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Before you open a business, you have to know what it’ll be about, who your audience is, what you’re advertising. Sometimes, due to excitement, anxiety, or whatever miraculously fries the few functioning neurons in your head, you may skip one of these steps. These are very essential steps, mind you. By skipping these steps, you are announcing to your fellow workers that you are, in fact, a fucking idiot.
Sadly, Blitzo was one of these fucking idiots. Apparently, starting a business out of pure desperation, was not that good of an idea. But did he have much of a choice? Rent had to be paid, and he needed to feed his daughter. A year back or so, getting money wouldn’t have been much of a worry for him, even though he was broke. But now? His Loony deserved the best life, and he’d rather die trying than be a cheap imitation of his father.
This is why he currently found himself being dragged out of a Goetia ball by two hellhounds. The two tall men grunted indications to the other, but they were too tall and speaking too low for Blitzo to make out a single word they said. Instead, he contented himself by staring at the floor and pondering his fate.
Maybe breaking into a ball held by the Prince himself was a stupid idea, but that rich prick had the answer to Blitzo’s disastrous business. Only HE had a grimoire, a safe passageway to the human world without a mountain of useless, boring paperwork. Blitzo would rather shoot himself than spend at least 3 hours deciphering loopholes made by a rich fucker who could only hope to get richer through further torture of the working class.
As he glared at the beautifully polished floor, he scowled. Well, maybe this was it for him. They’ll either toss him to the streets and leave him to die or punish him themselves. The Goetias were known to be mildly… eccentric, in their own ways. From swans to shoebills, and shoebills to vultures, they all shared one thing in common: high status and ridiculous amounts of money.
As different as one Goetia could be from the other, they all shared the same interest. Most of them would never struggle in life, other than the odd soul who ended up getting disowned for Satan knows what.
Maybe they’d throw him into some fucked up jail cell hidden under the palace, or turn him into one of their overworked butlers, or maybe, hopefully, they’d just execute him and spare him the embarrassment. Maybe he could get M&M to buy him a cheap tombstone saying “Here lies Blitzo Buckzo, beloved condom malfunction. He died how he lived, being a fucking idiot.” but he doubted the off-brand royal Kardashians would offer his loved ones the mercy of even a grave.
Just as they reached the end of the polished hallway full of portraits, a deep, annoyingly British voice called out to the two hellhounds, who immediately dropped Blitzo and made him fall face to the ground.
“What are you two doing?” The voice, assumingly a man, questioned. Even calm, his voice held a hint of impatience
.
“Oh-uhm, your Highness, we were just about to throw this man out. He broke into the ball and disrupted the peace of the guests.” The brown hellhound spat out at a breakneck speed, trying not to get on the man’s nerves. The white hellhound beside him simply nodded.
“There’s no need for that, this pest can’t do much other than hassling people. Go back to your posts and watch out for actual threats. Leave him to me.” The man scoffed, and hearing the bodyguards murmur “yes sir” before running away, Blitzo turned.
“Of fucking course. Just my luck.” He thought to himself. In front of him was none other than the prince himself. Freakishly tall, with the head of a barn owl and two sets of eyes, the prince wore a black top hat with a crown of thorns, a long black cloak that hid his body, and had his gloved hand on an intricate cane with stars embossed onto it.
Stolas, noticing Blitzo’s scowl, lifted an eyebrow, adding more to his air of an annoyed aristocrat, and spoke. “So… what are you doing here? Have you broken into the ball to join it for some forsaken reason, or to just annoy the piss out of everyone attending it?”
Blitzo rolled his eyes and grunted. “Oh yes, your highness! I am just dying to join your bullshit party! I’ll kill myself over it!.... Of course not, you glorified pigeon.”
To his surprise, Stolas snorted at his response, and his face softened. He took some steps forward, grabbed Blitzo by his black goatee, and tugged it down, staring into the imp’s eyes, his own bigger ones black and unblinking, while the red ones on his forehead seemed unimpressed.
“Well then, why are you here, imp?”
Blitzo slapped his hand away and stood up, dusting himself. “Would you be willing to listen to my sob story, or should I throw myself out?” He said, pointing to the door with his thumb.
“Oh do speak. I love drama.”
Blitzo squinted in confusion at that but continued. “Will you kill me if I tell the truth? Can you please at least promise not to, yknow, chop my head off?”
“No promises, but sure. If it’s interesting enough.” The owl said before straightening his back. “Let’s go to a more… private place though, so I can judge your destiny.” He later added, walking into an empty study room.
Once they both entered the beautifully decorated study, Stolas gestured at Blitzo to sit down on one of the chairs, while the prince himself was still up, leaning against another chair.
“Alright, speak.”
The imp took a deep breath and put his hands together. “Uhh.. So, a few associates and I are opening a business. Immediate Murder Professionals, I.M.P., aaand basically our whole deal is that people can hire us to go, yknow, into the human realm, and kill people for them. Ex-lovers, enemies, a boss you never liked, whatever as long as they pay well. Here’s the problem. We don’t have any way to go up there, which is why-”
“-You broke in to steal my grimoire.” Stolas completed, looking mildly impressed.
“Don’t interrupt me. But basically, yeah, and now here we are.”
Blitzo smiled awkwardly and looked to the side, avoiding the prince’s eyes. Yep. This was it. He was doomed. Now all he had to do was wonder what execution method they would choose for him. Maybe if he’s lucky he’ll get the Brazen Bull. That one’s cool at least.
Just as he was about to ask about it, Stolas interrupted him again, after a couple of seconds of an odd silence.
“Well, mister…?”
“Blitzo, the “o” is silent. Extremely important info.”
“Well Mister Blitzo, what if I offer you, and your business, a deal?”
Blitzo’s eyes widened, completely caught by surprise. Wait what the fuck. Oh this absolutely was going to be full of stupid loopholes and freaky bullshit.
“I swear to Satan, if you try to make me sign some bullshit declaration of indepence looking pile of paper, I’m not doing shit.”
The owl simply smiled, which was unnecessarily creepy for an expression that’s usually tied to happiness.
“No, don’t you worry about it. You see, Blitzo, my work is… very hard. And sometimes, the creatures upstairs only make it worse, which is very tedious for a man like myself. So I’ll present this to you.” Stolas stated, before making the grimoire float to himself and holding it out in front of Blitzo, but still out of reach. “I shall lend the grimoire to you, as long as I can use your company’s services. With special treatment, of course.”
Blitzo was flabbergasted. Absolutely bewildered. If you told him roughly 15 minutes ago that he’d be offered this, he likely would have shot you. That…was it? This rich fucking idiot was willing to forget the whole breaking and entering “yeah I was planning on robbing you” thing, just because he was too lazy to do his damn job? Oh wow, and he thought he was getting sloppy.
“That’s…it? That’s all you want?” He inquired, still not believing it.
“Well, yes. As long as you always give my requests priority and let me have it back once duty calls and I can’t ignore, that’s it.” Stolas said with a menacing grin, knowing full well he’d just dodged from more work and earned himself some more time with his daughter, his plants, and his shitty telenovelas.
Blitzo thought for a bit. Was it kinda shady? Yes. Did he like this guy? No. Was he desperate enough? Also yes. So instead of doing what any other sensible being would do and kindly reject the offer, he stood up and offered his hand out to the prince.
“We got ourselves a deal. Just no freaky shit on either side. I don’t trust you.”
Stolas straightened up once more, took off his glove, revealing a pale freckled human-ish hand, and shook Blitzo’s own with a smile.
“Lovely. It’ll be a pleasure to work with you lot.” He chuckled, passing the grimoire to Blitzo.
“Likewise… Not really but yeah, sure.”