Chapter Text
Chapter the Second: Enter the Radio Demon
Once again, your humble scholar endeavors to pick up his pen, and to further record the events of Her Highness’s Great Endeavor, under who’s patronage I originally began this project. Her Highness, long may she reign, gave her wholehearted approval to the previous chapter, and has further encouraged yours truly to continue this work in earnest.
However, before we pick up our narrative from where we left it last, it has come to our attention (and the attention of the Consort, as well), that in the previous chapter I neglected to actually describe in detail what Her Highness’s project was, or at the very least what it’s intentions were.
For this, I have decided to defer to the words of the Consort, Vagatha Magne (long may she live) to elaborate on this very subject:
“This was how Charlie originally described it to me:
Her primary theory was that, if a Sinner was given another chance, and given the proper support system behind them, then any Sinner in old Hell could recognize what it was that brought them to old Hell in the first place. Then, furthermore, they could then take actions towards some form of restitution (if possible). Eventually, the powers of Heaven would take notice of that Sinner, and would deem them worthy of Heaven’s kingdom.
The question was: how do you do it? An operation like that would require some serious planning, obviously, and it would also require a program, a code of conduct, and most important of all: A place to do it all in.
Now, finding a location was the easiest part. Charlie’s father had plenty of real estate properties that he no longer used, and it just so happened that he had a large abandoned complex near the West Side of Pentagram City. It’s a museum now, of course, but the original building has largely remained intact. They even still have that huge painting of Charlie and her parents in the lobby.
The second issue was deciding what kind of establishment this would actually be. Charlie originally had the idea of it being a medical facility, like rehabilitation or an asylum, but it was pointed out to her that many of Hell’s denizens had already experienced those kinds of establishments in their previous lives and would understandably be put off by them. She’d point out to me later that many of our future guests had been abused in those very establishments. Either way, the idea was discarded.
So then the other idea we had was a resort of some sort. Maybe a Spa? Well, that wouldn’t quite work either because Spas are easy targets for sex trafficking, and we already had enough problems with Valentino and his control of the sex trade. The more we could keep ourselves separated from the machinations of the Overlords, the better.
Ultimately, we settled on a hotel. It made sense, honestly. It could house a lot of people, give a semblance of normalcy and safety for the guests, and it allowed us all to be together in one location.
But to Charlie, it also emphasized the fact that it this was a temporary affair, compared to the eternity of old Hell. As she herself said ‘Hotels are for people who are just passing through, temporarily’. She even came up with the perfect name: The Happy Hotel.
Of course, our first few days were rocky at best. Even after Anthony had decided to live there, we still had no idea what it really required to run a hotel.
At least, not until he decided to get involved.”
We will of course be writing of that individual in good time, but first we must return to where our previous chapter ended: The future Queen, her future consort, and the Sinner formerly known as Angel Dust, riding in Her Highness’s automobile towards the Hotel proper, with Her Highness despondent that her Grand Project has been stillborn due to the latter’s conduct.
And so, I record the following. Once again, I swear to their authenticity and accuracy, and that they have been recorded with the permission of those quoted therein.
-Adonisus , Chronicler and Scholar
: INTUS AUTEM OMNE DAEMONIUM SIT IN SIGNUM FOEDERIS :
“You know those power windows they have? The ones where you push a lever or a button or something, and they slowly lower themselves up and down?
Yeah, I love those. They didn’t have ‘em when I was alive, you know.
Anyway, I was playing with one of those in Charlie’s limo. Watching it go up and down, with that whirring sound…
Charlie was really quiet. She had basically curled up on the seat and was staring out the window, looking like she was about to start crying.
Vaggie was furious. One of her eyes actually started twitching. It was actually kinda funny.”
-Anthony, formerly known as ‘Angel Dust’
“I’m not lying when I say that I was tearing my hair out, I was so mad.
I felt betrayed. Absolutely betrayed. We had trusted him to be responsible just long enough so that we could pitch the hotel. But instead he did the exact opposite, taking part in a turf war that had injured hundreds of people.
I actually threw a knife at him. I mean, not at him directly, but at the power window lever he was playing with. I found that especially irritating.
But really? What angered me even more was that he betrayed Charlie. She had put so much behind this, and behind him, and he just threw it all away for his own amusement.
And what was worse is that he didn’t even seem to take it seriously in the least! The whole ride back he was joking about all of the mayhem he’d caused.
…..But there was actually more going on, as it happened. I just didn’t know it at then.”
- Vagatha Magne, Royal Consort
“What Cherri and me had...that was something special. Outside of my sister, she was the only other person in old Hell who understood me. She understood what I’d been through...what I was goin’ through then. I’d do anything for that chick if she asked me to.
And honestly, I didn’t trust anyone else to understand that. I didn’t even trust anyone else to care.
So, I was always short with other people. You were either a potential customer...or you were an annoying distraction.
The first would get ya some bedroom fun (if you could pay for it, that is).
The other got ya an F-bomb and the Finger.
That’s why I was trying ta’ make light of the whole thing. It was my whole persona: the cock-crazy drug spider. That’s who I was. That was my own personal armor. Everyone else was just a bunch of ugly freaks to point and laugh at.
...Honestly, Vaggie was pretty upset. Can’t blame her, though.”
- Anthony, formerly known as ‘Angel Dust’
“I do this thing where, when I get really mad, I start speaking in Spanish.
Really loud, really angry, really accented Spanish.
I’m originally from El Salvador...you know, in my previous life. So for most of my existence it was my first language (at least until I ended up here).
Charlie always found it charming. Anthony found it hilarious.
So as you can imagine, he always tried to push my buttons so I’d start cursing en espa ñ ol .
And that’s exactly what he was doing at that moment. I’m begging him to take this seriously, and his response?
‘Fine. Just don’t get your taco in a twist, baby.’
Part of me always chalked it up to the fact that he was from a different generation.
The other part of me thought: ‘No, he’s just being an asshole’.”
-Vagatha Magne, royal consort.
“The whole time this is happening, Charlie is curled up on the seat looking out the window, trying ta’ hide her face with her hair. That was one of my favorite things: tryin’ ta’ make her cringe so hard that she tries to ‘close the curtain’.
But eventually she spoke up. ‘That was really uncool, you know.’
I don’t think she was mad, just really disappointed.
...I’ll admit, that kinda threw me for a loop.”
-Anthony, formerly known as ‘Angel Dust’
“He asked us if it meant he didn’t have a free room anymore.
I wanted to scream.
How could he be this fucking dense?
But as always, you could count on Charlie to diffuse the whole thing.
Always the optimist. She took off her jacket and put her hand on my shoulder. She still thought everything would turn out fine.
‘Try to relax, Vaggie. It’ll be OK!’
For a brief moment, I actually believed her.
You know, at least until the pounding migraine set in.”
-Vagatha Magne, royal consort
“You know, it took a little while for that place to get populated, but even when it’s stuffed to the roof that building still has a shit ton of elbow room. I mean, obviously you can see just from the outside that it’s an enormous complex. The fact that it could have an entire fuckin’ sea liner bolted to the side of it and still have room to spare….
But when you’re the only person in that building? It’s absolutely cavernous . Like Madison Square Garden in the fuckin’ off season!
It also looked abandoned. Every square inch of that place was covered in a layer of dust, and I’m pretty sure that a few generations of spiders had built their own township in the rafters of that place.
Honestly, Charlie hadn’t really prepared very much outside of some party favors. I think she got a little more overwhelmed even before she’d gone on TV, so she was kinda trying to wing it. Vaggie tried to do what she could, I guess, but she’s only one girl. And those two little goat guys who worked for her could only do so much…”
-Anthony, formerly known as ‘Angel Dust’
“Oh boy, my head felt like it was going to split apart. I don’t think I realized just how much stress I’d been carrying on my shoulders up to that point.
I collapsed on the couch in the lobby. I swear I was starting to see stars behind my eyelids. Pretty much everything that could have possibly gone wrong, had gone wrong. We’d been humiliated on TV, our first patron had royally screwed up our pitch...and now sitting in that dusty, empty hotel made it all just too much to bear.
...But, I was conscious enough to remember what happened next.
No, I’m not talking about Alastor. Not yet, anyway.
You see, Anthony had basically worked up an appetite after...well, all of that. So he went rummaging in our fridge to find something to eat. We only had some pop-sickles, so that’s what he ate.
Charlie was sitting on a chair near the door, with her head in her hands. She looked pretty crushed.
Anthony noticed, so he turned to her and suggested they get some actual food for the Hotel. For all of the ‘wayward souls we had around’. Then he started laughing, as he usually did.
….But then, he stopped.
This...look that he had in his eyes.
He actually felt bad for her.”
-Vagatha Magne, royal consort
“I don’t like to see Charlie sad.
I really, really don’t.
And I honestly didn’t know what I was supposed to do at that moment.
I tried to make her laugh, you know. Try and sort of lighten up the mood or whatever. That was always my go-to defense then.
But it didn’t work. She just kept looking down at the floor, like the rest of the world had simply vanished and she was alone with her misery.
I got to know Charlie really well over the years I stayed there. I learned a lot of things about her, about her life and how she viewed us.
And I mean, she was the first person to really give me a chance. She saw something in me no one else did.
And for a brief sec, I realized that I’d basically just made her doubt me.
I hadn’t had that feeling since I’d died.
I actually thought of hugging her for a second...but I wasn’t sure if that was the right response or not.
So I just decided it would be better if I just left her alone. Turns out that was the best option. She eventually got up and went outside, probably to call her mom or something.”
-Anthony, formerly known as ‘Angel Dust’
“It’s kind of odd that we’ve gotten this far in the story without talking about Charlie’s parents, isn’t it?
Well, the truth is that at that point they weren’t really in the picture that much. Their relationship was always...I guess the word ‘complicated’ just barely covers it.
Charlie is closest to her mother more than anyone else, but the former Queen was also an incredibly busy and ambitious woman. It wasn’t that she was trying to avoid Charlie, or anything. She loved her very much, and tried as often as she could to be a part of Charlie’s life...but Lilith was a woman who wore many hats, and being Queen was only one of them. Her other career as a singer and actress also took up many hours of the day.
She told me later on what she did after the whole thing with Anthony. She’d gone outside and tried to call Lilith...apparently the last of several attempts that day. For whatever reason, Lilith wasn’t answering. I don’t think it was a case of Lilith ignoring her.
Charlie felt lost. Completely lost. She said something to me that almost made me cry.
‘I think dad was right about me.’
Yeah, about that. I said earlier that Charlie’s relationship with her parents was complicated...but that’s mostly because of her father.”
-Vagatha Magne, royal consort
“I think one of the reasons me and Charlie bonded was because we had something in common.
Like her, I never had a very good relationship with my old man either. My dad was old-school Cosa Nostra, very big on tradition and macho-ness. The whole Mafioso culture tells ya that nothing is greater than family.
But I can tell ya from experience that it’s a crock of shit. My dad couldn’t wait to drop me like a bad habit, and when I finally kicked the bucket he was relieved that I was no longer in his hair. Him and my brothers. The only person who mourned me was my sister (and by then they were all stuck there with me, so guess who got the last laugh?)
But Charlie’s pops was a different beast altogether. Eccentric, narcissistic, and a bunch of other words I still have trouble spelling. He could be the life of the party, and a lot of times he was the most fun guy in the room. But he had a very dark, very scary side of him.
I mean, there’s a reason everyone else in old Hell was afraid of him.”
-Anthony, formerly known as ‘Angel Dust
“Charlie has always had this inferiority complex when it comes to her father.
You see, Charlie inherited a lot of her father’s angelic nature...but she didn’t have the kind of experience that Lucifer had. Lucifer was a lot like Charlie when he was younger, but his entire life experience up to that point had beaten him down with cynicism and hate.
Charlie, however, lived her life in royal luxury. She was always waited on by servants, tutored by the brightest that Hell had to offer, and two busy parents who adored her. She never really experienced the kind of harrowing things her father had. The closest she had ever experienced was the machinations of court intrigue.
What I’m trying to say is: Lucifer loved her. But he didn’t understand her. He didn’t know how to.
They clashed a lot when she got older. Charlie was a forgiving and generous person; Lucifer was ruthless and cunning. His position required it.
And unlike Charlie, he couldn’t give a flying damn about his subjects.”
-Vagatha Magne, royal consort
“We have an entire wing of the Happy Hotel Museum specifically dedicated to Queen Charlotte and her father, the former king. It consists of numerous photographs and paintings, correspondence between the future Queen and her family, newspaper clips of royal gossip, and footage of her attending public Royal gatherings and celebrations with her parents. The former king was famously charismatic, if a little eccentric in public. The former queen was regal and stately, a born performer. The future Queen Charlotte is always modest, but smiling.
When visitors enter the building, they are greeted with an enormous oil painting, featuring the royal family. The Queen, who was only a teenager at the time of painting, is the obvious focus of the piece, as she is in the center and looking directly at the viewer. Her parents, the former King and Queen, stand on each side of her, with Lilith on Her right and Lucifer on Her left respectively.
This was the image that they wanted to portray to their subjects, who lived in a world that was cruel, unforgiving and constantly in flux. That in all of the chaos, they were the one solid and unchanging pillar in the center of it.
The reality in private was quite different. It wouldn’t be until the ascension of Charlotte Magne as Queen that the entire truth would be known. The creation of Hell’s first social welfare system was only a small sign of their growing rift.”
-Nina, custodian of the Happy Hotel Museum, formerly known as ‘Nifty’
“You could tell that she’d been crying when she came back inside. She was tryin’ to hide it, putting on a brave face. But she had that puffiness under eyes, and she was sniffling like she’d just snorted a line of Bolivian nose candy. I knew that look. I’d done it myself countless times before. You convince yourself that everything will be fine if you just don’t crack. Don’t let anyone see the pain.
Believe me, it doesn’t work. All it does is push it down further into your stomach until it eventually burns a hole through it.”
-Anthony, formerly known as ‘Angel Dust’
“I think I was kind of trying to cycle various Plan Bs through my head. I mean, there was also the jackhammer going off in my brain, but also I was kind of trying to convince myself that we still had other options. I just couldn’t think of any at that moment.
A bake sale, maybe? Yeah, I was getting kind of desperate.
And the migraine was only getting worse.
Then I hear Charlie running back into the room, her eyes wide open and her teeth in this nervous smile.
‘Uh, Vaggie? The Radio Demon is at the door!’
And just like that, the migraine was gone.
Replaced with ass-clenching terror.”
-Vagatha Magne, royal consort
Indeed, my dear reader, it has now come time to discuss the other major protagonist of our narrative; that mysterious and nearly mythical figure known to history as The Radio Demon.
This was not his real name, of course. It was simply a mere sobriquet which he had gained during his decades in old Hell. Indeed, his true name (or at the very least, the name he answered to) was Alastor. The machinations and deeds of this individual have left him with an air of mystery, as has the way he simply vanished from the record. To many modern souls, his reputation is like some half-remembered folk character, like a ghost story in the Living World.
But Alastor was indeed a real Sinner who stalked old Hell for decades. Though no photograph or film footage of him has survived , the memories of those who encountered him, and the actions he took in the foundation and expansion of Her Highness’s hotel project, make his existence a hard and irrefutable fact. Most of the individuals I have interviewed for this work have had, at one time or another, encounters with Alastor that vary from simple chance meetings, to several years working with him and those under his employ. Furthermore, during his tenure as co-owner of the Happy Hotel, his likeness was painted and drawn by numerous artists and historians for posterity.
However, in order to give further authority to the existence of the Radio Demon, I decided it would be prudent to inquire to Her Highness herself, long may she reign, as no other figure of old Hell could possibly have been closer to, or known him as well, as She.
It was my good fortune that Her Highness agreed, and penned the following description of Alastor as she remembers it. Others who I have interviewed for this volume have agreed that it is accurate.
As Her Highness herself writes:
“...Time has not dulled my memories of Alastor one bit. From the very moment he walked into our lives he was a constant confidant, business partner, and ultimately a friend. I cannot possibly exaggerate how important his contributions to the Hotel were, or its success. It was his connections and his business acumen that allowed us to thrive the way we did, and my only regret is that he is not here with me to see the results.
But as to your question, this is how Alastor looked and acted.
The first thing that anyone would notice when meeting him was the thing he was famous for: his smile. Alastor always smiled. No matter what he was feeling or expressing, it was always with a grin on his face. For him, it had to do with power. It expressed the ultimate confidence he had in himself and his abilities. As long as he could keep smiling, he always felt like he had a leg-up on everyone else. I only ever saw him lose it once (but that’s another story).
The other thing anyone would immediately notice was the color red. Alastor loved the color red, in every shade one could imagine. He normally dressed in a full suit, with a red jacket, red shirt, red trousers and, on occasion, a red vest. The color went with his eyes, which were also a deep, wine-dark red. Anything else he wore was black, be it his polished shoes, his gloves, and the bow-tie he wore around his neck. He also wore a black-rimmed monocle over his right eye.
Finally, there was his voice. Alastor’s voice had this strange quirk where it was normally crackling and distant, like he was speaking through a radio filter. He did carry around this strange looking cane that resembled a microphone, but it appeared to have no real effect on his voice (the cane itself was possessed by an Exterminated soul, and also had the same effect when it spoke on its own).
As for his personality: Alastor was very personable when he wanted to be, and incredibly charming. He was also cold and calculating by nature. One got the sense that he was thinking far ahead of everyone else in the room. Everyone else was a puppet, and he controlled the strings.
Or, at least, that’s the image he tried to convey. Alastor once told me that ‘The world is a stage, and the stage is a world of entertainment!’. In truth, he was playing a part. It would take years before we got to see the real Alastor.”
The figure known as The Radio Demon would become a widely feared figure in old Hell, mostly due to his modus operandi: In order to alert every other being in Hell of his might, he had begun broadcasting, via radio signal, the blood-letting and carnage that he seemingly caused single-handedly.
In a very short amount of time, he had begun to rival those Sinners colloquially known in popular imagination as the ‘Overlords’. Yet what made him different from those other Sinners was his seeming lack of territory and holdings; Whereas the Overlords had spent years building vast empires of commerce and vice, Alastor seemed to be perfectly content with his semi-mythical reputation.
But as our subjects will soon reveal, he did not do this by himself.
“Oh-ho ho ! We’re gonna talk about that guy now, huh? Man, I was wonderin’ when we were gonna get to that part!
Awright, so….Alastor. Well, that’s what he was called formally, I guess. Most of us just called him Al. Would you believe that I’d never heard of the guy until then? No, I’m serious. Vaggie couldn’t believe it either! ‘You’ve been here longer than me!’, she said.
Here was this guy with this rictus grin and a fucked-up voice box, and somehow he’s supposed to be the fuckin’ terror of Hell?
Please, all I could think of when I saw him was that he looked like a Strawberry Pimp. Cute, though.”
- Anthony, formerly known as ‘Angel Dust’.
“He basically managed to barge his way into the building, bowling over Charlie with his charisma. Alastor was a consummate showman. He treated every single encounter as a performance, where he was an actor playing a part.
I was having none of it.
The very moment he stepped into the lobby, I was prepared. I had this spear….well, it was more like a harpoon. It was one of the weapons the Exterminators used during their annual depopulation, and they tended to leave a lot of them around after they were finished. I just so happened to have gotten my hands on one some years prior.
Because I was going to protect Charlie, however I could. Also Anthony. Anyone who was in that Hotel, I was not going to let Alastor lay a finger on them.
I pointed that thing directly at his face. I knew who Alastor was. I knew what he was all about. And I knew that whatever he was doing there, I was going to bring it to a screeching halt if I had to.
But he just giggled to himself. He looked down at me, that grin still on his face.
‘Dear, if I wanted to hurt anyone here…’
Then he bent down real close to my face and whispered something that made my skin crawl.
‘...I would have done so already.”
- Vagatha Magne, royal consort
“ Did Vaggie tell you about the whole ‘angry Spanish’ thing? Because that’s exactly what she did when Al showed up. She whipped out that spear and shoved it an inch from his nose, with murder in her eyes. Then she growled some angry Salvadorian curses. I thought she was gonna bite Al’s face off!
I eventually learned Spanish so I could understand what she was saying about us when she thought we couldn’t understand her. The day I told her: ‘ ¡Ahora puedo hablar español, hijo de puta!’ was one of the best days of my afterlife!
H ere’s the thing, though: He wasn’t actually there to cause any damage. He wasn’t even there to pick a fight.
He actually wanted to help run the place!”
- Anthony, formerly known as ‘Angel Dust’
“Typically, Alastor had a routine that he would follow. No-one really knew where he lived, but generally he would appear somewhere near the Cannibal Colony, where he tended to spend the majority of his time. He would then stroll around the city, humming to himself while other Sinners scattered in every direction in order to avoid him. Sometimes he would feed the Hellpigeons that populated the park (and would regularly tear each other to shreds). Other times he would tip the various street performers, like the local saxophonist. Most of the time he was looking for new places to eat, especially places that stocked venison. My point being: He was a creature of habit, so his desire to aid Her Highness in the Hotel was certainly unusual.
Most were absolutely terrified of him, but he did have his fans.
I’m one of them, after all.”
- Nina, custodian of the Happy Hotel Museum, formerly known as ‘Nifty’
“Charlie, as you can imagine, was rather confused. I still didn’t trust him.
Al claimed that he had seen Charlie’s pitch on the ‘picture show’, as he called it. He loved what he saw. He thought it was one of the best performances he’d ever seen.
And the thing was: He wanted to help! Him! The Radio Demon!
Why would he, of all people, want to help us run the hotel? What could he possibly have to gain from it?
His response?
‘Why does anyone do anything? Sheer absolute boredom!’
-Vagatha Magne, royal consort
“Yeah, that was pretty much Al’s style ya know? Part of me thinks he did shit like that just because he could. That’s kind of the thing with being ‘all-powerful’ and shit: you get bored pretty fuckin’ easily.
I mean, when you can basically have anyone at your beck and call, because of how terrified they are of you...that can only be fun for so long before you gotta start finding your kicks elsewhere...and it usually involved dragging me and Nina into it.
Take it from me: I spent decades of my previous life farting around the South China Sea, trying to drown myself in as much rotgut, opium and lady-boys as I could. It all goes smooth after awhile.
…..Of course, he didn’t fucking scare me!”
-Hugo, formerly known as ‘Husk’
“For a brief moment, Charlie actually thought that Alastor shared her vision: the idea that a Sinner could in fact be redeemed.
Alastor laughed in her face. ‘That’s wacky nonsense!’
Charlie kept her cool. She didn’t take the bait. She simply asked why he was interested in funding her project if he though it was useless to begin with.
His reason? Because he wanted to watch people fail.
Literally. His whole purpose (or at least, this was the excuse he gave us), was because he wanted to see our guests struggle so hard before ‘sliding down into the burning pit of failure’.
…..But like I said, that was just the reason he gave at the time. Alastor actually did have another reason for what he did, and honestly I think it was his ego that wouldn’t let him admit it.”
-Vagatha Magne, royal consort
“Ya know, if there’s one thing about Al I learned pretty quickly it was this: In spite of the persona he had, he was actually kind of – well, phony.
You’ve talked to Charlie about him, right? Like, before we did this session? Because it’s kind of important to hear it from her first before ya hear it from me, just so ya know I’m not making this up when I tell you this:
Al was phony. I ran with a lot of con-men in my day, and I know a flim-flam artist when I see them. They play on your weaknesses, on your trust and your conscience, do everything to work their way into your good graces...and then they rob ya blind.
That’s exactly what he was doing to Charlie. I knew it, and Vaggie knew it.
And ya know what? Charlie knew it, too.”
-Anthony, formerly known as Angel Dust
“I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: Never underestimate Charlie.
Not only is she the kind of person to stick to her beliefs no matter what, she’s also incredibly shrewd.
I warned Charlie profusely. She needed to understand the risks of dealing with Alastor. There was a reason he’d managed to build his reputation the way he had. Alastor’s primary occupation, if you want to call it that, was as a deal-maker. He made these – ugh, I hate this phrase, - He made these ‘Luciferian Pacts’ with unsuspecting Sinners in order to get leverage over them. Again, he was a confidence man before anything else. He usually followed through on his end with whatever he promised...and then immediately screwed them over.
But Charlie knew that.
She just shook her head, gave me that beautiful little smile of hers, and just said ‘Trust me, I know what I’m doing’.
‘After all, I did learn one thing from my dad: You don’t take shit from other demons!”
-Vagatha Magne, royal consort
“I got to watch a master at work there.
Charlie walked up to Al and laid it out for him: Yeah, the guy was sketchy as fuck and really creepy...but she really did believe in the whole redemption thing, so she was willing to give him a chance.
He held out his hand. ‘So, it’s a deal then?’
If this were a movie (a really shitty, cheesy movie) this would have been the part where the unsuspecting mark shook the demon’s hand and was immediately dragged into whatever bullshit deal they had accidentally agreed to.
But this was Charlie, and Charlie was too smart for that.
She immediately shut him down. ‘Nope! No shaking, no deals!’.
Then she pulled out the Princess Card on him.”
-Anthony, formerly known as ‘Angel Dust’
“It wasn’t something she did very often, but invoking royal decree was something she did on occasion.
She took a deep breath, and put on her ‘royal’ persona, giving it that extra bit of authority to make it sound official.
‘As Princess of Hell, and heir to the throne, I hereby order that you help with this hotel, for as long as you desire. Sound fair?’
It was actually really brilliant. She had managed to both play on Alastor’s ego by making it sound like she was agreeing with him, while at the same time mixing it with a royal decree that essentially ‘forced’ him to co-run the hotel (for as long as he wanted, that is).
...Yeah, I guess her father really did teach her a thing or two.”
-Vagatha Magne, royal consort
Indeed, dear reader, Her Highness had learned quite a few important lessons from her father, including the art of negotiation. You will have noticed, if you have read up to this particular point, that Her Highness was often far more shrewd and intelligent than her detractors gave her credit for. This arrangement, which she had so artfully negotiated with the Radio Demon, would prove to be but one early example of her acumen in the art of ruling. In the years to come, she would use this talent to expand the Hotel Project to greater endeavors, not only proving that her redemption thesis was true, but even forcing the Heavenly Powers (and the Creator themselves) to the negotiating table once she had ascended to the throne.
And indeed, where would she be without these companions whom she had pulled to her cause? The eternally affectionate and wise consort, the first patron who would prove to become a bigger player then he could have imagined, the legendary figure who would become Her Highness’s co-owner and friend…
…..And of course, the two individuals that worked for the Radio Demon, one of which would prove to be an important part in the afterlife of the first patron. As Her Highness would learn, working with the Radio Demon was very much a ‘package deal’. These two individuals would be a major factor in the foundation and operation of the Happy Hotel.
But, my dear reader, I must leave that for the next chapter. For now, it is late at nigh, and my drowsiness overcomes me. My devotion to Her Highness is strong, but my spirit is tired.
And so, I put down my pen and bid you, dear reader, Adieu.
-Adonisus