to be kidding me.
She had to make a choice. Would she rather take her chances in the wild, or face the devil she knew? Or, better yet, a devil that knew her.
The figure in the distance was red in color, around five feet in height, and had backwards hooves that moved about awkwardly as he walked. He wore a black suit in spite of the downpour. A black umbrella rested in one hand, while a black gun rested in the other. Octavia had seen him before. Somewhere.
Each step brought more pangs of discomfort.
She had to bite the bullet.
"Shut up," Octavia said, spitting blood from her mouth as she approached the door, "Can I come in?'
"Sure, but what the hell happened to you?" the imp said as he drew closer.
She knew that whiny tone. It was one of the imps that worked for her father's dim-witted sex toy.
Fuck.
Why him of all people?
"That's not my job to tell you. I'm going inside," Octavia said flatly, "Don't tell anyone I was here."
She walked inside, slammed the door, and only when she saw that the lobby was empty did she allow herself to cry.