Chapter Text

What a lousy three-and-a-half years this had been.

Sure, they were in Hell, but still. This was torture.

Ever since the United States’ stock market crash, Lucifer had been utterly swamped with paperwork over the sudden influx of new arrivals, almost all of them driven by their pitiful conditions to sin: murder, theft, suicide, those sorts of things. Lilith, meanwhile, handled things on the PR front, assuring the newcomers that their time of desperation was far from over, but at least some of them would have the rest of eternity to adjust. Their schedules were so full these days, the two of them hardly had any quality time together anymore, to the point that they were only able to catch up with each other when they both retired to their bedchambers. And that was to say nothing of the time they no longer spent with their beloved daughter Charlotte.

Lilith at least was able to bring Charlotte along with her for some public appearances; Lucifer hadn't even physically seen his daughter in weeks, and simply put, he missed her. He missed their piano duets, Charlie’s deft fingers dancing over the treble ivories while her father pounded the rhythmic bass keys like the goofball he was. He missed hearing her skylark voice crooning out ballads and belting out powerful jazz numbers. He missed letting her take the piano on her own while he paired up with his guitar, his fiddle, or his accordion to accompany her. She was the light of his existence, the sweetest angel he’d ever known – certainly better than her uncles at any rate (Especially Michael, Lucifer would bitterly think to himself) – and the Devil loved her more than life itself.

But enough was enough. Tonight, the King of Hell had declared the family take the evening off so they could at least have a cordial dinner together like they hadn’t had in what felt like ages.

The royal couple had a pleasant chat in the dining hall while they waited patiently for their princess to arrive, glad to finally have some stress-free time to spend together, and both of them - especially Lucifer - eager to properly talk to Charlie again. So when she did show up, escorted by her pets, butlers, and bodyguards Razzle and Dazzle, her father's eyes lit up and he wasted no time practically bouncing out of his seat to dash over to her and shamelessly envelop her in a bone-crushing hug, twirling her around giddily while they both wore matching fanged, jubilant grins. Lilith smiled fondly at the two of them as the king set their daughter back down and led her to their chairs. Normally the three of them would sit spread out along the dining table, but Lucifer had made it very explicitly clear to their servants that this dinner was a family endeavor; so, they all sat right next to each other as he bombarded Charlie with questions. Where to begin? What had she gotten herself up to? Was she thinking about a new project to pursue? Did she have her eye on a new potential partner? He wanted her to spill everything he had missed over the past few years.

And spill she did. Turned out, Charlie was being tremendously affected by the ongoing Depression as well — just not physically or mentally so much as emotionally. While she had never been a fan of the annual Exterminations, seeing Hell’s population grow so much - and so very quickly - was almost as difficult for her to watch. Everyone already seemed so miserable upon arrival and they only seemed to grow even more tortured every time she listened to her mother deliver her mass welcome speech. She knew that her home was meant to be a place of punishment for sinners, of course, but still — the thought of so many, many souls suffering at once was a bitter pill for her to swallow.

Lucifer watched his daughter intently as she spoke, nodding along while he ate to assure her he was listening. When she finished, he set his silverware down, placed a comforting hand on her shoulder, and gave her what he hoped was a sympathetic and understanding look. In truth, he’d really never understood why Charlie was like this. Despite being a Hellspawn who lived surrounded by vice, maliciousness, and pain, Charlie was a being full of compassion and tenderness. It had taken a good couple decades to get her to understand that her people were supposed to be unpleasant and unhappy. That was something like the whole point of Hell, after all. She had reluctantly accepted this reality eventually, but she had stayed resolute in her kindness and optimism regardless. It baffled her parents to no end; nevertheless, their unconditional love for her had never once wavered.

Her birth had been love at first sight for her parents. Really, they'd had no choice but to conclude that one doesn’t need to understand something to think it beautiful.

“Oh, sweetie,” Lucifer began, already rubbing Charlie’s shoulder with his thumb. “I know how much you hate seeing these sinners suffer, but…” he paused, trying to think of a nice way to say what was next to come out of his mouth. “…they’re the ones who made the decision to become sinners. They don’t have anyone to blame for their eternal punishment but themselves.”

Charlie just sighed, staring forlornly down at her food. Lucifer frowned and glanced over at his wife for help; Lilith was generally better with tact.

“Charlie, sweetheart,” the queen spoke up, putting aside her own utensils. The princess looked up at her. “You know we know how you feel about all this. But as the rulers of Hell, it’s simply our job. It’s hardly any demon’s fault that awful things happen in the living world to drive people to sin.”

“Really, once Legion was driven back, most of us just collectively decided not to take that kind of direct approach anymore,” interjected Lucifer.

“But what is happening in the living world that so many people are dying like this?” Charlie asked, turning back to her father. “Dad, didn’t you say a few weeks ago that we haven’t had this kind of traffic since the Black Plague?”

“Did I? I was probably exaggerating. The Plague was way heavier than this.”

“Dearest.” 

“Right, right.” The king cleared his throat and straightened his bowtie. “I told you about everything I put Job through, right?”

Charlie shifted uncomfortably at the memory, unable to look her father in the eye. “Yeah…” she said uneasily.

“Well, it’s something to that effect, but on a country-wide scale, and none of it is my fault this time.”

Charlie's hands flew up to her mouth to stifle a gasp at the very thought, staring wide-eyed at her father once again. Lilith rolled her eyes at her husband.

“I think it’s a little bit more complicated than that,” she said.

“Well, people are losing their homes, their livelihood, can barely get anything to eat,” Lucifer continued. “Desperate times call for desperate measures, as the saying goes, and so they end up here.”

“That’s terrible!” Charlie exclaimed. “And it sounds like it isn’t even their fault!”

“Oh, there certainly are people at fault, Charlie,” said Lucifer, placing a supportive hand on her arm once more. “For their conditions, I mean. And we’re getting them, I’m sure, don’t worry. But their decisions to sin were still their own.”

Charlie frowned, looking down again. It was a sight Lucifer greatly disliked, so he tilted her chin up to make her look him in the face, giving her his best reassuring smile as he continued. “Hey. Try to look on the bright side. You always do, dumpling. I mean…” he hesitated, trying to think of anything about the new arrivals’ conditions that could be considered ‘good.’ “At least as demons, they can’t break so easily. They’re toughened from their experiences on Earth. They’ll be alright. More or less.”

This did manage to put a small smile on the princess’s face as he released her chin. She appreciated that he was trying to make her feel better even if his words didn’t exactly work all that well. So, she did as he suggested and tried to come up with a positive spin on the situation herself, glancing toward the ceiling and tapping a finger to her chin thoughtfully as she did so.

“Well,” she said finally, “I suppose they can bounce back from just about anything now. And they can’t really go hungry anymore now that they don’t really need to eat to survive.” She managed to keep her smile as she spoke.

“See? There you go!” said Lucifer as Lilith smiled brightly at their daughter. “You are a gift. And you've got a gift.” Charlie beamed as her father continued, “If there’s anyone I know can see the good in a bad situation, it’s you, Char—”

V̷̬̤̈́̅̈́̈́̎̽̃̅Z̶̤͕̰̳̺͚̘̎͛͗͌͒̈́͜Ș̸̱̼̺̩̲̐̅̕N̶̟̳͇͎̘͓̪̉̄̉͜Ḱ̸̡̟̜̺ͅE̷̢͚̦̝̬͎̩͆V̵̮̼̝̞͝S̸̬̱̖̞̰̑̇̈́̎̅͘͜͠D̸̢̛̪̹̖̣̗̣͆̈͊͂͠K̶̨̲̫̣͖̳̏N̴̛̠̘̬̮̙̔͆͛̄͂̓̈J̵̖̦̰̲̣̦͈̒F̷͉̥̲̗̠̥͌̏̈́̈̍Ṅ̸̜̖̩͎̹̗̑̽̄͋̍̕M̷̨̤̺͍̣̜̯̻̀V̸̢̝̱̣̮̒̚Z̶̛̛̼͖̰͈̙͎̈̐̄͆̾͠S̶̨̡̢̙̪̻̫͋̊͒͒ͅK̴̙͎̲͎̐͐̊̽̕͠ͅK̷̺̞̯̘͆̕Ḳ̸͋̚R̵̛̝̰̐̈̒R̴̤̬̜̙̙͗͒̽R̸̢͕͉̰̃͌̅͑̎̓̏͗͜ͅR̵̞̰͌͂̇͠R̷̢̭̬̩̘̀̀̔̉̽̿—

Suddenly he was cut off by an unearthly scrEEch of ear-splitting static. Everyone’s hands flew up to cover their ears as it sqUEaKed and whIRRed in all the worst ways, seeming to physically flash into the room for the briefest of seconds at times to try and scratch at them with razor-sharp claws. Abhorrently off-key string instruments, accordion, trumpet, and even a piano joined the cacophony only to duck out and back in again at evidently random intervals.

The closest thing to a constant throughout the horrific din was the screams.

Pained, terrified, blood-curdling screams.

“Stop it— STOP, PLEASE, STOP!!”
“Mercy—MERCY!! AAAH!!”
“Whaddaya want?! Money?! Don’t come any closer! Don—RAAAUUGGHH!!”
“Get away—GET AWAY!!”
“No! NO! NOOO!!”
“AAAAAAAAUUUGGHHH!!”

They varied in pitch, timbre, and volume, but the intensity was all about the same. Lucifer hadn’t heard that kind of fear from anybody in decades, maybe even centuries. It was suffering like he had hardly witnessed since the fire-and-brimstone days of ruling this accursed realm, and he was half-certain it was threatening to make his ears bleed as he and his family all winced throughout the auditory monstrosity until, almost as abruptly as it had started—

—it faded. It didn’t fade completely, no. Grating radio noises still permeated the air along with desperate, warbled shouts of panic, but at least it was no longer attacking them so aggressively.

Lucifer cautiously lifted his hands away from his head and glanced confusedly around the dining hall before checking on his family. Lilith looked more annoyed than anything as she removed her own hands from her head, of course — her natural dignity and elegance would allow nothing else. Razzle and Dazzle were curled up on the floor whining, having previously been writhing and howling in near agony from the assault on their sensitive ears. But Charlie…

Charlie was practically hyperventilating, staring dazed and horrified in front of her. Her fingers tangled into her blond locks and her wide eyes glistened with unshed tears, her face contorted with heartbreak. She looked like she was on the verge of either a panic attack or an emotional breakdown. And Lucifer hated it.

“What was that?!” she finally managed between short, sharp breaths.

“I don’t know,” Lucifer immediately answered, his face deathly serious. He stood up from his chair and began walking to the door. “But I’m going to go find out.”

His wife and daughter both did immediate double takes. “Wha— Dad, no! You can’t be serious!”

“Dearest, do you have any idea what that could have possibly been?” asked Lilith, her face and voice now filled with genuine worry. “It was nothing like any of us have ever experienced. What if you can’t handle it?”

Lucifer was already at the door with a smug smile on his face when he turned back to face his wife. “Lilith my love, have you forgotten who you’re talking to? I came out of a fistfight against the Messiah with only a couple scrapes and bruises.”

And some seriously wounded pride, but that wasn't the point.

“I’ll be fine.” He turned to leave again.

“Dad?”

His smile softened when he turned to face Charlie. When they made eye contact, she finally lowered her shaking hands, folding them neatly in her lap and looking a bit awkward as she did so.

“Please be careful,” was all she said.

The Devil fixed his beloved princess with the softest, most sincere gaze he could muster as he answered: “I will, Charlie.”

He saw Lilith reach an arm out to comfort their shaking daughter in his peripheral vision as he turned and finally walked out the door.

As the Supreme Arch-Emperor of the Seven Rings in all but official title, Lucifer was dutifully obligated to investigate the disturbance anyway, even if he hadn’t already been decently curious on his own. It truly wasn’t like anything he’d ever witnessed in all his eons of existence, and even as he made his way to his personal coach just outside the palace walls it persisted; right now it was a grating, cRAcKling white noise punctuated with frightened wails, feral growls, and the occasional sharp sHRiEk of feedback, all fluctuating in volume and presence like a badly-tuned radio. How could an opportunist like himself pass up the chance to learn more about such a unique form of torture? It intrigued him just as much as it irritated him and had caught him off guard.

More importantly, however, whoever the culprit was had interrupted his precious, invaluable family time. Such an offense needed to be dealt with swiftly.

“Hey! Easy, girl! Woah! Diabola, calm down!” Lucifer heard a familiar high, screechy voice shout as he came to the stables. Sure enough, when he reached his coach, he found a very small imp in a red-and-white coachman’s uniform trying to steady a spindly and wildly bucking horse.

“Scriggs!” Lucifer shouted to the imp. “Please, allow me.”

He quickly approached the agitated pair, reached out, and stroked his prized mare’s charcoal black neck. And just like that, as though he had just pressed the “off” switch, the horse instantly stopped thrashing about and calmly stared him in the face. The imp let out an annoyed groan as another scream of terror ripped through the air.

“I swear,” Scriggs huffed, “you’re the only one who can get her to behave, sire.”

_Skre e̼͛ee̯͒Ḙ̽É̺̬͠E̼͔̣̔̏͡Ȩ̛̺̺͎͕̥̳̌̉̑̅͝͠Ķ̢̡̹̠̟͋̈̋̊̅̒͢͠Ķ̠̞͍͉̄̍̆͑̄̕͟ͅ—

Diabola immediately started whinnying and tossing her head around in distress at the sound of the feedback. It took Scriggs and Lucifer both stroking her face and neck to get her to calm down this time, Hell’s ruler even gently running his fingers through her fiery mane.

“Hey, good job getting her out for me already!” Lucifer remarked sincerely, turning to look up at Scriggs, who now sat atop Diabola’s shoulders. He reached into a pocket and produced a small gold coin. “Here’s a tip for you, Scriggs,” he continued, tossing the coin to the imp.

Scriggs caught it, looking somewhat surprised. “Wait. You want to head out right now?” he asked, incredulous. “I was just trying to wrangle her cuz she broke out of her stable!”

“Oh, is that so? In that case, I think I’d like that tip back, please.” Lucifer presented his upturned palm to the imp with a smug, knowing smile.

“Sire,” Scriggs began, ignoring the request and pocketing the coin, “you heard that…broadcast just like the rest of us did, right? As your personal coachman, I think I’m going to have to question your sanity, heading out with that…thing out there,” he finished, pointing vaguely in the direction of the surrounding Pentagram City.

As though on cue, a cry of “Please— I'll do whateVER YOU WA—AAAAAUUUGGHHH!!” rang through Hell accompanied by a triumphant trumpet fanfare.

“My good man,” the king answered the imp, putting his hand on his hip instead (he hadn’t really expected his coin back anyway), “it’s simply my job to see to it that those loathsome sinners all get the punishments that they deserve. I can’t let some arrogant upstart try to take matters into his own hands, my sanity be damned.”

The imp raised his eyebrows and looked to the side, pursing his lips. “If you say so, sire.”

“I do say so. Now hurry up and get Diabola hitched to the ol’ wagon.”

With that, he gave the horse a final pat and let Scriggs get to work. It took a bit more time and effort than it would have otherwise thanks to the feedback flaring up and spooking the mare at inopportune moments, but the hellish horse was reigned to the apple red coach soon enough. Lucifer walked around to the door and snapped his fingers, and just like that, his white coat and top hat materialized on his body while his apple-topped cane appeared in the grip of his other hand. Scriggs leapt up to his seat where he’d be steering Diabola and firmly grasped the reigns.

“Where to, sire?”

Lucifer squinted out into the horizon, his sclerae now a burning red and his invisible nostrils flaring as he tried to pinpoint the source of the slaughter.

“The FUCK is wrong with you, guy—YIIIIIEEEEEE!!” A saloon-style piano riff played.

“It’ll be over that way,” Lucifer answered, pointing in a seemingly random direction. But it was good enough for Scriggs, who nodded as the king stepped into the coach, closing the door behind him. “Follow the carnage.”

“Yes, sire.” The imp whipped the reigns to get Diabola going. “Giddyap!”

They were barely out of the gates, however, when Scriggs let out another “Woah,” making Diabola come to a stop.

“What?” Lucifer leaned to look out his window and immediately saw quite clearly what was so woah.

The streets were utterly devoid of life, instead littered all over with dismembered bodies of all shapes and sizes and illuminated by huge, roaring fires — fire streaming from broken windows, eating away at the awnings, and consuming upturned automobiles, throwing many of the ravaged sinners on the ground into silhouette. Some victims barely held parts of themselves together by the sinew of their muscles, others were split so severely that the only thing connecting their bodies at all was a thin entrail, but almost all of them were missing a substantial amount of flesh on their bones, and what flesh was still there was blistering even as the fire continued licking at them. The road was slick with blood, some of it even having splattered onto the walls of the surrounding buildings and shining sinisterly in the firelight. Even the Devil had to admit the sight was a bit unsettling; few things were as much so as the clear aftermath of a massacre and the dead air that often accompanied it.

“That's a lot of carnage to follow,” commented Scriggs. Lucifer couldn't help but agree.

“GRAAAUUGH, you SODDING asshat! That was my wanking hand! Wait, what're—AAAAAAAUUUUGGHHH!!”

“Try to follow the screams, then, I guess?”

He didn't need to be able to actually see Scriggs to know the look of exasperation on the imp's face as a square-dance-style fiddle riff rang through the air.

“Alright, how about this,” the king offered. “We should see some visual static when we get close. Try to find the source of that.”

“Is that what you saw that pointed you in our direction, sire?”

“It is indeed. How does that sound?”

“Sounds perfectly workable, sire.” The imp tightened his grip on the reigns. “Alright, Diabola, keep an eye out!” He whipped the reigns again, setting the mare off at a steady trot. Another radio crackle sounded.

While Scriggs kept driving and the sinners kept screaming, Lucifer stared out at the smoldering hellscape and raised his eyebrows in curiosity when an oddity began appearing against the fires. Well—several of the oddity, actually. The Devil could only look out his window, openly confused, at the sight of many small, shadowy, animate dolls ripping and gnawing at sinners’ groaning remains, snarling and gurgling all the while. The things were clearly handmade, and very amateurishly made, too: the stitching on the stuffed cloth was very visible even from a distance, and the cloth that had been used was very plain — black bodies with no detail, discolored heads, and empty eye sockets. If not for the needle-like teeth in their gaping, blood-stained maws, the deadened white glow in their eye sockets, and the fact that they were, well, moving about and chewing on people of their own apparent volition, they would have been rather unremarkable — although some of them did wear stylish black bowlers and a few of them had inexplicable black horns jutting out of either side of their foreheads. The king did notice that some of them had a couple pins sticking out of their arms, sides, or backs and knew what it looked like, but could hardly bring himself to believe it. Mostly he was just stunned by the sheer multitude of them; there had to be at least several dozen.

“Sire?” Scriggs asked, snapping the Devil out of his trance.

“Uhhh— keep going. These guys look like they’re just going for the leftovers. But maybe try following them, too.”

“Absolutely. But— sire,” Scriggs went on, “are you hearing what I’m hearing?”

“The static or the screaming?”

“Well— that’s just it, sire,” said the imp. “I think I hear someone not screaming under all this static.”

Lucifer furrowed his brow at that and strained his ears to hear anything other than the shrieks and screeches that had been playing continuously for at least the past half hour. Or the sound of someone's throat getting torn open mid-scream that was happening right now.

“AAAAAAAUUrrrggllrr…”

The feedback flared up again, causing Diabola to rear up for what had to be the fifth time this ride, and when it died down, Lucifer heard a voice. A voice unlike any he'd heard so far today. Melodic, yet still unmistakably masculine, and jovial. It was laughing, a mocking, derisive laugh, and it almost seemed as one with the static. And when the voice stopped laughing, another short cRAckLe sounded before a trumpet played a jazzy instrumental intro and the voice started making odd noises. Noises that seemed to have a rhythm, but no apparent rhyme or reason.

“♫Bap badadap, BA-da, bada, baaadap bada, bada, bop bododo, BA-da, bada, BAAA-badap ba, da!♫”

Lucifer blinked several times in confusion. Had he just heard someone scatting in this twisted auditory hellscape?

But it only got stranger when the voice started saying recognizable words. Not just saying them, either, but singing them:

“You sinners drop everything!
Let that harmony ring
Up to Heaven and sing:
Sing, You Sinners!

Just wave your arms all about!
Let the Lord hear you shout!
Pour that music out—
Sing, You Sinners!”

Scriggs absentmindedly got Diabola trotting again as he and Lucifer sat wide-eyed as witnesses to a completely auditory spectacle.

“Wherever there’s music, the Devil kicks;
He don’t allow music by that River Styx!

You’re wicked and you’re depraved,
And you’ve all misbehaved.
If you wanna be saved,
Sing, You Sinners!

Come on, everybody! I wanna hear you sing! I wanna see you SMILE! Hahahahaha! OHH, hohohoHO! ”

“Jesus,” Scriggs shuddered. “That fella is one sick bastard, alright.”

“You don’t need to tell Josh that,” Lucifer countered, too impressed by the audacious display to even be offended by the suggestion that he didn’t like music. “Sick bastards fall strictly under my jurisdiction.”

Scriggs merely grunted at that as he kept Diabola going. Eventually, she stopped and wildly began whinnying, thrashing her head, and pawing the ground, kicking up sparks as she did so.

“Hey, hey!” the imp berated her. “What’s wrong with you, girl?”

Lucifer stood up, opened his door, leaned out of the coach, and saw what the mare was seeing.

Over the distant rooftops, he finally saw the visual static peeking out, its source definitely somewhere on the ground. It spiked and thrashed violently, and as it did, another scream tore through the air.

That certainly worked for him.

“That’s our Radio Demon!” he shouted victoriously to Scriggs. When he closed the door and sat back down, it was with the broadest, most triumphant grin he’d worn all day. “Follow the static!”

“Yes, sire!” Scriggs answered as he obediently snapped Diabola faster toward the ominous static cloud, jostling Lucifer in his seat and trampling some of the dolls and carcasses as they went. The imp pulled her to a forceful stop shortly after passing a corner, nearly throwing the king to the floor as he did, gaping at the sight before his eyes.

“Holy shit,” the imp breathed, giving voice to the Devil’s own thoughts as Lucifer stared, stunned, out of his coach window.

The air was filled completely with static and distortion — Lucifer couldn’t even see the blood red sky for all the warbling and crackling, both auditory and visual. The dolls were especially plentiful here, gluttonously tearing apart and feasting on the unconscious sinners lying soaked in a shallow, glistening pool of blood, scattered in a grotesque, mutilated covering on the ground: limbs missing completely after being torn roughly from their sockets, faces and chest cavities viciously split open, or even whole bodies having been ripped completely in half, and that was all in addition to the multiple jagged stab wounds and bite marks that covered nearly every inch of the monstrous flesh still on their bones — the flesh that the fire hadn’t melted off, anyway. Here the off-kilter music was the loudest and strongest, playing a painfully tone-deaf swing tune, but at least one that had some semblance of a rhythm.

And there in the center of it all, savagely devouring one particularly unlucky sinner with all the ferocity of a rabid animal, was a bright crimson something with huge, gnarled, black antlers branching out from what must have been its head. Surrounding it in the air were angry scarlet vevè segments that seemed to flash in time with the shrieking WHirRs coming from the something, which only paused in its ravaging to bark out short, cruel laughter and dig right back in with wild swings of its arms.

Lucifer heard the pained grunts that indicated Scriggs was trying his best not to throw up, but he paid it little mind. He was honestly more awed and curious about the situation at hand than horrified or disgusted. He was the Devil, after all; he’d seen and inflicted far worse bloodshed in his many millenia of existence. What he hadn’t seen before was a creature like this doing whatever it was it was doing.

Boy, that thing’s really going to town on that poor sap, thought Lucifer.

Finally, he blinked himself back to attention, took a steadying breath, straightened his hat, and put on his most confident smile before opening the door. Without taking even a single step out of the coach, however, he slammed the bottom end of his cane onto the ground with a commanding:

BOOM.

As though a shockwave had been sent out from the cane, the area quickly fell deathly silent. Even the fire audibly backed off. Lucifer discreetly glanced out of his window to gauge the reaction, pleased to be able to see the sky again, for one thing, and even more pleased that all attention had turned to him. Good. He needed that attention undivided if he was going to handle this situation properly.

He then stepped out of his coach, one foot at a time, and when he stood up out in the open, one hand on his hip and the other on his cane, quickly scanned the area. Blood was splattered everywhere and the fires had indeed inexplicably shrunk, but more importantly, everything’s eyes were on the Supreme Ruler of Hell. Every single doll seemed to stare at him with its empty pits and a few already started instinctively backing away from this fancily dressed man who looked out at the massacre with such a serene smile on his face.

“Now that right there is a mess,” he remarked jokingly, nodding in mock-approval.

He then turned his attention to the crimson thing in the middle of all the carnage. It stood frozen, hunched over its meal, staring at him. Rather annoyingly, the vevè segments hadn’t gone away, still floating almost protectively around the creature. At least they had stopped flashing, though; Lucifer might have been tempted to succumb to a seizure otherwise. All he could really make out of the creature at this distance was what must have been its face. It had small, glowing red eyes and a too-wide, bloodstained, shark-toothed smile. That wasn’t nearly enough to satisfy his curiosity.

With a hand behind his back and a nod in the creature’s direction, he shifted his grip on his cane, now holding it by the stem and resting its top on his shoulder. Flashing a large, fanged grin of his own, Lucifer strode calmly toward the bloody creature. As he did, the dolls that were previously snacking furiously on sinners’ carcasses started pulling them aside almost reverently to make a path for the king to reach their own apparent leader. When the Devil reached it, he simply extended a hand in greeting, still wearing a completely unperturbed expression.

“Welcome to Hell. I’m Lucifer, the man in charge down here.”

The creature stared at his hand for a few tense seconds.

Then it blinked.

It blinked several times.

It slowly stood up, its antlers shrinking back as, finally, the vevès steadily disappeared.

It blinked again, much more slowly this time, and when its eyes opened, they were much larger and more normal-looking — still glowing red, but at least it had normal pupils. Now that Lucifer was able to get a good look at it, he was able to see that it was a man. A man about a head-and-a-half taller than the Devil, covered chest to foot in short, coarse fur that was matted with blood, both fresh and congealed; so much blood, in fact, that it was nearly impossible to tell what the man’s natural fur color was. Atop his head was an incredibly fluffy pair of black-tipped deer ears to match his antlers, perked up in alert. He wore nothing but a singed, ratty overcoat (also covered in blood damp and dried) that was both baggy on him and a little too short for him. The coat was utterly shredded in several places, only reliably covered his groin area, and overall looked like he had stolen it off of some hobo in his rampage — which, now that Lucifer thought about it, he probably had. The clearest part of the man was his face: it was undeniably one of the most humanlike faces the Devil had seen on a sinner in ages. Sure, what he could see of the man’s skin was a sooty gray and his sclerae were red and glowing, but his head was a completely normal shape, smooth, with a pointed chin and a small, pointed nose. His face also was host to his most prominent feature: a too-large, fanged, yellow smile, which stayed frozen in place even as the man continued blinking, nonplussed, at the hand being offered to him.

Finally, the man cautiously reached out a clawed hand and took Lucifer’s own in a firm, yet genial handshake.

“Why, pleasure to meet you, I suppose,” the man finally said. “I must admit, I didn’t think I’d get welcomed into the Inferno by the big boss himself!”

Lucifer raised his eyebrows a bit at the man’s voice; it was still the rich, jovial tone he’d heard singing earlier, but it sounded bizarrely canned, as though he were still speaking through the filter of a radio despite being right in front of him in person. Regardless, as unusual as the man was, the Devil made sure his own smile never faltered.

“Well, what can I say?” Lucifer shrugged, breaking the handshake. “You’ve made yourself stand out. How can I ignore someone like you? In fact, lemme help you get a little bit better-situated here. I’ll even give you a ride.”

The king then twirled his cane as he lifted a leg and turned on his heel, marching back toward his coach. After a few steps, he glanced back at the blood-soaked man to see that he hadn’t moved. At this he stopped and turned to address the man again.

“Hey, that wasn’t a request, Mister Radio Demon,” Lucifer chuckled. “Come on!” he added cheerfully, waving his cane in the coach’s direction.

The dolls turned their attention back to their master, who simply continued to stand there with his unchanging smile, apparently weighing his options. Then, after what felt like hours but could really only have been a few minutes at most, the deer man finally started to walk after the king. Once Lucifer was confident the man would continue following him, he turned and led the way back to the coach again.

“After you,” he said to the man when he reached the steps. “Oh! But before I forget!”

And with a snap of his fingers, a long, blood red towel rolled out from the coach onto the steps like a royal carpet, and a much larger towel of the same color materialized out of nowhere and landed heavily on top of the deer man, who snickered through his nose as he lifted the towel to give Lucifer a confused grin.

“Try not to get any blood on my interior,” Lucifer explained.

The deer man shrugged in response. “Fair enough,” he conceded, making sure the towel covered most of him as he bent forward and stepped into the coach, the Devil stepping in behind him. Lucifer gave a knowing smile as he sat opposite the man, who was now giving him an amused smirk, presumably from the fact that another large towel had been draped over the seat on his side of the coach. The Devil allowed himself a cheerful, immature snort as he reached over with his cane to close the door.

“Alright, Scriggs!” he called to the imp, tapping the ceiling with his apple cane a couple times. “Back to the palace!”

“You heard the man, Diabola!” was Scriggs’s response. “We’re headed home. Hyah!”

And they were off. The coach’s occupants rode in silence – aside from the odd crackling and white noise still emanating from the Radio Demon – as Lucifer took in the sight of the bloodbath’s remaining burning landscape.