Chapter Text
Abbadon had never liked humans.
Ever since he had manifested in the sulphurous pits of Hell, it had been his baisc instinct to rend and torment their wretched souls as they tumbled, screaming, through the gates he once kept.
How far he had fallen since those days.
How long had he been trapped in this pitiful shell of flesh? It must have been over 300 years by now. Skulking in this forsaken town like one of the ghosts who refuses to learn he’s dead. He had long since lost count. No matter. Sure, it had been much longer than Abbadon had anticipated, but Hell would come for him any day now! He knows they’ll come.
Surely.
Without his powers (save for a few basic magics that even a hedge-witch would sneer at) there wasn’t much Abbadon could do in terms of entertainment. He had learned to busy himself with what he had. He broke into the mortals' homes to gorge upon their food. He brawled with their pets. He pilfered and hid the curious metal batteries from their strange devices; and, on nights of particular boredom, he perched upon their dining tables until dawn.
It was something, at least. Based on this town’s reaction to him, his instincts clearly caused some level of annoyance. But oh, there wasn’t any substitute for the pleasure wreaking real havoc brought him.
Abbadon, being of no small reputation even among his infernal peers, had long ago determined that it was safest to dwell beyond the town itself, in the dark forest that loomed at its edge. The mortals had learned—slowly, stupidly—not to enter those woods. The few who did didn’t return, and those who did were never quite themselves again. Their eyes looked too long into shadows that moved of their own accord.
That part was, admittedly, delightful.
The forest here was old, older than the town itself. Tall black trees, roots like bones breaking through the earth. Although they were much smaller when Abbadon had first got here. The veil between worlds was thin here, so thin that anyone who died on a specific portion of land in the town couldn’t quite move onto the other side. The large hungry monsters, the murderers and freaks trapped here for all eternity. All of them made Abbadon feel, if not happy, then a little less alone.
Were it not for the absence of brimstone, screaming, and the sweet weight of power in his claws, he might almost have called it home.
When he tired of the woods, he haunted the great carcass of a building that mortals now called The Underveil Hotel. What an absolute mess of a place that is.A couple of hundred years ago, it had been an asylum, then a prison, then an asylum once more (those were joyous years). He had taken particular pleasure in tormenting the patients there, whispering from corners, appearing just in the corner of their eyes, vanishing when the doctors turned to look. Their screams had been symphonic.
But of course, mortals cannot leave a good haunting be. They ruined everything, as was their way. The asylum was shuttered, then renovated, then bought by fools who fancied themselves proprietors of some “charming inn”. A demon haunting a hotel? How beneath him! He would not be reduced to some ghost story stereotype!
He held that stance for about two weeks of them moving in but unholy lord he was so bored.
The first owner, a severe woman with a face like a horse, had attempted to exorcise him upon learning what he was. He still remembered the agony of it, how the Latin on her tongue stung like acid poured upon his spirit. But of course, him being bound to it made it impossible to get rid of him. That’s not to say it didn’t hurt him though! And not in the good way. She spent the rest of her time running the hotel keeping him chained in the attic, silver biting into his wrist. He escaped every time, of course. He had simply removed the offending hand and waited for it to grow back. She had eventually had enough with the ghosts and Abbadon and cut her losses before she would become one too.
The next owners were no better. Upon discovering his presence, the couple had the audacity to deliver him to a boarding school on the other side of the country. If he had learned one thing there, it was that humans may be worse than demons. The other boys and the teachers there were very mean. So to establish dominance, he had burned the curtains, overturned the beds, and had returned to his rightful haunt by nightfall. The couple vanished not long after, swallowed by the forbidden wing of the hotel.
Tragic, truly.
Since then, the Underveil had stood vacant, awaiting its next victims—pardon, owners. During this time, Abbadon had gone back to living out in the forest. Why live inside if there's no one living left to torment?
Then came the night of his folly.
In one of his darker fits of despair that sometimes overcame him after so many centuries—Abbadon had decided, in a burst of tired madness, to dig his way back to Hell. He set his claws to the earth and dug furiously for hours, muttering half-forgotten prayers to the infernal powers that no longer listened for him. He kept at it until his vision blurred and the world went black. When he woke, he was eight feet down in a large pit of his own making.
He stared up at the sky and knew immediately that there was no “digging back.”
So he waited.
He reasoned that, given enough years, the rains might fill the hole and allow him to float back to the top. It was not the most dignified plan, but eternity leaves little room for pride. Days passed. A squirrel, the foolish creature, tumbled in after him; he ate it without ceremony.
The forest had fallen silent after the last rain and the damp smell of moss and soil clung to everything. He sat in the mud, contemplating the futility of existence and composing increasingly scathing letters to Lucifer in his head, when he heard it—boots squelching on wet earth.
He froze.
Then, peering upward through the dripping rim of his earthen prison, he saw a face—softly lined, human, middle-aged, illuminated by the waning light. The stranger’s expression was not one of horror or disgust, but of warmth. He crouched at the edge of the hole, the mud smearing his coat, and extended a hand downward.
“Hey, bud,” the man said, his voice and smile so gentle.
Abbadon stared at him in disbelief. For the first time in three centuries, someone had looked upon him not as a beast, but as something.. Lost? What the hell is happening
꧁⎝ 𓆩༺✧༻𓆪 ⎠꧂
Nathan liked to think he’d seen just about everything since taking over The Underveil.
The place was full of hundreds of ghosts that died in the most violent of ways, monsters that lived in the very foundation of the building. Honestly, he found it all kind of charming! The ghosts were mostly polite. Chatty, too. Besides the murderers and perverts but hey what can you do? He’d learned their little habits. Mrs. Crane preferred the kitchen after midnight, the pair of 18th century English twins liked to stack chairs in the event hall/ slash town hall, and Candle Head wouldn’t walk into a room if he couldn’t see a candle lit.
They’d told him about another presence, though. One who wasn’t actually dead yet. A demon who had been trapped on the property longer than any of them had been there, mean as a kicked pitbull and twice as proud. They’d whispered his name like it might summon him—Abbadon.
Nathan had been expecting something terrifying. He’d even practiced what he’d say if they ever met. (“Hey buddy! You’re not gonna eat me, right?”) But the weeks passed and no demon showed.
So on one afternoon, Nathan was out wandering the woods behind the hotel, humming to himself and keeping an eye out for any unusual ghost activity. Ghosts who died out here, beyond the property line, tended to be… funny. Some were stuck in trees, some just muttered to themselves, and one old fellow thought he was a deer.
The rain had left the forest smelling like earth and rot. He squelched through the mud in his boots, waving at patches of fog just in case they were ghosts having a nap. You never really knew out here. “Afternoon! Don’t mind me, just your local hotel manager out for a stroll,” he said cheerfully to a stump.
That was when he heard it—
A low, pitiful grumble.
Nathan paused. “Hello?”
He took a few careful steps and nearly tripped straight into a hole. When he peered inside, his eyes went wide. Two eyes blinked up at him from the darkness—unnatural, blood red, glowing faintly like coals. They didn’t look afraid. Just wary. At the bottom sat a small figure, pale as chalk, covered with dirt, and glaring up at him. His clothes looked like they belonged to another century entirely.
Nathan blinked. Then smiled. “Well, hey there, bud!”
The boy blinked back, unamused. “You dare address me in such a manner?” His voice carried the kind of ancient tone Nathan had only heard in Shakespeare plays.
“Wow, you’ve been down there a while, huh?” Nathan crouched, extending a hand. “Come on up. Looks muddy.”
Abbadon stared at the hand like it had personally insulted him. “Do you know to whom you speak?”
“Not yet!” Nathan smiled brightly. “But I’m Nathan. Nathan Freeling. New owner of The Underveil Hotel.”
The boy continued to silently stare up at the man. Nathan kept tried to fill the silence while he waited for the boy to take his hand. “Yup!” He exclaimed. “Won it in a card game with some fella in a cloak.”
Abbadon closed his eyes briefly, muttering what sounded like a prayer for patience and reached up to take the mortal's hand.
The boy was light as a crow, ribs sharp under his soaked shirt. When Nathan hauled him up into the daylight, he realized with a jolt that the boy definitely wasn’t human. Not entirely anyway. His skin had a faint ash-grey tint, his fingernails pointed like tiny claws, and faint dark markings wound up his arms like veins of ink.
But mostly, he just looked tired. Mud streaked his face. His bare feet were raw and bleeding. He shivered, blinking against the light. This was definitely Abbadon. “The ghosts told me about you,” Nathan went on as he lifted the little demon back onto the ground. “Said there’s a kid in the woods who doesn’t die. Guess that’s you.”
“They talk too much,” the boy muttered, rubbing his arm.
Nathan smiled faintly. “They do that. C’mon, let’s get you warm.”
“I don’t get cold.”
“Humor me,” Nathan said and draped his coat over the boy’s shoulders anyway. The fabric swallowed him whole. Nathan started towards the hotel but when he looked back for the little demon, he saw him limping after him, his feet tracking blood behind him.
Nathan turned back. “Oh, bud, can you not walk?” Abbadon’s expression twisted somewhere between outrage and disbelief. “I am not a stray beast for you to pity, mortal.” Nathan grinned. “Cool, so you can walk then?”
Silence.
Nathan leaned closer. “Can you?”
“…No.”
Abbadon shrieked in offense as Nathan’s hands hooked under his arms. “Unhand me, you ridiculous man!”
“Buddy, it’s this or I leave you here to make friends with the worms.”
“You presume to lift me?”
“Yup.” Nathan hoisted him easily, holding the fuming demon on his hip like a very cranky, very dramatic child. “Jeez, you’re light. You've been eating okay?”
Abbadon sputtered as he thrashed. “Put me down! You insolent buffoon! I am Abbadon, Warden of the Gates, Keeper of the Infernal Flame, Prince of—” “Uh-huh, that’s nice,” Nathan said, trudging towards the hotel. “You can tell me all about it over hot cocoa.”
Abbadon went still at the unfamiliar word. “Hot… what?”
“You’ll love it. It’s sweet and warm. Good for cranky demons.”
By the time they reached the edge of the woods, Abbadon had stopped struggling, choosing instead to mutter curses into Nathan’s shoulder. Nathan just smiled, humming a tune as the old hotel came into view. Its crooked sign swayed gently in the wind, half-hidden by ivy. “There we go,” Nathan said softly, stepping up the porch steps. “Home sweet haunted home.” The door creaked open on its own, as it often did to greet him. The ghosts, he could feel, were already watching, curious about their new arrival. Nathan gave a cheerful wave into the dim hall. “Hey, guys! Found your demon!”
And with that, he carried Abbadon over the threshold of The Underveil.
Why did he not have the urge to drive this man out of here?