Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

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Foreword

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Cold.

It was so, so terribly cold.

This was death, wasn’t it?

He’d tasted death before. He knew its copper tang, and the chill that came alongside that burned one to their very core.

But that had been when he’d been human. Mortal, not a demon. Death had been painful, yes, but it had been swift. He’d been devoured by a pack of dogs like a wounded animal—and that was what he’d been, he supposed—but he’d been so deeply entrenched in madness and bloodlust that he’d hardly felt the bites until it had been too late.

This was…

This was so much fucking worse.

And still he smiled, though the normally cheeky grin had settled into more of a lingering grimace.

He was dying. All because he’d chosen to fight for Charlie, for the Hotel, for all of them.

Great Alastor Altruist, he chided himself. What a fool.

Alastor’s eyes were open, but he wasn’t entirely sure he could see. All that passed around him was crimson and blurred, like the blood leaking from the wound across his torso. He was buried somewhere beneath piles upon piles of rubble, and he knew—knew that if he lingered here, he would succumb to a second death.

There was no coming back from that.

No coming back— and that would be it. Every deal, every use of his power… wasted. In the blink of an eye and a swing of a sloppy angel’s axe, everything he was and everything he’d ever be would be wiped out. As though he’d never been.

That would not do.

No, that would not do at all.

Alastor gritted his teeth, grinding his claws into whatever was nearest to him—some sort of wet-stained rubble that smelled slightly of flesh. Demon flesh. Lightly smoked—no, charred. Someone had met their final fate here, scorched by angelic power, and had become a permanent part of the wrecked foundations of the Hazbin Hotel. Which was what he would be, if he didn’t find a way to get the fuck out of here.

His abilities had only gotten him so far. He could shift through shadows, but he’d been too weak to go anywhere further than where he now lay, dying. And when he’d arrived, he’d been too tired, too panicked, too frozen to do much else as rubble had collapsed on top of him and the ground below had swallowed him whole.

Frozen. Like a deer in headlights. Like prey.

He. Was not. Prey.

He was leashed, yes. Leashed to a bitch who he’d submitted himself to in his first moment of desperation. But he wouldn’t allow that to be his downfall. It couldn’t. He had to get out of that deal, had to—

The rubble above him creaked and groaned, and dust spewed onto his already-filthy face.

He had to get out of here.

He reached into the well inside himself, the depths of his rotten soul, clawing and grasping for power that should’ve been easy for him to tap into. And normally, it was. But that well within him had run nearly dry at the sheer effort of keeping him alive.

And yet.

He knew he wasn’t powerless. Knew, because he felt that flickering spark deep inside of him, burning a stark shade of lime green, the faint sound of a song lilting just beneath the crackling of that deepest fire.

He hated it, that spark.

Tapping into it would mean more than just reaching. It would mean looking back. Digging deep. It would mean unearthing memories that made even his horrid, hollow soul wither and writhe, moaning like a widow above a newly-marked grave.

But what was a little pain in the mind, when his body was already crumbling into disrepair? He had to leave this place, find somewhere with oxygen. Somewhere that he could breathe, and move, and probably eat, so that his body could repair itself at last instead of expending all its energy on maintaining the faintest bit of life. His power would return post-haste, and he’d be back on his feet as though nothing had ever happened. He had plans, see. For Charlie, for the Hotel, for Hell itself.

Yes, he amended. What’s a little pain, indeed?

So he turned towards that secret spark, and reached.

The song, which had been a gentle hum, lulled into a crescendo. It filled his every waking moment, that sound. That song. The tender, woman’s voice that sang it. He felt something slide down his face. Liquid. More blood? Had he been sliced across the forehead, too? No matter. He continued reaching, until all he knew was the song and the spark and the glow that came with it, and he felt a burning prickle spreading through his limbs—the surefire sign that it was working.

Out, he commanded the magic, his thoughts drowned out by the lilting melody. Get me out of here.

Alastor’s entire body seized, the spark within him growing to a fire, a roaring inferno drowned out by the sound of singing—the only sound that Alastor would ever shield his ears against, were it an external annoyance. But this song was in his head—in his soul. It was in him and around him. It was everything he was. And the feeling that flooded his body, though paired with the feeling of power, was almost as unbearable as the sound itself.

Alastor snarled, trying to tear himself back into control. It wasn’t him anymore. That flame had consumed his limbs, his mind. He’d uttered his command, and he could only hope that it would do his bidding.

What a wretched thing, hope.

That was the last thing he knew before darkness consumed him. And he plunged into the black, the cold, once more.

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Chapter One: Welcome to Wrath

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Hot, dry air filled Alastor’s lungs as he lurched awake, coughing and choking on both the aftershock of his panic and the sand—sand? —that filled his mouth with every gasping breath.

Alastor blinked, raising a clawed hand to ward against the brightness that had assaulted his senses—a violent contrast to the darkness that had overtaken him for…moments? Hours? Days? He took a moment to orient himself, forcing himself to glance up rather than at the rocky ground beneath him.

He was somewhere…sunny.

Now that was odd.

He didn’t recognize this place. Not with its vast, barren plains and its brutal air. It looked like something directly from a Western picture show.

He knew little about Hell’s layout, save for the fact that there were seven rings: pride—his domain, wrath, gluttony, greed, lust, envy, and sloth. Each ring had its own unique traits, as expected, given the type of sinners and hellborn it was home to. He hadn’t spent much time—no time at all, in fact—looking into the details of said other rings. And why would he? Pride had plenty of room for him to play, and plenty of wayward sinners too down on their luck to resist making a deal with him. Plus, he had already made a name for himself there. What need did he have to expand his efforts when his broadcast reached every corner of the pentagram, anyhow? The radio demon was feared wherever he went, and fear was good enough for him.

Fear that preceded him. Fear that he backed up with his sorcery, which he had access to nearly none of. And rumor could only do so much to build a reputation—especially one that was already cracked, given his seven years of absence.

Which meant, to his immediate dismay, that if he was in another ring, if he wasn’t careful, he would be—to all its denizens—a nobody.

Alastor glared out at the desert, his grin having turned from a grimace to a determined sort.

Wherever he was, he would find his way back. And while he was here, wherever here was, he’d sew seeds of fear and doubt in all those around him. Perhaps he’d even spare some time to make a deal or two, and find some unsuspecting creatures to feed on. That would help him restore his full strength, and he’d once again return to power, to a place of respect, one in which even demons as old as Zestial wouldn’t dare to cross or question him.

Determination seizing him, Alastor lurched to his feet.

And, weakness seizing him, fell flat on his face.

“Oh for the love of—” he muttered, heaving himself to his knees, then rising much more slowly, carefully than he had before.

Exhaustion. That was all it was. Exhaustion from how much he had exerted himself during the battle for the Hotel. Exhaustion, and the after-effects of an angelic weapon—the only thing truly capable of damaging a powerful soul like him beyond repair.

He was glad for the deserted landscape. Glad for the wind and sands that concealed his weakened form from prying eyes.

Alastor extended his hand, an expectant smirk on his ever-smiling face. His scepter in-hand, he’d feel much more confident, appear much more fearsome, much more prepared—

Nothing.
He reached, and was left with absolutely. Fucking. Nothing.
“Where the fuck is it?” Alastor hissed, burrowing inside himself for that normally easy-to-grasp power, for the staff that allowed him to tap into radio much more easily, that made up a vital part of who, of what he was.

No matter his attempts, the scepter didn’t come.

“What is this?” He seethed, to no one in particular. He noticed, then, much to his dismay, that the tell-tale crackle of his voice that showcased his radio power was all-but-faded.

He sounded so—so—

Average.

Aggressively, pathetically average.

Great Alastor Average didn’t have a nice ring to it. Not one bit.

His ears, coated in the same dust that was wrenching its way down his lungs with every breath, fell back against his disheveled hair.

The truth was violently clear.

His abilities were all but spent. His body, though not falling apart at the seams, was weakened.

And he was isolated. Never before had being on his own seemed so horribly intimidating.

He was right back to the same vulnerability he’d had when he was alive. In his last moments, when brokenness had seized him so tightly that he’d lost all grasp on the sanity that kept his killings as more of the…respectable sort. A loss that had cost him his mortal life. A loss that had made him vulnerable. Weak.

Weak.

Bile rose in his throat. He seldom felt it, but this, he knew, was fear.

“Cheer up,” he told himself, his unremarkably-average voice nearly drowned-out by the sound of the howling winds, “no good showman spent all his time on top. One must taste the bottom to remember the delight of victory.”

The words were empty.

Still, he found the strength to stand.

And with one hand on his clotting, shredded side, he began to walk.

*****

Not long into his trek, Alastor realized with curious bemusement that the glowing orbs in his vision were not suns, but spheres of lava, rising from several volcanoes interspersed throughout the rocky terrain and giving the desert landscape the illusion of daylight.

It was clever, he’d give Hell’s not-so-divine architect that.

That was about the most novel thing he encountered. For the longer he walked, the more he began to think this wretched place stretched on forever. Normally, he’d have been able to fade into his shadows and appear somewhere of his choosing. He’d have a better idea of the layout of this place, were he able to conjure up his little shadow-minions to assist him and go searching without changing the stakes for him.

But he could do none of that.

It was beginning to irritate him more than the itching sting of his injuries stitching themselves back together beneath his ravaged clothing, so agonizingly and annoyingly slowly that he was certain snails could cross the ocean faster. It was nowhere near as slow as his mortal healing had been, but good lord, was it vexing. And without his power, his scepter, he was a wounded duck out in the open—easy prey for any beast that spotted him.

As pathetic as it seemed, as it felt, he needed to find shelter. The winds were only getting worse as the lava spheres began to descend back into the fiery mountainous lakes from which they came, casting the landscape in a gloom that rivaled Pride during its worst hours. Normally, such an atmosphere wouldn’t deter him. Rather, he’d take full advantage of the dusky atmosphere, the crimson glow of his power wreathing him in a fearsome veil that sent lesser souls scuttling. But now? Now, that wasn’t possible. Now, he was no better than any other wayward soul, creeping around in an unknown land, where not even the shadows nor the winds whispered his name.

And he was small.

He couldn’t grow, couldn’t access any radio towers or pluck the strings of frequencies and signals, he couldn’t—

Of course.

Of course.

Given he’d broadcasted his signal throughout all of Hell during his prime, there had to have been radio towers scattered in each ring that allowed for him to do so.

“See, Alastor?” He chided himself, a self-satisfied smile settling on his face. “A level head makes for excellent choices.”

A skittering to his left sent him whirling, his claws—for that was the only true weapon he now had, besides his mind—gleaming in the dim light. The spheres had sunk beneath the volcanic crests by now, and all that surrounded him was darkness and fog. Even his eyes—normally accustomed to the dark—struggled with the strain of seeing through a combination of night-brought shade and desert smog.

“Stalking is rude, dear,” he purred, hoping his quick jolt hadn’t registered in whomever-was-following-him’s mind as panic. He was jumpy, and that was yet another feeling he seldom experienced. Too many firsts for one day. “Why don’t you show yourself, so we can talk like civil souls?”

His ears perked up at the sound of metal swiping through the air, and he dodged as a scythe came striking from above, wielded by an individual who moved far too fast for his eyes to catch in the gloom, but no matter.

His smile widened.

Why the panic, indeed? He had his wits. He had his skill. One didn’t survive for years upon years in Hell as one of its most fearsome Overlords without learning how to engage in good old hand-to-hand.

Or, in this case, hand-to-blade.

“Sure, we can talk.” a woman’s voice—curious.

The scythe came arcing towards him once again. Predictable. Fast, yet slow all the same. Not necessarily sloppy, but—his attacker was certainly used to less-slippery folk. Folk who were probably accustomed to fighting purely with their rage, and not at all with their mind.

“So you talk with blades here, hmm?” Alastor chuckled, dodging blow after arcing blow, still trying and failing to catch a glimpse of the female who was attacking him. “No wonder this is Wrath.” It was a wild guess, but—it wouldn’t make a lick of sense for any of the other rings of hell to appear so…crude. Wrathians likely didn’t give two flying shits about aesthetics—only having a place in which they could spill blood without need for recompense.

His attacker was slowing down—getting sloppy. And was that whiskey he scented on the air trailing in her wake?

Good. She likely wasn’t used to someone out-lasting her. Here, it seemed, the angry ones were used to quick fights that ended with fierce blows. She was likely one of the quicker fighters in Wrath, but that paled in comparison to someone like him. As for the liquor—this would be easier than he’d initially thought, if she was impaired. As so many souls were down here, so needy and dependent upon their substances in life they’d rather lose themselves than strengthen the fortresses of their minds in the death, when time had little power over their souls.

“Slowing down?” Alastor hummed. “I’m disappointed.”

Counting on his mental notation of her patterns, he took on the offensive.

Mere seconds. One step, and a few seconds later, and he’d stopped her in her tracks. Her pattern was obvious—predictable. And him taking on the offensive had thrown her—just enough that the misstep had cost her. Alastor’s claws dug into muscled flesh, and he leased a satisfied laugh as a groan left his attacker, followed by the skid of boots on the rough ground.

Heavy breathing trailed from the mist.

“Seriously, asshole? You couldn’t just vaporize me and be done with it?” His attacker growled, in a voice that sounded almost forcefully rasped, forcefully made lower. She lacked the expected drawling accent of a Wrathian, and, well. She was trying to seem tougher than she was. Pathetic.

“Heavens, no!” Alastor tossed a hand in a flippant gesture. “What fun would that be?”

“Figures.” His attacker spat, sounding a bit like Adam’s violent Exorcist companion with that edge tainting her voice. “I shouldn’t have expected anything less from the Radio Demon.”

Her voice faded into the wind, and there was silence.

If he didn’t know any better, the fog around him was thickening.

“It’s kinda weird, though,” her voice was everywhere and nowhere. Alastor did his best to look unfazed—and he would’ve been just that, had he had a better idea of who, of what, of where she was. “The Radio Demon pops up out of nowhere on my turf, doesn’t seem to know where he’s going, and chooses to go gallivanting around without using any sort of powers to assist him. Can’t blame a gal for being curious. Were you just bored? Or are you running from something?”

Alastor didn’t like this. Not one bit. The next time she struck, he’d aim not for her torso or her limbs, but her neck. And then he’d enjoy a late, late dinner. See how she liked regenerating with a missing spleen.

“Are you going to taunt me all night, or are you going to finish what you so foolishly started?” Alastor said into the night, a cringe threatening to form at his shoulders from how different he sounded without his normal vocals. There were threats enough to carry him in his voice, yes, but if anyone caught on to the difference—

There.

The sound of metal, slicing through fog-thickened air—

Alastor lunged, shooting a clawed hand towards where he suspected his attacker’s throat might be, and—
“PRICK!” The woman shrieked, her voice thick with blood—exactly as intended.

The fog around them fell, fading to the less-dense wind-swept smog of a windy desert night. And at last, Alastor could gaze at the sorry soul he’d soon very much enjoy tasting. Almost as much as he’d enjoy the feeling of his strength inevitably returning.

The woman before him was crouched over, bleeding heavily onto the sand and stone. He’d failed to make a clean slice, rather leaving a jagged wound over her chest and her windpipe.

“You’re a dick,” the woman breathed, “you know that?” She looked up at him with—with diamond eyes. Only one eye appeared normal, the other appearing as a horizontally-set diamond. Both eyes were lined by dark purple lashes, extending past the angles of her face. Her sclera was a pale shade of grayish violet, slightly more vibrant than the pale, ashen-violet shade of her skin. White hair tipped with obnoxiously bright, electric purple that reminded him of Vox’s assistant’s favorite kinds of clothing tumbled past strong shoulders, pulled into a low ponytail that fell to one side. Her clothes were of a drab make, of a forgettable color. Beige, plain, simple. The most impressive thing about her was her scythe, which lay discarded several feet away.

Not that any of that mattered.

She’d be torn to pieces soon, anyway.

Slowly. Oh, so slowly.

How long had it been, since he’d torn into flesh with his bare hands?

As hunger and bloodlust seized him, the answer made itself clear: too long.

“Any final words, darling, before all you can utter are screams?” Alastor teased, his grin growing wider, his chest hollowing out with the feeling of control over another person. And he hadn’t needed anything—anything at all, no sorcery, no nothing—to achieve it.

“Yeah,” the woman snapped, spitting blood that was tainted indigo—well that’s new—onto the sandy ground. She then did something that surprised him. She turned her face towards him, and she smiled.

Straight teeth and elongated canines bared themselves in a fierce grin, and she told him, “do your worst, you furry bitch.”

Alastor cackled, descending upon her like a beast to prey.

Something hit him square in the chest, singeing his already-tender wound and sending him flying through the air.

As he rose to his feet with a groan, abandoning his tattered coat, he beheld the shock on his former attacker’s face.

“That wasn’t you,” he said, matter-of-factly.

“No, it wasn’t, I—” her words were cut off with a guttural scream as something—something—entered her body, and her eyes, her mouth, the thin stripe of her nose began to leak indigo blood.

Alastor didn’t manage any comment, anything at all, before he was whisked into the air by a phantom wind, and burrowed into.

He couldn’t see it—what seized him—but he could feel it scraping against his bones, his flesh, getting to know his every inch on a level far too intimate for comfort. He was being touched, and he was being touched in all the wrong ways.

He bled from his tear ducts, his nose, his mouth. He coughed and thrashed, but nothing could help, nothing could stop the pain that trailed from his back to his toes to his ears to his brain—

“I know you.”

A male voice, too sultry to be intimidating in any other context, filled Alastor’s mind.

His attacker was crying, but she had an angry, determined look on her face as she thrashed against the invisible force.

“Oh, my, my.” That voice again. “Someone’s missing a few pieces. Looks like the radio show is taking a little hiatus, eh?”

Out, Alastor commanded. No words left his mouth.

A sinister laugh filled his conscious mind, and then—
Then he was home. There was light and warmth and peace and joy and song and—and there was blood. There was hatred and ferocity and guilt and chaos, but it was home, and there—there was a smiling face, first perfect and unmarred, then still smiling but covered in blood and—

A feminine shriek, from somewhere far away. Then the feeling of something wet and warm splattering him—blood? Was that it? Was he—

“Oi. Antlers. Wake up.”

The imagery dissipated, throwing him mercilessly fast back to reality, which was full of pain and confusion and dryness and wind and—

Wet.

Alastor’s bangs drooped into his eyes, coated in—

“Water,” the woman said. His attacker, who now knelt above him, the smog around her seeming to part to let in the faint light of Hell-made stars. “The fucker’s afraid of it. But that’s my last bit, so I hope you’re okay with hydrating with whiskey for a few more miles.”

“I’m sorry, what?” Alastor hissed, his throat aching with the effort. Pain had sprung anew throughout his limbs, which felt leaden and clumsy. Great. Now he’d even more to heal, the majority of it internal. “You were only just trying to kill me, dear, and I’d most certainly rather spend the next few moments killing—” a cough rose in his throat. “ —killing you—”

“Uh-huh,” the woman rolled her eyes, offering Alastor an pale-violet hand. “Yeah, you can go ahead and try that, buddy, but it’s going to take a bit more than you coughing at me to get me to cower.”

Her own voice sounded similarly strained, but she seemed—

Of course.

To Alastor’s disappointment, she already appeared to be healing.

“My name’s Skytha,” his former attacker said, hovering her hand in front of Alastor’s face. “And yes, I named myself after the scythe. Unoriginal, I know. Now do us both a massive fucking favor and get up, please. There’s worse than that lurking around here at night.”

With a pointed, smirk-tinted glare, Alastor clambered to his feet, deliberately keeping his gaze fixed on her outstretched hand.

“I appreciate the offer, doll, but I don’t accept help from those who are so clearly—” he looked her up and down, “ —inferior.”

The female—Skytha—threw her head back and laughed. “Wow, you think you’re hot shit, huh?” She shook her head, retrieving her scythe from the ground. “Maybe you were, Antlers. But whatever you are now, you’re in no condition to be taking on the worst of Wrath. Unless, of course, you want to get torn to shreds.”

Her grin was—how was it that Adam had put it? Ah. Yes. Shit-eating.

“I don’t need you to make my judgments for me, thank you.” Alastor reached for his coat, only to find it gone.

Fuck.

“A trophy,” Skytha said. “He likes to take them from his victims. Especially the ones he doesn’t intend to kill for a long, long time. Congratulations, deer-man. You’re officially on Divan’s hit list.”

“Swell,” Alastor said dryly. “Now, if you’ll excuse me—”

Black dotted his vision.

Slow. He had to go slow.

Skytha’s lightly-muscled and curved frame blocked his path. She was shorter than him, and yet she carried herself with a presence that was as tall, if not taller. “Don’t even think about it, Antlers. Like I said, you’re gonna get eaten alive out here.”

“And why,” Alastor seethed, “do you care?”

“Because,” a half-grin split Skytha’s features, “killing you’s my job. You know how much respect I’d get if I killed an Overlord? Shit, man, I’d be at the top of Wrath in no time. I’m going to keep you alive until we can have a fair fight. Deal, Antle—”

Alastor seized her collar, glaring into the depths of those eyes—one diamond, one not. “Call me Antlers one more time, and you’ll see why they fear—fear—”

He felt faint.

The ground tilted towards the sky, and he felt—much to his embarrassment—a pair of arms beneath his back. His skin prickled beneath the touch. He despised everything about this. He would kill her. He would eat her alive. He would relish in her screams, he would—would—

“You wanna finish that thought?”

Skytha’s smug face was wreathed in shadow, casting her blue eyes in an unnatural glow.

“Antlers?”

Alastor could only manage a growl before he slid into unconsciousness against his will, for what felt like the hundredth time.

Chapter Text

Drip.

Drip.

Drip.

Alastor’s ears perked up, shifting towards the sound of trickling water. By the slight metallic twang of the droplet’s fall, it was falling into some sort of basin. Not rock, not wood—metal of sorts.

Fuck, where was he?

Rising to consciousness more rapidly with the idea that he had not a single clue where he was, Alastor’s eyes—dry as all hell—creaked open.

He blinked against light—not the same as the orbs he’d encountered earlier on, no. This was unnatural light, the kind generated by a lamp or hanging fixture.

After a few moments of adjustment, he noted the soft, plush cushions beneath his aching body. The scent of cinnamon in the air. The wooden floors, the painted walls, the cozy decor.

A home. This was a home.

But not his.

His ever-present smile sharpened into the curious sort, and he quirked a brow, beginning to sit up, when pain erupted through his abdomen, followed by the feeling of something wet and thick sliding down his side.

He glanced down at his stomach—bound in bandages stained red—and realized to his horror that he lacked a shirt. He was still clothed beneath the hips, and a blanket had been draped over his shoulders, but his shirt—

“Relax, Antlers. You’re safe. For now, at least.”

That voice.

Alastor bared his teeth in a snarl, glaring towards the voice. Towards that woman that he should’ve killed, should’ve ended the moment he’d gotten the chance. But he’d missed. And now—now he was at her mercy.

No, no no, no, NO.

“I may be safe,” he quipped back, “but you shouldn’t feel the same. Where’s your weapon, hm?”

The woman, Skytha, was clad in a periwinkle-blue button-down and paired nicely with her pale violet skin and black pants. Simple clothes for a denizen of hell—for an irritating little shit, at the very least she had style. And she was armed not with her blade, that blasted scythe of hers, but with a bowl of—

Of something that smelled terribly delicious.

Hunger gnawed at him— fresh meat would have sufficed, in fact, would have been preferable, but he couldn't deny that he needed something, anything, at this point, to get his strength up. And after another sniff, it didn’t seem to contain any poisons. None detectable by scent, anyhow—

“It’s not poison,” Skytha muttered, taking a bite of the spiced meat-and-rice mixture to demonstrate. “Eat, you stubborn bastard,” Skytha muttered, shoving the bowl at him. “How else are you gonna get the energy to kill me?”

“I could end you right now,” Alastor said, with a wag of a clawed finger, “but I am choosing not to. That would be incredibly rude, to kill someone after you’ve been made their guest.”

“Wow, polite.” Skytha rolled her eyes—or rather, her eye. The diamond of her right eye and the two gem-like eyes beneath her natural one didn’t emote unless she was upset—by his limited observations, anyway. “Seriously, you can stop the supervillain bullshit. It’s getting old. All this I’ll kill you talk.”

Seemingly annoyed with Alastor’s refusal to accept the food, she set the bowl on his lap and shoved a spoon in his face.

Terribly uncouth.

“Forgive me for the assumption,” Alastor quipped, “but I’ve a good feeling you, too, would wish to end the person who undressed you without your permission.”

Skytha groaned, running a hand through the wild strands of her purple-tipped hair. “You started bleeding badly on the way here. I tried to be careful with you, keeping you within the mist, but your body looks like it’s all tapped out of that handy dandy rapid-healing you powerful overlords find yourselves with. So I took the liberty of stitching you up. You’re welcome.”

“I don’t need your help.”

“You keep telling yourself that, Antlers. You’re lucky I found you and no one else.”
The spoon still inches in front of his eyes, he at last snatched it from Skytha’s waiting hand, and decided to focus on the food, the blanket, on anything but the woman who was seeing him in a state of total disrepair.

He wouldn’t dignify her words with a response.

He ate, and it tasted as good as it smelled. He detected turmeric and cumin, pepper and clove. The meat was chicken (disappointing) and the rice was the kind that grew in the wild—long, black-brown grains that had a fascinating texture. He was curious, then, what the scent of cinnamon was for. Perhaps to set the ambiance? To make the sparsely-decorated space of dark wooden boards and sky-tinted decor feel more welcoming? He hoped it was not for him.

He heard her walk away, and for that he was grateful. Not towards her, of course, but to fate—at last, a moment of peace and ponderance. To figure out what in all hell he was supposed to do now.

He finished his food slowly, having to pause every few minutes, as it seemed his body had forgotten how to function properly. He sipped carefully from a glass of water Skytha had left next to the couch he’d been set on, the hydration removing the dryness from his tongue.

But no matter how nutritious the food nor refreshing the water, a hollowness remained to him.

He’d forgotten how this felt.

This—this— uselessness.

Even in life, he’d seldom been so impaired.

Save for once, when he’d torn a muscle in his leg, and had been unable to sit up or move or stand for a couple weeks without his mother’s help.

He’d been so young, so unfazed by life’s pains. And he had carried that carefree, optimistic attitude into his prime. Had maintained the facade of perfection and controlled chaos and killing for the entirety of his days here in hell, save for the day he’d sold his soul in an exchange that had cost him half his potential.

It was worth it. It had to be worth it.

Skytha emerged from around the corner, carrying his shirt — clean and smelling of lavender — along with a vest, a belt, and a hat.

“Absolutely not,” he said, wrinkling his nose as Skytha set the very Wrathian-esque clothing in front of him. “I am not wearing that.”

“You have to blend in somehow,” Skytha said, insistently pointing a claw-tipped, webbed hand at the clothing. He hadn’t noticed the slight webbing between her fingers. A demon inspired by a water beast—how he hadn’t gleaned that from the fin-like ears of hers, he didn’t know. He hadn’t been paying as much attention as he’d like to admit.

“It’s rather funny how you think I’m sticking around, dear.” Alastor forced himself to plant his feet on the floor, to sit as upright as possible, rather than remaining sprawled like a useless sack of meat. “I’ll be leaving as soon as I’m clothed, though not in any of that ridiculous cowboy crap you’ve shoved in my face.”

“Yeah?” Skytha challenged. “See how that goes for you. Divan knows you’re down here, and he’s got a mark on you already. What Divan wants, he gets. You’re weak as shit, you can barely sit up without tearing your little stitches, you’ve lost pints of blood, and you’ve probably got no idea how you got here, much less a way to get back up to Pride. Am I correct so far, or do I need to re-word it for your little deer brain?”

“Y̴̢̦͖̭̝̗̰͕̤̩̻̲̤͊͆̓̆̅̔́̾͌́̓͝ǫ̵͗̅̽̀͐͗͘û̶̘̰̯̬͗̈́̐̆ͅ ̷̧̨͉͉͈̹͚̀̋̍̽̋̃͛͆̕͝l̵͙̙̈́i̷̫͓͖̱̪͈̜̟͚̒͐͗́̊̅͛̓̇̂̇͑̈́̓t̴̡̼̅̍͂̏̀̈́̈́̉̓̋͂̕̕͠͠ť̵̤̰̓̃̔̅͐̃̌́͠l̶̜̹̺̙̣̜͙̐̿̾̏̈́ͅȩ̶̢̥͇͖̤̲͚͍̫̺̚.̶̡͎̯̉̓̉͛̒̂̽͒́̊̾̏…”

There. The crackle in his voice, returning ever so slightly— and gone. Gone! Gone as quickly as it had come.

She was insufferable. Deplorable. He wanted nothing more than to tie a chain around her neck and get her on her knees, begging for his mercy.

And here he was, barely seated upright, entirely at hers.

Still she spoke, with that mocking tone. She was not afraid, he realized. This little cocky, sassy drunk was not afraid of the Radio Demon.

The nerve of this woman was unmatched.

“You little what? Hm? I’m not wrong. Your threats won’t work. And if you want to survive down here, if you want to get back up to whatever the Hell it is you think you’re doing with your whacky voodoo shit, you’re gonna listen to me. This is Wrath, you’re not on your home turf, and there are plenty of people through all of Hell who’ll want to kill an Overlord like you. You. Are. Mine. Got it? You’re my kill. So I’m gonna play nursemaid, get your ass back to health, and you can either run and risk a real, second death at the mercy of scumbags who’ll chop you up and use your limbs as target practice, or you can stick around and recover for a fair fight. I’m sure you’ll enjoy eating me once you’ve torn me limb from limb, you cannibalistic sicko.”

“That felt oddly personal.” Alastor commented, though he hardly recalled a word she said, having zoned out halfway through to stare at a sketch hanging on the wall. That sketch was of a woman, paired with a scrawling handwriting he could hardly read from this distance, without his monocle, mind you, as that too had disappeared with his shirt.

“You can have my soul.”

Now that got his attention.

“Why would you offer that up so freely? To someone you’re so adamant on kicking while they’re down, as you so arrogantly suggest?”

“Because I don’t care,” Skytha began, heading towards the kitchen and straight to a liquor cabinet, “what happens to me.”

“Typically a sold soul is a bidirectional agreement. Surely you want something for me.”

“Yeah,” Skytha said, a pale glow in her amber irises as she looked up from her drink. Her face was wreathed in shadow. “I do.”

Alastor couldn’t hide it, couldn’t help it. He was giddy at the prospect — knowing there was a soul ripe for the taking, something that might fuel him, might help return a kernel of his power…
“And that is, darling?”

“I want a promise.”

“A promise?”

“Yeah. Just one. That when I ask you to give me what I need, you will. It will happen once. And I won’t ask anything of you ever again.”

“You’ll be bound by those words.”

Alastor’s heartbeat hammered in his ears. He was close—so close to tasting power again. He knew that he should think more deeply about a deal, but what could a subservient sinner do to him? Nothing! Ha! Haha! That was the joy of it, wasn’t it? Such reckless delight.

“Might I know what this need of yours will be?” Alastor inquired, rising to his feet. Chains were within reach, a contract written in blood spurring them forth—

“Whatever the moment calls for,” Skytha shrugged.

She was so naive.

Alastor stalked towards her, until he met her there—standing across the bar-counter from her, staring down at the woman who’d wasted her kindness on a man willing to tear her apart just to hear her scream.

And he would.

So cocky of her, to think she stood a chance at killing him. Even with that annoying scythe of her.

“I will own your soul,” Alastor stated, extending his hand, shadows—yes, tendrils of shadow—curling from his fingers. Power, power that came from him and not that secret spark. Yes! At last. He’d be back to his regular strength in no time. And once he broke his own deal with Lilith—Heavens, no one would be able to stop him. “And I will fulfill a singular need of yours in a time of your choosing.”

He was glad of the wording. Glad she hadn’t forced him to specify that what she needed could be entirely up to his interpretation. “Do we have a deal?”

Skytha drained her drink in one gulp. When she turned back to Alastor, her form had changed. Her teeth had elongated and sharpened, and her eyes—natural and diamond—were all glowing.

Her glare was sinister.

And she had his hand in hers before he could second guess a single thing she’d said.

“Deal,” she hissed.

Power surged through Alastor at the touch. He was nowhere near his best, but—fuck, did it feel good. He felt strength rebuilding in his sore bones, torn flesh and muscle stitching itself back together at a more respectable rate. Though his normal well of power remained shallow and closed to him, he knew that kernel of darkness was his, rather than that secret spark shrouded in song he wouldn’t dare touch again.

Yes, making a deal had been a good choice.

He glanced at his prey, preparing to relish in the hopelessness that lingered in the sinner’s gaze shortly after they’d sold their soul and damned themselves to servitude for eternity, and—

And Skytha was grinning.

Something wet and reeking of iron crawled down Alastor’s face, crimson blurring his vision. Blood. Tears. He was crying blood.

“Something wrong, Antlers?”

Hollowness filled Alastor where strength had just returned. He hadn’t worsened, that much was a relief, but where normally the thrilling satisfaction of yet another dependent life lingered, there was only a deep sorrow.

Every soul had a color, an emotion, a series of sensations that came with it as soon as the deal was locked. But never, in his time in Hell, had a deal come paired with emotion so deep and utterly distressing that it affected him.

He couldn’t feel it as though it were a separate entity. Rather, it had become him, for a moment, before the sensation at last faded away.

“Why the sour look?” Skytha teased, tilting her head. “Aren’t you grateful I gave you a bit of me, so you could restore a bit of you?”

“You’re rotten,” Alastor spat. “From the inside out.”

Wrong. She was wrong, on so many levels. So many layers of a soul that felt— ill. Coated in decay, the splinters he now owned of her soul tasting like meat gone bad.

“Maybe so,” Skytha scoffed. “But that doesn’t matter now, does it? Time to keep your promises, demon.”

Renewed nonetheless, Alastor again dared to peek inside the new pocket of power the possession of Skytha’s soul had unlocked in him.

Deep within, there was only a cavern. And where normally there was color and chaos, there was only silence and mist.

“Are you gonna stick around now?” Skytha muttered. “Be smart about this whole thing?”

“Tomorrow, we will look for a radio tower,” was all he said. “And if you mock me like this again, you—”

“Save your breath, Antlers.” Skytha waved her hand. “Every threat you’re probably thinking, I’ve heard before.”

And with that, she dissolved into mist.

Leaving Alastor alone, stronger, standing more firmly than he had been moments prior— and yet feeling more hollowed out than ever before.

~~~~~~~

Michael was tired.

No, not just tired—exhausted.

The greater powers of Heaven had been a riot since Lucifer’s daughter had arrived, presenting her plan to rehabilitate sinners and give them a second chance at passing through the pearly gates. Things had only gotten worse when they’d received word of Adam’s passing, and had gone to absolute mania at the appearance of one of Charlotte Morningstar’s clients and friends, Sir Pentious, in Heaven.

Running a well-manicured hand through the soft tufts of his blonde hair, Michael sighed, a sound that reverberated through his very core.

Everything he’d known, he’d stood to protect, was being turned on its backside. And he wasn’t going to bother questioning the morals he and the angels had been brought up with and spent the entirety of their immortal lives believing—not until he’d learned enough information to form a solid case.

He sighed again, resting his head in his hands, his uniformed arms propped up on his smooth, marble desk.
This situation was, as the more emboldened of Heaven (cough Adam cough) would say, a fucking shitshow.

“Michael, sir?”

A kind, tender voice floated from the entrance to his study, and Michael turned towards it, smoothing back the loose strands of his curls back from his face.

“Tiefa.” He smiled wearily as the warm-brown-skinned, sky-blue-haired, scythe-armed warrior sidled in. “I’m glad it’s you.” He chuckled, shooting the newcomer a wink. “And stop calling me sir, you quack.”

Tiefa’s halo glimmered, her joy lighting up her freckled face at the words, before her face fell. “You were expecting someone else?”

A nod from Michael. “Lute. She’s been out of sorts since Adam’s loss, and the Exorcists are rallying to her… her anger. They’re out of control, and I’m having trouble keeping the rancor from bleeding into our people’s lives. She doesn’t listen to me, either, and I’m afraid I’ll soon have to speak with her not as a friend, but as her commander.”

Tiefa sidled over to him, resting a tender hand on his broad, muscled shoulder. “She’ll come around. You do have a presence about you, hon.”

Michael smiled at the shorter woman, pushing away from his desk and opening his arms, inviting his wife closer. “Ever my number one cheerleader, my love.” He’d been quite a rebel in that—marrying a mortal who’d come to him from Purgatory, having been an incredible and loyal Reaper in her time and earning her place in the Heavens faster than any Reaper in history. She was his rock; she kept him steady. In his moments of weakness—and he, despite being Archangel, had so, so many—she was what reminded him of his strength.

It was that—the fact that those in Purgatory could earn their place—which made his doubts (a dangerous thing, for an Archangel) stir. If one might crawl their way to the top from limbo, then surely it wasn’t so horrible if they did so from Hell—

No. No, he couldn’t think like that.

Hell was the true bottom. Hell was a choice—sin was a choice. Sin was evil. Purgatory was a place for those to right their mistakes. If a soul had missed the shot at limbo, they missed the shot at healing their souls for good. Seldom few deserved a fate even worse than Hell, even worse than Erasure. But Hell was that last stop before the finale. Before they were Erased, or punished and sent to Nowhere, where their entire being would be consumed and regurgitated by the vacuum of eternal space over, and over, and over.

One couldn’t rise from Hell. The last stop before Erasure, and before Nowhere. The true bottom for a sinful mortal soul.

He believed that. He did.

And yet.

Tiefa settled into his arms, crawling onto his lap and leaning against his chest. “Is it true, what they say?”

“About what, my love?” Michael crooned, gently brushing strands of Tiefa’s sky-blue hair back from where they’d fallen in front of her brown, star-speckled face.

“What they say about rehabilitation. That sinners can be redeemed.”

Michael’s heart dropped to his toes. An immediate jab towards his doubts — one that was imperative, he amended, to settling his mind. He needed this conversation. Whether he wanted it or not.

“I don’t know,” he said, at last. “It seems to have worked for that Pentious fellow, and given how much time he and Emmy have been spending together we’ve plenty of reasons to believe he’s worthy. But that begs the question as to why he didn’t come here in the first place. We need to know more to understand why a sinner, someone who chose to disobey, made their way here. And we can’t just go digging in the Archives for information on his mortal life to see what landed him in hell in the first pla—“

“Why not?” Tiefa demanded. “Why can’t we look? You’re an archangel. You have more authority than Sera, than anyone on the First Council.”

“The rules—“

“Aren’t the rules being tested, anyway?” Tiefa argued, with that mortal arrogance of hers he’d fallen in love with in the first place. “Isn’t the very foundation of what we’ve always known cracking at its core? If you haven’t been told anything by—“

“The Light won’t answer me over such petty questions.” Michael said with a sigh, the heaviness of the burden of truth settling on his winged shoulders. “They are too busy maintaining what little peace they can while keeping darkness at bay from other worlds, other planes. They have thousands of civilizations to protect, a hundred realms of Heaven to watch over. Christian heaven, spiritual heaven…” he began to list them off, and Tiefa stopped him with a giggle.

“That’s why you’re in charge,” she reminded him, a smile still twinkling in those bright eyes of hers. “You and the other archangels are the Second Council — you’re the top, unless the very being of good itself is threatened. The Rot is vanquished, and a few mortal souls and fallen angels can’t bring it back. So, this is your area of expertise, not The Light’s.” She wiggled a brow. “You’re not cool enough to handle anything beyond this, anyway.”

“Right for the throat!” Michael gasped, feigning insult. “You wound me, dearest.”

“The great Michael? Wounded by a mortal soul?” Tiefa snorted. “The Light would banish you to a mortal tier for that.”

“I wouldn’t mind that,” Michael said, in earnest. “It’d be my closest taste of being human. I’ve never lived a mortal life. I almost wish I knew what that experience might feel like. To know the time you have is limited, and you must make the best choices for said limited time to make it all count.”

“So many people take mortality for granted,” Tiefa said, her gaze downcast. “They forget that that’s their one chance to really, truly live. Once you’re dead, it’s a different sort of life. There’s no challenge, no chase. Especially not here. I hated Purgatory, don’t get me wrong, but being a Reaper was fun. It was fun fighting to prove I could still be saved.”

Michael decided he didn’t like where this was going. “What are you saying, my love?”

“I’m saying that you should say fuck the rules and check the Archives. Look at the standards, the codes. Figure it out for yourself—what it takes to get someone to heaven or send them to hell. Take me with you or don’t, but I think that it might be a nice adventure for you. Is the greater good not what you’ve been fighting for the entire time you’ve been an Archangel? If you learn what really constitutes evil and good, what differentiates the two, then you’ll be able to know what side these people are really on. It’s like a science experiment.”

“It’s hardly as low-risk as a science experiment, darling.”

“Well, yeah, but most experiments are fuck around and find out. So go fuck around. Go find out. Then we’ll know. And if our understanding changes, so what? Those of us in Purgatory fight to be saved all the time. Maybe, just maybe, it’s worth looking into the possibilities of sinners doing the same.”

Michael cupped his wife’s cheek with a soft hand—perfect, despite his constant use of weaponry. “If the others of the Second Council learned of this, we could Fall, too.”

“So you’ll consider it?” No mention of the threat of Falling. Tiefa’s optimism was almost disturbing. Almost.

“You’re not scared of the consequences?”

“Michael. Baby.” Tiefa pulled back, eyeing him with that challenging look of hers that always managed to get him to fold. “Everything we do has consequences. You’ve never been mortal, so you’ve never lived in fear of knowing anything and everything you do could rock your shit in all the right or wrong ways. Want a taste of being mortal? Want the thrill of not knowing? Here it is. Let’s figure this out the right way. You always like collecting data before you make a choice~”

She said that last bit in a singsong voice. One that was oh-so-convincing.

“Fine. We’ll go to the Archives, and we’ll look into this. Stealthily.”

Tiefa grinned. “Great. Let’s—”

“There’s just one problem.”

“And that is?”

“The Archives are in Hell.”

~~~~~~~~~~~

Skytha wished she had just killed him.

When she’d come upon the wounded fawn, she could have done it. Could have split his soul from his body with a well-timed swipe from her scythe, and damned him to Nowhere.

Nowhere was not Erasure, it was not Heaven nor Hell, nor the Purgatory in-between. Nowhere was where the Rot came from, the Great Devourer, the ultimate personification of all that was evil. If one could even call it personification, as the Rot was naught but a starving mass, consuming light as it went. Nowhere was a place that only Reapers knew about, along with their Archangel commander, Azrael, and the head Archangel Michael. Being damned to Nowhere was a punishment worse than death and second death. Nowhere was insanity; it was watching your soul and very being unravel, again and again and again.

Nowhere was where she belonged. It was the punishment for a Fallen reaper. But she’d leapt to Hell before Azrael had caught on. Before he’d realized that she’d broken a sacred rule not even the Hell-bound reapers would defy.

She’d taken a mortal life. Dozens of them. Dozens who’d not been on the list. She’d chosen where the souls would go rather than following the Judgement Codex all reapers received when new souls were assigned for gleaning, and had thrust them all into Nowhere—a place worse than Hell, a place of eternal chaos—and she’d enjoyed tearing them apart. In body. In mind. In soul and spirit. And she’d gone to Nowhere with them. Had reveled in their pain, their screams. Had drank in the sheer essence of their souls as they came apart; had been drunk on it.

Yes, she was destined for Nowhere. But instead, here she was in Hell—a runaway playing vigilante, hiding truths and spinning lies everywhere she went. Save for the indigo blood—reaper blood, blood of the hopeless hopefuls who’d taken their best shot at getting into Heaven from Purgatory, she blended right in, anyhow. She’d manifested like any soul in Hell would — in a demonic form that perfectly encompassed not only how she’d died, but how she, as a resident of Limbo, had lived. Her human self had had a chance at earning herself a space in Heaven. But the second she’d tasted power, true power, that had gone right out the window.

Most of Purgatory, of Limbo, was for the dreamers. The poets and the writers and the teachers, the defiant and the delinquent that neither harmed nor helped in Heaven’s eyes, save for their refusal to follow whatever code it was that got someone into Heaven. Limbo was not a place for killers. And she was one of the few who’d killed in life, had managed to score a spot in Limbo, and had used that last drop of mercy to kill in death.

So why, then?

Why had she spared him, of all demons? The Radio Demon, known for cannibalism and destruction and tormenting souls /for fun?/

She’d killed several people she deemed worthy of it. She’d murdered rapists and sexual predators of every power and creed.

But the Radio Demon wasn’t — he wasn’t that. He didn’t fit her regular criteria of a target. And now that they were leashed together, she could feed off of him just as much as he fed off of her. If she was careful, that is. And she’d get her hands on the power she needed to remove people like—like—

She’d be able to stop what had happened to Octavia from happening to anyone else. Ever again.

She wanted the power that came with his dependence. With the soul bond that would do as much for her as it would for him, unbeknownst to the demon who thought he was making a deal with a subservient sinner.

That was it. It had to be.

She’d kill him when she said she would. When he would give her a fair fight.

And she’d do it all while blatantly ignoring how painfully, eerily similar they were.