Chapter Text
The hotel was too quiet.
Pentagram City still glowed outside, all smeared neon and crooked skyline, but something in the air had gone thin. The constant buzz of Vox’s face on every screen was gone. The big billboards flickered between broken ads and static, some still showing his fractured logo with a crack through it, others hijacked by opportunistic overlords. The city looked like a stage after the show had ended, confetti still on the floor, the audience already gone.
Inside the Hazbin Hotel, the quiet felt even stranger.
Charlie lay sprawled across one of the less bloodstained couches in the lobby lounge, head pillowed in Vaggie’s lap. Vaggie’s fingers combed gently through her hair, nails scraping her scalp in that soothing way that always made Charlie melt. The lights were dim, the big main sign outside casting a dull reddish glow through the windows.
For once, nobody was screaming. Nobody was breaking anything. Nobody was trying to kill them.
It felt wrong.
“So,” Charlie said, staring up at the cracked ceiling, “what was it like, you know, before everything went to crap in Heaven?”
Vaggie huffed a soft laugh. “Define ‘before everything went to crap’.”
Charlie tilted her head, enough that she could see Vaggie’s face. “Before the trials. Before Exterminations. Before my dad fell. When your side was still pretending it was all sunshine and halos.”
Vaggie’s expression shifted. Some of the tension she always carried around Heaven eased. She looked like she was sorting through very old boxes in her head.
“We used to tell it like a story,” she said. “We all know that saying, ‘In the beginning’. The higher ranks loved to start speeches that way. But some of us were told there was a before to that beginning. Whispered stuff, old stories from the first generations.”
Charlie immediately perked up. “You never told me those ones.”
“You never stopped long enough to let me,” Vaggie teased, then sighed and settled back against the couch. Her fingers kept stroking Charlie’s hair as she spoke. “They told it like this.”
Her voice shifted into a storyteller’s cadence.
“At the time, God found himself in a new place, an endless void in a sea of darkness, with only himself. To appease his growing loneliness he created the first angels. Over time our numbers grew as unions between angels brought new ones into being. We patrolled the void, sang to fill it, did everything we were told made us ‘good’.”
Charlie listened with wide eyes. Even after everything, hearing Vaggie talk about Heaven like this still felt special, like peeking through a keyhole into a world she never got.
Vaggie continued.
“Even with all that, they said, God was still lonely. So he searched the void and one day he found someone else in it. A powerful, lonely goddess with long silvery blond hair and eyes as blue and deep as the sky that did not exist yet. Her wings were larger than any angel’s, a pure molten gold. She was different from anything he had made, so of course he brought her back with him. She was kind and merciful, but she also knew when force was necessary. Protective, nurturing, terrifying when she needed to be.”
Vaggie’s gaze drifted toward the far wall, as if she could see the stories there.
“They said it took him two thousand years in the void to realize he loved her. Which I always thought was extremely on brand for him. They had children together. Twelve of them. Michael, Gabriel, Raphael, Uriel, Jophiel, Azrael, Chamuel, Remiel, Ariel, Zadkiel, Zuriel, and the youngest, Lucifer. Each one stronger than any angel that existed before.”
The names hung in the air like notes. Charlie swallowed, feeling her chest tighten a little when she heard her father’s name in that list. Rationally, she knew all of this, but hearing it in Vaggie’s voice made it feel different, more real.
Vaggie went on.
“During that time, things seemed peaceful. But the void was never safe. Demons prowled everywhere, picking fights with angels, gnawing at the edges of Heaven’s light. After centuries of fighting, God and his Queen made a choice. With Razili’s help, they created Hell. Not as punishment, not at first, but as a fortress. A place to lock away the demons that would never stop, especially the old things that predated all of us.”
“Like the really nasty stuff,” Charlie murmured.
“Yeah.” Vaggie nodded. “Shortly after, they made Heaven. A city suspended above that fortress. A refuge for angels, a place for the family. God became the King of Heaven. Razili was crowned Queen, and she was also given the title of High Mother. She guided us. She was supposed to be the heart of the place.”
She paused.
“That position is the one Sera holds now.”
At the mention of Sera, the air shifted. Charlie’s mouth pulled down. Vaggie’s hand in her hair slowed.
“What happened to her?” Charlie asked, voice softer. “To Razili. I do not believe she just handed that title to Sera and went on vacation.”
There was a little bite of doubt in her tone. Vaggie heard it and sighed.
“The official line when I was up there was that the High Mother entered a sacred rest. That Heaven had no further need for her direct guidance, so she was… retired.” Vaggie said the last word with clear distaste. “Most of us knew that was not the whole story. Rumors said someone betrayed her. That she was stuck in a coma somewhere deep in Heaven, under heavy guard.”
Charlie shifted, propping herself up on her elbows, eyes shining.
“Do you know why?” she pressed.
“Only whispers.” Vaggie stared at her hands. “The word among the lower ranks, and from Adam’s big mouth, was that the elders were afraid of Lucifer. They thought his dreams were dangerous. He was just a child, but his power was growing faster than anyone expected. Someone got it into their head that the solution was… removal.”
Charlie’s stomach clenched.
“Kill him,” she said.
Vaggie nodded once. “According to the rumor, someone went to do exactly that. Razili found out and threw herself in the way. There was a fight. She took the blow meant for your dad. After that, all anyone ever said was that she was ‘resting in grace’ and that questioning it was above our pay grade.”
Silence settled over them. Charlie realized her vision had blurred. She blinked and tears slipped free anyway, sliding down her cheeks before she could stop them.
Vaggie’s whole face softened. “Oh, honey.”
She wiped the tears with her thumb, careful and gentle in a way that still surprised Charlie sometimes. Charlie sniffled and tried to laugh it off, rubbing at her eyes with the sleeve of her blazer.
“Sorry,” she said thickly. “It is just…”
She looked up at the ceiling again. It was easier than looking at Vaggie for this.
“If my grandmother had been around when my mom and dad met in the garden, would things have happened the same way?” she asked. “Would she have stopped it? Or changed it? Or, I do not know, smacked some sense into everyone before it got that bad?”
Vaggie sighed, leaning back. “Razili was Queen of Heaven and High Mother. From what I saw of Sera, I always assumed they shared a lot of ideology. Responsibility, order, sacrifice. It is hard to picture her being very different.”
Charlie sat up fully and turned to look at her, quick.
“I do not want to put her in the same category as Sera,” she said. “Sera tried to wipe out everyone down here, but she is also someone who grew up hearing a limited version of the story and was pushed into that position, right? You said yourself she looked… tired.”
Vaggie’s brow furrowed. She considered it carefully.
“She did,” Vaggie admitted. “Sera is doing what she believes Heaven needs, and a lot of that belief was given to her by people much older and much more stubborn than she is. I will never forgive what she almost did, but she is not simple.”
Charlie nodded quickly. “Exactly. So if Razili believed in my dad’s dreams, if she loved him enough to stand between him and a sword, then maybe she really was different. Maybe she was good. Maybe she would have backed him, not tried to break him.”
Vaggie studied Charlie’s face. There was a particular light there that always scared and impressed her at the same time. Charlie could take the ugliest stories and still find room inside them for hope.
“That is a lot of maybes,” Vaggie said gently.
“I know.” Charlie hugged her knees, chin resting on them. “It just feels like there should have been someone. Someone older. Someone who saw the whole picture before it shattered.”
Before Vaggie could answer, something slammed into the hotel’s front door.
The bang rattled the chandelier overhead and shook dust from the rafters. Somewhere upstairs, Husk yelled a curse. Niffty squeaked and zipped out of the hallway like a startled hummingbird.
“What now,” Vaggie muttered, her spear appearing in her hand in a flare of light. She stood up, wings tense, eyes sharpened.
Charlie jumped to her feet as well, heart jumping. The quiet of the evening shattered instantly. In some small, terrible way, it felt like a relief.
They hurried out of the lounge and into the main lobby just as someone pounded on the door again. The stained glass rattled in its frame.
Angel Dust was already there, four arms braced against the doorframe. His cigarette hung from the corner of his mouth, ashes trailing across the floor.
“Alright, alright, I am coming, keep your panties on,” he called, swinging the door open with a practiced yank.
The words died in his throat.
In the doorway stood a woman dragging a man by the ear.
The man was Adam, former leader of the Exorcists, first human, loudmouthed disaster. He looked less terrifying and more pathetic with his knees slightly bent from the pull, face red and contorted with outrage. His pristine white suit was askew, his hair a mess.
The woman holding him was the exact opposite of pathetic.
Her hair fell in a long black wave down her back, glossy as ink, threaded with golden chains and jeweled pins that caught the lobby lights. Her skin was a rich bronze tone, glowing with a warmth that looked impossible for Hell. She wore layers of purple and scarlet fabric that clung to her curves and spilled around her like smoke, all of it trimmed with embroidery that suggested ancient symbols and modern decadence at the same time. Gold and pearls and gemstones adorned her neck, wrists, fingers and ankles, every piece glittering whenever she moved.
She looked like a sacred painting that had walked out of a cathedral and straight into a nightclub.
Angel’s jaw fell open.
“Holy… I mean, unholy… I mean, what the fuck,” he managed.
The woman let Adam drop to his knees. He made a strangled sound and clutched at his ear, glaring up at her.
Before Angel could decide whether to call her ma’am, sir, your majesty or please do not eat me, someone shot past him in a blur of white and red.
“Auntie Babylon!”
Charlie slammed into the woman with all the force of a very enthusiastic freight train. The woman let out a surprised laugh and caught her, spinning her around with one arm and wrapping her in a hug that seemed to absorb the whole world for a moment.
“Careful, careful,” she chided, but there was nothing except affection in her voice. “You will make me drop the trash.”
Adam made another strangled noise. “I am not trash, you insane harlot.”
She ignored him.
Angel stared, arms half lifted like he was ready to either run or bow.
“Auntie?” he echoed weakly. “Princess, did you just call Madam Babylon ‘auntie’?”
Charlie pulled back enough to look at him, eyes bright.
“Yeah,” she said, as if it was the simplest thing in the world. “This is my Auntie Babylon. She has known me since I was born.”
Angel’s brain tried to process that. It failed.
“You know Madam Babylon,” he repeated. “Mother of Harlots, scarlet witch of the Abyss, the Babylon, and you just, what, hug her like a favorite babysitter?”
Babylon smiled, a slow curve of painted lips that showed a hint of sharp teeth.
“A babysitter is not inaccurate,” she said. “Although when she was little she could set curtains on fire when she got too excited, so I would say I earned hazard pay.”
Charlie laughed, sound bubbling and unrestrained. Angel staggered a step back and ran a hand down his face.
“Oh my God,” he breathed. “I am living in a soap opera.”
Husk shuffled into the lobby, scratching at his chest through a stained shirt, cigarette already lit.
“What is all the yelling about,” he grumbled, then stopped cold when he saw Babylon. “Oh. Huh.”
Niffty zipped up next to him, eyes going huge.
“Oh wow, your outfit is so pretty,” she squealed. “Is that real gold, is that real pearl, is that real Adam?”
Babylon looked down at Adam as if she had forgotten he was there.
“I suppose he is real enough,” she said.
Charlie let her go enough to stand back and take her in properly.
“I am so happy you are here,” she said. “You never leave the Abyss, you always say you are too busy. What happened, did you finally get bored of your own brothel?”
Babylon laughed, her voice like velvet sliding over glass.
“Not quite,” she said. “I brought you a gift.”
She nudged Adam with her foot. He swore at her in something that sounded like three different dead languages.
“This gift talks too much,” Angel pointed out.
Babylon rolled her eyes.
“He has been down in my brothel for the last few months,” she said, addressing the room at large. “Causing trouble, harassing my girls, trying to preach to the clients. I considered castrating him, but that would have killed half the fun. So I decided to relocate him.”
Husk snorted. “You dragged an Exterminator out of the Abyss and across Hell because he was annoying your staff.”
“He was bad for business,” Babylon replied calmly. “You would have done the same.”
Husk thought about that, then nodded. “Fair.”
Adam managed to get to his feet, rubbing his abused ear.
“You cannot just drag me around like some common criminal,” he snapped. “I am the first man, the chosen sword of Heaven, and you are a filthy, debauched, blasphemous demon who has no idea what she is playing with.”
Babylon turned her head slowly, her crimson eyes pinned him in place. For a heartbeat the air itself felt heavier.
“Adam,” she said in a tone that was almost affectionate, which somehow made it worse. “If you truly believe you are Heaven’s chosen sword after everything you have done, then you are far more foolish than I gave you credit for.”
He opened his mouth, thought better of it, and settled for glaring instead.
Charlie reached up and cupped Babylon’s face between her hands, gentle and familiar.
“You look amazing,” she said. “You always do, but still.”
Babylon softened immediately, catching one of Charlie’s wrists and turning her hand to press a kiss to the back of it.
“You are one to talk,” she said. “You keep getting taller. And more radiant. I swear, every time I see you, Charlotte, you look more like your parents and less like the terrified little thing that used to hide behind Lucifer’s coat tails.”
“Charlie,” Charlie corrected automatically, grin wide.
Babylon caught herself without missing a beat. “Charlie. My mistake.”
Charlie bounced a little on her heels.
“I am so excited you are here,” she said. “You have to see everything. I want to show you the new rooms, and the bar, and Husk and Angel’s weird poker nights, and also my girlfriend.”
Babylon’s brows lifted, pleased. “Your girlfriend, hm.”
Charlie grabbed Vaggie’s hand and dragged her forward. Vaggie had stayed by the archway, watching with an expression that slipped between wary, curious and slightly alarmed.
“Auntie Babylon, this is Vaggie,” Charlie said, practically glowing. “My girlfriend. Vaggie, this is my Auntie Babylon from the Abyss.”
Vaggie’s eye flicked up and down Babylon, taking in the jewelry, the aura, the way the air hummed around her. Recognition clicked.
“Your aunt is one of the Apocalypse demons,” she said slowly.
Charlie’s shoulders rose and fell in a small shrug. “Yeah. I know. It is fine.”
Vaggie looked from Charlie to Babylon and back. Apocalypse demons had a particular reputation among angels. Even among Exorcists there had been quiet warnings: stay far away, you are not equipped for that.
Babylon, for her part, looked delighted.
“So this is the woman who stole the princess’s heart,” she said. “I have heard about you.”
Vaggie stiffened a little. “All good things, I hope.”
Babylon’s smile turned sly. “Mostly that you stab first and ask questions never. Which, frankly, I respect.”
Charlie squeezed Vaggie’s hand, grinning. Vaggie huffed, but some of the tension drained out of her shoulders.
“Charlie, your ‘Auntie’ is one of the Apocalypse demons that ride with the end of the world,” Vaggie whispered. “You are very casual about that.”
Charlie leaned in and bumped her shoulder. “You get used to it. She gave me cookies when I was five, it kind of throws off the whole horseman-of-doom thing.”
Babylon’s lips twitched.
“After a few eras, the world ends often enough that it starts to feel routine,” she said. “Besides, someone has to make sure the lost ones have somewhere to go in the meantime.”
Before anyone could unpack that, a voice spoke from the hallway.
“Babylon? What are you doing here?”
The temperature in the room seemed to shift.
Lucifer Morningstar stepped into the lobby, cane in hand, hat tilted slightly to one side. His usual well tailored white suit was perfectly pressed, his tie straight, his shoes shined. On the surface, he looked the same as always.
Up close, every line of his body told a different story.
His shoulders were a little lower than usual. The smile on his face did not quite reach his eyes. There were faint shadows under them, the kind that even infernal glamor could not fully hide. The recent battle with Vox, the confrontation with Heaven, Charlie almost dying, the Hotel almost falling, it had all left its mark.
Babylon’s eyes softened when she saw him.
“Lucifer,” she said. “I was planning to stop by the palace on my way back to the Abyss. I did not realize you would be here. This makes things easier.”
Lucifer’s gaze flicked from her to Adam, then to Charlie tucked against Vaggie, then back to Babylon. For a moment his usual showman persona slipped, and something tired and honest looked out.
“I thought you were too busy bathing in gold and sin to visit,” he said lightly.
“Our definitions of busy differ,” Babylon replied. “You look worse than you did the last time we spoke. And that is saying something.”
Lucifer snorted softly. “You know how it is. War, politics, family drama. The usual.”
Babylon took a step closer, her jewelry chiming softly. “Why do you not come down for a few days,” she suggested. “Let me steal you away. A little vacation in the Abyss. No councils. No Exterminations to worry about. Just you, me and very good wine.”
Charlie blinked, looking between them. There was an ease in the way they spoke that she had never really questioned before. It had always been there, like furniture in the background.
Lucifer hesitated. His fingers twitched toward the ring on his hand, twisting it unconsciously.
“Are you not too busy,” he deflected. “I heard business has been booming. New sins every day.”
“I am never too busy for you,” Babylon said quietly. “You know that. I have been worried since what happened in Heaven. I did not want my presence to make things harder for you with your people, or with your family.”
Lucifer looked away, to where Charlie was watching him with big, confused eyes. His throat worked.
“A change of scenery might be good,” he admitted. “For a little while.”
Adam, who had been seething in silence, chose that exact moment to open his mouth again.
“Why not tell her you just want to go and lock yourselves away and screw like animals,” he sneered. “You think nobody notices? You think your precious little princess does not see what you really are?”
The lobby went very, very quiet.
Lucifer’s smile vanished. Babylon’s eyes narrowed. Charlie stared at Adam, then at her father, as if the words had been dropped into her hands and she did not know what to do with them.
Alastor, who had been leaning against one of the pillars near the back, watching with his usual radio smile, lifted his cane and brought it down sharply on Adam’s head. The crack echoed.
“Language,” the Radio Demon said, crackle weaving through his voice. “There are children present.”
“I am not a child,” Charlie protested automatically, even as Adam nursed the blow.
She turned to her father, confusion and a creeping hurt blooming in her chest.
“What is he talking about,” she asked. “Dad, you, you have been in love with Mom since forever. You would not, you would not do something with someone else behind her back. Right.”
Lucifer flinched. It was small, nearly invisible, but Babylon saw it. So did Vaggie. So did Alastor.
Just because someone is a whore, Angel thought, watching all of it, does not mean they want to be treated like dirt by everyone. The words were out loud before he realized he had spoken.
“Just because someone is a whore,” he said, voice oddly steady, “does not mean they want everyone to treat them like that.”
Charlie turned to look at him. Angel met her gaze, shoulders tense, cigarette dangling forgotten from his lips.
Lucifer drew a slow breath and let it out. He looked older than Charlie had ever seen him.
“I think,” he said carefully, “it may be time we told you the truth, pumpkin. I wish your mother was here to help me, but she is tied up with some things right now.”
Charlie’s heart hammered. “The truth about what.”
“When your mother and I first fell to Hell,” Lucifer began, “we were not in a good state. Heaven did not just throw us out, it tried to break us. Bodies, minds, names, all of it. We landed in a world we did not understand, without allies, without anything.”
Babylon listened quietly, hands folded in front of her.
“Babylon was one of the first demons we met,” Lucifer said. “She found us when we were wounded and delirious. She took us into her part of the Abyss. Nursed us back to health. Fed us. Protected us. Taught us how Hell worked. She did not have to, but she did.”
Babylon’s lips quirked. “You were very bad at Hell at first.”
“We were.” Lucifer allowed himself a brief grin. It faded quickly. “Over time, we became friends. Then more than friends. A family, in our own way. It was not simple. There were fights, separations, reconciliations. But it never really went away.”
Charlie’s hands were balled into fists at her sides, nails digging into her palms.
“Are you saying you cheated on Mom,” she asked, voice very small.
“No,” Lucifer said immediately. “No. Your mother and I were together, and Babylon was with us. All of us. For a very long time. We are in what mortals would call a polyamorous relationship. Have been, on and off, for about nine thousand years.”
He swallowed.
“We did not hide it from each other. There was no betrayal there. We hid it from you.”
“Why,” Charlie whispered.
Lucifer winced. “We did not know how to explain it to a child. You were so small, and then you were so hopeful, and when you got older it never felt like the right time. First you were dealing with school, then the Exterminations, then the hotel. We kept putting the conversation off until eventually it had been centuries. That is on us. On me and your mother.”
Babylon nodded slowly.
“If you want to be angry,” she said softly, “be angry at us for not trusting you with the truth. Not for loving each other in a different way.”
Charlie’s vision tunneled. The room felt very far away and too close at the same time. She heard Vaggie say her name, felt a hand reach for her shoulder, saw her father’s face, saw Babylon’s crimson eyes and Angel’s worried expression.
She did not feel her knees give out. The world just tipped.
The last thing she heard before everything went black was the faint buzz of static from Alastor’s microphone and Husk swearing under his breath.
Then there was nothing.
As Vaggie and Lucifer scrambled to catch her, somewhere far from the hotel, in a forgotten corner of Hell, a woman with no memory and no halo dragged herself out of a fresh crater and gasped in a breath of sulfurous air.
Her throat burned with dust and smoke. Her back ached, muscles oddly sore in places that did not feel like they belonged to her. She pushed tangled hair out of her face with shaking hands and looked up at a sky filled with red clouds and neon.
She did not know where she was.
She did not even know her own name.
But a song sat at the back of her mind, soft and stubborn, the echo of a lullaby hummed in some distant, golden place.
She began to hum it as she stumbled toward the lights of the city.
Back at the hotel, Charlie slept without dreams, cradled in Vaggie’s arms, while ancient history and new disaster quietly rearranged themselves around her.