Chapter Text
Alarms blared, paired with the shattering of glass and the ringing crack of a gunshot.
Vox screamed like a little girl as he fell back in his chair, scrambling on all fours to get away from the raging phoenix demon who had just blasted her way into his private conference room.
“WHERE IS HE?!” she roared.
Red smoke rose from her body – her deathmark. The universe thought she was a comedic genius sometimes.
The Television Demon’s screen glitched frantically, but his voice remained smooth – an off-putting paradox to the trembling ball the man was reduced to.
“And who is it that you are so loudly looking for, Mrs. Dawn?”
“Don’t play stupid with me, Dick,” she hissed, her long red tail – tipped with firelike feathers – whipping dangerously. “My husband. Where is he?”
“Why would I know where he is?”
For such a manipulative genius, he was shit at lying.
She held her Colt .45 revolver out in front of her, loaded with angelic steel. She pulled the hammer back with her thumb, Vox flinching at the sound of the click.
Her husband had been missing for a week. The last time she saw him, he was headed to a meeting with Vox – to humiliate the demon – and then he disappeared.
“I’m not gonna ask you again, Dick. Tell me where he is, or I’m ’bout to have a new TV to mount in our livin’ room.”
She stared at him, her expression deadened to his sudden crying. She had been in this position many times – with men far less deserving. Begging would do him no good, and she hoped he knew better than to try it.
He held up trembling hands in surrender. “I can’t tell you,” he rasped.
“Oh?” She laughed wickedly. “Let’s see if I can’t change your mind.”
One step forward, she whipped the butt of her pistol across his screen – cracking it and knocking him to the ground completely.
Dawn flourished the pistol back into standard position, kneeled, and pressed it to Vox’s forehead. “Can you tell me now?”
“Please,” he begged.
Stupid decision.
She whipped him across the face again – earning another cry.
Defying all the laws of physics regarding how a screen usually works, he hacked up some teeth – spitting blood onto the ground.
“I can’t tell you,” he repeated. “She’ll kill me.”
“If you don’t tell me, I’ll kill you.”
Who, if not her, was he so afraid of? A blue haze took over the corner of her eye. She growled at Vox before standing back up.
Turning her back to him, she allowed the vision to take over.
A woman with long blonde hair and a lab coat walked down a hallway, her heels clicking evenly. Eerie scratch marks decorated the shabby walls, but the woman paid them no mind. She was reading through papers on the clipboard she carried:
Subject ESF214:
- Caribou sinner
- Female
- Appears to have died in her early to mid-twenties – young.
- Docile. Will allow subjects to mount if allowed to keep blue blanket.
- Do not keep in group enclosure – cannot defend herself.
- Has yet to reproduce
– LM
Lilith Morningstar? The Queen was running a breeding facility?
Her eyes flicked from red to black – a blue hourglass spinning in place of her iris – as she turned to face the cowering Vox.
“What does Lilith’s breedin’ facility have to do with my husband?” she seethed.
He gawked at her. “How do you–”
His stupid question was cut short by her brown cowboy boot smashing into his screen.
“Answer my question, and I’ll answer yours.”
His fists balled up. The smell of blood filled the room as his claws dug into his skin.
“She promised me freedom,” he whispered.
“Freedom?”
“Freedom from the facility.” He slumped. “In exchange for him.”
She looked into the vision again to find where they were keeping her husband. There were multiple facilities.
“Which one are they keepin’ him in?”
Vox shrugged, his head hanging. It looked like he’d accepted that he was a dead man no matter what – and the death Lilith would give him was sure to be much kinder than what Dawn had planned.
“Alastor was a high priority. I’m guessing it’s one of the new ones.”
Dawn hummed, her harsh expression softening into a disarming smile. “Thank you for your cooperation, Richard. I hope to never see you again,” she purred too sweetly.
“You didn’t answer my– AHH!”
Dawn was quick to cap him in the knees. Vox screamed and shook violently before the stress overwhelmed him and he collapsed.
“I know everythin’.”
*****
Dawn paced the living room of her and Alastor’s townhome, muttering to herself.
She couldn’t just break into a facility all gung-ho – she needed a plan, and she needed to know which one he was in.
What were they doing to him?
The blue haze took over the corner of her eye again, but she ignored it, choking on a sob.
No. She couldn’t think about that.
He had only been missing for a week – she couldn’t wait three more just to find out where he went. Damn the fucking delay in her visions. She needed to rescue him now.
Vox had said that Alastor was a top priority – they must have been planning his capture for a while. Hopefully, at least a month.
The blue haze returned.
Ah ha. She was asking the right questions now.
A purple spider demon sporting a long white lab coat was mopping the floor of a very large enclosure. More scratch marks coated the walls, along with large burn marks.
The blood-coated mop was plopped into the water bucket with a huff.
“How are the preparations going, Jess?” the Queen asked in a friendly manner, though her expression remained harsh.
Jess stood taller, faking a smile for her boss. “Just fine. Who knew that flaming overlord could self-implode like that? You said you had a new one coming in, though? Hard to come by overlords as old as this one.”
Lilith chuckled. “He’s not quite as old as my dear friend Henry, but he is more powerful. We’ve had our eye on him for a while. He’s slippery, but I believe I have a plan.”
“And you want me in charge of him too,” Jess groused. “I didn’t have much luck with Henry here.”
“He will be difficult, but you are the best doctor here,” Lilith answered, clear disdain in her voice. “I will not risk my new facility by putting him in there. The basement here will suit him just fine.”
Vox was wrong. They weren’t keeping him in the newer facilities – they were keeping him in the oldest of them all.
Dawn disappeared in a flurry of blue sand, reappearing in Rosie’s emporium.
Rosie gasped at Dawn’s wild expression, raising a finger to pause the conversation between her and the client standing at the counter.
“Dawn? Did you find him?”
Dawn didn’t answer – just walked toward the back of the emporium, knowing Rosie would follow.
She was right. The tall cannibal woman with empty eye sockets met her in the office a moment later.
“What’s goin’ on?”
“You heard from Lilith lately?” Dawn's voice was hardly something she had control of anymore. She felt restless, needing to be constantly moving, constantly plotting.
Rosie’s sockets widened. “The Queen? She’s been missin’ for years, Dawn. No, I haven’t heard from her. No one has.”
Rosie didn’t know about the facilities yet either. Good.
Dawn began to pace the room her wings and tail twitching at random.
“She’s got him, Rosie,” Dawn said, her voice wavering. “She’s got these breedin’ facilities, and she’s trapped him in one. I need to get him out – and make sure they don’t get either one of us, too.”
Rosie blinked at her. “That... that can’t be true. Lilith loves sinners – all of us.”
“Loves us so much she’s tryin’ to make more,” Dawn spat bitterly.
“This is a very serious accusation to make against royalty, dear,” she whispered harshly. “Are you sure that’s where she’s keeping him?”
Dawn stopped her pacing to look at Rosie seriously. “A hundred percent,” she answered darkly.
Rosie let out a sigh, chewing on the inside of her cheek. “What’s your plan? And is she after us too?”
A blue haze. Dawn allowed it to take over.
The pile labeled ‘High Priority’ sat on the desk Lilith was using as she scribbled notes. She grabbed the manila folder on top and opened it:
Rosie “The Cannibal Overlord”:
- Owns Cannibal Town
- Died in late twenties to early thirties – young enough
- Female
- First sighted in Hell 200 years ago – very old, very powerful
Lilith read through the file carefully, flipping through the pages, staring at photos of Rosie in her emporium – smiling and chatting with customers.
She sighed before picking up her pen.
'Too well known. High risk. Will be missed.' she scrawled neatly under the notes before closing the folder and placing it on a separate pile labeled ‘No-Go.’
Dawn’s file did not exist yet.
“You should be safe. You’re too well known – your cannibal folk might come lookin’ for you.”
“What about you?”
Dawn did appreciate Rosie's acceptance that neither she nor Alastor would answer any questions about how they knew so many things. A few years of dealing with the two of them had taught her that lesson many times over.
“I’m still new to Hell. I don’t think I’ve caught her interest yet, but I don't see that lastin’ long.”
Dawn shifted uncomfortably at the thought.
Being forced to breed. Her blood and eggs being used for research. Had they already found out just how powerful he was?
They’d never let him out if that were the case.
“You got the ingredients for Polyjuice Potion?”
“A disguise potion?” Rosie asked. She was more caught up with the times than Alastor ever bothered to be, but she sometimes missed Dawn’s references.
Dawn nodded – glad she got that one.
“I haven’t made a batch in years.”
She sighed when Dawn made a pleading face. She bit at her cheek again before coming to her decision. “Give me a day or two. I’ll get the ingredients together. What – or who – would you need to look like?”
“A hellborn. Whatever you can get easy. I need to get a résumé together – I think I can get in as a doctor.”
“I don't know if this is a good idea, Dawn. I know you love him – and of course, I love him too – but this is the Queen we’re tryin’ to trick. I don't see this goin’ well for you.”
Dawn's lip quivered. “I have to try,” her voice broke. “He would do the same for me.”
“Okay,” Rosie relented. “Okay, I’ll make the potion for you. But Dawn, I won’t be able to help you any further. I have my town to protect. I can’t risk my people.”
“I’d never ask you to.”
Rosie and Dawn stared at each other for a long moment, before tears broke from both of them. Rosie pulled Dawn into a bone-crushing hug.
Dawn cried into her chest.
There was no room for failure – he was in there, living out his worst nightmare.
Sex was something he only found comfortable when it was with her – and it had taken years to get to that point. They were locked in a house together for seven of those years and it took him two to confidently attempt at anything physical.
And now he was locked up again, the sole reason for his imprisonment being to mate, to produce, to be tested on and exploited for his power.
No.
This could not go unpunished. And Lilith would feel Dawn’s wrath like nothing any afterlife had seen before.
But her first priority was just to get him out of there – safe and sound, away from the horrors they were probably already forcing him to live through.
The embrace ended, Rosie wiping the tears from Dawn’s cheeks.
“Go home, dear. Put together your résumé and get some rest.”
Dawn nodded and disappeared once more in a flurry of blue sand.
*****
It took almost a month before Dawn heard back from the facility after she submitted her résumé. Luckily for her, she was able to see what they were looking for.
She would be Dr. Daisy Miller – lifelong animal lover and expert in Hell beasts. Succubus born in Lust but orphaned and adopted by imps – raised in Wrath. Her adopted family died in a tornado shortly after she left for med school.
She knew better than to attempt to hide her accent – being from Wrath made the most sense for it – and Rosie had collected succubus DNA. She asked that Dawn not ask how she got it. Dawn doubted she wanted to know anyways.
Dawn didn’t sleep a wink the night before her job interview. They had already sent her the NDA to sign and send back beforehand. She had this job in the bag but the anxiety of going in there - seeing him there - it made her nauseous.
She was the perfect candidate. Discreet, family-less, hell-born with experience with demonic animals. Her plan would work.
Her alarm clock rang out like a bomb. It was time to go. Time to grab him and make like a tree.
When the first month had finally passed, Dawn was able to catch a glimpse of him.
They were pumping him full of hormones and keeping him in a constant state of rut – the thing he hated most about his demonic form.
They bound his hands to prevent him from using his blood magic to escape and stuck sinner after sinner in his enclosure – Alastor tore them apart to prove his ongoing point: he would not comply; he would be useless to them.
At least she had a bit of hope that he hadn’t given up yet, but she could only see the very beginning of his captivity. Only God knew if he had been broken by now.
Her succubus form was tall, pink, and curvy, with short, curled white hair falling just above her shoulders. The fiery feathers that her usual wings sported were gone, replaced by smooth pink skin covering tiny bat-like wings. While a demon of lust, she kept her outfit respectable enough - it was a job interview, after all: just a white button-up and black pencil skirt. Dawn made sure to keep a gun concealed in a garter; she went nowhere without one.
The facility was warded, so Dawn had to make it there the old-fashioned way. Luckily, she didn’t live all that far – just a thirty-minute walk. Being on the outskirts of Pentagram City and living in the Roaring District Alastor and Mimzy had created together really came in handy when dealing with sketchy shit like this.
She punched in the code they had given her. A voice came over the loudspeaker facing Dawn directly.
“State your name and reason for being here,” a voice asked plainly.
“Daisy Miller. Job interview.”
The gate buzzed loudly, opening and allowing her to walk up to the main building.
It was old, alright. The infrastructure was one breath away from crumbling down in front of her. She understood that Lilith’s focus would be on the newer, more expensive facilities, but damn, this building was a sight for sore eyes.
She kept her chin up, walking with feigned confidence through the front door. She was met with a very long, very sterile hallway.
The building was so quiet one could hear a pin drop, but she knew better than to think it was empty. The subjects were just kept on a different floor – magic blocking the wailing from reaching her ears.
She walked down the hallway, keeping her eyes forward. She was not meant to know exactly what was happening here, and she was not meant to care. It would do her no good to snoop in the rooms leading up to the door she was meant to enter.
She stopped in front of the last door on her right and knocked.
“Come in, Dr. Miller,” a gravelly voice called from the other side, with a British-sounding accent, but Dawn couldn’t place exactly where this person was from.
She followed the woman's command and entered, calmly sitting on the chair across from her.
She was a lizard sinner – largely human-looking, much like Dawn and Alastor, with scales covering most of her skin. She had cracks in that skin, gold glowing from within, and her face was framed with shoulder-length, curly brown hair.
“Cal,” she said her name plainly, sounding bored. “Let's get this over with, shall we?”
“Let's,” Dawn answered brightly.
Cal leaned back in her chair, throwing her legs up on the desk and relaxing.
She smirked. “So… how did you hear about us?”
“My professor–”
Cal chuckled and held up a hand. “Ah! I’m not asking Dr. Daisy Miller. I’m asking Dawn. What are you doing here?”
Dawn froze.
She had been on the other side of this sort of exchange so often, she was not at all prepared for this side of the game. No wonder people would just resort to asking stupid questions. ‘How did you know?’ wouldn’t do her any good.
The blue haze returned. Cornered, she allowed it to take over.
A woman with long brown hair – a more human-looking version of Cal, with darker, livelier skin and brown eyes somehow colder than her green, reptilian ones - sat next to a man with shining blonde hair and a face that looked permanently crinkled into a genuine smile.
“Chaos,” he laughed. “Look at what Lucifer has created!”
Chaos’s stone-cold expression did not change, but she listened to the man and looked over at the painting both Lucifer and the man sat in front of.
It was a duck. Her head tilted to the side as she huffed out a laugh.
“Trying to distract yourself from Lilith is going well, it seems.”
The small angel, donned in blue robes and sporting six impressive wings, slumped.
“Must you always be so clueless?” the blonde man scoffed.
Chaos shrugged.
“Have you made your decision?” Lucifer asked, his slumping posture straightening slightly.
“You will regret it,” she stated. “Free will is not the paradise you seem to think it is.”
“I will do anything,” Lucifer answered, just above a whisper.
She was a god. Chaos incarnate. She had existed even before the creation of Heaven, Hell, and Earth – and had even played a hand in Lucifer’s infamous fall. She was the one who gave Lilith free will at the request of Lucifer.
Cal would know her and who her father was. Dawn gasped. “You're part of creation. One of them Elysium folk!”
Cal sat up straighter, her expression changing from vaguely amused boredom to irritation. “Should've known better than to think Chonos’ brat wouldn’t be a nosy bitch.”
With a flourish of Cal’s wrist, gold magic springing from her fingertips, Dawn’s disguise was gone.
“The hell are you doin' here?” Dawn asked as calmly as she could manage. She couldn't stop the shaking but she held strong. Failure was not an option.
Her question was followed by another haze. Deciding that Cal was unlikely to actually answer her, she allowed the haze to take over once again.
Cal, now in her infernal lizard form, lay on her stomach, kicking her feet, her forked tongue sticking out as she frantically scribbled down notes:
Jailbreak: Bitch got some facility in the works - good collection of dna. some finicking and boom! fuck outta dodge
“You’re tryin’ to escape Hell?”
Cal rolled her eyes. “Who the fuck isn’t? I'm just the only one remarkable enough to actually have a shot.”
“I can help you,” Dawn blurted, seeing the downward spiral this conversation could all too easily take. “You scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours?”
“I’m listening.”
“You can use my blood. I’m not supposed to be in Hell, my blood’s made for Olympus, but I’m stuck here anyway. My husband’s blood is made for Ghede; I’m sure I can convince him to donate. You can test it, see if it’s the key to travelin' realms. I’ll give you as much blood as you need, just help me get my husband out of here.” The words tumbled out of her frantically in her desperation. She’d get down on all fours and bow if it got Alastor out of there – her blood, her pride, it meant nothing to her at the moment.
Cal grinned, Dawn’s hope climbing. Another god, someone else trapped here. Surely she would be at least a little sympathetic.
“Or I could just collect you and your husband's blood and stay off Lilith’s radar.”
Hope shattered and was shoved into a corner to cower. Dawn drew her gun and pointed it at Cal. She knew better, but instinct was a bitch.
Cal snorted, flourishing her wrist again.
The gun in Dawn’s hand melted and burned into her skin. She was about to scream, the all-too-familiar pain coursing through her body, but Cal was quick to remedy the problem that may cause.
A gold light blinded her for a moment. Dawn blinked, taking a few seconds to gain her bearings again, and was horrified at the new sensation she felt.
Her mouth was gone.
She tried to scream and clawed at the skin where her mouth once was, only mumbling and whimpering as she ripped at her face to no avail.
“To be honest, I couldn’t give less of a shit about what happens in this facility, but you’re the epitome of a liability. Can’t let you talk to anyone." Cal blinked at her sweetly. "No hard feelings?”
Dawn raged, readying herself to pounce on the bitch, but with the snap of Cal’s fingers, she fell to the ground, unconscious.
*****
Hours later, Dawn woke up.
She had been undressed, thrown into a bath, and was being violently scrubbed down by orderlies.
“Oh, good! You’re awake,” Cal smiled from the chair in front of Dawn’s tub.
Nothing but the crudest language Dawn could think of swarmed her thoughts – but when she attempted to vocalize them, she was stopped short.
She was still missing a mouth.
Cal chuckled, as if she had heard what Dawn was thinking. The only weapon Dawn had left was her harsh stare, and she directed it straight through Cal’s skull.
“Out!” she ordered the women still scrubbing Dawn down. They followed quickly, heads bowed and without another word.
Cal walked up to Dawn casually. “You know, I almost felt bad. Good on you for successfully tugging at my dreadfully out-of-tune heartstrings.”
Dawn, of course, couldn’t answer – she could only glare.
“That is… until I did my little traipsing around that head of yours,” Cal topped off with a poke to Dawn’s forehead. “You’re a lot like me. I like it.”
Dawn was nothing like her. She had morals – good ones. Murder didn’t make her a bad person; they all deserved it, and she would do anything for those she cared about.
“Exactly my point,” Cal chirped.
Oh, great. She was a fucking mind reader.
“Be honest with me, Dawn–” Cal lazily grabbed a strand of Dawn’s orange, yellow-tipped hair and twirled it between her fingers. It was at that moment Dawn realized she was chained – her arms and legs unable to move, the weight of the angelic steel stopping her from reaching out and strangling Cal.
“Were it you on the other side of that desk, would you have done the same?”
No. No, she would never doom someone to this fate. This was lower than low – no one deserved this Hell.
Cal bit her lip, attempting to conceal her laugh. “You honestly think that? The golden ticket to you and your husband’s freedom walking into your office and sitting right across from you willingly. The opportunity was too delicious – I practically had no choice.”
Dawn’s eyes dropped to the edge of the tub. Her husband always came first, and if she had the chance to see her sisters again…
“Thought so,” Cal smirked. “Well, since there’s no use hiding anything from you, I suppose I can move on with my reasoning behind my evil deeds that are sure to be a tearjerker. That work for you?”
Dawn gave no answer, only attentive eyes. What else was there to do but listen?
“I have a family on Earth. One that I’ve spent centuries with.” Cal was a master at concealing her emotions, but Dawn could do nothing but listen to her, staring at her. She saw some of the light leave Cal’s eyes when she mentioned her family.
“Hell is lovely, a bit bleak, but endless room for chaos. It’s practically a playground created for me. But I want to go home, Dawn. And nothing will stop me from doing so.”
Dawn ground her teeth, continuing in her effort to sear holes through Cal's face.
“Tell you what. I owe you one. You see, they can’t figure out why ESM262–” she cupped her mouth to whisper into Dawn’s ear theatrically, “your husband, by the way.” She sat back up. “–is not losing that blood magic of his. They stopped feeding him almost immediately, hoping to weaken him enough to force him to breed with someone, but they’re still unable to release his hands. Why do you think that is?”
His blood magic would remain as long as he had a regular diet of blood, and thanks to their attempted breeding, he was still able to ingest blood regularly.
From the look on Cal’s face, Dawn could tell that she knew exactly why his blood magic remained – even without reading her mind.
“I’ll keep his little secret for you,” she winked at Dawn. “Maybe sneak him some nice dog kibble. I’m feeling generous today – that tip you gave me sounds promising.”
Dawn vibrated with anger, tears collecting in her eyes. She was trapped here – both she and Alastor were. She didn’t know how to get them out, and this was the woman she had to trust to keep the truth of their godly parentage to herself.
She was so unbelievably fucked.
Cal chuckled before turning away from Dawn and making her way out of the room. "You were given your first hormone shot during your little nap. This time tomorrow, you'll be a horny, heated mess. Best of luck, darling!"
The door swung open, and the orderlies, careful not to make eye contact with Cal, scurried past her and began to surround Dawn again. They dunked her head underwater before bringing her back up and shampooing her hair roughly. Dawn wanted to gasp for air but she only had her nostrils to breath through. She choked, snot shooting from her nose in an attempt to clear the pathway. The soap smelled odd, but Dawn recognized the scent - it was pheromones.
She was being prepared for her first mating.