Chapter One

Then You Will Know the Truth

Day Zero - Carmine Residence, early night:

Carmilla raised an eyebrow as the Radio Demon turned to her.

"There is someone whom I wish to attend our meetings. He is not an Overlord again yet, so he wouldn't have a seat at the table," Alastor told her. "But he should have a chair."

"Husker," Carmilla gleaned. She had known him back when he was an Overlord. If the Overlords had had meetings back then like they do now, he would have been at the table. Although back then, he preferred other tables. "The one who shackled the fallen seraphim."

She could have kept that to herself, but then she would have had to ask why Husker should be allowed, and Alastor would have given that information up as a reason. So she bypassed that pointless dance.

"My, my!" Alastor complimented with a slight radio whine. "Your intelligence network continues to impress."

It was more than a reasonable request, considering.

"I'll allow it," Carmilla stated. She thought she could see what he was doing, but was not going to make dangerous assumptions. "But Zestial will also have to give his approval."

"Of course," Alastor said. "I will be bringing Husker to the next meeting in any case at Emily's insistence. That is, if you still want her to provide that little demonstration."

Carmilla kept a straight face. "I do."

Alastor's smile never, ever wavered. So she watched his eyes, his ears, his jawline, always looking for clues to his mental state. All she could tell though tonight was that the Radio Demon was back in full form.

"And, pardon the curiosity, have you chosen a victim for this little demonstration?"

Carmilla's expression didn't change - two could play at that game - but inwardly, she frowned at his choice of words. "Yes." She made it clear that was as much as he would get from her.

"And you're not sharing. Meaning a card worth keeping close to the chest." Alastor tossed his microphone from one hand to the other. "Color me intrigued."
Carmilla motioned towards her door. "Thank you for dropping by. Goodnight, Alastor."

Day Zero - Hazbin Hotel hot tub room, late night:

"You should get married," Sera suggested from the pool chaise she was laying on, causing both Vaggie and Charlie to stare at her.

"Uhhh, we pretty much are," Vaggie protested. "We're even using the word wives now and Emily's calling Lucifer dad."

Sera nodded. "Yes. But I mean a formal ceremony. One performed at the Embassy. It would be powerfully symbolic to the rest of Hell and Heaven." Sera smiled a little. "And it may help cement the relationship in your mind."

"Oooooooooooooh!" Charlie bounced in the water, sending little waves across the surface of the hot tub. "That's a wonderful idea!"

Vaggie smiled, warming to it. "I... really like that. Yes!" She paused, then asked Sera, "But... um, who would officiate? I mean, the only people who come to mind are you and Lucifer. But I imagine dad will want to give away Charlie and you will want to give away Emily."

"There are many union ceremonies where that is not required," Sera told her. "But if you prefer, I am sure Saint Peter could perform that role." After a pause, she offered, "Or one of the Sins?"

Charlie began to laugh. At Vaggie's questioning look, she blurted, "Could you imagine getting married by Asmodeus? Or Beelzebub?"

"I have never met either of them," Vaggie reminded her. "So no. How about Belphegor?" Her eye widened. "Oh! How about Stolas?"

Charlie stopped laughing and gave those options serious consideration. "I... like those. I mean, if either would be up for it. Oooooh, I can't wait to ask Emily."

Vaggie and Charlie began to discuss hypothetical details while Niffty threw herself into the hot tub again, face first.

After a few minutes, Sera interjected, "I never did answer your question the other day, Vaggie."

Vaggie looked over at her. "Which one?" It took her a moment, then it clicked. "Ooooh, yeah. So... is there a way?"

Sera smiled. "Of course. Through love."

Charlie smiled at that answer. Then blinked, looking at Vaggie. "What question?"

Vaggie smiled almost wickedly.

Sera explained, "A lot of what you three experience in those situations is being magnified by the love you share. If both of you focus on your mutual love for Emily, I believe that will give you the result you desire."

"What's she talking about?" Charlie asked in a voice that told Vaggie she already knew.

Somewhere in the background, Vaggie heard the sound of voices. Laughter. The others had returned home.

Vaggie smiled and stroked Charlie's face tenderly. "I'll tell you later."

Sera smiled, watching that. She looked away for a moment, then back at her little sister's wives. "There is another question I have not answered," she admitted.

Sera turned her focus to Charlie. "I need you to know I never came between your parents."

Charlie turned, looking at Sera with confusion and a little shock. "What?"

"My relationship with your father was over before Lilith was created," Sera promised. "And my time with your mother was after your parents had separated."

Wait. What?!

Vaggie felt like a massive rug had been pulled out from under her. She could only imagine what Charlie was feeling.

Charlie's expression collapsed. "What? You... and my mom?!"

The voices in the background drew closer.

"It was only for a few years," Sera started to explain. "We aren't still..."

Charlie cut her off. "When? After they were separated for how long?"

Sera sighed. "I was with your mother about five years ago. Your parents had already been separated for..."

"Five?" Charlie stared at her in disbelief. "My mother went missing seven and a half years ago!"

Sera was staring, apologetic and stunned. "You didn't know?"

Husk and Angel Dust were the first to enter. Their merriment fell away as they took in the intensity in the room.

"Wait!" Vaggie said. "You know where Charlie's mom is?"

Sera nodded. "She is in Heaven. A secluded part of it. On a vacation. I believe it was arranged by Adam with the Elders Above."

Charlie made a breathless, wounded squeak. "A vacation?"

Niffty had stopped and was staring at her.

Charlie stood up, getting angry. "I-I... For years, I told myself she was just busy on one of the other Rings..."

She glared. "But after Alastor, I've been worried mom was a prisoner or something!" Her demonic aspect flared. Charlie's hair lost its binding, roiling in the inferno around her. Her horns grew and her eyes became red with golden irises. "Caged like Victor! I've been thinking I needed to rescue her!"

What? Vaggie's mind reeled. Is that what Alastor said to her?

Vaggie put a hand on her shoulder. "Charlie..." Out of the corner of her eye, she glimpsed the light of Emily's halo reflecting on the water.

"All the times I've called. All the times I've needed her." Charlie's fists clenched. "That Hell has needed her. All those Exterminations..."

Oh fuck! Oh fuck! Oh FUCK! Vaggie's heart wailed for Charlie. She did not pull her hand back, even though the heat was becoming painful.

"Mom. Has. Been. IN HEAVEN. THIS. ENTIRE. TIME!?"

Charlie found herself engulfed in wings, embraced by her two wives. It was not enough to calm her. But they held her as she shook, keeping her from losing it altogether.

Husk walked into the hot tub. Crymini followed. Angel Dust and Cherri Bomb were not far behind.

One by one, the other members of Charlie's found family joined in, surrounding her with love.

Day Zero - Hazbin Hotel parlor, late night:

The fun plans for the night were forgotten.

"I am truly sorry, Charlie," Sera said, almost pleading, as everyone followed Charlie back to the parlor. "I assumed your father told you that your mother was in Heaven."

Charlie stopped, turning to glare at her. At Charlie's dark expression, Sera amended, "By which I mean I assumed your father knew."

Charlie growled. "I'm calling dad right now!"

Charlie reached for her phone only to remember she was wearing her swimsuit. Her phone was back in her room.

Emily realized that too. "I got it!" she cried out, swiftly summoning a light orb into her hand. "Call Dad."

The light orb shimmered and split, spawning a twin in an act of Divine mitosis. The second orb rushed off to find Lucifer while the original remained in Emily's open hand.

Charlie stood close, eyes fixed on the orb in Emily's hand. She felt Vaggie beside her.

It did not take Lucifer long to answer the call. He was alone in bed, a sleep mask with ducks on it pulled up away from his eyes, mussing his hair. He looked surprised to be getting an orb, much less one so late at night.

"Huh? Emily?..." Lucifer wiped sleep from his eyes. They widened as he took in what he was seeing. "Well, that's an outfit."

Emily was still wearing her practically painted-on, holographic chrome bunny suit from her night out dancing.

"Dad," Charlie said, catching his attention.

Whatever he saw in Charlie's expression killed his normal levity. "Charlie! What's wrong?!"

"Mom's in Heaven."

Lucifer blinked. Then looked aside. "Oh. Yes, well that would make sense."

Charlie stared at him. Her voice was soft and dangerous. "what?"

Lucifer replied, "Well, there's really only so many places she could have disappeared to. And she did have that Deal with Adam."

"WHAT?!"

Lucifer looked past Charlie to Sera. "Thank you so much for telling me," he said, his words laced with sarcasm. "Seclusion, I take it?"

Charlie heard the fallen High Seraphim answer from behind her. "Yes. I am sorry. I thought she would have told you."

"DAD!"

Lucifer sighed. "Charlie, I'm coming over. We should talk."

Day Zero - Hazbin Hotel parlor, approaching midnight:

Sitting in a chair opposite his daughter, Lucifer asked, "Charlie, are you sure you don't want to have this talk somewhere more private?"

Charlie looked around at the people who were embracing her less than an hour ago as she nearly lost it. No, these were her family. And they'd earned their place here in this room.

Less so Sera, but Charlie had a feeling that it would be good to have her here.

A troubled voice from the hallway cut through Charlie's thoughts. "Lucifer."

Okay, much less so Lute. Charlie immediately wanted to send her away. But that would be counterproductive to making Lute feel included. So maybe this should just be her and her dad?

Lucifer stared then turned to Charlie. "She is staying at the hotel?"

Or not. "Yes, dad. This is a place of rehabilitation. It's open to everyone who wants to be a better person. Not just sinners."

"Charlie, I get that. But..." He looked over at Lute again and his eyes widened. "And she's got a chain."

Lucifer's gaze traveled the chain to Husk. "You again. Are you collecting?"

"Hey, I'm just trying to help!" Husk insisted. "Your daughter's the one with the angel harem."

"Husk!" Vaggie snapped.

"That's true," Emily admitted.

"Dad!" Charlie growled, pulling the conversation back to what her father was supposed to be here to tell her about. "Mom?"

Lucifer sighed. "Okay, Charlie... There are things about your mother and I that you don't know. Because we never told you."

Charlie sat, waiting impatiently as her dad took a few more deep breaths. She felt Vaggie kneel on the floor next to her chair, taking her hand in support. Emily stood behind the chair, wrapping her arms about Charlie. Her wives were making sure she knew she was not alone. Part of her wanted to be for this, but she knew better. She was so thankful for them both.

Lucifer began. "Charlie, when you were born, your mother and I held a celebration. We presented you to the Sins, the Ars Goetia and the other powers in Hell." He smiled softly. "It was, as Stolas put it, very Lion King."

"I don't know what that means," Charlie stated.

"It... doesn't matter," Lucifer told her. "At the celebration, several guests decided to give us gifts. Some for us, most for you..."

Charlie bit back a frown, internally pleading that the Emperor of All Ducks was actually going somewhere in the direction of truth about her mom.

If her dad sensed her growing frustration, he didn't show it. "We also received gifts from two who were not in attendance. Or invited at all. A gift from Above and from Below. Two very special Keys."

"Ostensibly to be given to you at the right time." Lucifer frowned. "But neither Lilith nor I were willing to give anything to our precious child from either of those sources without knowing what it was first."

Charlie's fists clenched tight, then released. "Dad, I..." she started to complain when what he was saying cut through her frustration. "...Wait. Wait... you said... you said you'd tried this all before."

Lucifer nodded. "I took the Key from Above and created the first Hotel with it. I tried. But..."

"But I wouldn't listen," Sera admitted mournfully.

"Sera!" Emily whined.

"I'm sorry!" Sera pleaded, "I was wrong!"

Lucifer looked away. "It wasn't just you. None of the Elders Above listened either."

"Then why even give you the Key?" Husk interjected.

Lucifer looked up. "They didn't. The Throne gave me the Key."

"Wait, like... God?" Angel Dust asked. "For real?"

"I... think he means the actual Throne," Emily offered hesitantly.

Lucifer turned his gaze down at his hands, fidgeting in his lap. "And, to be fair, I didn't actually believe human souls were worth redeeming."

Charlie disliked hearing that. Still, she felt herself calming. This wasn't answering any of her questions, but it was successfully distracting her from them. And it was answering questions she never thought to ask.

"Maybe the hotel was meant to work for Charlie," Crymini told Lucifer. "Not you."

Charlie saw her dad look over at the unfamiliar puppy demon. His expression froze, an unspoken retort dying on his lips. Charlie looked over and saw Keekee was sitting in Crymini's lap, staring back at her father without judgment as the puppy demon petted her.

"If Keekee was one key... what about the other?" Vaggie asked.

"The other was from the Other, right" Angel Dust asked, still feeling out the idea of the Other.

Lucifer nodded. "Yes. We don't know by Who... or perhaps What... exactly. But Frederick said it would have been from as close to an opposite to the Throne as exists." He looked to Charlie. "I told your mother never to use it. I... we... mostly I... called it the key to Pandora's Box."

"Ironic," Husk commented. "Since it would seem Keekee is the key to hope."

Lucifer winced. "I believed it must hold all manner of horrors. After the hotel failed, your mother used it anyway. And I was wrong." He let out a breath. "It held a pegasus."

Charlie blinked.

Emily let out and enamored "D'awwwwww!"

"I could have had a pony!?" Charlie said, temporarily forgetting everything else.

Lucifer stammered. "Well, it wasn't a pony. It was a pegasus."

"Oh yeah, that was definitely for Charlie," Vaggie teased. Then her brow furrowed. "Wait, how would the Other know Charlie would grow up to like wings?"

"what?" Lucifer asked flatly.

"You're all idiots," Lute grumbled.

Lucifer seemed to shift gears, not wanting to talk about that anymore. "Anyway, my efforts with the original hotel were a complete failure. Culminating in a meeting with Heaven where Adam introduced the plans for the Exterminations."

Charlie felt a surge of anger. She sat up straight, gazing at her father.

Lucifer looked troubled. Apologetic. "Charlie, I know you've blamed me for the Exterminations for a long time. I've let you. The truth was, I didn't stand up for sinners. After trying and failing, I just didn't have any more faith in them. But... I didn't just give them away to slaughter."

Charlie's anger went cold. "No."

"All I did in that meeting was ensure that you would be safe. That Hellborn demons would be safe."

Sera was scowling. "Are you telling me Adam lied about the agreement!?" She stood up, hitting her head on the chandelier. The light shifted and danced in the room as it swayed.

Charlie looked away from Sera and to her dad. "Tell me that's what you are saying." But it wasn't.

"Lilith agreed to the Exterminations," Lucifer told her heavily. "In return for a Favor."

"No FUCKING way!"

The anger in Lute's voice cut through the volcanic emotions trying to erupt from Charlie.

"That's what the Deal was?" Lute fumed.

"A Favor Deal," Sera seethed. "No wonder I never saw it."

"I thought Adam offered a deal to that bitch, not made a Deal with her," Lute shouted, her wings flapping. "No wonder she just fucking laughed at me! We never had a leash on her; she had a leash on him!"

Sera sat down. "Which she used to get into Heaven."

Charlie fought to process this. Part of her wanted to scream. No, a LOT of her wanted to scream a great many things. Part of her wanted to grab Emily, make her open a portal to Heaven, and march in to give her mother a piece of her mind. Part of her wanted to break down crying. Part of her wanted to run upstairs and destroy that fucking whiteboard! What was even the point of all of that?

But as she heard the fallen angels ranting, a more stable part of her mind told her no.

In her mind, she was already filling in the box beneath Mom with Heaven/Adam. Or maybe, more accurately, Heaven/herself.

Charlie felt Emily shift, the seraphim's hands moving to Charlie's shoulders.

"You knew where Charlie's mom was?" Emily asked Lute pointedly.

Lute's fury withered at the High Seraphim's look. "Y-yes. Adam... took me on a... date... there once."

Vaggie surprised Charlie by asking, "Did he do that with anyone still in Heaven?"

Lute glared at her.

Vaggie rolled her eye. "Oh come on. It's not like Adam was faithful to you."

Lute spat back, "I didn't expect him to be! I wasn't going to tie him down like that!"

Angel Dust coughed. "Wow, you had a great relationship there."

"What's wrong with that?" Cherri Bomb challenged her spider friend. "You think I'm abstaining down here because Penty is in Heaven?" The cyclopean bombshell laughed. "You think he's not fucking your sister?"

"What!?" Angel Dust nearly fell out of his chair.

Emily stepped in. "Sera told me her secret succubus lover was unaccounted for. So no, Adam didn't."

Lucifer's expression crumbled.

Charlie pulled herself together enough to ask, "What's that mean?"

Sera provided her answer. "Lilith is in a secluded part of Heaven. Someplace other angels won't stumble across her. Because the only beings who can go to a secluded part of Heaven are those who have already been there."

"With Adam dead, and both Lute and I fallen, nobody can go to where Lilith is except Lilith herself."

"I know mom is in Heaven and I can't even visit her!?" Charlie jumped out of her chair, her demonic aspect surging.

Lucifer stood up, reaching out for her. "Charlie, calm down."

"NO!"

Lucifer took a step back. The heat in the room began to rise.

"Charlie?" Husk asked cautiously, looking to Sera for advice.

Lute's voice again cut through the air. "She fucking played us, Sera."

Sera turned to Lute. "Lute, please, calm down. This is about Charlie and her mother."

Lute roared in exasperation. "Am I seriously the only one here, after everything, who has a fucking clue what he just told us?" She thrust her demonic arm towards Lucifer, her own demonic aspect flaring.

Husk stepped forward. "Guys... Charlie... I think we need to listen to Lute."

Charlie turned, shaking. Vaggie moved to embrace her, but Charlie held up a hand. "No." She turned to Lute. "What?"

Lute's eyes and fist clenched shut as her aspect faded. Her wings flapped in anger. "Do you know what Lilith did the very first time Adam took me along to one of the meetings?" She looked to Lucifer. "It was the only one she showed up for. Do you remember?"

Lucifer stared at her. Charlie turned her stare on him. She could see him start to say no. Then his face took that expression that Emily's did when she was accessing her perfect seraphim memories. Charlie watched Lucifer's expression grow severe.

"Lilith tore into Adam," Lute said. "Berated him - practically emasculated him - because one of the Exorcists had left behind a throwing spear. Told Adam it was bad enough that he was massacring demon souls without leaving 'cute calling cards' to remind them of his power and atrocities."

Lute scowled. "Adam's response to that was to make it effectively policy to start leaving weapons behind just to fuck with your heads."

Everyone stared at Lute.

Lute stared back in exasperation. "You still don't get it, do you?"

"Oh I get it," Angel Dust said.

"Fuuuuuuck!" whispered Cherri Bomb.

Sera turned her face towards Heaven. "Lilith played him..." Her face fell. "When we were together, she had already set all of this in motion."

"When you were what now?" Lucifer asked flatly. The voice of denial.

Lute shook her head. She looked at Husk. "Tell me you get it."

Charlie stared between the two. The fallen angel and her keeper.

Everything Lute just said made for a horrible revelation. But it was one everybody seemed to grasp. And yet, it didn't seem to be what she was driving at. It made sense that Lute would need Husk to understand whatever wavelength she was on.

Husk frowned. His brow furrowed with thought. Charlie could see that Husk believed Lute was seeing more than the world-shattering possibility that her mother had set up the Exterminations and the deaths of countless millions of souls to give Hell angelic weapons.

Like there could be anything worse than that.

Everyone else's voice had dropped away. They too were staring at Husk and Lute.

"Oh," Husk said, finally.

Husk turned to Lucifer. "It was white, wasn't it?"

Lute looked flush with relief and vindication.

"What?" Lucifer asked, sounding as confused as Charlie felt.

"The Horse that Lilith accepted from the Other just before the Exterminations started," Husk asked. "Was it white?"

Lucifer stared a moment. "Yes. That... that would be correct."

Day Zero - Belphegor's Estate, Sloth, sixteen minutes before midnight:

Belphegor was waiting for her at the dining room table. The Deadly Sin gazed into her face and clearly read that the night had gone poorly.

Sera took the closest seat, opposite Belphegor, and did not bother to hide her weariness. "I may sleep for a month."

Belphegor smiled lazily at that. The woman slid her hand across the table, reaching out invitingly. Sera took the measure. The Sin's hand was not quite halfway between them. The message was clear: I am open, but you have to make the extra effort.

Sera was not so exhausted that she couldn't. She leaned forward, taking Belphegor's hand, twining the woman's fingers with her own.

The events of the night had been rough, leaving her emotionally drained. But there was one memory within it that held a spark of joy. "Belphegor, how would you feel about officiating a wedding?"

"We are hardly there yet," the Deadly Sin said leisurely.

Sera chuckled slightly, certain the woman across from her was teasing.

The flare of golden light across the table told her a golden portal had opened behind her. Unless Husk had learned how to do that already, it was either her little sister or the King of Hell.

"Huh. Uh... Sera, can we talk?" Lucifer asked.

"Yes," Sera stated, the slim levity she had felt a moment ago evaporating.

She practically heard the quack as he prompted, "Privately?"

"No." She had taken all the effort to sit down. It wouldn't be wasted. She opened eyes in the back of her hair so she could see the man.

Lucifer tapped his fingers together and rocked on his heels. "Soooooo, you and my wife?" He was trying to act casual, but Sera could see pain in his eyes. And hope. Hope that she would give him some explanation that told him that he was misunderstanding what he had heard.

Because secret succubus lover was vague. For Heaven's sake, Emily.

"It was after you split up," Sera promised. She added firmly, "Lilith was not, and would never have been, with another before you two were finished."

She did not mean that to sound hurtful. She winced as he looked down at his wedding ring. He was still wearing it. Still, Sera knew Lucifer must be questioning a lot of things, and she did not want him questioning that. Both his heart and Lilith deserved better.

"Oh. Well... it's nice that she moved on. I hope you make each other happy." His gaze lifted enough to catch Belphegor's eyes. "The, uh, three of you? I guess? ...Wow, the apple really didn't fall far."

Sera groaned internally and gave Belphegor an apologetic look. "Lilith and I are not together anymore, Lucifer. It was... a relationship of convenience. We both needed someone, and had no one else."

"Oh. Well, that makes sense. I mean, you hardly knew each other, so..."

Oh for Heaven's sake. "Lilith and I have known each other since I created her, Lucifer." She could say more, but it was best to leave it at that.

Lucifer nodded, casually strolling in place. "Right, right. I forgot. Being as I wasn't part of Creation at that point. Being sidelined and all." Cocking his head and rolling his eyes, he suggested, "So, she was kinda like a daughter to you, right?"

Sera's eyes narrowed. Oh he did not just try to go there. "No more than you and I are siblings," she told him, shutting that down hard.

She understood. He felt blindsided. Betrayed. Especially after the aid he had given her in the last two weeks.

"I'm sorry, Lucifer," Sera offered. It wasn't much of an olive branch, given what she knew he was feeling. But she had little else.

Lucifer frowned. Stared at her. Stared at his ring. Paced. Finally stopped, looking into a corner, at a potted plant. "Can you get a message to her?"

"I'm not welcome up there any more than you are. Even if I could get up there, you know how sequestered areas of Heaven work." Sera sighed. "Besides, what would you even say?"

"I'd tell her that Charlie is getting married," Lucifer responded simply.

That felt like an angelic icepick to her heart. "Oh. Of course." She frowned and thought. As she did so, she saw Lucifer grasp his ring, spinning it on his finger.

"Maybe. I still have a couple friends in Heaven." Even after the Exterminations went public. "I could ask Emily to pass a message from me to the Head of the Golden Library and Recorder of the Court. Maybe he can get the message to Lilith somehow."

He had never been to that sequestered beach. But he had records of angels who had. It was a long shot...

"The who?"

Oh. Yes, after Lucifer's time. "Pravuil."

Lucifer blinked. "Pravuil." He reached up and made spinny motions around his head. "Pravuil." He took a moment to process that. Once he had, Lucifer couldn't refrain from asking, "You didn't sleep with him, did you?"

"No!" Sera growled. She was too tired to get angry, but he was pushing. "Go home, Lucifer. I will do what I can." But I can't make any promises.

"Yeah. That was me being an ass." Lucifer struggled with his hands. The ring resisted, but he managed to get it off his finger. He turned to go.

Sera watched as Lucifer held out his hand and dropped the wedding ring into Belphegor's nearby potted plant as he walked out of the room.

A moment later, Lucifer summoned a golden portal and stepped through it.

Sera hated every part of that. She'd crushed that man three times now.

"We are convenient," Belphegor assessed. She had not pulled back her hand through the entire conversation, and still didn't. But the grasp was very relaxed. As if inviting her to do so.

Sera closed her extra eyes. "Yes," she agreed. But instead of pulling away, she gave a slight squeeze. "But maybe more one day."

Belphegor considered that. And nodded, giving a slight squeeze in return. "You should know I am a pillow princess."

"I don't know what that means."

Day Zero - Charlie's, Vaggie's and Emily's bedroom, ten minutes before midnight:

Charlie sat on her bed, feeling numb.

Conquest. Her mother was fucking Conquest.

Charlie's eyes strayed towards her dresser and the whiteboard hidden behind it. Some fuckers were playing a game with all of them. Lilith had taken the Horse meant for her. And whatever chains came with it. Bearing that in silence throughout her childhood. How much did the poison of this factor into her parent's breakup?

Eventually, her mother had cut herself off from both her and her dad.

And finally, a little over seven and a half years ago, as other people in Hell touched by the Other began disappearing, Lilith had sequestered herself someplace the Other couldn't get at her.

Charlie wanted to be angry. To be fucking enraged. But her body and mind refused. The events of the night had left her emotionally exhausted beyond the capacity to feel.

Vaggie and Emily were showering. Cleaning the chlorine water off their bodies.

Charlie herself didn't have the energy or desire to. She didn't have the energy to get up and get properly into bed. Instead, she just collapsed back. Then pulled her legs up so they weren't dangling over the side.

The White Horse was meant for me.

Her mother had taken the power the Other gave her in her fall and used it not merely to thrive but refashion Hell into her own image on a metaphysical level, building it on the power of her voice and her songs.

It made sense to offer Lilith the Horse of Conquest. It made no sense at all to offer it to her baby girl who hadn't done anything yet.

What the fuck, Other?

Not that it was actually the Other, but some force deep within it. Deep within the place evil had come from. Some Power Below who was making Horsemen and fucking with her life. With her family.

What the fuck, mom!?

The Exterminations started just a few years after she was born. She didn't remember a time in her life where they weren't a constant, looming threat to the souls of Hell. And her mother had, at best, played games with it. Manipulating Adam into leaving angelic steel in his wake a lifetime before anybody knew it could be used by demons to hurt an angel.

Charlie didn't just feel numb. She felt sick. Her eyes burned, but she was out of tears. She closed her eyes and tried to fall asleep, wishing she had never learned any of this.

She heard the shower stop. And some time later she felt the mattress take the weight of those she loved most. Their hands took her gently and guided her between them.

Day Zero - Lute's bedroom, two minutes before midnight:

Lute stared through the open bathroom door. The woman she saw in the mirror was completely unfamiliar to her now. Everything she'd believed, except for one thing, had been a lie. She had been wrong. She had been evil. She had been vile.

She had murdered people. Thousands of people. She had betrayed and maimed a woman who somehow, despite being a mass-murdering Exorcist herself, had found enough good in her heart to open the door for her fallen abuser.

And it had all been a fucking game. Some sick fucking bullshit by forces she never worshipped, the Throne (which was not God) and the Anti-Throne, treating her and everybody else like they didn't deserve free will or dignity.

"Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free."

Lute's eyes narrowed. And the woman in the mirror became someone no longer completely alien. Hate was something she knew, and knew well. Her broken mind and shattered heart welcomed their old friend.

Not that she had any lack of self-loathing in the last week. But this was focused wonderfully outward.

She turned away from the mirror and to her bed.

It was a bed. Rather nice, considering Hell. This place was in no way an actual hotel, but it sure dressed up as one. Bed. Nightstand with lamp, alarm clock and push-button phone. All of which would have been called old-fashioned decades ago. All that was missing was chocolates on the pillows and a Bible in the dresser drawer.

Their absence almost surprised her. The latter given the whole redemption angle this place was built on. Although right now, she felt it was for the better. She didn't want to deal with Vaggie's look if she set off the fire alarms trying to burn it.

The former? Given the proprietor apparently carried lollipops around in her pockets, the lack of little chocolates on the pillow actually felt out of character.

Then again, it wasn't as if Charlie had ever been human. What would she know about actual hotels?

Lute walked over to the bed and stood over it. She reached down and picked up the receiver off the phone. Lute remembered every phone number she had ever learned, and this one was recent. She wasn't a seraphim, but her angelic memory wasn't shit. Not even after days of physical and mental torture.

And, let's not forget, death.

Lute dialed the number, held the receiver to her ear as she sat on the bed.

One ring. Lute was certain the person she was calling already had the phone in her hand and was deciding whether to answer a call to her private number from the Hazbin Hotel.

The second ring was cut in half. "Who the fuck is this?"

"Velvette, it's Lute. I want to talk."

A moment of silence. "Where's your video?"

"I don't have one." Lute lacked a second hand to flip the bird at the phone on the dresser. "The thing in this room is barely a step up from a rotary."

There was another moment of silence. "So it's true. You've joined the Cult of Charlie and taken up at that hotel?"

"Something like that," Lute said.

A laugh. "Thought you were on our side. Last we talked, you were sending assassins against it."

Just the one. And Lute didn't believe Velvette ever thought that. "Last we talked, you weren't supporting fucking Pestilence to make a super-plague he worked up with me as his petri dish."

The beast inside Lute roared that she should be absolutely murderous over that. But her hate had a different target.

"Well, fuck. You got me there. So what's this call really about?"

Lute told her.