Herrings
Gwen approached the demon, which she noticed was much smaller than the large silver-blue costume it was wrapped up in, writhing on the ground in terror from some nonexistent threat.
Not that there weren’t threats around. Just that none were directed towards him. Due to the nature of him being Teddy Poole.
“Yo,” she waved. “Long time, no see, dude.”
The demon looked up at her, freezing as he realized that he wasn’t in mortal peril anymore, and looking around in confusion. Finally, his gaze circled back to her, and his large droopy ears flopped to the side as he looked at her. “I’m sorry, do I know you?”
Ah. She was wearing her mask. And if this version of Teddy died from her interfering with the timeline before he ever saw her murdering those henchmen in that alley, then he wouldn’t know to look for her. She pulled it off, gesturing to her face, “Ta-dah!”
Eyes popped wide open. “You’re alive?”
Still very much not the reaction she wanted.
Gwen tried to school her expression into something pleasant, and then picked the little creature up so that they could see eye to eye. “Are you, or have you ever been, Theodore Poole Junior?” she demanded.
“Uh, no?” he squeaked.
Gwen dropped him. Red herring, then. Vox’s database failed.
“What now?” Cecil asked, drifting out of the way as the demon skittered off quickly.
Gwen shrugged. “Old-fashioned searching and shakedowns, I guess. Might have to dip into my police interrogation montage folders.”
Charlie couldn’t process what she was seeing.
“She turned back time,” she said, in case someone had failed to miss what had just happened. Which was a lot of people. A whole hecking lot of people had seen that flashing lights display and dismissed it as one of the many colorful and highly destructive citizens of the Pride Ring. But no, this wasn’t any of that. This was something completely unique.
“I mean, that’s insane,” Charlie continued, turning to her dad, “Even you can’t turn back time.”
It was only just dawning on her how impossible it all was. She was unmistakably mortal – a still living human! – somehow having dragged herself to Hell, and making it her playground.
“I know, Char,” Lucifer’s voice was unmistakably strained, “Which is why I don’t want her anywhere near you. And why we need to get her out of here as soon as possible.”
Alastor laughed at that, smug at Lucifer being caught flatfooted, “Oh, I think I can offer an alternative suggestion!”
“Absolutely not-!” Lucifer ground his teeth. Before he could make any enchantment to immobilize Alastor, the Radio Demon was already off, melting into the shadows and reappearing in front of the fabled Gwen Poole to start talking at them.
“Honey, I know you have a soft spot for him, but I really, really need him to die,” he told Charlie.
“But he’s very helpful for the Hotel!” she argued. “In fact, he was offering us to recruit more residents for the hotel through this. That’s probably what he’s doing right now.”
“So, Vox’s help turned out to be a dud? I could have saved you the trouble and warned you off his shoddy work before you went on that wild goose chase,” Alastor laughed, appearing in front of them.
Gwen shuddered, taken off guard, and the weak point made Alastor’s smile sharpen.
“Now, me on the other hand, I never disappoint!” he gestured to himself.
“Wait, so you were plot-relevant?” Gwen squinted, “What do you do, exactly?”
Alastor laughed, because he wasn’t letting this girl ruin his image. “I suppose you don’t spend enough time around these parts to know it like the locals. Well, I’m the Radio Demon. I can do a lot of things, pertaining to the radio or not. I can put out a little ‘missing’ update on my broadcast to ask people to look for your brother. You’ll find that folks are quite eager to follow my suggestions.”
He let the words intermingle with a bit of extra static, his eyes temporarily turning into the dials that put off Husker so much.
Gwen didn’t look put off by it at all, though. Quite the contrary, her eyes were lit up.
“You’re super eldritch core,” she said, “Let’s do that. When’s this broadcast? Can I watch it from somewhere?”
Watch it. He prayed she was being purposefully obtuse for the sake of irritation, because it was working.
“I like to keep the air busy for my listeners, so the programming is full up for the next several hours, at least. But I think I can move a segment around at midnight, which is peak hours for me, anyway.”
Gwen nodded along, seemed to be going along with this. “I’ll sit in. Makes it more dramatic to have a grieving sibling pleading for news, right?”
This was exactly the spirit that had drawn Alastor to her. The eye for showmanship that few possessed. Even he had to rip it out of someone else’s skull.
But Gwen looked more and more certain in the idea with every passing second. The bait was taken, and now the trap could be sprung.
“One little thing before we do this. I think I need a little compensation for going to the effort. People would give me their children’s souls to be on my very exclusive airways,” or not, depending on whether it was a Kill Broadcast.
This didn’t seem to perturb Gwen at all. “Name your price, I’m sure it can be arranged.”
He liked someone would could play ball, so he indulged her. “Oh, nothing special. Just your soul,” fire began to lick his hand, in preparation for a Deal. “Your soul, for your brother’s.”
Gwen’s dead escort was quiet, if Gwen didn’t understand what the power of a soul could be, then he didn’t seem inclined to warn her when she brought her hand forward, and sealed the deal. “My soul. For Teddy’s.”
Power didn’t immediately burst through him. A Deal slotting into place didn’t automatically make him the owner of Gwen’s soul. He had to fulfill his side of the bargain, after all, and find this supposed Theodore Poole Jr.
“Very well, let’s get to the radio station post-haste!” he patted her shoulder and began to walk, “See that depressing building in the distance? That’s the Hazbin Hotel! My radio tower is affixed to the roof.”
Gwen looked around the Hazbin Hotel, suitably impressed. “I like it! Very empty, though.”
“Shockingly crowded is what you mean,” a pink fluffy guy with two pairs of arms said, flicking through the television channels. “Given the mission statement.”
“Not many people vacationing to Hell?” Gwen tried to nod sympathetically. “Yeah, that’d hinder business some.”
He scoffed and didn’t explain more. “Why’re you palling about with Al, anyway, Poole? Weren’t you going on that Overlord Killing Spree of yours?” there was a hint of bloodthirsty glee in his voice. “I can think of a few targets you’d like, if you’re up for a challenge.”
Gwen shrugged. “I’m trying to stick to the lighter side of morality for now. Could you, like, give me a justification, or maybe pay me for it? Meaningless bloodshed has been testing badly with audiences.”
He took a moment to absorb this, then laughed. “Well, fuck. No wonder you’re palling about with Al. You’re on the same ratio of power to crazy as him.”
“Hm?” Alastor ducked his head in from above the stairs, and then, before anyone could explain, he announced, “I’ll be in the radio tower, working on where to fit your little announcement!”
He vanished again, probably having done that just to fuck with all of them. Gwen could respect that.
The pink demon relaxed slightly when Alastor was out of the room, and lowered his voice when he spoke next. “Hey, so, uh. He didn’t let you on his airwaves scott-free. What did he ask for in return?”
“My soul,” Gwen replied.
The pink demon didn’t look surprised, but a little skeeved out. “And you agreed? Damn, Pinky, you’re strong as shit. You didn’t need to do that.”
“I think it’ll be fine,” she deflected. “Besides, Teddy’s my brother.”
He softened a little. “I’m still judging you. But whatever. We all do stupid shit. Guess you can come to the support group. After you get your brother back.”
There wasn’t any room for an ‘if’ there, Gwen noted. Which meant that Alastor wasn’t going to flake out. That was reassuring, at least.
Cecil ended up at the Hotel’s bar, while Gwen was talking to Angel. He was waiting for her to get bored and either skip time forward or just wander up and bother Alastor herself, but in the meantime, the bar didn’t seem the worst place to be.
He had been dead for such a long time. And drinks in Hell just had a stronger kick to them.
The owl-cat-thing manning the bar made him a rum and coke quickly, looking at Cecil curiously. “The name’s Husk.”
“Cecil,” he said, trying to remember the last time someone had asked him his name.
Husk nodded and watched Cecil take a few sips before asking, “So, they started having Dealmakers topside?”
“They started having a lot of shit topside,” Cecil laughed, “Not many soul dealers, though. A couple Ghost Riders, some healers who can affect souls, but there isn’t the same concept of owning a soul up there.”
“So she doesn’t have anything on you?” Husk nodded towards Gwen. “You just hang around her, for what?”
“Being on the side of the biggest fish in the sea,” Cecil cracked a joke, and Husk nodded in understanding. But that wasn’t the whole truth. A lot of people put up with Gwen for her powers. Cecil thought himself a bit more complex than that. A little more complicated.
This ongoing quest for Gwen’s brother had him confronting that it wasn’t exactly a good kind of complicated.
He glanced back at Gwen, worrying that she might overhear him, before risking saying it out loud. “I think Gwen might have made me as some sort of temporary stand-in for her brother.”
Husk processed that for a moment. “You sure you meant to say that? Not like, she made you stand in for her brother? Cause, like, fucked up either way, but the first up just ain’t possible.”
“But it is,” he had the displeasure of explaining. “It is. I’ve seen her do this sometimes. Pull desired character traits or plot devices out when she needs them. Not to this point, but, you know. Not out of the realm of possibility.”
The similarities just lined up in his head. The tech expertise they both shared. The similar role they played in Gwen’s life, having to listen through her ideas, and try to steer her away from the incredibly bad ones. Even her descriptions on his personality lined up with Cecil’s own.
It was to the point where he couldn’t quite shake the thought that Gwen, lost in another world, convinced of the death of her brother, had simply conjured up someone to fill in that void. He didn’t even know his last name, now that he thought about it.
They were all figments of someone’s imagination, he got that. It didn’t matter to him as much as the fact that as they got closer to finding Cecil, that initial purpose he might have held would vanish.
And where would he go, after that?
Husk didn’t seem to know quite how to respond to that, so he instead pushed a screwdriver Cecil’s way.
He appreciated the gesture. And the sensation of being able to hold something.
Getting shitfaced was also kind of nice.