Charlie's Angels - Pieces

by Kkat FoE

Preparations are underway for the wedding of Charlie, Vaggie and Emily! But Alastor has clued Charlie onto a great mystery that has ensnared both the Radio Demon and her own mother. As Charlie investigates, a threat to everyone in Hell and Heaven alike begins to take form. One with personal ties to herself and others in the Hazbin Hotel.

10. Valley of the Shadow of Death

Chapter Nine

Valley of the Shadow of Death

(Day 37 - Part One)

Week Six, Day Two - ?, The Witching Hour :

Baxter sat on the tarp-covered crates and watched as a rectangle of warm light appeared in the darkness, only to be blocked by the figure of a human male in the prime of his later years. He watched himself step out onto the forward deck, into the damp, salt-scented air of the night. The door closed behind him. A pointlessly blue metal door.

The man joined the others who were laughably labeled his peers. Accepting a pour of expensive champagne in a dingy and dented metal cup.

The dreaming always started with one of his own. And this familiar one was where he first learned to disassociate from his dreaming self. It was easier to observe when one removed oneself. Better for study. He didn't need to smell the sea. He already knew what the frigid water of the English Channel felt like as it embraced him and pulled him under. What it tasted like when it filled his nose and throat and lungs.

He didn't know the name of the ship. She was registered as Lumiere de la Mer in the last port, but that wasn't her actual name. The registrations had been falsified. A bad mask, like the fresh coat of blue paint over all the doors, concealing whatever numbers or emblems had previously marked them.

Baxter stared at himself among the others. Scientists, academics and inventors. The best that could be gathered in secrecy, a cabal which would serve Her Majesty in the creation of weapons which would turn the tide of the Great War.

Only the Germans had embraced science first and more profoundly. And out in those dark waters lurked the U-boat about to send this lumiere into the deep below.

Baxter did not care to witness it, assuming the dream went that way. Dreams were fluid, ever-changing in response to the most minute thoughts and alterations of the environment.

Baxter untethered.

He did not control where the dreaming swept him, nor when.

Those dreams he found himself in were rarely remembered by the dreamers; just as he knew he didn't always remember dreaming. It was the way of dreams to be ephemeral and chimeric. It was the structure of Creation to be strictly linear and avoid paradox.

Only once did he find himself in a dream where he both recognized the timeframe of the dreaming and could impart information to the dreamer outside Creation's strictures. Such attempts always failed before, the dreamer remembering nothing of his gifts. But alas, seraphim had perfect memories. And so began the experiment, and with it, the potential of a hope. Shattered now, but maybe not lost entirely.

The scenery shifted. Darkness. A single incandescent light overhead. Agony. Even disassociated, he could sense excruciating pain prickling at the fringes of his being, like beetles crawling on his skin, trying to find a good point to burrow inside.

Let's see what's at the core of you.

Victor? He knew that voice.

The next voice he did not know, and desperately did not want to.

Don't interrupt my work, boy, unless you want to spend the next week reliving all your least favorite memories of your mother.

The dream shot into hyper-vivid clarity and everything went very, very wrong.

---

Week Six, Day Two - Hazbin Hotel, The Witching Hour :

Keekee patrolled her passages. Her giant was with her angels. They had mated late into the night, and now they were in their special prayer room.

Keekee was, by nature, curious. She had watched them summon the rain and perform what Keekee had determined was their prayer ritual. Cleansing themselves and thanking God that the rain would stop when they asked it to. It always did.

A remembrance, Keekee suspected, of the days when the rain didn't stop. And all but two cats drowned.

The cleansing ritual made it so most others could not smell them on each other. But Keekee could. Her favorite giant could too.

Keekee paused at the room of the dangerous angel. Her ears twitched, hearing a moan from within that did not sound like mating. The dangerous angel had not mated since she had been with the evil angel who tried to murder Keekee.

I'll fuckin' end you!

Memories of his voice rang in her head. Keekee hesitated, ears dipping back. She remembered the flash of light that tore through her. Her hair rose across her back. But that was long ago, and the moaning sounded like fear more urgent than her own. Keekee waved at the door to the dangerous angel's room and it opened obediently.

Keekee smelled angel blood. The female giant on the bed was bleeding. But Keekee had not scratched the giant; her dangerous angel shouldn't be bleeding!

Keekee leapt onto the bed, moving closer. She danced over the angel's legs as she thrashed in her sleep like she was dreaming of being chased by sharks.

The smell of the dangerous angel was stronger. The smell made Keekee feel like there was bad lightning inside her. But the smell of the blood was stronger still.

Hold still, you slippery fucker!

The medicine her giant gave her made the memories softer, but they became hard and sharp again with the wrong odors.

The fallen angel was suffering. Keekee pushed her fear behind her like a shadow and moved close to the female's face, tasting her breath.

Keekee reached out a paw.

The giant woke up with a terrorizing scream. Keekee jumped, all her hair on end, and fled, willing all the doors to open so none blocked her way until she could get to the place in her that was most safe!

---

Week Six, Day Two - Hazbin Hotel, The Witching Hour :

The sound was like thunder rolling through the Hazbin Hotel as every door slammed open, floor by floor.

Crymini jolted and fell out of bed. She jumped to her feet reflexively, growling, her paw going for the switchblade she kept under her pillow.

The happy throuple jolted up in bed as the door to their bedroom banged open like a gunshot, accompanied by the door to the bathroom and the door of the shower inside. They had started sleeping, wanting to be well rested for their date with Death. Charlie had been middle spoon.

Charlie sat up, covering herself with the bedsheet. "What's going on?" Emily lit up the room with her halo. Vaggie's spear was clutched in her hand, pointing defensively at the open doorway.

Vanexa jolted, looking up from her late-night reading as the door to her room slammed open. "No, Val, I..." She quieted. Valentino was dead. And it was not his ghost who slammed open her door. She got up and walked to the open door and stared out into the darkened hallway.

Alastor was sitting at his radio booth. The ON AIR sign was dark. There was no broadcast right now save for the screams of his victims. Former Overlords, most importantly. But enough other voices had joined the channel that they had become a minority.

It had been the first task that Baron Samedi had set him upon. Culling the Overlords whose power was growing enough to... what, exactly? What had made them a concern to the likes of Death? That and other questions plagued his thoughts as he mentally prepared for the confrontation he was forcing.

Thoughts which were swept aside by the invasion of his radio tower. He spun in his chair as both the hatch into his radio station and the door into the Hazbin Hotel below swung open violently and a blur of black arrowed towards him.

Outside, the front gate slammed open hard enough to scare away the Hellrats fucking in the driveway. They fled into the nearest garbage pile.

In Baxter's room, the heavy switch threw itself. Rippling energy flooded the freestanding doorway. Within it, the barnacle-encrusted, blue-painted door appeared and clanged open.

---

Week Six, Day Two - Hazbin Hotel, The Witching Hour :

Lute groaned, laying in the sticky discomfort of her own blood. It was very early, but she had no intention of sleeping again. She prayed she could put it off for more than a day.

The panic had evaporated almost immediately upon awakening. The images from her night terrors shredded but did not fade. Sometimes, having the memory of an angel was a torture all its own. Hell had a way of turning yourself against you. No wonder so many demons drowned themselves in vices.

It's Heaven. We don't have hard days, bitch.

She had smirked at that, smug in her self-righteous absence of empathy. God, she had been a monster. She deserved this.

Frederick had been at the wedding. Lute suspected seeing him, even over the television, might have contributed to this last round of night terrors being so ugly. And strange. Tonight had been the first time Baxter had made a guest appearance in her nightmare conga line of trauma.

Lute sat up abruptly as Vaggie landed in the open doorway of her bedroom. "Lute are you...?"

Vaggie stopped, staring. "What the fuck happened?" She was in her nightgown, spear in hand.

"Nothing," Lute answered. "Why are you in my room?"

"I'm checking on everyone. Something freaked Keekee out, and she opened every door in the hotel." Vaggie's brow furrowed. "And don't tell me nothing. You're covered in blood!"

Fuck me. "It's okay. It's mine."

"How does that make it okay?" Vaggie questioned sternly, silhouetted briefly by flashing light from the opposite room. "How did you get hurt?"

"I didn't." Lute pulled herself out of bed. "It's just sweat. My eternal punishment comes with night terrors." Go on. Tell me how much I earned them. Or worse, lie that I didn't.

"That make you sweat blood!?" Vaggie looked appalled. "Why didn't you tell us?"

"Why?" Lute questioned. "I deserve it." She started pulling gold-stained sheets from her bed, regretting that she had once again added this to Niffty's workload. "And you don't care."

Vaggie glared at that. "Well maybe you wouldn't be such a massive cunt all the time if you were getting proper sleep!"

Vaggie's eye went wide like she'd been slapped by her own words. The former Exorcist put away her spear. "Whoa. I'm sorry. That was uncalled for."

Lute stared at her. "Clearly you're too weak to be married to a seraphim. All the orgasms have damaged your memory. I have absolutely called for that."

Another bright flash lit up Vaggie from behind, casting her shadow over Lute.

"Doesn't mean I should have said it," Vaggie replied lamely. "I'm stressed out this morning. Got an appointment to meet Death. But there's no excuse to take it out on you."

Vaggie is going to face Death? Lute's eyes widened. Then narrowed.

Under Lute's stare, Vaggie groaned and admitted, "Fine. You've given me lots of excuses. But I'm trying to be a better person. And that includes not acting on those."

Lute tossed the bundle of bloodied sheets to the floor, not commenting. They were both trying. Vaggie was just doing a lot better at it. Came with being a better person to begin with.

Another flash. Lute looked towards the door in time for two more in rapid succession. Coming from Baxter's room. "Maybe you should be checking on that."

Vaggie turned, moving to see into Baxter's room. The portal to his laboratory stood open. "Yeah," she agreed. She walked out of Lute's room, crossing the hallway. She stopped at the threshold of Baxter's room, turning to look back at her.. "What you're going through isn't something to ignore. You need help."

Lute didn't want help. She particularly didn't want any more of Vaggie's help. The woman she had mutilated had already helped her so much it was painful.

"We're going to talk to Charlie about this first. But after?" Vaggie sighed. "Look, we both know the Kirkbride has someone who specializes in helping Exorcists through trauma. Sera would know who. It's about time we set you up with some counseling."

"Because it's done such wonders for you, Miss Serenity."

"I just started!" Vaggie protested. "Therapy doesn't help overnight!" Shaking her head, she turned away from Lute and walked into Baxter's room. She hesitated at the portal, clearly not wanting to go inside. Then took the plunge.

Lute looked towards the bathroom with its waiting shower. Fuck me.

She followed after Vaggie.

---

Week Six, Day Two - Baxter's Laboratory, The Witching Hour :

Baxter flopped and thrashed on his bed, coughing and spurting up seawater. Vaggie rushed to the little man, watching him drown in his sleep.

He's a fish! How is he drowning?

Vaggie grabbed him, trying to shake him awake. Tried slapping him. He spurted salt water across her chest, convulsing. She felt stupid. If drowning wasn't waking him up, how was anything she was doing helping?

Vaggie stepped back, trying to think rationally. Is this what panicked Keekee? That was ten, fifteen minutes ago! Who drowns for fifteen minutes?

"It's like he's being waterboarded," Lute's voice spoke behind her.

Vaggie turned, looking at Lute. Then at the open door. A feeling of dread washed through her. "Quick! Close the door!"

Lute didn't hesitate, moving to the door and pulling it closed with a loud clang. Sealing them in the Deep Other.

Baxter woke with a wretched gasp. He flopped over, coughing up more seawater. Shaking violently.

Lute walked back towards her as Vaggie watched, unsure what to do.

Baxter turned towards them angrily. "WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU BROADS DOING!?"

"Saving you," Vaggie said, squatting next to him. I think.

"Which of you opened the fucking door?!" Baxter rasped. "I was dreaming! I could have been lost in the void forever!"

"Keekee," Lute answered calmly. "You bolted the door to your laboratory to the floor. It's part of the hotel now."

Baxter glared balefully. "The fucking cat nearly killed me?!"

Vaggie offered to help him up, but he knocked away her hand, insistent on helping himself.

"What do you mean, you were dreaming?" Vaggie asked sternly. Baxter seemed to respond better to that than to kindness. "What kind of dream was that?"

Baxter pulled himself up and wrung some of the water from his nightshirt. Then fished his glasses from the top of the barnacle-covered chest nearby.

"I suppose I do owe you an explanation. You saved my life."

Baxter looked over his bed. It was soaked with seawater. He sat on it, making a little splash.

"When I'm in the Deep, I can connect to the dreams of others," he told them. "It is a little gift from the Powers Below. They do that sometimes, empower random souls who fall into Hell. Just, I suspect, to see what happens."

Oh that sounds familiar.

"Who is random, as is when. But results tend to cluster," Baxter explained. "I have been the nightlight for a lot of sleeping children."

Vaggie didn't stand up, remaining at his eye level. "You're not the first person we've known with dream-related special talents."

Izzi.

Baxter nodded. "I am not surprised. A lot of the powers from the Other are very similar."

Vaggie's brow knitted. "That seems like a lack of creativity."

Baxter shook his head. "Just the opposite." He readjusted his glasses. "The Other is trying to duplicate its successes, but never manages to do the same thing twice."

"The Other doesn't do structured reality any better than it does linear cause and effect. But dreams? Dreams are quintessential to the Other. And the dreaming of souls is where it is strongest within the realms. The entities of the Other find their greatest footholds in beliefs that don't have a reality already." As an afterthought, he added, "Although they are fully capable of using an incongruous reality if the belief is divergent enough."

"But then, you know this," Baxter said, looking more at Lute than her. "You've met Victor; the Horsemen are grand concepts given form and vessels."

Lute flinched. Then scowled. "Wait... were we responsible for Izzi's dream powers?"

Baxter shook his head again, his lure bobbing. "Izzi was messing around with dream magic well before you stuck him in Nowhere. You're not responsible for the powers he had. You just made him worse."

Frank scurried over in his little eggie pajamas. He yawned, stretching. "Did you know the real Horsemen of the Apocalypse are actually a jazz band of four pony-headed Welsh sinner demons? Victor wanted to join, but they already had someone who could play the kazoo."

"Absolutely none of that is accurate," Baxter said flatly.

---

Week Six, Day Two - Crymini's Bedroom, early morning:

Crymini shut off the cool water, shivering a little, her fur plastered to her skin. The forever-teen puppy demon leaned against the wall of the shower for a moment. Then sniffed. The perfume in the shampoo was cloying to her, but it covered up everything else.

Crymini stepped out of the shower to see Keekee staring up at her. The cat backed away, eyeing her with pity.

"Yeah, I know," Crymini grumped. "Sorry. I'll be showering more often."

She knew Keekee wasn't judging. She understood. But that didn't make it any less stupid or humiliating.

Keekee followed her back into her bedroom. She hid beneath the bed when Crymini dropped and shook to get rid of some of the wet before toweling. The cyclopean cat gave her a cautious look as she came back out. Crymini rewarded Keekee's tolerance with petting, including a little scritch at just above her tail.

As far as she could tell, she was the only one in the hotel who knew Keekee really liked that.

Keekee arched and purred.

Once she was dry enough, she threw on a half-top and skirt, both refugees from Cherri Bomb's former closet. She needed to belt the skirt. Her big sis had hips from Envy. Still does as an angel. Once dressed, she made her way to the den of booze and coffee.

Husk was staring at a fancy box when she approached. He quickly scooped it up and hid it beneath the bar, but not so fast that she didn't catch the classy stenciling across the top: The Bondage Club.

"Coffee or screwdriver?"

Crymini took a stool. "Screwdriver." As much as she could use the caffeine, she didn't need the warmth. "Extra juice." As much as she wanted to drink herself into oblivion, she didn't trust herself under the influence. This sucked so hard.

Husk nodded, checking at his phone with the rote of someone who had been doing so every few minutes, then paused. "New shampoo?"

"Fuck you, gramps." She stared at the recently vacated bar surface. "What was the box?"

"Well, aren't we charming today," Husk rumbled as he mixed the drink. He set it before her. "It was a wedding gift for the throuple. From Angel Dust. But they're suddenly in bad taste. And he's not here to give it anyway."

Crymini's ears twitched. She was not so wrapped up in her own dank to miss that tone. "They'll be okay. Any moment now, you'll get a call. Or they'll come through the doors, safe and sound. It's the spider twins. They can handle themselves."

Husk just grumbled. Then changed the topic. "What happened to you yesterday? We were worried when you missed the wedding after saving it from the grenade demon."

"His name was Mills," Crymini barked, then calmed her tits. "Sorry. I'm going to be rough for a bit. It's not you." She drank half of the screwdriver. "There was someone at the wedding who needed an ear more than the mom's needed another bridesmaid."

"The moms would be proud." He took a mug from the counter and started to pour himself some coffee. Crymini's brow furrowed. It had been a month since she'd seen him do that without levitating it. In fact, she hadn't seen him using angel magic all morning.

"A reason why you're not floating that?"

Husk scowled. But not at her. "I'm trying to judge if I want to too much."

Oh. She'd been there. Her journey with angel dust (not the spider) had stretches of that. She nodded, letting him know she understood. There really wasn't anything to say, so she gave her support and commiseration silently.

Husk took the mug of coffee and set it on the counter, staring at the Fuck Mondays on the mug. After a long moment of quiet, he begrudgingly grumbled, "I think Angel's brother was right."

---

Week Six, Day Two - ?, early morning:

Angel dust blinked. His head hurt. His nerves were raw like he had drunk fifty liters of espresso, but he didn't have the caffeine alertness to make up for it. Instead, he felt listless and drained. He had done enough drugs in his life to place the side effects of pretty much anything, and this felt like none of them.

"Anthony! Are you okay! You were out forever!"

Molly's voice cut through the grogginess. He could feel the hard metal chair under his ass and against his back. The metal cuffs digging into his wrists. He'd played this scene before.

"Yeah? Figures. Didn't get enough sleep before the wedding." Right. Big brother hit him with one of Molly's sleep arrows. Didn't want him seeing where they were being taken, apparently. Smart. "How long is forever?"

"I'm not an expert on Hell-time, but I'm pretty sure the wedding was yesterday."

Angel Dust looked around. Dingy room. No furniture other than the chairs he and Molly were bound in. One wall had a window covered in a metal shutter. That wall was cinderblock. Between that and the fluorescent strip lighting, the place sang industrial.

That would narrow the districts if they were in Pentagram City. But this could be Imp City. Or anywhere in the nine circles of Pride.

Molly was naked. He, on the other hand, not only still wore his bridesmaid gown, but his brother had added a corset to it. Angel Dust had a nasty suspicion. It quickly proved to be correct.

"Ugh. Corset must be magic. It's keeping my other arms in," he told Molly. "I was wondering why he destroyed your clothes but gave me more." With a smirk, he added, "Aside from you asking for it."

"This does not count," Molly said crossly.

"Oh, this counts."

His sister huffed, kicking as much as the straps binding her feet to the chair legs let her. "I can't believe Jonathan burned my clothes off to get at my cleavage space!" Her movements made the chair dance about. It wasn't bolted to the floor. "Because he's too short to reach in from the top!"

"You taunted Hell, sis," Angel Dust snickered. "This is on you."

"What kind of brother does that?!" Molly sang out.

"A short one, apparently." He waited a beat. "Done freaking out?" But Molly still had more freak-out in her.

"There were other ways!" Molly shouted, clearly hoping Arackniss was close enough to hear. If there were hidden cameras, she was giving them a show.

"Maybe he was trying to send a message."

Molly quieted, grumbling. "Oh, he sent a message, all right: I've forgotten what a stepladder is!"

"Done?"

"For now. Until I see him."

"Good. Now turn around. I want a look at how Johnny's bound us."

Molly bounced a bit more, shifting her chair until her back was to him.

"Holy fuck, they're MANacles!" Angel Dust couldn't hold in the laughter.

"Pretty sure they're handcuffs, Anthony."

"No, I mean I know this gear! They're S-9 MANacles. I've modeled these fucking things," he announced. "They have a safety. You know, in case your partner is an idiot who loses the keys. Or, y'know, gets himself killed in the middle of playtime."

Don't look at me like that Molly. This is Hell. Coulda happened to anyone. "I can't unlock mine, myself. But scoot over here and I can unlock yours."

Molly hopped her chair over until he could reach it. Pausing to stare at the cameras they were both assuming existed somewhere in the walls. "Enjoying what you see, boys?"

"Keep bouncing like that and I guarantee they are," Angel Dust said as he shifted his own chair to get his hands in position. "I can't imagine Johnny has many fruity guys working this."

"Smart," Molly smirked. "You'd seduce them."

"You know it!" Angel Dust laughed. She was so absolutely not wrong. His fingers found hers. He gave her hands a comforting squeeze, then danced his fingers up to her wrists. The safety was right where he knew it would be.

Less than two minutes later, they were both free and Molly was working to get him out of the corset. Which wasn't going so well. "I think we need magic to get this off." Figured.

The grogginess and lethargy was gone, but there was still something wrong. A full-bodied discomfort that he couldn't put his finger on. It wasn't fading, but he was getting used to it.

"Hey, Molly? You feel weird?"

Molly shook her head. "Weird how?"

"I don't know" Angel Dust said, checking what he had on him. His guns were gone. So was his phone. "Like I'm having a bad reaction to the Heaven drug in your sleep arrows."

"It's not a drug!" Molly stared at him. "It's a blessing!"

Well, that probably explained it.

He wanted to ask Molly if they'd left anything on her, but it was best to assume they were being watched. Even if the likelihood was dropping each minute they were walking around unbound. If Johnny and the imps missed anything Molly had in the Other, he didn't want to alert them to it.

"Now, let's see where we are."

Molly skittered to the wall and up it, crouching on the ceiling. Angel Dust stared up at her. Webs were one thing. But that? "Heaven just gave you all the spider goods, didn't it?"

"I'm sure you'll get them too," Molly said encouragingly as she moved to drop down on anyone who came through the door.

Angel Dust tested the doorknob. Locked from the outside. He wasn't surprised. Unfortunately, he was fresh out of Cryminis. So he moved for the window.

The heavy shutter was a roll-up design, locked in place with sliding bolts, both of which were on the inside. He slammed them back and tossed it upwards.

The green light of Greed's morning slammed into him like a wrecking ball. His pupils contracted as he stared into absolute doom. Angel Dust stepped back, trembling. Stumbled and collapsed to the floor. He scurried backwards from the light.

I'm dead! I'm dead dead dead dead dead! Nothing but a radio scream.

Molly dropped down, scurrying to him, and threw her arms around him protectively.

---

Week Six, Day Two - Hazbin Hotel first floor hallway, early morning:

Vaggie watched Lute trudge back into her room. Her former nemesis tugged at her nightgown, peeling the tacky material from her skin.

"We don't have to hate each other," Vaggie said, stopping in the doorway. "We're on the same side now. All the shit that I hated you for before isn't who you are now." It was an olive branch.

Lute turned to eye her.

Vaggie asked, "And if you're honest with yourself, what do you still hate me for that you haven't learned isn't wrong?"

Lute closed her eyes. "Almost nothing I hated you for is wrong. It's just annoying."

Well, she was being honest. That was a start. "Like what?"

Lute opened her eyes again. "Your vulnerability is annoying. Your weakness is annoying. Your strength is annoying. Your being right before I was is annoying."

On a roll now, Lute wasn't going to stop. "The stupid girly bow in your hair is annoying. You're attractive, and that's annoying. Thank god for the soundproofing, because that is annoying too. Your snore is very annoying."

"I do not snore."

"You lived in the barracks for a decade," Lute countered. "Trust me. You snore."

Wait, "Attractive?" A blink. "Your homophobic ass found me attractive?" Vaggie wanted to strangle her. "Is that why you rode me so hard?!"

Vaggie froze. Then groaned inwardly. I did not just say that!

She turned away. She didn't want to see the look on Lute's face. Trying to recover, Vaggie asked, "Is there anything about me that isn't annoying?" She dared another look at the woman.

Lute gave that a moment's thought, then smirked. "The way you get stressed and angry when you can't cope with Velvette's petty attacks. That's just funny."

"Urrgh!" Vaggie pulled at her hair. She just couldn't with Lute!

Lute smirked harder. "See. Hilarious." Then Lute surprised her. "Don't die today."

---

Week Six, Day Two - ?, Greed, morning:

Arackniss watched as his imps put Anthony and Molly back in their chairs. This time, he had them bound with ropes. "Shoulda figured you're too deviant to bind with handcuffs."

It had been easier getting his brother to comply than it was to get their sister to let go of him.

Angel Dust had stopped hyperventilating. Seemed his panic attack was subsiding. "You are here under my protection, Angel. My little gift from the Powers Below. Alastor has his tentacles. I have the power to remain anchored in Hell no matter where I go. And I can give that dark blessing to any I choose." His eyes narrowed in warning. "Or take it back at a whim. So play nice."

You shoulda seen what Cain could do.

Molly slapped at the imp binding her as he copped a feel. "Vai a fare in culo!"

"You can blame Charlie for that, Molls," Arackniss laughed. It was Famine's suggestion. An eye for an eye, a dress for a dress.

Molly glared at him. "I'm not blaming Charlie. Charlie didn't set me on fire, you stronzo!"

"What have you done with mom!?" Angel Dust asked dourly, finally coming to terms with his situation.

"Soon as you're finished, I want the rest of you out." Arackniss ordered. He walked to the window, pulling out a package of cigarettes and a lighter, as the imps double-checked the twins' bindings. Lit it and sucked in a long draw as the Union imps filed out, closing the door behind them.

"Put her someplace safe. Someplace you'll never get to," Arackniss finally told his brother. "...Unless you want to join the new family business."

Angel Dust coughed, laughing. "Are you serious?"

He exchanged incredulous looks with Molly. "Why would either of us join your fucked-up re-hash of father's empire? Aren't you ending the world or some shit? You think I care about having a better seat for viewing the Apocalypse?"

Arackniss stared. "I'm offering because you're my brother. We're family. Real family. We have an obligation to each other. This is me fulfilling mine."

"I could have just wiped you two out when I learned you were being pulled into the web the Hand of Death was weaving. The last thing we need is for both Famine and her Hand to have messy connections in that camp," Arackniss said before taking another long draw of his cigarette.

He blew the smoke away from them. "But that wouldn't sit right without giving you the opportunity to make the right choice." He tapped ashes from his cigarette onto the windowsill and stared out at the green sky.

"Besides, Tony, mother would love to see you again," Arackniss said, turning back to level a hard stare at his bound yet still taller little brother. "That woman deserved Heaven, and I will move the fucking Rings to see her happy."

"Yeah, she did," Angel Dust agreed, both of them ignoring the wounded puppy look Molly was radiating. "And yeah, I can see how much you care," his brother continued, his tone growing flush with sarcasm. "Because using her as bait is real fucking son-of-the-year."

Arackniss stabbed his cigarette out, eyes flashing with anger. "I took care of our mother! While you were giving blow-jobs on film for fame, I was protecting her from the Exterminations. Pulled her out of a tenement in the middle of an angel raid. Got her set up nice in Sloth."

There were benefits of running a supernatural shipping empire for a Horseman.

His mouth curled into a nasty smile. "You could say I took care of father too. Bastard learned what happens when a Sinner crosses Rings without the Hand of Famine giving his protection."

---

Week Six, Day Two - Heavenly Kirkbride, Heaven, morning:

Eustice perked up as she entered, buzzing over his desk.

"Cherri! It is good to see you here again!" He gave her a hug she really should have seen coming. "Did you have an appointment? Or would you like to make one?"

"No, Eu," Cherri Bomb told him. "I'm just meeting someone here after her session."

"Oh." Eustice was disappointed, but he brushed that off with a friendly smile. "If you give me her name, I can look up when she'll be done."

Cherri Bomb froze a moment. "Thanks, but no need. I literally have nothing else to do today." She took a seat in the reception area and pulled out her phone.

I'll know her when I see her.

---

Week Six, Day Two - ?, Greed, morning:

"You think this impresses me?" Angel Dust put on a good laugh. "Fuck, Johnny, I've won a Sex-X-Xey Award for this scene. And got a better dicking out of it!"

"The name's Arackniss, Tony."

For all his power, for all his empire and fancy title as part of the fucking end of everything, Arackniss was still Jonathan. He was still just as easy to goad. Just as easy to draw into an argument.

"And what's with all the stupid little shortages?" Angel Dust shot. "For that matter, the whole Union seems..." Counterproductive? "...fucking stupid! In the great battle between Heaven and Hell, Famine has the power to... fuck up Hell? None of this Union crap even touches Heaven. Congratulations, you can cripple your own side!"

Arackniss laughed at him. The kind of laugh he always gave when he thought he was the smartest person in the room. "People think of famine as a result of war. But no. It is Famine that brings forth War. The real order is Death, Famine, War, then Conquest. The Bible got it backwards. Or maybe it's just that we're from Below, moving upwards."

"Uh-huh. Sure," Angel Dust scoffed. "Or maybe you're just fucking it up, shorty. You know you're supposed to hold books so the dot on the 'i' is at the top right?"

"Anthony!" Molly cautioned. Yeah, yeah, Arackniss could end his fucking existence with a thought. But not while he's still determined to show his brother who's the real man in the family.

"And here I expected a sex joke," Arackniss retorted derisively.

Angel Dust rolled his eyes. "Yeah, but then I'd have to explain it to you." Arackniss just scowled and smoked more, so he followed up. "Death before famine? Famine before war? How the fuck does that even work, coglione? No wonder Charlie thinks Helsa is a literal porca troia."

The nasty way the other spider's brow knitted told him he'd struck a nerve.

Come on, brother. Spill everything like you're fucking Valentino. Show me how ignorant I am.

"Our mother would be dead at the end of an angel spear if it wasn't for Famine, so watch your faggot mouth, Tony!" Arackniss spat before calming himself with another round of cigarette fellatio. This time, he blew the smoke in Angel Dust's face, sending him into a coughing fit.

"The Powers That Be want a great conflict of Dark versus Light. Evil versus Good. But this is reality, and it does not work like that. The demons of Hell have no interest in fighting Heaven. Lilith tried to inspire that sort of revolution when the Exterminations were going and got nothing for her trouble. If routine massacres won't motivate, then nobody down here is marching on Heaven's Gates for the Cause of Evil."

The Exterminations. Death came first. Bringing the tools to kill.

"What demons will go to war for is what everyone goes to war for: resources," Arackniss told them. "Every war is about trying to get what the other guy's got. Or trying to keep that guy from taking what's yours. These little shortages are reminders that Hell's supplies are limited. Making sure demons are in the right mindset when the real famines begin."

And we turn our eyes to Heaven with their infinite everything.

"Heaven versus Hell is just an epic masquerade covering up the most common conflict in all of history: the Haves versus the Have-Nots."

---

Week Six, Day Two - Hazbin Hotel second floor balcony, late morning:

Charlie stood with her back to the balcony that looked out over the parlor, facing Lute in all her stubbornness.

"Vaggie is right about therapy," Charlie agreed, getting a smile from her wife who was leaning against the wall nearby. "I won't force you to, of course. But I strongly encourage it."

Lute didn't respond. Charlie knew she couldn't pretend that things were okay. Lute was not fine. And this wasn't something she could deal with on her own.

"Meanwhile, we're going to talk to Belphegor as soon as she has recovered from yesterday," Charlie told her. "I am certain she will have something that will help you sleep."

"I'm not your cat," Lute groused.

"But you are my guest," Charlie said with a smile. "And I take care of my guests."

Their conversation was interrupted as Alastor shadowed up next to Charlie. Vaggie immediately pulled away from the wall, tense.

"Charlie, Vaggie. Ready for our little excursion?" Alastor asked cheerfully, twirling his microphone. "Where is Emily?"

Vaggie answered, "She'll join us in a moment..."

A beautiful piano melody began to play, coming from one of the private rooms below. Emily flew up over the balcony, joining them. "Okay, I'm ready."

Emily stopped, looking at Lute. "What did I miss?"

Lute immediately responded. "Nothing. May God be with you, High Seraphim." The fallen angel placed her hand on the balcony railing, spread her wings and lept gracefully to the parlor below.

Emily beamed. "Thanks, Lute!" she called after her.

Charlie groaned a little. "Why do so many people resist help so hard?"

Vaggie gave her a playful eyeroll. "What's the name of this Ring again?"

"Well, now that we're all here..." Alastor began, but Emily cut him off.

"Okay, seriously, what did I miss?"

The eye twitch and radio crackle from Alastor signaled his displeasure. Charlie didn't feel much empathy. She really hoped there was still grounds for friendship between them after this morning was over. But right now, he could sit and wait. Her wives were talking.

Vaggie turned to their wife, answering, "Lute is suffering because of what Frederick did to her. We're trying to get her help."

Emily started to ask something - probably how Lute was suffering - but stopped with a glance in Alastor's direction. "Is there anything I can do?"

The hiss of radio static rose a little.

"Yes," Vaggie said, bringing a splash of joy to Emily's face. "Find out who in the Heavenly Kirkbride treats Exorcists."

"Oh." Emily's joy faltered. "I... should be able to do that."

"Thank you, love!" Charlie told her, giving Emily a kiss on the cheek.

Charlie knew Emily was uncomfortable knowing that someone in Heaven's therapy center was complicit with the Exterminations. But Charlie was thankful that Sera had been concerned for the mental health of those who spent time in Adam's cult and had taken measures to care for them.

She shifted the topic to something sure to cheer Emily right back up. "I'm surprised Sera's still taking piano lessons. Her music is beautiful." It worked.

"I think she just likes spending time with Razzle," Emily giggled. "Today, she said she's having a very special piano lesson with him."

Charlie gasped, feeling a bolt of dismay. "And I'm going to miss it?!"

"Special how?" Vaggie asked.

Alastor's eyes continued to narrow.

"I don't know," Emily admitted with a shrug of her wings. "I asked, but she Sera'ed at me." Emily finally turned to acknowledge Alastor. "Where am I taking us?"

Alastor's smile sharpened, his eyes widening. "To Heaven."

Charlie blinked. Vaggie jolted. Emily stared in confusion. "I can't take you into Heaven, Alastor."

Alastor waved a hand in negation. "Oh no no no. I have no desire to enter Heaven. Just to the Gates will do." He asked Emily genially, "Even Sinners are allowed that far, aren't they?"

Vaggie scowled. "Why would you need to go to Heaven if we're going to see Baron Samedi?"

Just to the Gates? Realization dawned. "Oh. Of course! I should have realized..." Charlie turned to Emily. "It's okay. I know what this is. Let's go."

---

Week Six, Day Two - Heavenly Kirkbride, Heaven, late morning:

Cherri Bomb observed the lanky gerbil angel as she flew down to the door. She wasn't smiling. But then, if there was anyplace to find an angel who was unhappy, it was the Heavenly Kirkbride.

Slim, strong build. Toned. Black halo. She's my Ex.

Cherri Bomb stood up from her seat, waved to Eustice and then followed the gerbil woman out of the Heavenly Kirkbride.

The light of morning was warm and bright without being dazzling. The wind carried soothing scents from the grass and the Japanese maple trees. The woman's demeanor didn't match her surroundings. Like a knife wound.

Cherri Bomb quickened her pace long enough to fall in beside her. The gerbil gave her a glance that would have urged another angel to mind their own business. "Cherri Bomb. What's your name?"

"Ro."

Cherri Bomb smiled. "That's a nice name! How long have ya had it?"

Ro stopped, eyes widening with a look of shock. Maybe fear. But that vanished fast, and her eyes narrowed into a glare. The gerbil spun, turning that glare on her. "What do you want?"

"To beat the shit out of you." Cherri Bomb watched the woman immediately harden, tensing defensively, worried but ready.

And that's just the response I was looking for.

Cherri Bomb smirked. "And I'm willing to bet ya'd like another shot at me."

Ro's expression screwed up in confusion. Her eyes scanned over Cherri Bomb. And then came that sweet moment of recognition, making the former Exorcist's eyes light up.

Yep. That's who I am. Look a bit different now, but ya remember me.

"What do ya say? 'Till one of us shouts stop," Cherri Bomb offered. "Or falls unconscious."

Ro stared in disbelief. "What? Here? You want to throw down on the lawn right in front of the Kirkbride?"

Cherri Bomb shook her head. "No. We need a better place."

---

Week Six, Day Two - Heaven, late morning:

Emily followed her wives through the golden portal, stepping back into the bliss of Heaven. The change in the air was like a comforting song. The warmth of the light was a gentle embrace. It was all so easy to take for granted. But living in Hell kept the goodness of Heaven alive and fresh every time she returned.

Saint Peter was at his post. He looked up at them with a beautiful smile, his right hand slipping his phone back into his raiment as he greeted them cheerfully.

That cheer ended abruptly when his eyes fell on the man Emily had allowed up here with them.

"You can't be here," Saint Peter exclaimed, frowning. Emily was taken aback at the change in Peter's demeanor, even though she was pretty sure she understood the reason.

"Petey!" Alastor said cheerfully, stretching out his arms as he stepped forward. As if greeting an old friend. "I knew I'd find you here!"

Wait, what?

Saint Peter shot him a dark glare then turned to her. "High Seraphim! That... he cannot be up here! Alastor has no place being anywhere near Heaven!"

"You wound me, Petey!" Alastor lied, accompanied by canned radio laughter.

Emily reeled. "What's going on?" There was no reality in which the Radio Demon and Saint Peter should be on a first name basis. How was this even possible?

"Syncretism," Charlie answered her. But the word meant nothing to Emily. She looked to her hellborn wife in confusion.

"Precisely," Alastor crooned, giving Charlie a look of paternal approval. "It's what happens when a faith evolves by conforming and assimilating its predator. Becoming a defiled blending of the two that sacrifices the truth of either." The Radio Demon's eyes narrowed as he turned his yellowed grin on Saint Peter. "Isn't that right, Papa Legba?"

Emily stared, her mouth hanging open. What in all the sacraments?!

Charlie nodded, adding, "But that people still believe in anyway. Like Pestilence being a Horseman." She looked at Emily and Vaggie. "It's how Powers in the Other insinuated themselves into Louisiana Voodoo."

"Too true," Alastor said. He was smiling, but his tone was far from jovial. Emily could hear expertly constrained anger in his voice.

"He doesn't want to see you," Saint Peter told Alastor with a glower. "When you left, we both warned you not to seek him again."

"The Powers can create something wholesale to fill a false belief," Alastor said casually, turning to the throuple. "But I suspect it is much harder when there is already a real vessel for that false faith."

The Radio Demon's head spun back to Saint Peter and his body followed a moment after. "The Powers came offering gifts, didn't they?" He strode up to Saint Peter's podium with a flourish of his microphone. "And you took them!"

Saint Peter scowled.

"Got tired of just being a doorman, I suppose." Alastor leaned close, scouring Peter's face with his fetid breath. "And look what it's got you. You're an even more empowered doorman!"

Emily wasn't the only one to gasp as Saint Peter, face twisting in rage, grabbed at the air between him and Alastor, his hand clasping around the Radio Demon's chain.

Emily was in shock. But... No. That couldn't... HOW!?

But while he had manifested Alastor's chain, Saint Peter was not holding the end of it. Merely gripping a few links. Saint Peter thrust his other hand outward, pointing in the direction that Alastor's chain continued until it disappeared in a point hanging in the air.

From that point, the glowing lines of a veve erupted like an unfurling butterfly.

"This is a mistake, Alastor," Saint Peter growled. "He does not wish to see you. You will die if you intrude on his domain."

"Don't waste your breath," Vaggie said. "He's making a lot of those this week."

Along the lines of the veve, reality split open, peeling back to reveal blackness beyond. A gaping maw into the void. Right at the foot of Heaven's Gate.

Alastor's grin stretched. "Good boy!" he said, patting Saint Peter on his coif as the angel let go of his chain. Alastor stood up straight, twirling his microphone, and started to amble towards the open portal.

Emily stared between the two men. With a flash of angelic light, she took her full seraphim form, taking in the fullness of what she was seeing. It felt blasphemous.

Her eyes locked on Saint Peter. "When I get back, we're going to have a talk."

Saint Peter winced. "Yes, High Seraphim Emily. Sorry about this."

Emily turned to Alastor. "You should talk to Lute."

Alastor stopped at the edge of the rift and looked back at her. "Whyever for?"

Emily answered, "You're not the only one in the hotel who is bitter about being lied to."

"Who says I'm bitter?" he scoffed, his voice carrying three times his normal radio distortion.

Alastor stepped into the Void.

Charlie walked up to it and turned to her. "We'll be okay. I... trust Alastor."

"Why?!" Vaggie asked, joining her. Then glared back towards the podium. "Seriously, Peter, what the fuck!?"

Emily watched her wives step out of Heaven and into the realm of Baron Samedi. She looked back, closing the golden portal she had brought them through, then drew herself up.

"Good luck, Emily," Saint Peter said. The man she had sang with so many times, greeting new souls, welcoming them into Heaven. Papa Legba. How little she really knew him. "God be with you and keep you and your wives safe."

Emily nodded in thanks and stepped out of Heaven once more. The rift sealed behind her.

Before her, the dark was broken by pathways lit by burning candles. The air was heavy and rich with the scents of liquor and spices. And sex. Emily followed her wives, taking in her surroundings. Architecture gave form and delineation to the void. High stone arches stretched to support vaulted ceilings whose highest points disappeared into the black, all decorated with skulls. Emily had never been to Italy, but this place reminded her of Molly's descriptions of the catacombs of Rome. Crossed with an abbey.

Alastor led them forward. Past tables filled with luxuries. Fruits and wines, cheeses and barrels of liquor. Basins filled with candies. Music filled the air, heavy with aggressive drums and guitar riffs. It sounded like Adam's band. Before they rebranded as Stigma. And beneath that, moans of ecstasy.

Emily stopped when her eyes fell on something absolutely from Hell. A huge cask of honeycomb gold. Beelzejuice.

"I know a little club in Greed where you can get it by the barrel," a jovial, deep voice rang out. "If you can afford it. Obviously, I can."

She turned to see the mass of hot, naked bodies writhing in what could only be described as an orgy pool. And at its crest, enjoying the show, was a dark-skinned man in a top hat. The upper half of his face was without flesh, revealing his skull. He wore a tuxedo that Charlie would have flourished in beneath a twin-tailed longcoat plated and studded with angelic steel. About his neck hung an angelic steel cross, and he held a cane in one hand.

"Welcome to the Domain of Baron Samedi, High Seraphim Emily. And wives." He chuckled. "I was not expecting visitors." His voice was warm and rich and deep. But Emily could feel the undercurrent of irritation.

Her eyes shifted to Alastor. His chain and the collar around his neck were no longer manifested, but it took very little focus to see them. Her eyes followed them back to the man who was holding the end of Alastor's chain, taking in all that he really was.

Emily's eyes widened, her heart stopping at what... at who she was really seeing in all his horrible glory.

"Azrael!?"

---

Week Six, Day Two - Stylish Occult , Imp City, late morning:

Octavia walked up to the façade of her favorite shop in all of Hell. She paused at the storefront window, her eyes catching first on the Stigma standees. It had been literally less than a day, and in another city, another ring. Her gaze shifted to a series of mystic owl-themed ornaments designed to lock onto bedposts. They were exquisite!

Okay, yes, she would be spending a fair portion of her day here. This was how she would take her mind off things. It would be okay to just lose herself browsing. They knew her here.

Octavia pulled out her phone and snapped a picture of the standees and another of the bedpost ornaments. Then turned around and took a selfie standing next to the window. She checked the image. It wasn't great. The light was hitting the window, reflecting the people in the street and washing out the cool stuff on display.

It wasn't especially flattering to her either, but she hardly cared. Same old outfit. Same old Octavia. Only difference was the necklace from her father. It gleamed like it had caught the light and imprisoned it, making it seem preternatural. She could almost believe her dad's story. He did tend to go all out with his fantasies, and this time she was here for it.

Octavia tapped at the phone: At Stylish Occult. Drop by and say hello. Check these out!

She attached the three photos and added the post to her Sinstagram account. Not that anyone would act on the invite. She had less than a dozen followers, and two of those were Loona and her dad. She suspected one of the new ones was also her dad using an alt account, trying to make her feel more popular. Add in the two sinners she met yesterday, one of the "friends" she had from Stella's parties (who probably forgot to remove her), two of her tutors and the proprietor of Stylish Occult, and you had her entire social network.

Shrugging, she put away her phone, moved to the door, and stepped inside.

The woman watching her waited until the Goetia girl had stepped inside before crossing the street, following her.

---

Week Six, Day Two - Hazbin Hotel, late morning:

Baxter walked through the core of the hotel, drawn by the melody of the piano and the vocable harmony that accompanied it.

Baxter walked past the bar. Past Husk who was checking his phone yet again, looking more anxious than Baxter felt at a Carmine office party. He walked past the parlor. Past Crymini, also on her phone, using it to tune out the world and fill her ears with violence mislabeled as music. Past Vanexa taking up more than her fair share of space and contributing nothing.

It was a miracle that this hotel had managed even two successes in nine months.

But he was focused on something else at the moment. He entered the private room where Sera was playing the piano. She looked different than the last time he saw her. It wasn't just the dark outfit. It was the lack of wings.

Lucifer hid his wings all the time. This shouldn't surprise him. But it still looked peculiar on the egregiously tall woman.

Or perhaps he was just shaken from this morning. The near catastrophe of the day's early hours had left him too rattled to properly focus on his own scientific endeavors. So instead, he was determined to make headway on a valuable side project.

Razzle stopped singing as Baxter entered the room. The goat-dragon had been vocalizing the scales that he was having Sera run through. A warm-up to the real lesson ahead, Baxter assumed. Sera had far surpassed running scales as anything other than a warm-up.

"You have a big question you should be thinking about," he told Razzle. "What do you want your first words to be?"

---

Week Six, Day Two - Death's Domain, late morning:

Baron Samedi stood up from the writhing orgy pit and bowed to the four of them with a sweep of his cane. "I am Death."

His self-introduction read like a correction of Emily's words. To quote Vaggie: What the absolute fuck?!

Baron Samedi is Azrael? After Saint Peter, maybe this shouldn't have been a surprise. The whole last chapter of the Book of the Loa had been about syncretism. But it made no mention of the Angel of Death syncretizing with Baron Samedi. Seemed like a really big one for the Goetia to leave out!

"The angel of death, the god of death, the spirit of death?" Baron Samedi rambled, twirling his cane. Charlie briefly wondered if Alastor got that from him. "They're all me. Since the very first cell died. I was death before I was personified into an angel - given Free Will, charisma, sex appeal - much less offered a Horse. And I'll be until all three realms crumble back into the Deep and the darkness from which they were Created."

The Baron planted his cane and rested his hands on it. "I'm the opposite of syncretization. I am every psychopomp. I am the singular source from which all Deaths have been conjured in mortal thought." He smiled a smile that radiated charisma from him where it would have just looked creepy on Alastor. "And with each new conceptualization of me that takes significant root, I gain a new form."

It's an angelic form. Like Emily normally appears. Underneath, Baron Samedi is Azrael.

Charlie heard a groan of worry from Vaggie. I owe Vaggie such an apology!

Baron Samedi looked around him at the den of iniquity that was practically a tribute to all the things the Baron was known to love. "Can you really blame me for choosing to embrace my favorite for my absence from the Throne?"

He walked over to a table and took up a box, offering, "I don't suppose any of you ladies would like a cigar?"

"Azrael!" Emily repeated. There was a brief flicker across her halo, like static electricity.

"Emily," he said, smiling warmly beneath the bared skull. "How nice to finally meet the new High Seraphim. I'm sorry I missed your promotion." He put down the box of cigars and instead offered, "Chocolates? I'm particularly fond of the ones with salt toffee and rum."

Alastor stood silently and watched, seeming entirely willing to let the throuple he had forced here keep the Baron's attention.

"Explain yourself," Emily demanded, surprising Charlie.

Vaggie was quick to caution, "Uh... Elder Above, sweetie. Keep a cool head." Charlie cringed a little, knowing just how well that advice was usually listened to.

"No!" Emily shouted, exactly as Charlie once had.

But the Baron indulged them. "You seem to be missing the message. I'm Death. I was Created into angelic form to fix the other Elders' mistakes." He grinned. "Ironically, I wasn't so much empowered by my Horse as awoken, reconnected to my primordial self."

"What mistakes?" Emily asked, getting another groan from Vaggie.

Baron Samedi devoured one of the offered chocolates, taking his time enjoying it before answering. "Creation is a lot older than the ten thousand years Hell has been around. Ask any reputable scientist, mad or otherwise." He winked at Charlie, adding, "I know you know a few."

He continued, "Creation has needed a wipe and reset far more than just the time you know. Ask the dinosaurs. They'd give me five stars. If there were any left."

Emily blinked in confusion. "Who were the dinosaurs?"

"Oh God, Emily," Vaggie whimpered softly.

Baron Samedi turned to her, still smiling. God, he was so much like Alastor. Only instead of cold, calculating and creepy, he was warm, intoxicating and smarmy. "Why do you think They were all so pissed at your father, Charlie? They finally had their perfect world of order. But Lucifer thought he knew better than everyone Above him. The Pride on him!"

Charlie's expression hardened.

"Weeks into Creation - it still had that new Living World smell - and he fucking broke it!" the Baron exclaimed with a sweep of his top hat and cane, practically cheering.

"Of course you'd be happy," Vaggie grumbled. "If Creation was perfect, you wouldn't have anything to do."

Charlie could feel anger rising within her. Anger at the unfairness to her father. "And that's why you had him cast into Hell? Eternal punishment for a mistake!"

"Some did," Baron Samedi admitted. "Others voted to cast him down to deal with his mess. I did so because I wanted to free him. Lucifer was a child of chaos in a realm Created for order. The rules were chains to him, suffocating him. I chose to free him from Heaven's rules."

He ate another chocolate. "He broke the world. I wanted to see what he'd do for an encore."

Baron Samedi's demeanor changed. Grew bitter. He leaned forward on his cane, looking at her with a dapper frown. "Needless to say, your father's been a massive fucking disappointment."

Charlie felt a growl rising in her throat.

Emily's voice stopped her from saying any of the things that were coming to mind. "Voted?"

"Yes." Baron Samedi straightened his top hat. "Barring the intervention of the Creator, only the Throne can act unilaterally."

The Baron looked over to Alastor, who had turned to examine the assortment of meats on one table. Notably including a stack of spare ribs and a platter of venison. "The rest of the Elders Above only involve Themselves in the realms below when Their decision is unanimous."

He smiled back at her and her wives. "Obviously, being a Horseman comes with privileges."

Emily seemed to wilt slightly. "It's like Heaven's Court. The High Seraphim can overrule everyone else, unless the entire Court is unanimous against her."

She looked to Charlie and Vaggie, explaining, "It's only happened a few times. The Court angels seem adverse to agreement. They mostly just act as advisors for the seraphim since we have no mortal experience."

A slight golden blush formed on her face as she looked slightly abashed. "The... uh... way Sera just made a ruling in your Court hearing? That's normal. I was doing that until I delegated most of my Court duties to Zenas."

"Of course," Baron Samedi said with an air of boredom. "Heaven's Court is fashioned in the likeness of the Throne." He looked disappointed. "You didn't know that? You're the High Seraphim."

Emily spun on him, fists clenched. "HOW!? YOU NEVER TALK TO US!"

Her halo crackled. "I didn't even know you were gone!"

The Baron seemed surprised. "I issued notice of my intended absence with the Golden Library."

With the Golden Library? That meant Azrael's disappearance would have been publicly available to anybody who had a reason to ask. Which neither Sera nor Emily ever had, given the Elders Above never talked to them. Until Charlie had brought up the question.

The answer stole the wind from beneath Emily's wings. "You... filed a flight plan..." But only for a moment.

"Holy fucking wafers and wine!" she roared.

"Language!" Alastor chided, picking at the venison.

Wait! Is this why the Elders Above are so infuriatingly absent? They wouldn't step in to stop the Exterminations if just one Elder Above supported it?

Charlie felt her blood trying to boil. "And how about my mom? Why'd you vote to cast her down?"

Baron Samedi cocked his head, his smirk shrinking just a little. "You appear to be misinformed."

"What do you mean, misinformed?" Charlie challenged.

"None of Us around the Throne voted to cast Lilith down. Our concern was the catastrophically rebellious seraphim, not the mortal woman he was fucking," Azrael said in the guise of Baron Samedi. "We honestly didn't give her any consideration at all."

He added, "If you want to know why your mother was cast down, you would need to ask Sera."

WHAT!?

---

Week Six, Day Two - ?, Greed, morning:

"And what about Molly?" Anthony barked as Molly watched her brothers behave like they were still all teenagers. "What's your plan for her in this Family Business of yours?"

Jonathan frowned. He looked her over. "Invulnerable angels ain't so invulnerable anymore," he said. "But that didn't keep one from practically wiping her ass with two of our choppers."

Molly couldn't believe her ears. "You brought me here to be your muscle?"

"I was thinking bodyguard if you have skills beyond being pretty," Jonathan stated, taking a drag from his cigarette. "You always had that going for you, and it is worth something to have pretty by your side. Even better if it is semi-invulnerable pretty."

"I'm your sister!"

"Wouldn't be for me," Jonathan protested. "I don't need protection. But I've got people who at times do. Sometimes it would even be Anthony. And you wouldn't be expected to sleep with him."

Testa di cazzo! "Bodyguard, arm candy and a side of prostitution to your made men? Be still my heart."

"Well, otherwise, you could just be yourself," Jonathan said between puffs. "We have a lot of walls. Angel Dust is the one I really want, but the way you two chum these days, I figured you were a packaged deal."

There it was from him again. I'm wallpaper. Decoration for the lives of males in the room.

Jonathan flicked away his cigarette and ambled over to her. "Honestly, Molls, I don't have much to offer you. I can give Anthony our mom, but I can't say she'd even want to see you. I saved her from the Exorcists. Last thing she wants to see is another halo."

He couldn't have hurt her more if he'd set her ablaze with real Hellfire.

"Do you know why I'm here?" Molly said softly.

"Because I drugged you with your own crossbow and brought you here," Jonathan drolled.

"I meant Hell. I got into Heaven." Molly switched questions. "Do you know why I got into Heaven? Why I have this halo? Because it's not for anything I did. It's because of what I didn't do."

Jonathan rolled his eyes, neither impressed nor caring. Even as he walked back towards the window with its poisonous green sky, Molly continued. She'd started, and now it felt like she couldn't stop. "It wasn't because of virtue or prayers. I got into Heaven for doing nothing!"

Jonathan pulled out his cigarette pack, fishing out another cancer stick. But she had Anthony's attention. Still she focused all eight eyes on Jonathan.

"You know what our family was. What father was like," she told him. "I watched. When I could, I tried to shield Anthony; but he was our father and I was a child. I grew up watching him pressure you two to be like him. To take your place in the family business. I was spared the worst because I was a girl, but watching it was cruel enough. I hated him for what he made you do. What he turned you into. More than even mom did."

That got a look from her dark-furred older sibling.

"He was forcing Anthony to be something we both hated, a slave to a monster. And he was molding you into another him!"

Anthony groaned. "Fuck, Molls."

He dropped his voice to a hiss of a whisper, his tone dripping with bitter irony. "Well, at least when we landed in Hell we made better choices for ourselves."

Molly barely registered what he said. The memories were too sharp. The pain came surging back, making her lungs heavy and her eyes hot. "At least once a week since I was fifteen, I would pick the lock on the gun cabinet and load father's shotgun. Usually, I'd just stand at the door to his bedroom, hearing him snore. Sometimes, I'd go inside. Stand over him." Her voice grew scathingly bitter. "And do nothing."

"Because I was a good girl. And I didn't want to be a murderer. Murder is evil, a stain on the soul... and I was right." She could almost laugh. But it wasn't funny. "If I had pulled that trigger just one of those times, I would have gone here. But maybe one of you could have gotten into Heaven. Or mom." She could feel the first tears running down her cheeks.

Molly's voice slowly rose, her voice wet and ragged. "Even if you didn't, how many of father's victims would I have saved? How many of yours! How many people on that train?"

Jonathan winced at that. Anthony cringed in his chair.

The spider angel stopped. She looked down. Took a breath. Blinked repeatedly, trying to clear away her tears as she counted backwards from seven. "But I got into Heaven. So I made the right choices. Right?"

Her eyes still burned. Her lungs were still heavy. But the memories that followed dulled the pain of the ones that came before. "Except I couldn't stop thinking I was in Heaven for all the wrong reasons. For being a coward. For being too precious about my soul at the cost of yours."

"Molly," Anthony breathed.

Her twin looked like she'd shot him in the heart with the crossbow, but she didn't know what kind of arrow. He started struggling with the bindings on his wrists.

Molly turned away. "I was in therapy for years," she admitted. Her breasts heaved. Her breathing sounded wet. But she wasn't crying again. "I practically lived at the Kirkbride my first decade in Heaven. But I came to accept that I belonged there. Let the lullaby of Heaven put me to rest."

A moment of dead silence. "Until Emily told me about the Exterminations." Her voice hardened. Her eyes narrowed, glowing white with angelic light. "And I woke up! The lie that Heaven and everyone in Heaven are just inherently Good shattered. Because how could we be if we were sending murderangels down to slaughter?"

"I jumped to help Emily before she could even tell me about Anthony. How could I not? It was my second chance to do the right thing. Even if it meant getting my hands dirty."

Molly smirked in self-recrimination at the irony. "And even now, it's taken me over a month to work up the courage to actually go to Hell. Not just the Embassy or the Hazbin Hotel. Real Hell."

Her eyes, reddened with tears, glowing with holy ferocity, stared down her older brother who was not bound to a chair. "That's why I'm here."

To get my hands dirty.

Jonathan stared back, dropping his cigarette. "Merda. Well, I clearly need to find something a little more proactive for you. I know real hunger when I see it."

---

Week Six, Day Two - Oripat, Heaven, late morning:

Cherri Bomb gazed at the vast, open warehouse. Heavenly light streamed in through the hanger-style open door and down from skylights. It was clean and strangely ethereal, probably thanks to all the silver - real silver, not angelic steel - used on all the railings and fixtures, and woven into filigree that spun murals over the walls.

Why wouldn't Heaven plate their warehouses in silver? They paved their streets in gold.

"What is this place?" Cherri Bomb asked, following Ro into the empty space.

"Symbolic," Ro answered. Cherri gave her a well-earned look.

This whole area was like Heaven's back lots. Practically unpopulated. So old all the signs were in Enochian. Which was probably a thing she should learn. It wasn't like she didn't have forever.

Ro smirked. Then waved an arm. "A relic from the first war. Nobody uses it for anything anymore. We're good to fight here."

Sounded like a good fit. "I know someone if ya want a ref." Cherri Bomb was betting she could talk at least one of the band into watching.

Ro shook her head. "Everything we do is recorded in the Golden Library. Nobody checks unless there's need to. So long as we don't do anything permanent, we'll be fine tomorrow. If we do, or if you go running to the Court claiming an Exorcist attacked you, they'll just look in the Library and see this was all your idea."

Cherri Bomb nodded. That was a thing. At first, the lack of privacy weirded her, but angels used it like cloud computing. ...Which is far more appropriately named up here. "What first war?"

Ro raised an eyebrow. "The War in Heaven."

At Cherri Bomb's look, she groaned. "Way I heard it, casting down Lucifer was..." The angel lifted her hands and performed air quotes. "...controversial. A bunch of the Heavenly Host protested."

Makes sense Heaven wouldn't be so happy a place after the original Bringer of Joy got booted.

"One of the Elders Above, the great Michael, stepped down into Heaven to quell it, and it turned into a revolt," Ro continued. "Michael could fight them all Himself, but they just kept coming back. And nobody wanted to cast the rebels down."

Okay, this was sounding familiar. "Heard a riff on this once. The whole demons-are-fallen-angels rubbish," Cherri Bomb said. "As a former demon: pfft. No."

Ro bit back what was surely the snidest of comments. "The last thing the Elders Above wanted was to throw Lucifer a squad of fallen angels. So according to the story, Michael turned to Azrael, the Angel of Death. And Azz came back with weapons forged of angelic steel. Enough to arm the entirety of the Heavenly Host not siding with the rebellion."

"Way I heard it, Michael killed a single rebel angel, and the war ended."

Cherri Bomb turned, gazing about. "And... this warehouse is the place an angel killed another angel in Heaven?"

"No. This is where they dumped all those angelic weapons. Until about two hundred years ago." Ro crossed her arms under her breasts and stared at the floor. "Adam figured if a glorious Elder Above could permanently kill an angel with one, then us rank and file angels should be able to permanently kill demons with them."

Ro took in a breath, her body language stiff and defensive. "Go ahead. Say it. It's nothing we haven't heard already."

Cherri Bomb obliged. "An angel was killed with one of those, and it didn't occur to ya cunts that they could kill angels?"

Ro spun on her, exasperated. "First, not everyone believes the story. It's practically a legend. And not every version ends with a dead angel." She huffed. "Second, it was the great fucking Michael, the Sword of God! Nobody thought they could do what He did."

Cherri Bomb drank in Oripat and laughed. "You're right. This place is perfect!"

---

Week Six, Day Two - Death's Domain, late morning:

"Drop the Baron Samedi act, Azrael," Vaggie growled, interrupting what had been an unavoidable conversation once Lucifer's daughter had opened her very pretty mouth.

It's not an act.

"I can see Adam didn't choose you for your personality," Baron Samedi smirked. "You are hot though. He was right about that." Her growl deepened. He shrugged. Pale light washed over him like an evening shower. In its wake, Azrael stood before them like he had once stood before the Exorcists on Extermination Day. "This more to your preference?"

"Not really," Vaggie admitted.

Azrael turned to Lucifer's daughter, returning to their most recent topic: the Exterminations. "I supported the Pardon, Charlie. Wholeheartedly. Why would I not? The Hellborn only have one life to live. They are born in Hell, live, die and stay dead. As everything should."

The gem-studded skull felt a bit much when not in concert. He waved his hand, removing it from his face. Let Alastor be the only one wearing a mask. "For an angel to take a Hellborn's life in an Extermination? To artificially cut that life short? There is a reason murder is a sin."

Vaggie looked uncomfortable. Well she should. But she had never broken the Pardon. Only Adam had crossed that unforgivable line. In all honesty, Niffty did him a favor.

"But the Sinners?" Azrael continued. "Without my weapons to release them, they will just keep coming back again and again. Trapped in endless, eternal life. Anathema even without the unfathomable cruelty of it: locked in a prison filled with toxic personalities, doomed to erode under an endless parade of trauma."

"There's a reason your Hazbin Hotel works, Charlie," he told Lucifer's hot little daughter. "You give them reprieve from the environment. A place to breathe without soaking in an ocean of abuse and misery, filled with the worst humanity has to offer."

Charlie frowned. "So... you believed the Exterminations...?"

"Were a mercy," Vaggie finished for him.

Emily practically whimpered, openly wearing her revulsion. "That's... so wrong."

Charlie, however, sounded hopeful. "But even you believe they aren't anymore, right? Because of the Hazbin Hotel? Because people can be redeemed?"

Azrael needed to correct that. "You misunderstand. There is no greater sin against mortal kind than giving them eternity."

He walked forwards, raising his arms. "What pursuit has any value when you have infinite time to pursue it? What accomplishment is rewarding when you sacrifice nothing to attain it? What joy, what love, has the strength to shelter against the ennui of forever?"

"Lives are beautiful, glorious things... because they are finite. Death is what gives meaning to every choice, every moment, every breath. Truly living is to imbibe the joys and indulgences of life. Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow..." Azrael bowed with a sweep of his hands. "...we die."

Vaggie scowled, crossing her arms over her breasts. "Somehow, I don't think any of the Sinners slaughtered on Extermination Day are singing death's praises."

Azrael hated that inane sentiment. "They're not doing anything, Vaggie. The dead don't begrudge it. They aren't thankful. They don't wish they had time to do more because they don't wish anything at all."

"Death is a crime only to the living," Azrael informed them, trying to banish the stupidity of anthropomorphizing the non-existent. "A sin committed upon those who are left behind to mourn. To those whose lives are left bereft of whatever influence might have been. The dead are not wounded by it. There are no them. That's what death is."

"That's what I am," he stated. "The inevitable nothing at the end of it all."

"No soul should be forced to avoid it," Azrael said heavily. "Eternal punishment is a sadistic game no soul deserves."

Emily interceded. "But Sinners can save themselves from that. They can be redeemed, and live eternal lives of bliss in Heaven as angels."

Azrael avoided rolling his eyes at the new High Seraphim. "One problem at a time."

---

Week Six, Day Two - Stylish Occult , Imp City, late morning:

The interior of Stylish Occult was dark and moody, a perfect echo of her soul.

Princess Octavia turned from the wall display of taxidermy critters modeled after the seven Deadly Sins. She had to admit, the Queen Bat-lzebub was a cutie. She was fairly certain the Hellduck was imported from Envy.

Via turned her attention to the nearest clothing rack. Black t-shirts and hoodies with a variety of bands plastered on the front. The band yesterday rocked hard. Not Verosika and her pop schlop. The ones who played first. Who that puppy girl had loved. Surprising for a band of angels. It was probably too much to hope they sold albums in Hell.

Nearby, a small sign promised Stigma t-shirt designs were coming soon.

A woman's voice croaked unpleasantly from somewhere behind her.

"You have something that I want."

Well, that made sense. She was here often enough, and a lot of her wardrobe came from this place. "Sorry, lady," Via said without turning around. "I don't work here."

But maybe I should. Would a job be so bad? Especially here? It would help take her mind off... everything.

Octavia began to turn to the source of the voice. Her offer to help anyway died in her beak as the stench hit her. Via gagged. The reek was pungent enough to wreck her even with an owl's meager sense of smell. The young Goetia's mind conjured images of a taxidermy project gone as horribly wrong as possible.

"Hello Octavia."

She knows my name!

There was something unspeakably awful about that.

Via stumbled back, a hoot escaping her throat as the thing pretending to be a woman reached out for her. It was all she could manage. She couldn't move. She could barely breathe. It was as if she had been petrified by her father's gaze. But unlike her father, there was nothing loving or protective in the myriad of eyes that split open across the not-a-woman's face.

---

Week Six, Day Two - Hazbin Hotel, late morning:

Husk wiped down the immaculately clean bar counter yet again. It was practically a kata, something to do to keep from tearing his fur out waiting for either a call from Angel Dust or the allotted day to be up. He checked his watch again. Checked his phone.

He had no idea where Angel Dust and Molly were. No way to track them without drawing on Sera's seraphim power. But he'd seen the reception. There was a potential nightmare lurking under that which managed to make losing his closest friend pale in comparison.

Husk braced himself against the bar, closed his eyes, and prayed.

"God. Or... Whoever. Please. If you're listening. I need help. Angel and Molly need protection. Assuming they're even still alive. Let them be alive. Let them be unharmed. Just... tell me what you want from me..."

Fuck, it felt like selling his soul all over again.

"...whatever you want..."

A bark of dismay from the parlor interrupted his prayer. He looked up at the crash as Crymini overturned the couch, leaping across the furniture towards him. Panicked puppy incoming.

Crymini only stopped when she whacked her knee on a stool and her breasts on the edge of the bar. Hissing in pain, she tossed her cell phone on the counter while hopping on one foot. "Husk! Open a portal! Now!"

Before he could ask, she jabbed at the phone. "There! Hurry! It's life and fucking death!"

The bartender's nerves were already screwed so tight that it took nothing more than those words. He looked down at the phone. A Sinstagram post. Somewhat frumpy goth owl standing in front of a shop. He could barely make out the stencilled Stylish Occult on the window through the reflective glare. But the reflection showed the street clearly enough for him to grasp it.

With a flare of angelic fire, the golden portal opened. Flames licked around its edges. The infernal touch to the power of a Fallen. "Crymini, talk to me!" Husk demanded.

"No time!" Crymini barked, jabbing a finger at her phone, her claw stabbing at one of the figures reflected in the storefront glass. "That's the filthy snatch who killed me last month!"

Husk glanced down at where the claw had pointed. A human-looking woman. Long, flowing hair. Red trench coat. Extremely wide-brimmed hat. He looked back up, but Crymini was already launching herself through the portal with a limping run.

"You got killed last month!?" Husk shouted. He started to move after her and his phone began to play music. The screen lit up. Molly calling.

Husk jumped for his phone as everything else in Hell became secondary.

---

Week Six, Day Two - Stylish Occult , Imp City, late morning:

Octavia couldn't move. She couldn't scream.

The thing in the red trenchcoat reached out to her with a hand full of sickles. Stroked one sharp, curving bone down the side of the owlette's face as the teenager trembled. The not-a-woman's smile stretched and split, revealing more grins beneath.

The curved finger dropped to Octavia's neck, tracing down it. Then hooked the chain of her necklace, tugging it. The stone which dangled from it glowed softly.

With a blur, the trenchcoated abomination vanished from in front of her, tackled by a shadowed, growling form, smashing through display racks and crashing through the shop's display window.

The trenchcoated bitch skidded across the pavement with Crymini riding on top of her.

"LEAVE HER ALONE!"

Crymini growled, glaring hatefully. The stench was making her eyes water. Her claws were digging into something putrid. She wanted to bite the ugly snatch's head off. But there was no way she was going to put any part of this woman in her mouth.

The fall had thrown off her stupid, wide-brimmed hat, leaving just long, stringy black hair spilling from her head. The Roo Shit bitch pinned under her gave Crymini a nasty smile full of maggots.

The smile split open, wider and wider, tearing her whole body apart in a fetid mass of blackened meat, entrails and puss. Tendons and ligaments tore upwards to either side of the forever teen, pulling muscle and sinew and eyes after it. The body of the abomination knitted itself back together behind Crymini, leaving her holding only the pus-slickened red trenchcoat.

Crymini pulled her paws back in revulsion.

That and the hat had been all the woman had been wearing. Even her condition couldn't keep Crymini from wanting nothing more than to vomit.

"You no longer have anything I want."

A tentacle of raw meat and ligaments and mouths writhed out, squirming past her to where the hat had fallen. One of the sets of teeth bit into the brim, and she drew it back, placing it on her head again.

Crymini stared as the woman dismissed her, turning her attention back to Stylish Occult and the goth teen who was staring out at them.

Crymini dropped to all fours again and charged, striking the naked monstrosity in the back of the knees, sending her somersaulting over Crymini's back. The puppy demon lept back in through the shattered window.

The Roo Shit twat levitated upright like a movie vampire rising from her coffin. And was promptly hit by a Helluva Post truck.

Octavia's paralysis broke.

---

Week Six, Day Two - ?, Greed, late morning:

"Can you just portal us out?" Angel Dust asked, his voice a bit frantic. Husk's cascade of expletives upon hearing where they were would have done Crymini proud.

After hours of arguing, Arackniss had left them alone to think about their situation and his repulsive offer. It had taken even less time for Angel Dust to free them from ropes than it did from the handcuffs. Fortunately, Molly did still have her phone.

Husk's voice was wonderful to hear. His words, far from it. "No. Not with Arackniss watching."

"Why not?" Angel Dust asked. "I'd like to get out of here before he decides I'm not worth the trouble and feeds me to the cosmic soul shredder!"

"Look, this power? When I use it, there's no price. It doesn't take any toll on me at all. Because it's not coming from me," Husk explained. "Molly said Sera gave me her connection to the energy of Creation. Meaning this is power I channel from somewhere else. And that makes it a resource that Famine and her Hand could exploit. I cannot give Arackniss a chance to do that."

Angel Dust took a moment to digest that. "Husk, does my brother frighten you?"

Husk replied, "Your brother is terrifying. He set Molly on fire to get at her crossbow. You can't grab something out of the Other unless you know it's there."

Angel Dust looked at Molly's phone. Made sense. Seviathan explained the Other by grabbing one of his guns. Vaggie had called Angel Dust at the Bleeding Knife Motel, but he couldn't remember Molly using her phone the entire time they were in Imp City. It wasn't like she could call Heaven.

"That tells me two things," Husk said. "First, Arackniss used that entire thing last month to collect intel on what we can do and how we fight, and he has spent the month not simply figuring out how to counter us, but how to use it to his own advantage."

Okay, that made Johnny sound far scarier than Angel Dust was giving him credit for.

"Second, your big brother is really into remote surveillance and has means beyond the technological to do so. Which means he's listening to this conversation."

"That one we were kinda assuming," Angel Dust admitted. Not that big a deal when freedom was a portal away. But there was no way they were hashing out a rescue plan over the phone.

"I'll call you back as soon as I come up with another way to get you home," Husk lied.

Part of Angel Dust wanted to ask him to keep talking. Just hearing his voice was keeping the panic at bay. But his heart said Husk wasn't cutting the call short to look for a plan. He had one.

---

Week Six, Day Two - Death's Domain, late morning:

Charlie's head hurt. "Arrugh. This doesn't make sense."

Azrael sat back on a throne styled of bones and angelic steel. "Then you probably have a fundamental misunderstanding of things."

Exasperated, Charlie demanded, "Well, then explain it to me!"

"Azrael, you're an Elder Above. You're on the side of Heaven." Charlie threw up her hands. "But the Horsemen are empowered by beings in the Other. Shouldn't the Horseman of Death serve some great Power from the Other?"

Azrael's tone was amused. He leaned his head on one hand as one of the naked men from the orgy served him a goblet of Beelzejuice. "You say that as if God isn't one."

Emily squeaked. "...what?..."

Azrael sat up and lifted the goblet, quoting scripture. "And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep."

He smiled. "I always loved that verse. So poetic." He drank deeply from the goblet.

Charlie listened, thinking. "That's not Creation being described, is it?" she asked, voicing a suspicion. "That's the Other."

Alastor spoke up, having been silent for the better part of an hour. "See what I mean. She would have made a fine Conquest."

Charlie shot him a look. She didn't need Alastor's crap right now. "So the whole Final Game is a battle between... what? God and the Adversary. Deities of Good and Evil in the Other?"

Azrael clapped. "Closer than you've been until now."

He steepled his hands as if about to pray. "But I'm afraid big all-caps GOD whipped up the Grand Design, made some angels, hung around for a while with the Throne, and then went out for a pack of smokes."

He gave Emily a patronizing look. "Sorry to break it to you."

"Don't be." If Azrael hoped to upset her, he failed. Emily was practically serene. "I never really believed in God."

Vaggie let out a strangled "...What?"

Emily quickly tried to assuage their wife. "I mean, as being in the picture. I know Someone made Sera."

"Emily..." Charlie felt shocked and a little worried.

Alastor spoke up again. "Charlie, dear, I expected such ignorance from poor, sheltered Emily..."

"Hey!" Emily protested.

Alastor ignored her. "...but all your life, you have seen the darker side of Heaven. How could you have believed it was a place of Good?"

Emily insisted, "Heaven is Good!"

Alastor smirked at the younger seraphim. "Proving my point."

He turned back to Charlie, tapping his fingers over the head of his microphone. "You've been striving to help Sinners move to a better place, while mistaking it for an inherently good one." His grin narrowed. "The only good in Heaven is there because the people in it choose to be good. And the environment allows them to be."

Vaggie caught on. "No scarcity."

Alastor nodded, seeming a little surprised by Vaggie's insight. "But then, reason has always portrayed itself as Good and painted madness as Evil."

The words from her favorite story in The Book of Hell rushed back to Charlie:

But he was seen as a troublemaker by the Elders of Heaven... dangerous to the order of their world.

Evil finally found its way into earth... and the order Heaven had worked to maintain was shattered.

She heard her dad's voice. From the first day he visited her hotel.

Heaven has rules. Lots of rules.

"This has never been Good versus Evil," Charlie realized aloud, her voice cross. "It's Order versus Chaos."

From his throne, Azrael proclaimed, "Death is the greatest possible form of order."

---

Week Six, Day Two - Stylish Occult , Imp City, late morning:

Crymini crouched next to Octavia behind the sales counter. The shopkeeper was cringing next to them, looking even more panicked than she felt. Octavia spoke softly to them, trying to make sure they were okay.

"Come out, come out, wherever you are!"

The abomination sing-songed in a horrid voice as she climbed in through the shattered window. She touched the wall with her sickle-like fingers and it cracked. Up the wall and webbing out across the ceiling. The cracks split open to reveal new eyes which began searching for them.

Did her mother send this monster? She was a huge step up from imp assassins.

Crymini shifted, whispering. "It's like whatever that snatch's body is made out of died ages ago and forgot to tell her." She grinned. "Fortunately, I have just the tool for that."

Octavia's eyes widened as the puppy Sinner pulled out a napalm thrower! The Goetia teen grabbed the puppy by the arm, hissing, "You are not burning down Stylish Occult!"

The puppy demon grumped, rolling her eyes, and stashed the napalm thrower. She glanced at the shop keeper, then crouched to the floor and motioned for Octavia to follow her.

Octavia got onto the ground, nodding. If the abomination was after her, she could at least keep it away from anyone else. They made their way into the maze of circular clothing racks, using them for cover. Especially from the eyes covering the front third of the shop's ceiling.

Crymini stopped to check out a pre-slashed, reversible red and black crop top. "Fucking vicious. This shop has, like, everything my heart desires."

Yes, but I will warn you... Octavia grumbled, stomping on the thought. "We are not doing this bit."

Crymini's ears dipped back. "Just saying, I get why I shouldn't use the napalm thrower. You don't think they'll ban us, do you?"

The force of Octavia's scowl shut her up.

"I smell it on you, Octavia."

Crymini's ears swiveled. She led them towards the back rooms. The dressing rooms and bathroom would be traps, but the stockroom had a back door.

"What's she after?" Crymini whispered as they hid behind a rack of jeans.

"My life?" Octavia offered. Was her mother angry at her for choosing to stay with her dad? That was a horrible thought. But how could Octavia put it past her? Maybe her mother thought killing her would be a great way to hurt her father again.

Her mind flashed to the creepy caress. She reached between her modest breasts and fingered the stone that hung between them. She lifted it for the other teen to see. "Or, I think, maybe this?"

Her mother couldn't possibly be so hateful and deluded as to send an abomination like this just to steal a gift from her dad away from her! Why? She'd let her keep every other one.

A crash nearby drew her attention away.

"Well, who do we have here?"

Octavia felt a tug about her neck, the feeble chain breaking as Crymini stole her necklace. The puppy teen dashed out of their hiding spot and jumped up onto a table, sending collectable Klown Bitch boxes scattering.

"I said leave her alone!" Crymini roared triumphantly. "I'm the one who has what you want! Come and get me!" Crymini held the necklace up for the abomination to see. The stone caught the light from the broken window, seeming to glow.

Crymini's muzzle opened.

Octavia had a sudden, horrible, sinking feeling. She lurched forward, screaming, "No!" But she was a second too late. Crymini swallowed her necklace.

The puppy teen smiled smugly at the naked, reeking abomination. The not-a-woman stared back with eyes that split and popped across her body and grinned abysmally.

"If you think I won't take what I want from inside you, you've forgotten our last encounter."

Crymini suddenly looked much less smug. She wore the face of a puppy who realized she had just made a big mistake.

---

Week Six, Day Two - Hazbin Hotel, noon:

Husk stared at the bottle of whiskey. He could see the open portal reflected in the glass as people who were not him went through.

He couldn't do anything. He had all this angelic fucking power. Angel Dust and his sister were being held captive by a sociopathic family member. And he couldn't do anything.

He could just send other people to do the job for him. Give up some of that power, even though they couldn't use it either. Then sit and wait. Sit and wait and pray to a God he didn't really believe in that his dearest friend would be brought home safely from a trap where his enemy could at a whim send his friend into the Deep Other, tearing his soul apart and turning him into nothing but a scream.

It was a fate he'd spent far too long imagining.

He'd been waiting the better part of a day now for Angel Dust and every minute was like having bugs in his own blood.

He saw the flash of angelic light as the portal closed. They were in Greed now. There was nothing to do but wait some more.

Husk clenched the whiskey bottle, unsure if he wanted to drink it or to throw it. His delusion that he had broken free of addiction had been shattered and the liquid was calling to him.

Instead, he put the whiskey back on his shelf. No, a drink wouldn't help right now. What he needed, what he really needed, was to cut loose on someone he could.

That's the filthy snatch who killed me last month!

Husk opened a new portal.

---

Week Six, Day Two - Greed, noon:

Razzle stared up at the green sky. Then out across the industrial wasteland that slewed off of the city. The light was strange and unpleasant. The smells were foul and acidic. As if all of Greed was toxic.

"Lovely neighborhood," Sera said, stepping through the portal and looking around. She had been the one to ask if he wanted to join them.

Sera had also apologized if the offer was painful. But Razzle had been living under the same roof as Lute, the second half of Husk's chosen two. It was painful to look at her sometimes. To remember she was the one who killed his brother. But Razzle had seen Lute become someone who was not their enemy. Someone Charlie would shake hands with. He didn't love this, but he could work with Lute, especially to rescue Charlie's friends.

Maybe his friends too, if he wanted to be extremely liberal. Breakfast table buddies fit better. But Sera had thought of him. And talked to him. Razzle considered Sera a friend.

Sera closed the portal behind her. "That is the last I will be using the power Husk lent me until Molly's elder brother is unconscious or slain," Sera reminded them.

"The first easily becomes the second," Lute said, stretching her black wings, drawing Razzle's attention to the barely-visible web of scars. "The spider is dangerous."

"Unless he forces it, we should allow Molly and her brother to make that call," Sera told her. "I have enough blood on my hands. We both do."

Lute's eyes widened, then narrowed. She looked Sera up and down silently, not for the first time.

The fallen Exorcist pulled out her phone, crouching and setting it down to poke at it. "We have to find them first. The picture from Molly's phone showed two distinctive towers, but it's a big Ring."

Sera turned to Razzle. "Any suggestions on how to narrow that down?"

Razzle did indeed have one.

---

Week Six, Day Two - Oripat, Heaven, noon:

Cherri Bomb brought her arms up in front of her face, shielding her eye from the flurry of blows from the gerbil woman. Blocking her vision too, which Ro took advantage of. She wasn't ready when the woman slammed into her, beating her wings, driving them back against the railing on one of the stairwells.

Cherri Bomb lifted both arms over her head, clenching her hands into a single fist. Ro used the chance to drive a blow into her face, splitting her upper lip. Cherri Bomb drove her fists down on Ro's left shoulder. That got a grunt. She followed up by sending a knee up, but Ro twisted away.

That gave the former demon enough room to maneuver. When Ro's next fist flew at her, she grabbed it, directing it past her and between the bars of the railing. Then she slammed into the trapped arm, hearing a crack of bone.

Ro screamed and drew back, clutching her arm.

"Yield?" Cherri Bomb offered, grinning. Tasting gold. It wasn't the blood she was used to, but it still had a subtle metallic taste.

"Fuck you!" Ro responded, feinting, then driving a high kick into her solar plexus. Cherri Bomb bent over, coughing gold.

Ro spun with another kick, but Cherri Bomb blocked with her wing. The former Exorcist grabbed Cherri Bomb's wing with her good hand and threw her. Pain shot up her ass as Cherri Bomb landed on it.

The Australian former demon rolled onto her hands and knees, looking around. Then, thankfully, up. Wings made for three-dimensional fights. She brought her arms and wings up in a shield just in time as the former Exorcist dropped on her. The impact sent Cherri Bomb slamming onto the floor on her back as Ro somersaulted backwards to land on her feet.

Thinking quickly, Cherri Bomb kicked off her shoes. The gerbil jumped at her, and she lifted her legs, kicking, driving her heels into the woman's eyes. Ro went crashing backwards. Epic.

Cherri Bomb pushed herself wobbly to her feet. Ro was pushing herself onto her knees, cradling her right arm. Breathing heavily. But then, they both were.

It didn't even register that the gerbil woman had a tail until Cherri Bomb felt it wrap around her left foot and yank. The cyclopean angel's connection with the ground vanished. Then she connected again. With the back of her head.

The gerbil jumped on her, grabbing her hair and slamming her head a second time into the Heavenly concrete. The star in Cherri Bomb's eyes saw stars of its own.

She could barely see Ro raising the fist attached to her good arm again.

"I yield!"

---

Week Six, Day Two - Stylish Occult , Imp City, noon:

This was such a stupid, stupid idea!

Crymini clambered over the parked station wagon and crouched behind it. Then turned, trying the door. It was locked. Which meant someone had reason to lock it. Imp City had a lot more still-functional vehicles than Pentagram City.

Crymini pulled out her lockpicks. She didn't have a portal home, so a ride was her best bet.

A jagged crack tore the asphalt beneath her. Eyes stared up at her. Crymini growled, switching her lockpicks into her off hand. One was definitely staring up her dress. That was the one that got her switchblade first.

Fleshy tendrils of sinew and rotted meat hooked under the car with scythe-like fingernails and lifted her cover into the air.

The gangrenous snatch had found her again. She'd taken the time to retrieve her red trenchcoat, resuming the fucked up Carmen Sandiego look she seemed fucking enamored with. But it was open now, letting Crymini see runes of blood glowing on her naked flesh. Most of her torso was taken up by that dank-ass symbol of Roo from the Roo Shit House.

Crymini was pretty sure those hadn't been there before. But it would have been hard to tell with the whole gross knitting-herself-together flex.

The teenage puppy demon backpedaled as the shadow of the lifted car fell over her. A moment later, the Roo Shit twat brought the car slamming down on her.

Black energy whisked around her, flaring into a shield above Crymini. The car slammed down against it, the roof smashing in. For a moment, the shield held. Then it shattered. But that moment had given Crymini enough time to react.

When the station wagon came down, Crymini was curled into the empty crux between the windshield and the hood. She unfurled and scrambled out.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Octavia darting from another parked car to a dumpster, trying to circle around. What the fuck!? The whole point of swallowing the damn necklace was to pull the psycho cunt away from Octavia!

Tendrils of intestine wrapped together into an oozing whip that swept the crumpled, overturned station wagon away. The abomination strode towards Crymini, lashing out again. This time snaring the dumpster and flinging it into the air. Octavia blinked, cringing as her cover vanished.

"You little girls will rue making this difficult."

The abomination stopped, her asymmetrical eyes blinking out of unison. The mouths within her wounds grinning and beginning to laugh at her own wording, joining in a blasphemous, gibbering chorus. Only to be cut off by the blaze of angelic light that tore down the street.

Husk strode down the street, his body awash in a burning, flickering light. A mix of infernal and sacred fire. Behind him, the hotel parlor was visible through a blazing ring of gold.

"Get through the portal! I've got this!"

Crymini ran over to Octavia, grabbing the goth owl teen, and hauled tail for the Hazbin Hotel.

---

Week Six, Day Two - Death's Domain, noon:

"...and you're looking to start the Final Game," Vaggie surmised.

Azrael sat forward. "Girl, the Final Game started some time ago," he corrected.

Vaggie felt all of Hell plunging out from under her. The apocalypse has already started? They were too late to try to stop it? From the sounds of it, they had been since the beginning. "When?"

"Officially, the day Famine accepted her Key. But there were moves being made well before then," the Angel of Death told her. "From a mortal's perspective, you could say it's a bit of a slow burn, but the Final Game is well underway." A frown. "It's just... been on hold recently."

Next to her, Charlie hissed under her breath. "Helsa started the Apocalypse. Why am I surprised?"

Vaggie glared at Azrael. "Woman, shitass. And what do you mean, on hold?"

Alastor finally stepped forward to say something other than taunting one of her wives. "A time out, you could say."

"Why?" Emily asked before Vaggie could.

Azrael groused from his throne. "The Exterminations were my affair. But War got involved and everything went tits up. I've spent most of the last eight years trying to fix the mess."

He looked at his empty goblet. "Of course, our enterprising little sister came back far too early, looking to capitalize on the chaos." He turned it upside down while his eyes locked on Charlie. "And your mother turned isolation into opportunity. Because Heaven forbid any of the other Horsemen just do what they are supposed to."

Alastor started walking towards Azrael's throne, speaking loudly and genially. "But you are back in the game now. Does that not mean you've dealt with what caused the time out?"

Azreal tossed the goblet aside. "Almost."

Alastor wore an expression of casual curiosity. "And does Cherri Bomb have anything to do with this almost of yours?"

Emily gasped, "What!?"

Vaggie's feelings echoed Emily's. But she saw that Charlie seemed on the same page as Alastor.

"You." Charlie leveled a gaze at Death Himself. "You're the psychopomp. The guy who takes souls where they need to go. You're the one who brought Cherri Bomb to Heaven." Statements, not questions. The question came next. "Is Cherri Bomb's redemption legitimate? Or is this just part of some fucked up Horseman plot?"

"I assure you, Charlie," Azrael proclaimed, standing up. "Cherri Bomb's redemption is very legit."

He stepped forward, holding out his arms. Wordlessly, two naked women from the orgy pool rushed to his side like ornamentation.

What an absolute pig. Vaggie had no trouble picturing Azz and Adam being friends.

"I merely pulled her out of the Other before her soul was shredded beyond recovery and took her to the Throne," Azrael insisted. "After that, it was all on her. She gained her place in Heaven by her own merits and the Throne's mercy."

That, on the other hand, was a great relief to hear. She could hear Charlie's heart feeling lighter. There was music and sparkles and rainbows in her wife's eyes.

"Why her?" Alastor asked.

Azrael stared at Alastor. "Because she was a better person than she had been when she died. She was improving remarkably. That's where her soul should have gone. Would have, had she died properly."

Death stepped towards his Hand. "Sure, it doesn't hurt that I like her. Or that she has potential. But I would have done it either way." He scowled, for the first time letting his displeasure truly show. "Some of us remember to do the jobs we exist for."

"She was improving..." Vaggie reiterated. "So, does this mean Baxter's theory about what gets people into Heaven is right? That Hell really isn't a place of punishment so much as a quarantine where souls are abandoned which Heaven considers so corrupted they'll make Heaven worse? Are the Elders Above using some sort of corruption test? People who give into evil beyond a certain point are, for a lack of a better word, contagious?"

Azrael turned away from Alastor, surprise evident in every part of his demeanor.

"I would have used leper colony, but Baxter is essentially correct, at least in most of the broad strokes," Death pontificated. "His biggest error is assuming Judgment is passed by the Elders Above. Judgment of mortal souls comes strictly from the Throne. As does, now, the souls of demons who appear before Him. The only ones the Elders Above judge are angels."

---

Week Six, Day Two - Imp City, noon:

A blazing comet of angelic fire lanced out of the sky, slamming through what had, until moments ago been Wally Wackford's Waffle Emporium. The flame in the crater's center flickered, then tore apart, condensing back into the winged cat-demon's hands. He stood up in the rubble, staring into the red sky of Pride's second circle.

The trenchcoated bitch floated, silhouetted against the noonday blaze, pulling several of her limbs back together. He saw the cancerous mass of her brain metastasize before the halves of her head closed back together. An asymmetrical pattern of eyes opened to glare down at him. Her long hair flared behind her. Writhing, misshapen tendrils of sinew snaked out of her missing foot, wrapping about to put her ridiculous hat back on her head.

"Stronger than you look," Husk rumbled, grinning with bloodied teeth. "Good." He wiped blood from his chin, his eyes glowing. He had no trouble unleashing everything he had against this abomination. And it felt fucking great. "I'm just getting sta..."

A whimper cut off his taunt. He turned to see a hellhound pup nosing at what Husk assumed was her mother, unconscious and pinned under rubble. The little sparkles of diamonds and hearts assured him she wasn't dead. But even flexing his luck for all it was worth, this fight was still generating collateral.

The bitch caught what had distracted him. He could almost hear her lips splitting from her grin. Her jaw cracked open, and what came forth didn't come for him. It went for the puppy.

Husk threw himself between the child and the malignant black, drawing up a sheet of angelic fire to enwrap it and burn it away. Ta da. Disappeared like magic.

The small girl stared up at him with literal puppy eyes.

Muscles made of oozing, gangrenous muscle wrapped around him and bit into him with teeth, pulling him upwards. He only screamed a little.

Okay, fuck this. I can't let anyone else get hurt.

Killing the abomination was abruptly off the table. It would take too long. He needed to get rid of her. His first thought was, horrifically, to pull an Alastor. But he doubted angelic powers could open a portal into the Deep Other. And he didn't dare throw this bitch into Heaven. He needed someplace with a lot of nothing.

She smiled at him with far too many eyes and mouths of teeth.

He opened a golden portal behind her, then blasted her through it with angelic light, sending her into the lava ball of a Wrathian volcano. The tendrils ripped away, taking flesh and blood and fur.

Husk flapped his wings, landing back in the rubble of Wally Wackford's Waffle Emporium. He turned towards the puppy and her unconscious mother. With a wave, he floated the rubble off of the older hellhound as he walked towards them.

Kneeling, he purred gently. "Be not afraid." His hands reached out, glowing softly. "She's going to be okay." The girl growled as he reached for her mother.

Nobody dies today.

It felt unspeakably right to blast that monstrosity with holy light. It would feel even better to use the same power to heal.

---

Week Six, Day Two - Hazbin Hotel, noon:

Octavia gulped down the water that Crymini had given her. She was trembling. Images of that nightmare woman kept flashing through her head. She looked for a coaster to set the empty glass down on.

"Where is everybody?" Octavia asked, looking around at the empty parlor. The hotel was beautiful, befitting the vanity project of the King's daughter. But the way Crymini had talked about it, she expected... somebody.

Octavai had not stayed in a hotel in a long time. But she was under the impression they usually had greeting staff. And, for that matter, a front desk. The closest this place had was a bar. Which Crymini was climbing over.

"The moms are away on their honeymoon," Crymini said as she scrambled over the counter and dropped behind it. Well, that made sense. Crymini's next words, however, were alarming. "Two of the fam were kidnapped after the wedding yesterday. I'm betting some of the others are doing something about that. Sure you don't want anything stronger?"

"Kidnapped!?" Via started. The casual way Crymini said it set off alarms. Was this place any safer? "This sort of thing happens often?"

"Not really." Crymini stood up, holding a key. "Got you a room! Normally, Husk would do this." The puppy teen quickly explained, "He's the one who came to the rescue."

You came to the rescue. Was that just something so normal for her?

Crymini grabbed a flask off the bar's back wall. "Got us some vodka. Unless you want another poison."

"I... really don't... need alcohol," Octavia said slowly.

"Well, I do!" Crymini insisted, vaulting back over the bar with more grace than she showed climbing it. The puppy demon stopped, staring at Via's hands. They were shaking, but just a little. "We can share a bottle. I promise I don't have the plague."

Octavia stared at her own treacherous hands. Why am I a mess? I've been around violence before. I wasn't even hurt!

Oh please Lucifer, don't let me be banned from Stylish Occult!

Crymini walked back to her and held out the key. "Rule of the hotel: I'm going to ask if you are okay. And if you say I'm fine when you clearly aren't, I get to punch you."

Octavia stared. Then asked dubiously, "Is that really a rule?"

Crymini answered with, "Are you okay?"

"No." She took the key.

"If you want to go home, I can call..." Crymini started to offer, but Via cut her off.

"No! I am not leaving your side until you give me back the necklace you swallowed!" Via said crossly, jabbing a finger at the other girl. "That was a gift from my dad!"

Crymini's ears flattened. "Uh... that could take a day or two."

"I don't care!" Octavia huffed. "What were you thinking!?"

Crymini cringed, protesting, "I thought it would save you! It... felt like a good idea."

"Well it clearly wasn't!" Octavia ranted at her. "Even that nightmare woman called it stupid! Did you stop to think at all?"

Crymini stood there, looking trapped. Then said softly, "Last time I hesitated, big sis died."

Those words sucked the fire out of Octavia. Or maybe it was the puppy teen's tone. "Oh..." She lowered her arms. "...I'm sorry."

"Don't be," the puppy girl said. "She's in Heaven now. She was the guitarist for Stigma."

Octavia blinked. "Seriously?" The puppy Sinner nodded at her. "That can happen?"

"Second Sinner to ascend. Thanks to Princess Charlie and her hotel." Crymini pointed around. "It's like a halfway house for redemption."

Octavia processed that as she let Crymini lead the way. The teenaged Sinner led her up the stairs to the third floor. They topped the stairs and turned into the hallway

A tiny woman, smaller than most imps, skittered towards them from a maid's cart parked in the hallway. "New guest?" she asked Crymini, but didn't wait for an answer. "Welcome to the Hazbin Hotel!" she greeted Octavia with a manic energy.

"Niffty's a solid," Crymini told her. "And she throws a mean pan."

"You said I could!" Niffty pouted. Then boasted to Octavia, "I throw meaner flowers!"

Crymini barked a laugh. "Hey, Niffty? Could you bring me a bunch of plastic bags? I've got to sort through my shit for the next day or two."

Octavia cringed a little, knowing she meant that literally. And it was... no, this wasn't on her! It was entirely Crymini's fault! She scowled a little at the other girl. But not too much.

Niffty nodded. "Okay!" And dashed back to her cart.

---

Week Six, Day Two - Greed, just after noon:

Lute flew towards a rooftop three blocks from what they were guessing was their target: a transfer depot for goods traveling between the second and fourth Rings named The Silos. The exterior structure of the target building was primarily cinderblock and sheet metal. Surrounded by a large parking lot. The harpy eagle had already spotted guards and surveillance cameras.

The trio's descent was hidden by a billboard pornographically advertising fish-demon lesbian twincest and also, she guessed, fin gloss. Lute would have expected that kind of billboard in Lust, but she supposed sex sold everywhere.

Lute landed, crouching down. Husk said these people were really into surveillance, so she didn't want them coming in from the sky. Demons encountered on the ground could be dealt with swiftly, before they raised an alarm.

Behind her, Razzle and Sera followed, oooohing out the last harmonizing ooooh of their wordless musical number. Lute had never heard Razzle speak - didn't believe he could - but he could ooh and aah like the best of them. She'd heard him add vocables to Charlie's singing around the hotel. (The last time was during the princess' ode to fancy toast.)

When Sera asked Razzle for an idea on how to find the place faster, she expected some triangulation method, or some way to identify the location of the towers in the picture...

No. Honestly, she didn't expect anything. She still didn't know how Sera seemed to understand Razzle when he never said a word. She assumed it was some leftover High Seraphim talent.

But Lute could never have imagined they would reduce hours or days of searching into minutes by means of musically induced montage. Sera gave Razzle a little bow at the end of their song which Razzle returned. Lute just stared.

Velvette would have something appropriately snide to say.

Razzle whistled softly, waving his hands up and down in front of his torso. Sera comprehended immediately.

"That is hardly akin to channeling the energy of Creation," Sera told him. "But you are right. I shouldn't risk even the most minor use of power." A flash of hellish flame geysered over her for just an instant. Lute felt a jolt of alarm. That was not stealthy. "Thank you, Razzle."

In the flame's wake, Sera's human-like visage was gone, revealing the black-and-charcoal feathered avian that the fallen seraphim was beneath, draped in resplendent gloom with eyes that glowed red. Lute sucked in a breath. She had seen Sera in her true form in Heaven. This was what her Fall had transformed that true form into.

Razzle's lack of reaction told Lute she was the only one here seeing it for the first time.

"You look..." Lute searched for the best words. "...very gothic."

"Thank you," Sera said.

Lute flattened herself to the rooftop and moved across it. She looked back to motion the others to follow, only to find them right behind her. Sera was standing. Razzle was flying next to her head. And Sera was very tall. Lute felt a whole new pain right between the eyes.

"Get down!" she hissed. "We're trying not to be seen."

Looking abashed, Sera awkwardly lowered herself until she was laying down on the roof. That was better. Razzle likewise landed.

Sera had transformed from the High Seraphim of Heaven into a mostly-clueless civilian. Lute assigned mostly to that thought because she was giving the benefit of the doubt that Sera's outfit was meant to be some sort of camouflage.

Lute was leading a rescue mission, and her squad was a civilian and somebody who couldn't talk. And who had every reason to hate her and want to see her insides somewhere outside. And who had absolutely zero combat skills, judging by the fact his identically-untrained twin had lasted less than twelve seconds against her in battle.

If Adam had still been in Heaven, he would be looking down laughing at her.

"Okay." Part of her wished she could put these two through basic training before continuing. But the very idea of the woman she once considered the supreme authority in Heaven doing basic training crashed and burned like Lucifer's Fall.

I need a different metaphor. That one was needlessly unkind to Charlie. And also, like so much of her religious knowledge, probably bullshit.

"Sera, what's the truth about Lucifer's Fall?" Lute found herself asking as they moved across the rooftop, making their way to the target. "You were there, right?"

Oh, it wasn't a fall so much as a trip down in a hot air balloon. We threw him a going away party on the ride. The Virtues helped move his furniture. Did I mention the balloon was duck-shaped?

At this point, she would be utterly unsurprised.

Instead, Sera's response was a terse, "Let's keep focused."

The tone reminded her of the Sera that used to give Adam orders. Not the one who played piano and slept with a Sin. It was a little comforting to know that at least some part of the woman she had followed was still there in the woman who was now following her.

---

Week Six, Day Two - Death's Domain, just after noon:

"THAT is what has been going on this whole time?!"

Emily was furious. Well, really, who could blame her?

"The Elders Above don't even see Heaven as a place of Virtue? Of Good!?" the younger seraphim shouted, having completely discarded the reality that the Elder Above she was verbally lambasting was her superior. "It's just... a lifeboat for what you can salvage of a Creation you consider broken?"

Alastor tsked. "Well, I have the answer I came for. We'll be leaving now. Emily, a portal home if you would."

It would have been nice to slip in a query about why Death had once ordered him to take out Overlords. And why that order was rescinded. But that would have to wait for another time. Right now, it was more imperative to ensure that there would be another time.

Emily paid him no attention. "Is that why you never talked to Sera or me? Because you don't have anything worthwhile to say!?"

Alastor cocked his head, his smile a rictus. He did not like the way Emily's halo was crackling. "Emily, dear. We should go or we might miss lunch. I'm sure Niffty..."

Charlie shot him a look. "What the fuck, Alastor?"

Alastor spun to face Death. "Anyway, toodles, Azrael. Or Baron Samedi. Or whatever drivel you decide to coat yourself in next. Your Hand has helped you masturbate enough for the day, I think."

Azrael ignored Emily just as completely, focusing on him. "You were told not to return here Alastor. You ignored the warning with intent. We both know you won't be allowed to leave again."

Staccatos of holy light were making the Death's Domain feel like a dance club. Emily took to the air as her halo sparked and flashed as if it had been struck by lightning.

"You talk about wiping out Creation, and then say you only judge angels? Like you judged Lucifer? Like They judged my sister? What makes you think you're worthy to judge any of us?!"

Vaggie and Charlie both ran towards her, only to be driven off by bolts of radiance shearing off of the seraphim's halo. "Emily!"

Even Azrael was alarmed. "Wrath is not your Sin, Emily. It's not a good look on you," he cautioned. "I'd recommend you seek help before you shatter your halo, but there is nobody here who can help with that. And I'm afraid Alastor has assured you won't be going anywhere else."

Vaggie spun towards Death, pulling out her spear. "Over my dead body!"

"Really the wrong choice of words," Azrael drolled.

Alastor interrupted. "I'm afraid we'll all have to agree to disagree." He forced his voice to be patient and gentlemanly, but insistent. "Emily, portal if you please."

He turned and started walking away, beckoning the others to follow. As if there was any chance they would. Or that he would be allowed...

Alastor felt the heavy, pale color manifest around his neck like ghostly bone. There it was. He had but a moment to marvel at its exquisite craftsmanship before he choked, yanked back through the air to stumble at Death's feet.

Azrael stared down at him, daring another act of defiance.

Death opened his mouth to speak, only to have his servant torn from him as Emily slammed into Alastor, sending them both flying across the orgy pit and through a table filled with exotic stuffed fruits. Alastor landed painfully on his back, the younger seraphim straddling him.

Emily had Vaggie's spear in her hands. She lifted it above her head, light tearing out from her like she was the center of a plasma globe.

And, just for a moment, she hesitated.

Alastor could guess why. There was no Husk here to caress luck to her favor. There was a very good chance she would kill him. And that would trap them all here for the rest of their lives, which Alastor was certain was the true concern.

Alastor nodded. His smile had never felt so genuine.

Emily brought the spear down with a scream. Death's Domain filled with blinding light.

Emily's halo cracked.

---

Week Six, Day Two - Oripat, Heaven, just after noon:

"So, was it good for ya?" Cherri Bomb snickered as she collapsed against a pillar and slid down to her ass. Ouch. That hurt. She had literally gotten her ass kicked. She was going to have to come up with some rules for this. First rule: no weapons, and that includes shoes.

Ro was standing above her, clutching her arm, gold running down her face. Her eyes were golden and swollen. She huffed. Self-assessed. Then smirked. "Yeah. Better than the last month of fucking pansy-ass therapy."

Cherri Bomb smirked back. "This is therapy. Aussie ex-demon style."

"It's sparring," Ro countered. "We used to do this back at the barracks to train. Now what?"

Cherri Bomb watched the splashes of golden ichor on the warehouse floor ripple away. Heaven's self-cleaning service. It brought a smile to her face. Which hurt. And that made her smile even more. "Ha! Normally, after a good fight like that, I'd grab someone and have sex."

Ro stared at her through the swollen eye that still opened. Gold ran down half her face.

"Yeah, probably not the right move up here," Cherri Bomb admitted, rubbing her shoulder. Her wing felt bent. Moving it shot bolts of pain through her back. "Gonna take the day healing. Tomorrow too." She looked around the Oripat warehouse again, then turned to the other woman, watching her cradle her arm.

"That going to be okay?" Cherri Bomb asked. "Or is that something a medic angel needs to set?"

"It will be fine," Ro insisted. "I know how to set it myself. Exorcist training."

"Then I'm glad I found ya first," the cyclopean angel confessed. "If this fight club is gonna grow, I need someone like ya."

Ro laughed in surprise. "We're really going to make this a thing?"

Cherri Bomb nodded, grinning gold. "I'll be back here tomorrow," she promised. "Even if I won't fight." She groaned in pain and loved it. "I'm thinking I need to work up a few rules for this. And one will be: you don't fight two days in a row. Always take a day to heal."

"No spitting," Ro said.

Cherri Bomb looked up, blinking. "No spitting?"

Ro turned her gaze back towards the entrance. Towards the rest of Heaven. "I hardly remember anything of my mortal life. Having your name ripped does that. But I remember how much I loved my father. And how proud I was of him. Fighting for us. For our country. Brave. Righteous."

Her hands clenched into fists. "We pulled out. Lost. And when he came back, they spit on him!"

Cherri Bomb was shocked by the flash of raw rage that crossed the former Exorcist's face. The betrayal in her voice.

"I remember how angry I was." Ro looked up, glaring at Heaven. "And now, it's been my turn."

Cherri Bomb grimaced. She could even guess which war Ro's father had been in. "Right. New rule: no spitting. These need to be respectful fights." No matter how brutal. No matter how you feel about the person you are fighting.

"So, we keep doing this?" Ro asked. "Just, whenever we need to?"

Cherri Bomb nodded. "Tell your sisters, or anyone else who wants some Aussie-style fight therapy."

"Don't advertise this," Ro urged. "No reason to upset the fluffier angels. They'd shut this down."

"Figured," Cherri Bomb said. "But what E doesn't know won't hurt her. And I think this is going to help people. Maybe not many, but we can't be the only two." She smirked. "And hey, it ain't like we're hiding it. Golden fucking Library, am I right?"

This is the start of something. My own Good Work.

---

Week Six, Day Two - Imp City, just after noon:

Husk collapsed back what used to be part of a wall. He was still buzzing. Riding the high of the fight. Of throwing that power around. But he also hurt. Sera's power and his own luck magic had kept him from being a messy stain on several parts of Imp City's infrastructure. But that protection wasn't total. He felt like he had gone twelve rounds with a heavyweight champion.

He watched the mother hurry their daughter away, not looking at him. The little pup kept glancing back with big, tearful eyes. She'd called him an angel. He couldn't tell if that made him a savior or a monster in her eyes.

Husk groaned, feeling a fiery itch flush through him, accompanied by a rasping sound like a deck being shuffled. The sound ruptured into a cacophony and then silenced, leaving him with the distinct sense that someone had stolen his favorite deck of cards and used it to play 52 card pick-up.

He looked around. Then pulled up his Contracts.

There were less than a dozen. Just the ones he had made with Sera's help, including Lute's and Sera's own. Plus the blank Contract with Vanexa.

"The bastard's free." He shook his head. "Or dead."

---

Week Six, Day Two - Death's Domain, just after noon:

"Thank you, Emily!" Alastor breathed, still smiling.

Azrael strode forward, clapping. "Well played, Alastor. You will get to die free."

Alastor clutched at the wound on his neck, red blood running between his fingers. "Yes, I will. But not today," he rasped, the radio distortion magnifying his words.

Azrael's eyebrows raised. "What makes you believe that?" It was really a miracle he wasn't already dead. And with the slash on his neck, the power of Death wouldn't be needed to finish him off. Just a few minutes of waiting.

Alastor's smile never faltered. "Two words: Golden Library."

Alastor collapsed into shadow, sliding across the stone floor and rising up behind a startled Vaggie. He grasped her with one hand, running his bloodied fingers down her cheek with the other. "I don't for a moment believe that the Elders Above are recording every moment of their Seraphim In Charge so the public can access it. But the lowly rank-and-file?"

Vaggie started to pull away but he squeezed, telling her not to. And was pleased she obeyed, possibly even catching on. Finally realizing he had a more important role for her than just the one who carries a spear. A vital role.

Alastor stared at Azrael from behind the former Exorcist. "Everything they do is recorded in the Golden Library for all to witness. Everything they see. Everything they hear."

Emily pleased him, grasping his plan instantly. The seraphim shouted towards the Heavens. "Golden Library! Bookmark! Priority attention: Pravuil! If I, or any of my wives... or Alastor... should die or become unaccounted for, the last two hours of Vaggie's memory are to be publicly broadcast to all of Heaven!"

Azrael stared between them. And laughed. "Bold. Risky. You have no guarantee that I would care." He waved a hand towards Alastor, unleashing a flash of pale angelic power that struck the Radio Demon in the neck.

"Can't let you bleed out now, can I?" Azz chuckled.

Alastor could feel the blood still pouring down his neck and dampening his suit. Alastor dropped to one knee. In moments, he would be too weak to remain upright at all. But he would not die from the blood loss. Death wouldn't let him.

"You are still entertaining," Azrael commended. "Enjoy your freedom while it lasts, and do something interesting with it. I'll be watching."

His voice lowered in grave warning. "You're no Lucifer; you don't get to survive disappointing me."

---

Week Six, Day Two - The Silos, Greed, early afternoon:

"Hello, your highness!" the imp guard said, standing up straight at their approach. "What, uh, brings you to The Silos? We're not really open for visitors right now."

Lute and Razzle both looked up at her, neither quite hiding their surprise. Sera felt no less. She had given up her power. Taken a chain for it. There was no reason for anyone in Hell to treat her like she was some new Queen. Sera was not the next Lucifer.

On the other hand, this might be useful. No reason to correct the imp quite yet. "I am here to meet with your boss. Take me to Arackniss."

"Uh..." The imp looked back and forth.

"Is there a problem?" Sera asked sternly, narrowing her eyes.

"N-no. It's just, I'm not supposed to leave my post." He started to move. "Let me call..."

Sera bent down and slammed her hand over the radio that the imp was reaching for. "I want you to do it."

The imp swallowed and nodded. "R-right. At least let me tell him you're coming. He doesn't respond well to unexpected guests. Even a Goetia."

A Goetia. Sera concealed her surprise with skill born from millennia presiding over the Court of Heaven. Of course I would appear as one to them.

"I'll survive," she insisted. "And so will you."

Clearly unhappy, but born to serve, the imp motioned for her to follow.

---

Week Six, Day Two - Alastor's Radio Tower, early afternoon:

Keekee looked up as her giant arrived along with her angels and the special one. She stood up on the uncomfortable bed of pokey things and jumped down, first onto the special giant's chair, and then to the floor. She wrapped herself around the legs of her giant, making her stumble.

"Emily, are you okay?" her giant fretted, ignoring her. "Your halo!"

"I'm fine." A pause. "No, I'm not. I have no idea how I am." The angel looked at the special giant as he sank to his knees, bleeding. "I'm glad you are free," she said, offering her coverings for him to staunch the river of blood running down his side from his neck. "Thank you for getting us out of there."

Her giant left, promising a swift return.

"That was as much you as it was I," the special giant said, his special voice raspy, as he wadded up her coverings and held them against his neck. "And more Vaggie than either of us."

"You could have told me why you really needed me there!" her giant's other angel growled.

"Ah, but this way was far more entertaining," the special giant said with his special voice. Keekee decided to rub against his legs instead. And was promptly picked up and petted. With a hand sticky with blood. She had regrets.

"Entertaining!? For you or for him?"

The giant holding her just grinned. The angel's coverings were turning red.

"You two really share a level of suck, don't you?"

Keekee's giant returned with special wrappings to replace the angel's coverings. Ones she brought home from the mating announcement yesterday.

"And to think Charlie was worried your comparative lack of significance was a detriment," the special giant teased. "When it was actually the key to our very survival."

"Go fuck yourself, Alastor." Keekee's giant said as she pulled the bloody coverings from him and started wrapping his neck with the special wrappings.

Her giant sounded very stressed and should have accepted her offer. Instead, her giant took a deep breath and let it out. "Vaggie... Emily, we have a honeymoon to start. And after all that, I'm looking forward to it more than ever."

The bare angel glowed, gaining new coverings.

Her giant stared at the giant petting her. "We'll be back at the Hazbin Hotel in a week. And we are going to have a very long talk. But until then, I don't want to see you."

Her giant finally looked her in the eye. "Keekee, you're in charge."

Of course I am. But she supposed that sometimes giants needed to say such things out loud to remind themselves.

---

Week Six, Day Two - von Eldritch Estate, early afternoon:

There was a knock on the door.

Seviathan waved a hand, dissolving the runes dancing in eldritch flames across the parlor table, sending the green fires back into the fireplaces.

The von Eldritch son stood and walked out of the forward parlor and through the foyer. He had ways of scrying to see who was at the door, but it was more fun to guess. At this hour, and with no expected visitors, it was most likely a delivery. Very probably by an imp in Union colors. But there was an outside chance that he decided to bank on.

Seviathan summoned tentacles to pull the front doors of the mansion open as he approached. They parted to reveal a tall owl in royal finery, one he recognized easily from yesterday's Royal Wedding.

"I was close," he said, losing the game. Deciding to be overly generous with himself, he blamed the event yesterday afternoon. He still hadn't fully recovered.

"Good afternoon," Stolas began. "Pardon the visit, but I was hoping..." His eyes widened as he realized who he was talking to. "...to speak with your father."

"I'll save you the effort. But come in anyway." Seviathan stood aside with a sweep of his arm. He led the Goetia Prince into the forward parlor as the tentacles closed the doors and slithered back into the cracks between the tiles.

"Do you like kittens?" Seviathan asked as the Prince took a seat.

"Um... Sure. Who doesn't?" Stolas said, slightly confused. "Thank you," he added as Seviathan offered to take his cloak.

Seviathan nodded, hanging the cloak on a skull hook at the foyer entrance. "Fresh or fire-roasted?"

"Oh! That's very kind," Prince Stolas said. "But I'm not really hungry."

Seviathan had honestly expected as much. It was barely an hour after noon. The Prince would have had lunch before traveling. He took a seat opposite Stolas. "Allow me to guess: you are here to try to alter the terms of the marriage arrangement our fathers have forged between myself and your daughter."

Stolas' expression hardened. "I wish to have it annulled altogether," he said fiercely.

"And you intend to go straight to him, opening with that." Seviathan frowned. "Be glad you found me first. You're not good at this."

"Good at..." The Prince stopped. "Do you want this marriage?"

That's better.

Seviathan curated his tone to the discussion. Unlike the Prince, he was at least educated in Contract negotiations, even if he didn't practice. You didn't survive being a von Eldritch otherwise.

"I have no feelings towards or about your daughter one way or another," Seviathan told him. "How could I? All I have is a picture of Octavia and a dossier on the qualities that my father thought I would care about. Including lineage and beak circumference."

Stolas reacted with an expression trapped between growing pale and being angry.

"Am I thrilled with the idea of being married? Not particularly. Do I like my father forcing his choice on me? Even less." Seviathan studied the man. "I am looking into options. Like you are."

Prince Stolas took that in. "And have you found any?"

Seviathan frowned. "Understand going to my father directly won't do you any good. He already negotiated this with your father. He's already entrenched, having fought for, in his eyes, the best possible version of this Contract. Pleading the sake of your spawn isn't going to move him."

Stolas frowned. "I see."

"And please tell me you aren't hoping to appeal to empathy or morality," Seviathan added. "We're von Eldritches."

The Prince's frown deepened. He leaned forward, burying his head in his hands. As expected, that was exactly what the man was hoping to do. Seviathan shook his head. Why did people do that? "I've spoken briefly to Lucifer..."

Stolas' head shot up. "You've spoken to the King of Hell about this?" he blurted. "Just like that?"

"Lucifer and my dad are... as close as either of them have come to having a friend, outside of their wives." He saw no reason to expound on that. "Unfortunately, Lucifer isn't going to be any help. No more than father would try to undermine how he relates to Charlie."

"It's not undermining to...!" Stolas started, but Seviathan held up a hand. He watched the collapse behind the owl's eyes as he processed that was how they would see it. "But surely the fate of my daughter..."

"In my memory, Lucifer hasn't gotten involved in any affairs of demons. Never come to the aid or rebuke of anyone outside his own family," Seviathan stated flatly. "Do you truly have hope that he will start with helping a stranger at the cost of crossing his best friend?"

"No," Stolas admitted. "Then... who should I appeal to? I'll admit, trying to talk to my father would be just as pointless as trying to talk to yours."

"I have an idea or two," Seviathan consoled. Just by his being here, Seviathan's potential father-in-law was proving to be both far more foolish and a far better father than any he was familiar with. "But there are some people I need to learn more about before I pursue darker or brighter avenues."

"Who?"

Seviathan tolerated that. "Your daughter, for one." He saw the look of realization, chased immediately by shame. "Your father for another. I suspect access to the Goetia Archives would give me what I'm looking for."

Stolas' eyes narrowed. "Are you..." A small smile formed on his beak. "...suggesting an alliance?" A beat. "Against our fathers?"

Seviathan offered, "Are you sure you don't want a kitten?"

---

Week Six, Day Two - The Silos, Greed, early afternoon:

"I don't know the bird," Arackniss said, staring at the three of them.

Sera's true form had walked them right through everything the Hand of Famine had set up for security. The imps had even walked them right past the security room. If the spider-demon had been cycling through the cameras himself, this would not have gone so smoothly. But he wasn't taking his eyes off his siblings. And the imps only saw a Goetia.

The moment they were led into the manager's lounge, that changed. "But I'm familiar with the homunculus," Arackniss added, scowling. "And I recognize the angel."

Lute didn't hesitate. She flung herself at the small, dark spider before the word angel had fully left his mouth. The only way this worked was if they could take the Hand of Famine down before he decided to cut the protection he was giving his brother. Molly would survive if this went sideways, but Angel Dust wouldn't.

Lute barely felt her body slamming into his, tackling him. She focused on taking Molly's crossbow from his Other, counting on the man to be smart enough and paranoid enough to keep it on him. She knew she was right to as her fingers grasped angelic craftsmanship.

Lute rolled off and came up on her knees, her demonic aspect flaring. It was easy to assume. She just had to think about the pain from their last encounter. She aimed the crossbow at him.

Arackniss was on his feet and had closed the distance in the breath it took her to aim. Fuck, he was fast! The spider demon pulled her sword from the Other, swinging it in an arc, knocking the crossbow out of Lute's hands. Before it clattered to the floor, he was behind her, holding her own blade to her throat.

But Arackniss' focus wasn't on her. Instead, he turned away, towards Sera whose eyes were wide. She was just now beginning to process that a fight had started. Lute couldn't see what Arackniss did, but she knew that sound, like whispering razors.

Sera let out a cry as she was entangled in webbing as strong as angelic steel. Ensnaring her to the floor, the ceiling and the nearest desk.

The move put him off-balance. Arackniss was like Angel Dust, all extra hands and no extra feet. Lute grabbed the blade of her sword, her right hand gushing golden ichor as she rolled forward, hurling him over her. He was also a lot lighter than she was.

He didn't let go. Neither did she, twisting around to squat on top of him, fighting for the sword. The blade slid in her right hand, slicing deeper, slick with gold.

Lute released the blade from her right hand, flesh and tendons cut deep enough to have no real strength. Her left hand, however, was a scaly monstrosity forged out of perdition itself, and neither hurt nor bled. It kept hold of the angelic steel, wrenching it. "You took something that didn't belong to you!" she smirked.

"Not the first dame to tell me that," Arackniss snickered. He pummeled her torso with his extra hands, not shy where he hit. Angel Dust's brother had no issue fighting dirty. Neither did Lute.

"I'll be taking it back," Lute swore, lifting a leg and driving a knee into his groin.

Arackness groaned, eyes lighting up, but his grip held. He was wearing protection. Smart boy.

Staccato gunfire. Lute was peppered from the submachine guns of three imps who had been standing back until the moment the boss was on the ground. The impacts battered her, hurting severely, but only punched holes in her clothing.

Sera's voice called out. "I appear to be stuck in some sort of web!"

Lute died a little inside. She faintly heard her own voice from the past. They seem to have some sort of shield, sir! No wonder Adam called her a dumb bitch! "Busy!"

A blast of flame rushed past her, slamming into the wall. The heat was enough to fry her hair. The plaster of the wall incinerated and the cinderblock behind caught fire.

Lute twisted and rolled onto her back, pulling Arackniss into the gunfire. He was fast enough to deprive their guns of bullets, but not fast enough to do anything about the ones in the air. The dark spider demon let go of the sword, collapsing off of her with several new holes, coughing blood.

Lute became aware of firelight blazing behind her as well as ahead. She started to turn, her eyes catching the flaming tatters of the web, collapsing onto the floor and furniture, setting everything they touched ablaze.

Arackniss's webs are flammable.

Razzle was looking pleased with himself. Sera stood in the middle of the conflagration, freed. Looking shocked. Also naked.

How does Hell keep doing this?

Arackniss coughed blood. "Bad... move..." Oh fuck.

Razzle shot past her, grabbing the spider-demon. Not slowing, but growing in a rapture of hellfire. He was a full dragon when he hit the burning cinderblock wall and pulverized his way through it. Out.

But not up. Razzle landed hard on the parking lot below. He pushed himself to all fours and let out a roar. What had been Angel Dust's brother was now a bloody smear between him and the asphalt.

A golden portal erupted beside her with a disturbing flare of infernal flame. Beyond it, she could see Molly and Angel Dust, bound into chairs with heavy chains.

"What the fuck!?" Angel Dust blurted. "Sera? Lute!?"

Surprise was quickly shifting to horror as bits of Angel Dust began to flicker and go dark, like cigarette burns all over his body.

Sera summoned a second portal directly beneath the twins, dropping them, chairs and all, into the parlor of the Hazbin Hotel three Rings away. Lute had to give her former High Seraphim high marks for her quick initiative when it counted the most.

Sera walked towards the huge hole in the wall, brushing off burning tatters, calling out to Razzle.

With another roar of hellfire, Razzle resumed being a cute goat-dragon, flying back to them.

When did Charlie's... when did Razzle gain a level in badass? Adam would be impressed.

"Quick thinking with the fire. Thank you." Sera applauded Razzle. Then she frowned, looking outside. "I thought we were going to keep him alive," Sera said in the sort of admonishing tone that Lute knew drove High Seraphim Emily crazy.

"It's pavement, not angelic steel," Lute pointed out as Sera opened a portal to her closet for more clothing. Lute secured away her sword and Molly's crossbow. "He'll be back. Eventually."

---

Week Six, Day Two - Hazbin Hotel parlor, afternoon:

"AAAAAAUGGGGH!"

The moment they fell out of Greed, the feeling of wrongness evaporated. The pain hit before the metal chair he was bound into crashed down through the parlor's coffee table. A million tiny pieces of him, inside and out, had been torn away, and it hurt worse than anything Valentino had ever put him through.

Angel Dust screamed, thrashing between the chair and splintered remains of the table. Agony tore through his mind, blotting out every other thought than a desperate plea for it to end.

He sensed others around him. Trying to help. Fuck that! He didn't need a bandage and a kiss on his boo-boo. "AAAAHH! Someone please kill me and let me reform!"

A soft light pierced through the excruciating storm.

The agony began to ebb. Enough to make out Husk kneeling over him. He looked beat to shit, his clothing torn. He looked a thousand times better than Angel Dust felt. But the glow of his hands was turning the tempest of pain into something he could think through. They were the most wonderful hands in all of Hell.

"Still want somebody to off you?" Husk rumbled as the pain became no worse than a few dozen abscessed teeth sprinkled throughout his body.

Behind him, somebody was working on the locks holding his chains in place. He heard Crymini bark in victory as the chains loosened and Angel Dust tumbled fully out of the chair. Black energy swept over the floor, wiping away the jagged bits of wood and glass as he collapsed to the floor, closing his eyes with a hurting moan.

The glow from Husk's hands continued to bathe him. The pain was growing manageable. He could work with this. He had worked while in considerably more pain before. Fuck Valentino.

Another self-congratulatory cheer from the pupster. Angel Dust opened his eyes and looked up at his sister. It took a moment to remember why she was naked. Then everything flooded back.

"Thank Heaven you're okay!" Molly cried, dropping to her knees. There were tears in her eyes. She was smiling.

"Molly, what the fuck?!" he growled. The pain had eased enough that his fear and frustration with his twin sister managed to take center stage.

Molly jerked, looking abashed. Fearful. She knew immediately what he was upset about.

"Heaven is amazing!" she blurted. "It's wonderful! It is worth striving for. And I don't want to give you a reason to stop trying so hard by saying things that make it less than perfect!"

"I'd rather have honest!" he said, nearly shouting. "And frankly, if it was perfect, I'd have no place there. Plus, Exterminations! That ship has sailed!"

"Calm yourself, Angel Dust," he heard Sera say with infuriating calm. As if it was just that simple. "You are suffering trauma. Now is not the time to set fires."

Angel Dust wanted to glare at her and give her a piece of his mind about that, and the Kirkbride, and Heaven in general. He looked around, squirming out from under the chair, trying to spot her. But part of his mind was screaming Shut up! That woman just saved your life! And the pain was receding enough to listen.

Angel Dust sat up, looking around. Husk was in front of him, looking more distraught than he had ever seen the man. Molly was nearby, on her knees, teary-eyed. "S-Sorry, Molly. I didn't mean to shout." He swallowed. "Sorry, everyone."

Husk shook his head, rumbling, "Are you fucking kidding? We're all just glad you're alive!"

Angel Dust looked around again. Crymini, Sera, Lute, Razzle. He didn't know the owl girl. "Yeah. I'm alive. Thanks to you guys."

His eyes dropped back to Husk. He was shocked to see tears in the cat demon's eyes. There was so much worry and relief etched into his face that it hurt to look at. "Th-thanks. I..."

Husk kissed him.

---

Week Six, Day Two - Charlie's, Vaggie's and Emily's bedroom, afternoon:

"Love, how are you feeling?" Vaggie asked, fretting over Emily.

Charlie fretted no less. "Have you ever heard of an angel's halo cracking before?"

"I feel like I lost it in there," Emily answered. "I almost killed Alastor. I feel completely betrayed by the Elders Above. I'm not sure what to think of Heaven right now. Or the Throne. Or anything!"

She took a breath. "...But I don't feel physically damaged. It's not like I can feel my halo hurting."

"Carl's got his work cut out for him," the younger seraphim whined, flapping her wings in despair. "For the next... until the end of Heaven."

Vaggie made a sour face. "So... the end is happening. Or, at least, whatever the Final Game really means. Which does include at least one victory scenario of the end of existence." She looked at Charlie, her eyes filled deep with worry and resignation. The latter alarmed Charlie the most. "And it's been happening since before I was even an Exorcist."

"It would be nice to know who is actually playing this Final Game," Charlie said. "And what all the victory outcomes are. There is no need to lose hope yet." She reached out and stroked Vaggie's face, trying to comfort her wife.

The news was heavy and hard and there was a lot of it. More than any of them could process right now. "But we know today a whole lot more than we knew last night," Charlie said cheerfully. "Including confirmation directly from an Elder Above of Baxter's quarantine theory. That gives us a ton of guidance on how to help Sinners who come to the hotel!"

Vaggie nodded, smiling at Charlie's enthusiasm. "We should call Cherri Bomb. Let her know what Azreal told us. About her, that is."

Charlie nodded. She turned to her other wife. "Emily, do you want to schedule an emergency session with Carl?" Or several? "We can postpone the honeymoon. This is far more important."

Emily shook her head. "No. Between the wedding and the Horsemen and worrying about Cherri Bomb and Sera's secrets and a missing Elder Above who is a complete..." Emily stopped, realizing she was on the verge of ranting. "...Sorry. I have been so stressed this last month. More than anything, I need a vacation."

Charlie and Vaggie both looked at her with deep concern. Charlie was mentally kicking herself. How could she have missed just how stressed out Emily was? She'd lived her whole life in Heaven. Stress was still new to her.

"And I'm not the only one, am I?" she asked, looking at her two brides. Both Charlie and Vaggie shook their heads. No, they all needed this. Badly.

After they got situated in Wrath, Charlie was going to insist they spend a few hours in Sloth. Stress was new to Emily, but it definitely wasn't for Sera. Her sister-in-law surely had some suggestions for angelic coping mechanisms, and they couldn't all be bad.

"The wedding is over. We're married. We need to take the time to enjoy it. Carl can have me when I've had some time to process. And relax." Emily smiled playfully and said with absolute resolution, "And melt the two of you into puddles!" With a giggle she admitted, "And get melted in return."

Charlie laughed. "Yes! The apocalypse will just have to continue to hold. I'm having sex and snuggles and breakfast in bed with my wives."

Vaggie smirked. "Optimistic of you to think there will be a bed left."

Charlie knew they were going to destroy her, and she welcomed it. "Wrath, here we come!"

---

Week Six, Day Two - Death's Domain, afternoon:

Baron Samedi stared into the darkness between lit candles. The orgy pool was offering the most pleasant soundtrack. The scents of rum filled the air. The indulgences of life. Vibrant and enticing. But...

With a pale light, Azrael took on his angelic form. The human-like one. At least for now.

"I think another visit to Hell is called for," he said with a smile. Normally, decades or even centuries would go by. This would be the second time in a week. Quite the treat.

A portal would do. Like the one the High Seraphim used to flee with his Hand. But it lacked style. He could fly, but that was a little too ostentatious, and should be saved for grander entrance. No, he preferred to Ride.

He paused at a bowl full of little brown candies in foil wrapping. Took one, pulling away the dressing and popping it in his mouth. Exquisite. Almost a shame, really. He pocketed a few for the road. And drew out his Key.

It was fashioned of pale bone. Its bow, naturally, was a skull. Not a human's though.

Azrael lifted the Key, and the Otherly space tore open like dead flesh.

The Ghost of Zad waited for him in the Stable of the Pale Horse. In life, he was the greatest of the Arabian stallions. In death, the Powers Below had made him much, much more.

Azrael approached the spectral steed only he could touch and gave it a caring stroke. Its whinny could have shattered diamonds and rendered fields barren. "Let's get you some exercise."