Chapter Text
Duke Hastur’s gait was quick and downright lively as he walked in (odd, because usually, nothing about Duke Hastur could be described as ‘lively’); one could almost assume he properly lifted his feet this time. That form of elation and loftiness was unheard-of in Hell and was unheard-of for the Duke – one more reason while the Lord of the Files grew watchful and attentive as she watched him walk up closer.
The grim smirk upon his face made Dagon, who was on duty accepting, seeing through and filing reports and all sorts of other paperwork and giving final tallies to Beelzebub, muse he was planning something.
For now, however, all the Duke did was slap a frayed, musty-smelling piece of parchment onto the already overcrowded tabletop in front of Dagon. “Once on time with your work?” the Lord of the Files asked bitingly upon taking the parchment up. She hadn’t been aware that Hastur had been assigned a certain mortal to tempt – this had to be of his own initiative, which was remarkable on its own.
Hastur grunted. “Take it or leave it,” he mumbled into his non-existent beard, “but dun’ go an’ give me a hard time over it. I know perfectly well wha’ I’m doin’.”
That, Dagon didn’t doubt, not a single second… Hastur had taken up temptations in the departments of Envy and Wrath, and had received a lot of praise in the past for his work. He was a wonderfully thorough worker; although he never quite met the temptation quota set by the office, the souls he arrived with were always so thoroughly broken and tainted that it would have sufficed for two or three sentences, and earned him a commendation either way. That had only intensified after Lilith, claiming to Beelzebub that her friend Ligur was bored with humanity and his tasks, had made the Lord of the Flies partner both Dukes up. Since then, Dagon imagined, boredom was the least of their concerns. In fact, if her perceptions were right, they had made tempting mortals and causing them pain a competitive sport - not that it hurt Hell in any way.
She picked up the parchment Hastur had brought and checked it superficially; it seemed a proper demonic contract, signed in blood by the client, one ‘Howard Phillips Lovecraft’, and in swampy-smelling slime by Hastur, complete with Sigil, uncrumpled, unstained, uneaten at by bugs or worms or maggots or any other vermin that the Duke surrounded himself with. Not even any knubby toad footprints were to be found on it. Such orderliness made Dagon assume that this was personal, and so…
“Promising candidate?” she asked, putting a stamp mark onto the flaky form and signing her name quickly so it could be passed on, further processed and filed away. “Good temptation?”
“Not a temptation,” Hastur, who had turned to leave with a swish of his coat, answered sloppily over his shoulder. “No’ anymore. Tha’ one? He forfeited his right on bein’ properly tempted the moment he called Ligur a ‘nigger’ an’ a ‘slave’ an’ a ‘lowlife’ an’ an ‘ape’ an’ demanded he leave the inn before he an’ I could do any business together. Tha’ one…” a mischievous grin stole onto Hastur’s features, “… tha’ one I’ll tear limb from limb.”
Dagon thought her ears deceived her. She half lifted out of her chair, staring at the Duke in pointed disbelief. “That prick said… what?” she asked with venomous sharpness, “And why didn’t Ligur snap his head around on his spine immediately?”
Hastur bit his lower lip. His glee in just envisioning what he was going to do to that man was perfectly evident. “That would’ve been kind,” he answered with due disgust for the word alone, “much too kind compared to what he an’ I’ve planned to do to the wanker. He won’t know ‘is face from ‘is arse once we’re done with ‘im.”
Indeed, Ligur also knew what fun was…
“I want in.” Dagon felt ants scurry under her skin as she spoke thus. It sounded promising, the idea of inflicting irreparable harm to an unfortunate human soul in tandem with both Hastur and Ligur. She needed to get away from her desk one of these days either way… “Tell me what I can do.”
Hastur eyed the Lord of the Files from crown to heel; then, he grinned, showing corroded and certainly foul-smelling tooth stumps. “You still can do tha’ half-human, half-amphibian body thing, can you?”
Dagon smirked.
She could.