Pentagram City, 1922
It had been but a few days since the last Extermination, and chaos still reigned in much of the city. The plumes of black smoke from the many fires darkening the sky made the dim white light of Heaven seem all the more distant and faint.
Suddenly, terror-strucked demons of all sorts were just running away screaming or hiding behind locked doors, praying perhaps that the horrid creature outside would just pass by quickly and not come back for them.
The creature sighed. He had not expected a warm welcome, but still, he was being treated like he was among those who had done this, like he had played any part in the effort to keep this people in a state of abject terror.
He walked by a colossal, hourglass-shaped golden clocktower, ringing the bells of the Authority's judgement. On each of the four sides of the great tower a sign showed the number of days till the next Extermination; it was Pride's countdown of doom.
358
"You really did it? We're in HELL?" a startled voice asked out of nowhere, like they had just appeared in this realm.
"Woodrow!? Where have you been?" the Grim Reaper asked his shoulder ghost.
"Well, I knew you were going that orgy so I went back to haunting the halls of Princeton for a while."
'Of course.' Theodore thought. Being his companion ghost, Woodrow could easily vanish into thin air and reappear at his side like that.
"I still don't get it, Theodore; why are you going through all this trouble?"
"What do you mean, Woodrow? I thought we went trough this already..." Teddy replied, making no effort to hide his annoyance.
"I mean, sure, the government of Heaven has been taking some rather drastic measures lately, but the principle is sound, Theodore! Even in many states of our own country the negroes are segregated, and for good reason: to keep the unruly filth away from the civilized folk..."
"That comparison holds no water and you know it!" Theodore retorted, "Our negroes are segregated under the rule of law..." ('That doesn't make it right!' a voice in the back of his mind- Charles Evans Hughes' voice- reminded him...) "...but there is no such thing here. The only thing keeping these people in this realm is the will of a tyrant. And even in our country much of the work of enforcing segregation is done not by the lawful authorities, but by mobs, something you approved of in your time in the White House! A great Ku Klux Klan, a veritable Empire of the South..." Theodore started taunting him with his own words in the movie 'The Birth of a Nation'.
"Fine, fine, you got me..." Woodrow mumbled, "But that doesn't have anything to do with the situation here..."
"Oh, but it DOES, Woodrow," Theodore continued, "...because once a year the Authority sends his worst mob here in Pride to do his dirty work for him..."
"Soldiers following orders are hardly a mob!" Woodrow retorted.
"Soldiers are not just meant to blindly follow orders! Soldiers are men..." He looked at the putrid brain matter scattered across the street, "...this is the work of monsters..."
He looked up defiantly at Heaven, knowing that many, monstrous, cold and pitiless eyes were looking down...
...
Their destination was easy to spot from a distance, being on top of a steep hill at the edges of town. And several stories high. And with a large glowing insignia on the roof.
A familiar sight to all who called Pentagram City home. An ancient hotel, restored and repurposed of late by the daughter of its old owner.
Distressingly enough, it looked from the outside like every last inch of the building was of some shade of red. Then again, in Pride the sky itself is dark red, and the Hotel blended beautifully with the surrounding world, and was so high it almost seemed to reach for the vast pentagram above the city.
Theodore knocked on the door, making a chilling sound of bone against wood. Quickly, a young woman, astoundingly beautiful, opened the door. Her golden hair and pearly white skin contrasted starkly with her bright red suit. Oddly enough, her cheeks were also bright red, and so were her eyes...
Which were now wide with absolute terror, with red pinpricks in a sea of yellow instead of pupils.
"Greetings..."
With the speed of lighting, she slammed the door. Then she opened again.
"...Princess..."
She slammed again.
Soon enough, she cautiously opened the door once again.
"May I speak now, Princess?"
"You may..." Charlie replied, with all the regal dignity she could muster. Which was a lot.
"I'm the Grim Reaper. My name is Theodore Roosevelt Jr." he began, bowing slightly, "Forgive me for my ignorance of the royal etiquette of Hell, but rest assured that it is an honor to-
Suddenly, the point of a spear was a few inches from Teddy's face!
...
"HIJO DE PUTA CAPRON!"
She stood fearlessly before Death himself, ready to die that very instant if it meant saving the woman she loved.
It was like her whole body pulsed with hateful determination, from her grey skin to her long light grey hair to her black lips. And all that hatred seemed to radiate from her right eye. No one who dared to cross her would ever forget her stare from that horridly unnatural, light pink and black, hauntingly beautiful eye.
All while her left eye was perpetually hidden by her hair and by a magical reddish pink X.
"Make one more step and I'm sending your Anglo ass BACK TO AMERICA!"
A deadly Hispanic fury. When he was still alive, Teddy had met enough guerrilla fighters in Cuba to know the type.
"Vaggie, there's no need to..." Charlie started, desperate to avoid a fight.
"We can't trust him, Charlie. He's American..."
Angel Dust was about to say something, but then he remembered that he was a 'hyphenated American'. And so was Husk.
"I... may not have earned the trust of your people, and I did kill Zapata..." Theodore started, "But he was the worthiest adversary I've ever had. He died on his feet."
Vaggie was stunned. Did he just admit that without boasting or threatening? Was that... respect for a man whose life he had taken?
"Zapata, you say?" She slowly started to put down her spear, without moving an inch from Charlie's side, "I'm Salvadorena, not Mexicana."
"No podrìa haberlo sabido, senorita."
"Disculpas aceptadas." a nervous Charlie said, who had naturally picked up some Spanish from her girlfriend, "Now that we are all... less tense, how about we show you around the Hotel?"
...
"So, here's the bar, and the bartender..."
As it turned out, the lavishly decorated interior was nearly as red as the exterior, almost completely red from floor to ceiling. While the Hotel didn't have a unique logo per se, one could easily spot on the furniture the serpent and the apple, the two emblems (phallic and feminine respectively) of House Morningstar.
"The actual Grim fucking Reaper?" said the bartender, a Gargoyle-looking winged feline covered in black, grey, white and red feathers, while holding a glass in his claws, "I don't get paid enough for this shit..." And went back to drinking.
He sounded like a Gargoyle, too.
"And here is our maid, Nifty..." Charlie countinued as she was introducing everybody.
A cute little spindly girl-bug... thing, with pink hair and one huge Cyclopean, red and black eye in a maid outfit was hunting some black insects around the room.
"Ooooh, the Grim Reaper!?" Her demeanor suddenly changed, as a horrendously seductive, lecherous smile spread across her face, "I've heard you are a Bad Boy..."
Theodore made a mental note to himself to avoid Nifty like the plague.
"The Grim Reaper is REAL?" said a thin, light pink arachnid man with four arms, massive fluffy breasts and bicolor eyes that was lying on a couch, "I don't remember seeing you when I died."
Veggie faceplamed. "The Grim Reaper doesn't kill just about anyone, Angel..."
"Of courssse the Grim Reaper would not have killed any of you, I am the only one who wasss important in life here..." a humanoid cobra with light purple eyes wearing a suit said, "I, Sssir Pentiousss, the Architect of Destruction, the Massster of Crime!"
That didn't sound any bells to Theodore.
Sir Pentious was now visibly distraught. "I terrorized Victorian London!"
Nope, still nothing.
"Oh, look at that: you were just as forgettable up there as you are down here..." Angel Dust said, grinning widely.
Sir Pentious started sobbing uncontrollably.
"ANGEL! That was just mean! We are SO going to be working on that! And you, Pentious..." Charlie rushed to him, grabbed his shoulders and looked him straight in the eyes, "You did very bad things, but you should not dwell on that. You are trying to be a good person now, and that is what matters."
"You are right, Charlie- sniff- I'm sorry..."
"It starts with sorry."
And she hugged him.
...
While Husk was giving Pentious something to drink, Theodore approached the spider-man, who only looked mildly remorseful for what he had just done.
"You must be Angel Dust. Miss Maiday speaks highly of you and your movies...
He jolted. "YOU KNOW VEROSIKA MAYDAY!? And she..."
Suddenly, Angel Dust looked all sorts of ecstatic just thinking of her. "Oh god, she's the BEST! I would suck her dick SO HARD if she had one..."
"And that goes on the list of things you don't say in front of your boyfriend..." Husk mumbled.
"BLEARGH!" Woodrow couldn't take it any more, that was crossing the line! "I skipped the orgy only to witness THIS degeneracy!? I need to puke..."
"You are a ghost..." Teddy pointed out.
"Did I stutter?" And with that, he vanished.
Angel Dust looked like he had been suddenly brought back to reality.
"What does that guy have, a sequoia up his ass?"
...
"Princess, that was quite the... demonstration of the good work you are doing here..." Theodore started.
"Why, thank you, mister Reaper! Altough..." Charlie paused, "You haven't told us why you came here..."
"That's right, Princess; I came to see for myself if there was any truth to the rumors about this Happy Hotel, to learn how it came to be... and to offer my help."
"Your help?" Vaggie cut in, "The Grim Reaper is supposed to be neutral; how exactly could you help anyone here?"
"From what I understand, you don't have Lucifer's approval, and you certainly don't have the approval of the Authority." Teddy explained, "That would make this Hotel, in fact, neutral."
"He does have a point, Vaggie..." Charlie said, "As long as Dad thinks it's a waste of time..."
"About that..." Teddy asked, "How did this project come about?"
"That's... quite the long story. Please take a seat."
The three of them sat near a fireplace, Vaggie next to Charlie and Theodore in front of them. As it turned out, Nifty could make some tea...
With Husk's supervision, obviously.
...
"It all started seven years ago..." 'Around the time Mom went on some important business she still hasn't come back from...' Charlie thought, "You see, before that, I wasn't really interested in the politics of the mortal realm; wars came and went, we had more souls coming in during this or that year... All in all, things in Pride were going the way they had always been going..."
"Then, one Summer, incubi and succubi started coming back with worrying news. They spoke of things of another world, things I could barely understand...
They said an Archduke had been shot, and all the greatest empires of the Earth were now going to war, a War the likes of which the world had not seen in a century! And some said..." Her tears started to fall, "they said the war would be over by Christmas..."
Vaggie, holding her girlfriend tightly, continued the story, "We were overwhelmed in a matter of months. Masses of people kept arriving every single day, the slaughter on the Earth only got worse. And then, a few days after the Christmas Truce, we realized our troubles had just begun..."
"On Extermination Day, for the first time the Exorcists came in greater numbers than before, to slaughter more of our people! It was necessary, he said, it was a temporary measure, he said. And with each passing year, the ranks of the Exorcists that were sent here grew..."
"And the War lasted four years- and it wasn't even over when the flu pandemic came..."
"And now that even that is over..." Charlie said, "We now know for a fact that they are not going to stop! We have only seen more of their soldiers coming down..."
"This is an invasion, that's what it is!" Vaggie spatted, "It may be only one night a year, but they are treating us more and more like an unruly province to be pacified...
Charlie's dad may think that keeping the fragile peace with Heaven is worth it, but I don't."
"And this is where the Hotel comes in..." Charlie continued, "this is our one chance to take matters into our own hands and put an end to this! But..." she paused, "I had a meeting with Adam just this morning and he told me the Authority will never allow the redemption of anyone from Hell..."
"Adam? The commander of the Exorcists?" Theodore asked, "He may speak for the Authority, but he doesn't speak for all of Heaven."
"I know, right?" Charlie said, "In fact, we got some help from..."
"Charlie..." Vaggie said through gritted teeth.
"Aaand I wasn't supposed to say that..."
"I understand completely, Princess. Plausible deniability and all that."
'I did hear rumors about rogue angels working behind the Authority's back.' Theodore thought, 'Maybe there's some truth to that...'
"In any case, if I can do anything to help your cause, you have only to ask."
"REALLY?! THANKYOUTHANKYOUTHANKYOU!" Charlie said, violently shaking Teddy's hand.
"We do need all the help we can get..." Vaggie said without much enthusiasm, still looking skeptical.
"Oh, I see it's getting late... Would you like to stay for the night, mister Reaper?" Charlie asked.
"Please, call me Theodore. Being Death, I don't really require any rest, but I would gladly accept your offer. In fact, I have some friends here in Pride that I would like to visit tomorrow... Do you know where I can find the place called Imp City?"
...
That night, Charlie stood at the balcony of her room, looking at the city below. Vaggie sneaked up on her and landed a kiss on her cheek. "It's been a though day..." she said thoughtfully, "What's on your mind?"
"Nothing Vaggie, it's just..." She knew she needed to open up to her girlfriend, but couldn't find the words, "I don't know what I've gotten us into, Vaggie. First Xaphaniah and her friends are helping us, then I find out the Authority is against us, and now Death himself is on our side? I don't know, Vaggie..." She looked shaken, "I don't know what I'm doing..."
Vaggie grabbed her shoulders, gently but firmly, "No one knows what we are doing, honey. Because what you are trying to do with this Hotel is something no one has ever done, something no one has ever dreamed to do..."
"A dream?" Charlie said, her eyes slowly brightening, "This is what it's all about, isn't it? My Dream! I wonder though..." She paused, "Was I destined to have this dream? Or was this dream destined for me?"
Taking in the wondrous view of Pentagram City under the distant light of Heaven, she started to sing...
To dream the impossible Dream,
To fight the unbeatable Foe,
To bear with unbearable sorrow,
To run where the brave dare not go;
To right the unrightable wrong,
To love, pure and chaste, from afar,
To try, when your arms are too weary,
To reach the unreachable star!
She looked up at Heaven itself, singing like the voice coming straight from her Heart could take down all the Powers of the Authority and bring His Kingdom to ruin!
This is my Quest
To follow that Star,
No matter how hopeless, no matter how far,
To fight for the right
Without question or pause,
TO BE WILLING TO MARCH INTO HELL
FOR A HEAVENLY CAUSE!
And I know, If I'll only be true
To this glorious Quest,
That my heart with lie peaceful and calm
When I'm laid to my rest...
Vaggie smiled, "How about we get some rest now, honey?"
"That sounds... neat."
They walked inside together, holding hands, their hearts beating as one.