Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Somewhere in the heights of the Heavenly Palaces, in the endless sea of shining spires and floating islands, in one of the countless apartments with floor-to-ceiling panoramic windows, morning, predawn silence reigned.

The first thing that disturbed the perfect peace was a barely audible click, followed by a soft mechanical whisper. On the bedside table, soft instrumental chords floated out of a device resembling a retro lamp—styled speaker - serene, algorithmically perfect music for waking up.

A man stirred in the shining white sheets of the huge bed. Vincent Whitman. He slowly, reluctantly opened his eyes, and for a moment two different colors flashed in the dimness of the room: on the left — a cold, clear blue, on the right — a deep, almost emerald green. For several long seconds, he just lay on his back, staring at the spotless white ceiling, in which the holographic starry sky was already beginning to twinkle and shimmer, imitating the dawn.

His mind, still clouded by the remnants of dreams, slowly loaded into reality. He blinked once, twice, forcing the muscles of his face to tone up. With a deep, reluctant sigh, he threw back the light but incredibly warm blanket and sat on the edge of the bed, placing his bare feet on the cool floor, which radiated a soft light.

His back was bare, and now his main feature, the wings, was fully visible. But these were not feathers and flesh, but a complex cybernetic construct. The base was made of snow—white, almost porcelain plates that smoothly turned into long flight feathers in the color of delicate blue ether. At the joints and along the contour of the wing, there were inserts of matte black and deep blue, through which a barely noticeable network of shining blue conductor veins pulsated. They lay folded behind his back, powerful and at the same time graceful arcs, as if the wings had been created by the best celestial engineer.

A halo hovered above his head, at a height of about ten centimeters. Not a solid disk, but an elegant, finely woven hologram consisting of circular shining lines and geometric patterns. He exuded a steady, soothing glow of cold blue light, casting soft, moving shadows on Vincent's black wolves.

Vincent ran a hand over his face, shaking off the remnants of sleep, and stood up. He walked over to the panoramic window. With a flick of his hand, he called up a transparent panel, which began to darken, turning into a giant screen on which Paradise news reports, patrol schedules, grace courses and other routine information flashed. He ignored her and brought up the view from the window with a flick of his finger.

Below, in an endless perspective, the shining domes and flying gardens of the Heavenly Palaces were immersed in the morning golden haze. Somewhere in the distance, a huge, whale-like airship, dotted with lights, sailed by. An idyll. Absolute and perfect.

Vincent stood with his palm resting on the cool glass, his multicolored eyes indifferently gliding over the perfect landscape. There was no awe or peace on his face. Just a familiar, heavy mask of deep, existential fatigue.

"A new day," he finally said in a low, slightly hoarse voice. "Again."

His gaze skimmed over the running lines with the weather of grace and the schedule of choral singing, and came across the numbers in the corner of the screen. 7:48. Vincent blinked slowly, digesting this information. His internal biological clock, usually flawlessly accurate, had failed him this time. He overslept. A full eighteen minutes longer than your ideal schedule.

Damn, he cursed inwardly, even though the word sounded almost blasphemous in Paradise. — Get ready. Work."

The idea of working as a TV presenter, "The Voice of the Heavenly Palaces," as he was called, aroused neither enthusiasm nor irritation. Just a familiar, well-established sense of duty. He turned around and went into the dressing room, where an immaculate row of identical suits was waiting for him.

Dressing was a ritual honed to automatism. First, a white shirt with perfect arrows on the sleeves. Then there are trousers with arrows that fit flawlessly. The jacket, heavy and made of expensive fabric, fell on his shoulders, and Vincent froze for a moment, allowing the cybernetic wings to take a comfortable position through special slots behind his back. A sky—blue tie is the only bright accent in his image. The knot was tied with one precise movement, without a single mistake.

He walked over to the dressing table, where the combs and styling products were in perfect order. His black hair, which was usually laid back with careless but thoughtful precision, was now slightly disheveled from sleep. A few strokes of the brush and everything fell into place. The mask was ready.

The final touch is glasses. He picked up a pair of square lenses with thin metal frames from the table and placed it on the bridge of his nose. They completed the look: collected, professional, distant. A television angel. A symbol of progress, which he himself brought to this place frozen in eternal grace.

Before leaving, he paused for a second at the mirror in the hallway. The reflection was perfect. Immaculate suit, immaculate hairstyle, cool, confident look from behind glasses. A holographic halo hovered above his head, casting a bluish glow on his black hair. Everything is as it should be.

But something was wrong.

Not in the reflection, but... in himself, looking at that reflection. He had a vague, momentary feeling that the man in the mirror wasn't him. It was as if an invisible but tangible crack had formed between him and his image. There was something in the reflection's eyes, in the subtle curve of her lips, in the pose itself... someone else's. Wrong.

He squinted, trying to capture this feeling, sort it out, pull it out into the light. But at the same moment, a dull, oppressive pain began to pound in his temples. The familiar pain. She came every time his thoughts tried to take a wrong turn, to look beyond the boundaries of what was allowed.

Vincent sighed, looking away from the mirror. "It's just a headache," he convinced himself, pressing his finger on the bridge of his nose. — From overwork. Nothing else."

The pain was slowly receding, taking with it that strange, disturbing dissonance. He straightened up, straightened his tie, and his face regained its usual impassive expression. The image was assembled. The mask is on. It's time for work.

Without wasting time on the elevators, Vincent opened the panoramic window wide. A fresh morning breeze, smelling of ambrosia and ozone, rushed into the room. He took a step into the void, and at the same moment, cybernetic wings opened behind him with a soft mechanical hum. The blue-and-white panels slid, sliding out and locking, and the shining conductor veins flashed brighter, adjusting to the gravitational currents. With a powerful swing, he was already floating in the air, leaving his apartment far behind.

The air corridors between the shining spires were already filled with angels. Snow-white, pastel, golden wings flashed everywhere like the petals of giant flowers. Vincent, without slowing down, masterfully maneuvered through this stream, nodding to familiar faces.

"Hello," he would say to an angel with a lyre in his hand.
"Hello," he replied to the bow of the two cherubs.

A polite, practiced smile stuck to the corners of his lips for a split second. Sincere, like a hologram of his halo. But it was enough — the surrounding angels responded to him with shining, genuine smiles, taking this surrogate at face value.

As he flew, his gaze, accustomed to the composition and color, clung to the surrounding aesthetics over and over again. Everything here was like that... sugary. Golden marble was juxtaposed with acid-pink mosaics, azure stained glass windows with lemon—yellow flower beds, on which blue roses with orange stamens grew. This cacophony, this mawkish riot of colors, made him sick. It seemed like he was about to throw up. But judging by the blissful expressions on the faces of those around them, everyone was absolutely fine with it.

"No matter how much time has passed... — he mentally stated, dissecting with his wing a stream of fragrant steam from some fountain. — And I'm still not getting used to this circus. It's been since the fifties, but it's just like the first day."

He chuckled bitterly to himself as he continued to critically survey the landscape.
"This color palette would cause professional hysteria in..."

The thought stopped. Sharply. It's painful.

An image flashed through my head like a flash. Blurry, like an old photograph. A slender girl... Her skin was a strange, grayish-brown shade that he had never seen in Paradise. Two lush, almost weightless tails of hair are poisonous pink, abruptly turning into a dark, indigo blue. And there are white spirals at the very roots. One strand of bangs, white as snow, fell over his face, hiding his features.

And then, like a hammer, a hellish pain fell on the skull. Sharp, splitting. My vision went dark, and the world swam. He felt warmth trickling from his nose. Instinctively, he raised his hand—his fingers were stained with thick, shining golden blood.

Vincent barely stabilized his flight, froze in place and squeezed his eyes shut from the agonizing wave. He hung in the air, clutching his temples, while other angels swam carelessly around him. After a couple of minutes, hell receded, leaving only a dull, throbbing echo pain and mild nausea.

"What I just said... Thinking? Or about whom?"— there was a ringing emptiness in my head. The image evaporated, leaving no trace, only a vague, unpleasant aftertaste. He wiped the remaining golden blood from his lip with the back of his hand, and then took out a snow-white handkerchief from the inner pocket of his tuxedo and carefully wiped his nose.
"It doesn't matter. Just a glitch. Overload."

He took a deep breath, straightened up, and with a new surge of determination, headed for the shining building of the Celestial Broadcasting Corporation.

As soon as his feet touched the marble floor of the main hall, a group of colleagues immediately rushed towards him. Their beaming faces were distorted with sincere anxiety.

"Vincent! Are you okay? You look pale!" one of his shooting group exclaimed, her wings fluttering with excitement.
"Friend, we saw you stop... Blood?" another angel director asked worriedly.

Vincent put on his best, most calm and disarming smile. The one that drove the entire celestial audience crazy.
"Hello, everyone.No need to worry. Everything is in perfect order," his voice sounded flat and convincing. "Just a little headache." It's nothing serious. Let's get to work."

And, brushing off his perfect tuxedo, he walked confidently to his dressing room, leaving behind his worried but reassured colleagues. A spot of golden blood on the handkerchief burned the pocket like a silent reminder of a crack in the perfect facade.

The bright studio lights burned out the last remnants of morning exhaustion, turning it into a familiar, background headache. Vincent stood in front of the team, his posture relaxed, and his face lit up with that immaculately collected smile. He outlined the broadcast plan clearly, point by point, and his voice— a smooth, velvety baritone — did not allow the slightest doubt of his competence.

And all the while, under this immaculate facade, a fountain of caustic, poisonous cynicism raged in his head.

"Look at them," he growled in his mind, looking at the beaming, attentive faces of his employees. — The perfect little soldiers of Paradise. They smile, nod, and agree. Tell them that the sky is green, and they will immediately pick up, just not to disturb the idyll."

He hated this society. I hated that eternal, cloying sweetness in their voices, that willingness to offer a friendly shoulder that could recoil at any moment as soon as you made the slightest mistake. Clean people who change their "righteous" opinions like gloves, depending on where the breeze blows from the highest heavenly offices. Of course, not everyone was like that. There were also those whose faith was sincere, whose kindness was not feigned. But there were so few of them that they were drowned in this sea of hypocritical syrup.

"... and at the climax, we will announce the main news," Vincent continued aloud, his voice sounding inspiring. "News that will change everything."

He could already see the headlines in his mind. Redemption is possible! The first sinner has ascended! The name of this "lucky guy" — Sir Pentious — was told to them by the same, young serafim.

Emily. The thought of her sent a new wave of irritation through Vincent. This silly, naive fool with teddy angel wings and gradient hair. The messenger of joy. She was so enthusiastic, she defended these "sinners" so fervently, as if they were just poor, lost sheep.

Oh, if you only knew, baby, Vincent thought tartly, straightening his tie. — If you could just see for a second what these "poor and confused" are doing in their Hell. These are not unhappy souls, Emily. They're bastards. Monsters spawned by their own choice. And no hotel, no redemption will wash away the dirt that is ingrained in their very essence."

He imagined how her shining blue-white eyes would widen in horror if she were confronted with real, unadorned cruelty. Her pure, childish world would collapse in an instant. And a part of him, the blackest and most perverted, almost wanted to see this crystal facade of her faith crack.

But then his own thought hit him. And who is he to judge? The biggest hypocrite of all. He stands in front of the camera for hours and talks about virtue, while only bile and contempt boil inside him. He wears the mask of a righteous man, but he easily lies and hides the truth when it is profitable. Lying to him wasn't the first time.

"Vincent? Are we ready for the rehearsal?" a voice brought him out of his thoughts.

He blinked, and his smile became dazzling and serene again.
"Of course, my dear. Absolutely ready. Let's give our viewers the news they've been waiting for forever."

He turned to the camera, striking his signature pose. A television angel. A symbol of hope and progress. And while his halo exuded a steady blue glow, and his wings spread proudly behind his back, Vincent Whitman was preparing to lie to the whole Paradise with the most sincere smile on his face.

The broadcast went flawlessly. The words about mercy, redemption and new hope poured out of Vincent's mouth so smoothly and convincingly that for a second he almost believed in this fairy tale himself. A final smile at the camera, a pause, and the studio exploded into quiet, admiring applause from the team. Vincent nodded, still beaming, taking the praise for granted.

It was at this moment that an alert flashed softly on his personal communicator embedded in the frame of his glasses. A text visible only to him: "Vincent Whitman. Arrive at the Supreme Court Hearing Room. Immediately. Sulfur."

Sulfur. Chief Seraphim. Chief. The reason why there have been no sinners in Paradise up to this point. Cold, impenetrable, and completely unpredictable in her quest to shield Rye and Emily from any danger.

"I'm sorry, friends," he looked around the team with his multicolored gaze, once again putting on a mask of light, businesslike concern. "I'm being summoned to the Celestial Chancellery. The matter is urgent."

He said goodbye with a couple of polite phrases and left the studio, leaving behind a buzz of discussions about upcoming changes. In the cool, sterile hallway, he straightened his tuxedo as he walked, brushing away an invisible speck of dust. And that's when his gaze fell on his sleeve.

A moth sat on the spotless white fabric, like a drop of blood in the snow.

Vincent froze, surprised. Insects in Paradise, of course, were perfect, shining butterflies and dragonflies, more like jewelry. But this one... He was small, with thin, almost weightless wings of a thick, velvety scarlet color. There was no such shade in any celestial palette. He was defiantly earthly, sinful, alien.

Something inside Vincent flinched. Not irritation, not disgust, but something completely different. Carefully, with a movement full of tenderness unexpected even for himself, he brought his finger to the moth. As if trusting him, he moved from the cloth to his finger, barely perceptibly moving his fragile paws.

Vincent raised his hand, examining the tiny creature. Some strange, long-forgotten response stirred in his soul, cemented with layers of cynicism and fatigue. An aching feeling, similar to longing. As if he had lost something. Something very important related to this scarlet color.

He didn't understand where it came from. This feeling was as alien to Paradise as the moth itself.

The corners of his lips twitched involuntarily, forming a soft, unfeigned smile. He watched as the moth crawled from his palm to his index finger, its wings fluttering in time with the non-existent wind.

And a name popped up in my mind. Valentino.

From where? Why? He didn't know. But it came instantly and stuck fast to this fragile creature.

"Valentino... — he whispered in his mind, and the name seemed strangely familiar on his tongue, like the taste of a long-forgotten fruit. "It would suit you."

He stood there for a moment longer, forgetting about Sera's summons, about work, about all this heavenly tinsel. His entire being was focused on the scarlet moth on his finger. But it was impossible to stay here for long. With a deep, almost sad sigh, he carefully brought his hand to the decorative vase with a paradise flower by the wall.

"It's time for you, my friend," he whispered softly. —And me."

A moth, as if realizing, flew off his finger and disappeared into the shining foliage. Vincent stared into the void for a second longer, feeling a ghostly lightness on his finger, and that same incomprehensible, but now distinct emptiness in his soul.

Then he straightened up, his face smooth and impassive again. He shook off the invisible sensations and confidently walked towards the elevators that led to the highest offices of the Heavenly Chancellery. But the image of the scarlet moth and the name "Valentino" burned his mind like a brand.

He shook his head, as if trying to shake off an obsession. The soft smile smoothed out, giving way to the usual focused mask. The scarlet moth and the strange name "Valentino" were put aside in the farthest corner of consciousness, like an untimely glitch. Sera waited. And when Sera was waiting, any delay, even for the sake of the most beautiful being in the universe, was tantamount to suicide.

With a powerful flap of his cybernetic wings, he was back in flight, slicing through the perfect air of Paradise towards the main spire of the Celestial Chancellery. The building loomed before him, dazzling and overwhelming, the epitome of impeccable authority.

Landing on one of the countless landing pads, he passed through an archway scanning his halo and stepped into the sterile, echoing silence of the main corridor. His heels beat a precise rhythm on the shining marble, the echo ran forward, announcing his approach.

As he walked, his mind, honed like a processor, feverishly sorted through the options. What for?

"Are there interruptions? He mentally ran through the internal reports. — 99.9% stability. All servers are functioning normally. There are no deviations."

He could feel the subtle vibrations of the heavenly network flowing through him like blood through his veins. The data hum was steady, without glitches.

"Traffic problems? — the next logical step. — No, peak loads have been passed, the bandwidth has not been exceeded. All requests are being processed."

In his mind's eye, he saw endless rivers of information—prayers, reports, streams of grace—all flowing smoothly and in an orderly manner.

"A virus? A leak? — that would be more serious. — But the firewalls are intact. The encryption is not broken. There are no traces of unauthorized access or malicious code."

He was a human shield, a filter, a central node. If something forbidden had seeped through him, he would have felt it immediately.

Then what? His wings, folded behind his back, made a barely audible click, adjusting his position.

Vincent Whitman was, in fact, a walking supercomputer on angel legs. All he needed was a monitor instead of a head to complete the picture. Through his cybernetic essence, through every plate of his wings, through his very halo, passed all the electrical networks of Paradise, gigabytes of Wi-Fi traffic, broadcast streams of television and radio broadcasting. He was a living router, server, and modem all rolled into one. Tons of information passed through him every second — from current news to eternal truths, from personal prayers to strategic instructions from above.

He was the nervous system of this whole shining place, and the thought that there might be a malfunction in this system that he himself did not fix was frightening.

He walked up to the massive, mirror-polished doors of the Supreme Court. The doors were so high that they seemed to rest against the sky itself. He paused for a moment, straightened his shoulders, straightened his tie. The holographic halo above his head flashed a little brighter, synchronizing with the access system.

"Well, Sera," his last well—honed thought flashed through his head. "Let's see which glitch in the matrix caught your attention."

The doors slid open noiselessly, letting him into the icy glow of the chief seraphim's office.

———

Meanwhile, in the depths of Hell, chaos reigned, which even the most inveterate sinners did not see. It wasn't the chaos of riots or demonic invasions—it was the chaos of silence. Vile, unnatural, interrupting the very rhythm of hellish life.

The Vox disappeared. The media demon, the Lord of the Media, whose name was on everyone's lips, whose image shone on millions of screens. He was not just a strong ruler. He was the embodiment of the very principle of technological progress in the underworld. It was he, with his maniacal passion and business acumen, who brought electricity, television, and communications to hell. He entangled not only the circle of Pride with his nets, but also penetrated into others, spreading his influence like a poisonous vine. VoxTek was ubiquitous.

And with his disappearance, everything went downhill. Literally.

Pride, that shining neon nightmare, was plunged into darkness. The neon signs that had been burning venomously on the streets for years went out. The giant screens, relentlessly broadcasting propaganda, pornography, and talk shows, became dead black rectangles. Phones have become useless plastic boxes. The elevators froze between floors. Accounts froze, databases collapsed, factories stopped. Hell, which was so used to depending on the outlet and the signal, suddenly found itself paralyzed. Who would have thought that all this seething, poisonous life was based on a single sinner, whose will and strength fueled all this illusion of progress?

But there was one corner of Hell where life flowed the same way it had a century ago. The territory belonging to Rosie, the good—natured but no less dangerous Cannibal Mistress. Her domain in the circle of pride had always been another world. They weren't chasing cutting-edge technology here. Her subjects were not dependent on electronics. They preferred the cozy, frightening semi-darkness of kerosene lamps, casting trembling shadows on the walls, illuminated by torches and candles in elegant candelabra.

Their entertainment was much more... organic. Balls where dancing ended with a feast, salon conversations full of hidden threats and venomous compliments, old-fashioned theaters where tragedies were played out with genuine blood. The disappearance of Vox and the collapse of its media empire went almost unnoticed by them. Except it got quieter.

It was through these untouched streets, lit by a warm, living fire, that Alastor strolled leisurely. His unfailing wide smile seemed even wider than usual, and sparkles of pure, genuine joy danced in his eyes. In his hand, as usual, he held his old-fashioned microphone, and from it came the soft, crackling sound of a jazz melody — his faithful companion, the radio.

The collapse of the entire Vox system only benefited Alastor. His native element, radio— was triumphantly returning to everyday life. When the giant screens went out, people desperately grabbed onto old, dusty radios to hear at least some news, at least some voice from outside. And whose voice did they hear? Alastor's voice, of course. His charismatic, static-distorted baritone has once again become the main sound on the waves. The power shifted from visual noise back to the power of pure sound, to the power of suggestion and atmosphere. And in this, Alastor was second to none.

"Dear Rosie," his voice sounded like a melody from a long—forgotten era, "isn't it delightful how quiet it has become? Finally, this annoying technological noise has stopped interfering with real art."

He took a deep breath, as if inhaling not air, but this very silence, this panic, this regression. It wasn't a collapse for Alastor. It was a return to the roots. And he was going to take full advantage of it.

Alastor walked through Rosie's illuminated territory, and his static smiling mask did not waver a millimeter. Every scream in the distance, every echo of chaos, was like the sweetest jazz chord in a symphony of decay. His era, the era of radio, sound and shadow, was returning triumphantly.

But beneath this icy mask of satisfaction, another, much darker and more violent element was bubbling. Anger. Pure, unalloyed and pristine.

His Vox. His annoying, loud, insufferably ambitious picture box... disappeared. And the only logical explanation that dug into Alastor's mind with sharp claws was that someone had been killed.

The thought was like a needle stabbing into the very core of his being. It's impossible. This is ridiculous. Vox couldn't just disappear. He couldn't have fallen at the hands of some random idiot, another pretender to the throne, or even from the combined efforts of other Overlords. No. Alastor knew his strength. I knew her from my own experience. Their collision left scars not only on the urban landscape, but also on their eternal souls. He put so much effort and attention into Vox! This feud was his chosen project, the most fascinating confrontation in recent decades. It was an exquisite dance of hate, honed to perfection.

And for what? So that some insignificant worm would dare to take his toy away from him? His personal nuisance? His eternal opponent?

Indignation boiled in him like tar. The thought was an insult, worse than any challenge to a duel. His Vox. His property. His irritant. His only worthy rival in this miserable century. No one had the right to touch what Alastor considered his own, even if that "possession" consisted of an endless desire to pulverize him.

His fingers gripped the cane so tightly that the ghostly pattern on the bone handle almost cracked. The static crackling around him became sharp and threatening for a moment, as if the ethereal waves could not withstand the pressure of his rage.

No. He won't let it go. This insolence will not go unanswered.

He'll find out who did it. He will scour all circles, rake up the past of every powerful demon, elicit the truth from the most silent shadows. He will use all his strength, all his ancient cunning, to bring the culprit to light.

And when he finds it... Oh, then he will make sure that the death of this ignoramus will be a masterpiece. Not a quick act of mercy, but a long, sophisticated work of art in the genre of suffering. It will be slow, painful, and take centuries. Every moment of agony will be broadcast on those same blank screens of the Vox empire, as the last, ironic greeting from his eternal rival.

Because Vox was his. And no one, no one dared to take away Alastor's property. Even death itself.

Chapter Text

Vincent paused in front of a massive door made of shining white wood inlaid with golden geometric patterns. A deep, invisible sigh—and a familiar mask crept over his face. Smile. Broad, charming, full of respectful attention. The corners of her lips tightened and crept up, and the muscles on her cheeks immediately responded with a dull, growing tension. Sometimes it seemed to him that this forced grimace eventually erased his real face, leaving only an eternally shining mask.

He knocked twice, briefly and clearly, and the door slid noiselessly aside, admitting him to the personal chambers of the Supreme Seraphim.

The office was huge, striking in its scale even by celestial standards. The vaulted ceiling was lost somewhere in the sky, painted with frescoes depicting the creation of the worlds and the triumph of the heavenly armies. Slender marble columns rose along the walls, rising like the trees of a sacred grove. The main attraction was a giant arched full-length window made up of countless stained glass windows. Muted, multicolored light streamed through them, coloring the air in sapphire, emerald, and gold tones. The stained glass windows depicted scenes of grace, humility, and virtue, with the majestic figure of the Creator in the center. The air was cool and filled with the subtle scent of incense and fresh parchment.

Sera stood with her back to him in front of that magnificent window, silhouetted against the shining glass. Her six pale peach wings were slightly spread out, and a double halo decorated with a spiked crown and blue "jewels" floated above her swirling silver hair. She seemed the epitome of calm, unquestionable authority.

Vincent had already opened his mouth to say the standard greeting, when suddenly —

"Vincent!"

With a whoosh, a rainbow-colored lightning bolt flew into him with all its might. Before he could figure anything out, gray-gloved arms were wrapped around his neck, and a face with fluffy indigo eyelashes was buried in his chest.

It was Emily.

The first, venomous impulse is to abruptly push her away, shake her off as if she were an annoying insect. But the mind, cold and calculating, instantly assessed the consequences. Insult Sera's pet? Suicide.

And so his body went on autopilot. His arms, which had been hanging by his side only a moment ago, smoothly and easily picked up the young seraphim. He even lifted her up, making a light, almost joking turn to hide the initial tension. His smile did not waver for a moment, only became a little more "fatherly".

"Emily," his voice sounded warm and a little condescending, "it seems like someone overdid it with heavenly enthusiasm this morning."

He gently lowered her to the floor, trying not to look into her shining blue-white eyes full of genuine joy. His whole being screamed at the falsity of this scene, but the mask held firm. Only the muscles around his mouth ached even more.

 

As Vincent gently but steadily freed himself from Emily's embrace, his multicolored gaze—cold blue and deep green—swept around the office, automatically assessing the situation. Immediately, his analytical mind registered a fourth figure in the room, previously hidden in the shadow of one of the massive columns.

Vincent froze for a split second, though his smile didn't waver. His brain, accustomed to the impeccable, almost machine-like logic of Paradise, instantly processed the data and issued a conclusion: an anomaly.

It was... snake. A serpentine humanoid. None of the native inhabitants of Paradise, with the possible exception of cherubs, those sweet but obsessive anthropomorphic creatures with wings, possessed such a pronounced inhuman appearance. All the angels, seraphim, authorities, and other orders were, at their core, human beings. Even with wings, halos, and glowing skin. The same one... This one was different.

And then, as if by magic, the headlines of his own morning broadcast, the prepared scripts full of pathos about mercy and hope, surfaced in Vincent's memory. Sir Pentious. The first redeemed sinner. The one whose ascension was supposed to turn everything upside down.

"Of course,— a caustic, venomous thought flew through Vincent's head. "Who else?" Not some lost soul, but a snake demon. It's downright biblical irony. Absolutely amazing."

Sir Pentius looked extremely uncomfortable. He fidgeted in place, his long snake tail, now painted white and gray and stripped of its hypnotic eyes, wriggled restlessly. His white top hat with a huge yellow eye was nervously adjusted, and in his hands he fiddled with the edges of his white gold-striped jacket. Seeing Vincent's gaze fall on him, Sir Pentius smiled uncertainly, almost guiltily, showing a row of sharp teeth, and waved a hand in a blue fingerless glove at him.

Vincent nodded back, and his smile—the same one, measured and flawless—became a degree softer, warmer. To any observer, this would be a gesture of benevolent, even paternal acceptance. An angel is a TV star who welcomes a lost soul who has found the way.

"How touching," Vincent chuckled to himself, feeling the frozen mask on his face literally start to burn. — Acting of the highest order. He's living proof of what they all so desperately want to believe. And I... I'm the one who has to sell this tale to the whole world."

He saw Emily looking at the snake with genuine delight, and Sera with calm, approving grandeur. And he understood that his role in this play was to be the link, the one who, with his authority and charm, would convince everyone else of the authenticity of this miracle.

"Sir Pentius, I presume? Vincent's voice was velvety and welcoming. — Congratulations on yours... ascension day. I am sincerely glad to see you in our shining halls."

The words flowed easily and smoothly, like syrup. And inside, everything was frozen in anticipation.

The silence in the office, broken only by the quiet crackling of the holographic halo above Vincent's head, hung in a thick and tense cloud. It lasted just as long as it took Sera to slowly, with unearthly dignity, turn around to face them.

Her white, iris-less eyes seemed to see not just physical forms, but the very essence of things. They glanced softly at the beaming Emily, then at Vincent, whose smile froze in respectful expectation, and finally settled on Sir Pentius.

And in that moment, Vincent caught it. Instant, swift, like a dagger thrust. Sera's gaze, glancing at the serpentine figure of the former sinner, was not at all gentle and disapproving. There was something else in him: a cold, razor-sharp wariness. Deep, impenetrable hostility, carefully hidden under a mask of calmness. She didn't trust him. Not one bit. It was as clear as day to someone who, like Vincent, was himself a virtuoso in the art of hiding his true feelings.

He wisely lowered his gaze, pretending to study the pattern on the marble floor. To comment, to give out anything, would be the height of stupidity.

"Dear Emily, dear Sir Pentius," Sera's voice sounded melodious, but there was a steely note in it that brooked no objections. — I believe our new-found inhabitant of Paradise is already quite tired of today's unrest. The ascension process is a matter that requires tremendous mental strength. He needs to rest and get comfortable."

She made a light, graceful gesture with her hand in the direction of the door.
"Emily, be a soul, take Sir Pentius out of the Office. Show him the gardens, let him enjoy the peace. He has nothing to worry about here anymore."

Emily, beaming with happiness and the importance of the mission assigned to her, joyfully clasped her hands in her gray gloves.
"Of course, Sera! Come on, Sir Pentius! I'll show you the most beautiful corners! You won't believe how wonderful it is here!"

She gently, almost motherly, took the snake by the hand and pulled it towards the exit. Sir Pentius, who still looked dazed and a little lost, gave Sera and Vincent one last uncertain look from behind his heart-shaped glasses, but allowed the young seraphim to lead him away.

The massive door closed silently behind them, swallowing up their radiance and light, retreating footsteps. Silence, this time final and deathly, once again filled the high-vaulted office. The multicolored light from the stained-glass windows seemed colder now, casting long, distorted shadows.

Vincent and Sera were left alone.

The angel TV presenter slowly shifted his gaze to his boss. His smile finally weakened, replaced by an expression of businesslike readiness, but inside his whole being tensed like a string. He knew that the most important thing was about to begin. And the reason he was called here had nothing to do with welcoming the sinner.

He waited, maintaining a respectful pose, until Sera deigned to speak. Her double halo cast a bizarre double glow on the floor, and her six majestic wings trembled slightly, folding behind her back into a more collected, businesslike attitude. The game was over. It's time for the harsh realities of heaven.

Sera stood motionless, her gaze fixed on the void somewhere behind Vincent, as if she saw a map of all the heavenly and hellish realities unfolding there. The multicolored light from the stained glass window cast cold reflections on her cedar-brown skin, making her features even more distant and unreadable.

"Five days, Vincent," her voice sounded low, but with that dense, space—filling force that made you pay attention to every word. — It's only been five days since we received it... this new resident. The first redeemed sinner. A phenomenon that has been considered a theological abstraction for centuries, a beautiful fairy tale for the consolation of the masses."

She walked slowly to her massive table made of shining mother-of-pearl, running her fingers over its perfectly smooth surface.
"This one first... an unpleasant story with the hotel. The truth about the Extermination, put on public display. Then... the death of Adam. The first person. The pillars. And now... this."

Sera fell silent, and in that pause there was not just bewilderment, but deep, cognitive confusion. Centuries-old foundations were crumbling, and she, the Supreme Seraphim, called upon to keep order, felt the ground slipping from under her feet.

Vincent was silent, giving her time. He could see the tension in the line of her shoulders, in the way her double halo pulsed a little more nervously.

"Is something wrong, Sera?" his voice sounded cautious, without the usual sweetness, almost clinically neutral. He didn't ask "what happened," he stated the fact that she was not okay.

Her white eyes slowly lifted and met his multicolored gaze. She studied him for a moment, assessing if she could trust him.
"You noticed, didn't you?" was not a question, but a statement. A faint, joyless smile touched her lips. "This one... creature. This snake. For thousands of years we have been talking about the impossibility of redemption, and we were the first to receive it... Mercy, is it becoming a being whose very essence, whose primordial form, cries out for sin and betrayal? It's too much... comfortable. It's too symbolic. It sounds too much like a bad joke."

"Your distrust is not without reason," Vincent immediately supported her in an even tone, switching to a more formal address, emphasizing his loyalty. — A statistical anomaly that stands out from all known paradigms should always raise questions. Especially when she is a link in the chain of others... abnormal events."

He paused briefly, letting her absorb his support, and then, slightly tilting his head to one side, asked a key question, shifting the dialogue from the plane of emotions to the plane of action.
"Sulfur...Do you want me to investigate this phenomenon? His voice became quieter, but acquired a metallic tinge. — Not the public side of it, not the facade that we show to the herds. And the real, hidden mechanics. To find out exactly what happened. And whether Sir Pentius is... who he claims to be."

He did not offer to reveal the deception. He offered to explore the truth. And there was understanding in his calm, ready—to-work gaze-whatever the results, they could be uncomfortable. But ignorance, as they both understood, was much more dangerous in this situation.

Sera froze for a moment, her white, penetrating gaze studying Vincent, as if weighing every particle of his being on an invisible scale. The air in the office thickened, filled with the scent of incense and the weight of unspoken decisions. Finally, she nodded slowly, almost imperceptibly.

"Yes, Vincent. I want you to do this," her voice was low, but with undeniable firmness. "We need to know what we're dealing with. There may be something hidden behind a beautiful facade... anything."

She turned away, and her gaze went back to the glow of the stained-glass window, but this time he saw not biblical scenes, but the gloomy outlines of hell.

"But an investigation won't be enough here," she continued, and there was a new, disturbing note in her tone. — The epicenter of these... The anomaly is not here. He's in Hell. In this hotel."

Sera paused, and Vincent felt a chill of apprehension run down his spine. He expected anything but this.

"In three months," she pronounced the words with difficulty, as if pulling them out of the very depths of her being, "you... And Emily... You'll have to go downstairs. Officially— as observers. To evaluate the performance of this... institutions and their influence on souls."

She pronounced Emily's name with such pain and reluctance, as if she were sending her own child into the jaws of a lion. It wasn't just a business trip. It was a sacrifice. She didn't want to let Emily go into this chaos, but something-duty, fear, necessity—forced her to take this step.

Vincent couldn't hide his surprise. His eyebrows rose slightly, and his perfect mask wavered for a moment, revealing sincere amazement. Is he? In Hell? And... Emily? It was crazy. But he won't object to Sera. He just nodded silently, accepting the order.

And at that moment, when his mind was trying to comprehend the deafening news, he was pierced by another pain — this time not physically, but mentally.

A memory flashed through my head like a distant radio jam. Abrupt, fragmentary. Someone's voice. Loud, shrill, full of despair and rage. A woman's voice. He was shouting something at him, complaining about... For what? He struggled to focus, to catch the elusive meaning...

Pain. Sharp, splitting, like a hammer hitting an anvil. It pierced his skull, making the world swim before his eyes. He staggered, almost losing his balance. The radiance of the room faded, replaced by black spots.

"Vincent?"

His consciousness returned from the touch. Sera's heavy but surprisingly gentle hand rested on his shoulder. Her white eyes looked at him with genuine concern, which reflected not only concern for her subordinate, but also fear of a new, unknown weakness in her most reliable tool.

"What's the matter with you?" her voice lost its usual authority, becoming just the voice of an anxious being.

Vincent straightened up instantly, recoiling from her touch with a speed that could have seemed almost insulting. He forcefully ran his hand over his face, shaking off the remnants of dizziness, and put on his flawless mask again. His smile returned, but now it was strained, strained.

"Everything's fine, Sera," his voice sounded a little hoarse, and he cleared his throat. — It's simple... a slight migraine. Against the background of all these... shocks. It's nothing serious."

He took a step back, regaining his distance, demonstrating that control was back in his hands. But he could see in her eyes that she didn't believe him. And he could feel cold sweat trickling down his back, under the plates of his cybernetic wings. Hell, Emily, sudden visions... The game was getting too dangerous.

A heavy silence fell between them after his hasty excuses. Vincent could feel his heart beating rapidly, the muffled pounding of which seemed to reverberate in his own ears. He avoided Sera's direct gaze, focusing on the perfect pattern of the marble tiles beneath his feet.

"Vincent," her voice sounded unexpectedly soft, almost maternal. This change was frightening. "You can tell me." If something bothers you... nothing should be ignored. Especially with you."

He forced himself to laugh, a short, dry, artificial sound.
"I repeat, Sera, it's nothing. Just overwork. You know how much information goes through me. Sometimes the system crashes."

"A glitch that makes you lose consciousness? The crash that causes... visions?" She didn't back down. Her white eyes did not blink, riveting him to the spot. There was no anger in her tone, just an insistent, chilling wariness. She didn't give him a choice.

Vincent felt the ground give way beneath his feet. It was useless to resist. She had seen his weakness, and now he had to give at least some explanation. He took a deep breath, giving up.

"Okay," he exhaled, finally looking up at her. His multicolored eyes betrayed fatigue and confusion. — Lately... yes. I am haunted by strange images. Fragments of voices that I can't identify. It feels like... It's like everything is not the way it should be. It's like I'm looking at the world through a cracked glass."

He spoke as he stared through her, trying to formulate something that defied logic.
"And one more thing...I feel like I've forgotten something. Something very important. It was as if a whole chunk of my memory had been ripped out, and in its place there was only... the emptiness and the pain that comes when I try to reach there."

He finished and looked at Sera, waiting for her reaction—disbelief, irritation, maybe concern.

But what he saw made his blood run cold.

There was no surprise on the Supreme Seraphim's face. Instead, he saw... guilt. Deep, genuine guilt. Her features were distorted by anxiety, which became even more pronounced, almost panicked. She looked as if she had just received confirmation of her worst fear.

"Sulfur? Vincent said softly, and his own voice sounded strange to him. — What... what happened? What does that mean?"

She didn't answer. Instead, her hand slowly rose. Her fingers, usually so domineering and precise in their movements, were now trembling slightly.

"I'm sorry, Vincent," her whisper was barely audible, but it sounded like a sentence. "Sometimes.".. ignorance is a blessing. Good for you. And for all of us."

Before he could react, pull back, or say anything, her fingers touched his forehead.

There was no flash of light, there was no thunder. Just a momentary, all-consuming barrage of static white noise that crashed into his consciousness. His cybernetic wings twitched convulsively, making a sharp click. The holographic halo above his head dimmed, went out for a second, and came back on, but its light became dim and unstable.

He felt no pain. Only a rising wave of gravity, sweeping away everything in its path—his thoughts, his worries, his questions. The walls of the office swam, blurred into blurred spots of color, and then completely disappeared into the coming darkness.

His body went limp, and he collapsed onto the cold marble floor before he even realized what was happening. The last thing he saw before consciousness completely left him was Sera's face bending over him, a face that held a mixture of endless sorrow and ruthless determination.

Silence reigned in the office again, but now it was deathly, broken only by the uneven hum of Vincent's cybernetic wings, which, having lost control, made sporadic, quiet clicks. Sera stood over his unconscious body, and her own chest heaved heavily, as if she had just made an incredible effort. Not physically, but morally.

Her white, joyless gaze slid over the perfect features of his face, over the motionless smile that finally smoothed out, leaving only a tired, almost defenseless expression. For a moment, her resolve faltered. The corners of her lips turned down, and her eyes, devoid of irises, flashed with excruciating pain. She looked away, staring into the shining stained-glass window, but not seeing it.

"No," she whispered into the silence, and her voice sounded like a clap of one hand. - no. There is no other way."

She took a deep breath, and when she exhaled, her face was once again a mask of cold, implacable determination. Her double halo flashed dazzlingly, and Vincent's body, enveloped in an invisible force field, gently lifted off the floor and hovered in the air in front of her.

"That's all... for the good," she said louder, addressing him, herself, and the whole universe. — All for the sake of Paradise. For the sake of his stability. And... for your own sake. You don't have to remember. He shouldn't suffer."

Her hands, graceful and strong, rose, and she touched his temples with her palms. The touch was strangely gentle, almost maternal, contrasting with the chilling essence of what was happening.

"I'm not doing anything wrong," she assured herself, and there was an almost hysterical note in her voice. "I'm not doing..."

And then the space around them began to stir. The particles of ether, the very matter of grace, began to gather into visible, shining streams. They streamed out of the walls, out of the air, converging in her palms and enveloping Vincent in a shimmering, iridescent cocoon. The magic was ancient, powerful, and ruthless—the magic of compulsion, the magic of oblivion.

In the shining light, it seemed to her for a moment that from his nose, where golden blood used to ooze, now a scarlet, human, sinful trickle was flowing. She blinked, and the vision disappeared. Just a trick of the light. Just her sick conscience, projecting her fears.

Working with the finest threads of his consciousness, his memory, she wove into them the last, most important command. Not a request, not a wish, but an iron, indisputable imperative, sealed into the very depths of his being.

Protect Emily. At any cost. In case of a threat, her safety is paramount. Any. The price.

She just wanted to be safe. In advance. Hell was unpredictable, and Emily was... Emily was her most vulnerable spot.

The glow began to fade. The streams of magic disappeared into thin air. Vincent's body smoothly sank back to the floor, his wings froze in a neutral position, the halo shone with a steady, familiar blue light.

Sera took a step back, leaning heavily on the edge of her desk. She looked at him, and a storm was raging in her soul. She told herself it was an act of mercy. That she was taking care of him, freeing him from painful memories. That she protects Emily by giving her the most devoted bodyguard.

"I care about you," she whispered again, looking at his motionless figure. — First of all, about you..."

But the words hung in the air, empty and bitter. And there was no one in the shining office of the Supreme Seraphim who could see a single, pure, non-holographic tear rolling down her cheek and disappearing into the folds of her royal outfit.

Vincent's consciousness returned not abruptly, but smoothly, as if he were surfacing from the bottom of a dark, calm lake. The first thing he felt was the unaccustomed softness under his back. Not his perfectly pressed sheets, but something else. He was lying on a luxurious white silk sofa in Sera's office.

He instantly opened his eyes and sat up, the movement was abrupt, almost instinctive. His gaze, still unfocused, immediately came across Sera. She was sitting at her massive mother-of-pearl desk, calmly signing one of the countless scrolls. Nothing seemed to be able to disturb her.

Catching his movement, she raised her head. Her white eyes met his multicolored gaze. There was no sign of the recent storm on her face, just a slight, official concern.

"Vincent. You've come to your senses," her voice was steady, calm. — I was very worried. You suddenly lost consciousness. How are you feeling?"

Vincent blinked, trying to get his thoughts in order. The last thing he remembered... They were talking about a business trip to Hell. And then... emptiness. Not just a memory lapse, but a physical feeling of emptiness, as if something important, some vital organ, had been torn out of him. Somewhere in the depths of his soul there was a hole, dark and cold, and his mind, like a frightened animal, bounced off its edges, not wanting to look inside and not giving answers.

But, paradoxically, he felt physically fine... fine. Incredibly easy and clear. It was as if a heavy weight that he had been carrying for years had suddenly disappeared. There was no headache, no vague anxiety, no irritation. Just this strange, silent emptiness in the place of something lost.

He stood up, straightened his tuxedo, which was immaculate, as if it hadn't fallen off.
"Everything's fine, Sera," his voice sounded confident, and he even managed a slight, embarrassed smile. — I feel great. I'm sorry about this one... an unexpected circus. I don't know what came over me."

"Idiot," he immediately growled to himself. — Unconsciousness in the office of the Supreme Seraphim. Excellent. It's just great."

He was expecting a reprimand, a suspicious look, anything. But Sera only nodded gently, putting down her pen.
"It's okay, Vincent. We are all prone to overwork. The main thing is that you're okay. Are you sure you're ready to take over?"

"Absolutely,— he straightened up, his posture once again becoming collected and professional. The void inside still gaped, but now it seemed simple... a feature of his new condition. Maybe that's how it should be. Perhaps this is a relief. "I am fully focused on the tasks ahead."

"Okay,— Sera picked up the scroll again, her attention already returning to the documents. A sign that the audience is over. "Then let's not waste any time. I'll be waiting for your reports."

Vincent nodded and turned to leave. His steps were firm, the wings on his back were folded perfectly straight, the halo shone with a steady blue light. He was a model of professionalism and concentration.

But as he walked through the shining corridors, the only thought echoing in the gaping void was: What the hell just happened? And why, despite all his attempts, there was no answer? Just silence. Deep, all-consuming, and unnatural.

The massive office door closed silently, swallowing Vincent's figure. The echo of his footsteps quickly died away in the sterile silence of the corridors of the Celestial Chancery. It was only when the last vibration of his presence had disappeared that Sera allowed herself to change her position.

She leaned back on her throne, made of shining mother-of-pearl and light wood, and brought trembling fingers to the bridge of her nose. A deep, long exhale, which she had been holding back for what seemed like forever, finally escaped from her chest. It wasn't so much lightened as it was... exhausted.

The tension that had been building in her every muscle while Vincent was conscious had now subsided, revealing a heavy, oppressive tiredness. Her white, penetrating gaze, usually so firm and implacable, now wandered absentmindedly over the frescoes on the ceiling, not seeing them.

She felt guilty. Sharp as a blade and deep as eternity itself. She had invaded his mind, the very sanctuary of his being, and ripped out what was rightfully his—his memories, his pain, his doubts. She sealed them under a layer of magic and lies, like an archivist hiding a dangerous grimoire in the farthest vault.

"It was necessary," she repeated mentally, like a mantra.

But rational excuses couldn't drown out the small voice deep in her soul that whispered that she acted like an executioner, not a healer. That she preferred a convenient lie to the bitter truth, and paid for it with someone else's memory.

She squeezed her eyelids shut, trying to banish the image of his face—not the collected and smiling one he had left, but the confused and suffering one he had been before her fingers touched his forehead.

But what was done was done. Doubts and remorse were now luxuries she couldn't afford. New times were coming to Paradise, times of instability and change. She needed reliable tools, not restless souls. She needed Vincent, the TV presenter, the face of heavenly progress, not...

She slowly lowered her hand and picked up the pen again. The documents awaiting her signature did not disappear. The duties of the Supreme Seraphim have not gone away.

The guilt was put to the back of her mind, carefully packed and locked. It has not disappeared anywhere — it will torment her from the inside, like a quiet, chronic pain. But it didn't matter now.

The result was important. Order is important. The shining, flawless future of Paradise is important. And to preserve it, sometimes you had to sacrifice something, or to be more precise, someone. Even the ones she might have cared about.

And Sera, her face once again frozen in a mask of serene authority, plunged into work, leaving the ghosts of her choice whispering in the shadows of her majestic office.

Chapter Text

Vincent walked through the endless, shining corridors of the Celestial Chancery, and his mind, cleansed of recent worries, was working at a double, almost maniacal rate. As his feet carried him to the exit, his consciousness had long been immersed in the digital streams that flowed through him.

Before his inner eye, as if on a giant holographic interface, mail windows, electronic documents, and memos popped up. He scanned them quickly, sorting them with lightning speed.

A notification from the grace department... Redirect to the archive.
An interview request from a small choir... Reject it. The standard template.
Complaint about the operation of the shining fountains in sector 7... Redirect to the Department of landscaping.

His fingers barely moved in the air, as if pressing invisible keys, and his halo pulsed, syncing with the network. But as he immersed himself in his work, he began to realize the scale of the problems that had accumulated during his time... downtime.

Failure. Significant. When it shut down, it wasn't just the electricity that went out. The entire infrastructure tied to it was shaken. Data packet loss, communication outages, disruptions in the operation of the celestial Wi-Fi. For a few minutes, real chaos reigned in the digital space of Paradise.

And now he had to deal with the consequences. He opened the folder with the automatically generated crash reports and mentally clicked on the mass mailing list.

"Dear inhabitants of the Heavenly Palaces! We offer our deepest apologies for the temporary inconvenience caused by the planned technical work on updating the celestial network. Communication stability has been fully restored. Thank you for your understanding and patience. With radiance and grace, the Office of Broadcasting and Communications."

Lie. Perfectly packaged, polite and soothing. "Scheduled maintenance work." No one was supposed to know that the entire system had crashed because its live processor had failed for a few minutes.

At the same time, he launched deep protocols, feeling new, enhanced streams of energy run through his wings and halo. It once again became a stabilizing anchor, a central hub through which terabytes of information flowed. He could feel the Internet being restored all over Paradise, from the tallest spires to the lowest soaring gardens, the screens coming on, and the broadcast of his own morning broadcast resuming.

He stepped onto the landing pad, and a fresh wind blew across his face. But it didn't take off right away. For a moment, he froze, staring at the perfect, shining horizon. The emptiness inside was still there, quiet and unresponsive. But now it was filled with a buzz of data, a stream of official emails, and the steady hum of a working network.

He was needed. Without him, all this splendor threatened to crumble to dust. And that was his strength and his curse. After making one last mental note — to increase throughput in sector 4, lags are observed — Vincent Whitman stepped into the abyss, powerfully flapping his cybernetic wings. There was a long day ahead, filled with work, lies, and a quiet, inexplicable sense of loss that could only be drowned out by an endless stream of information.

With a powerful flap of blue-white wings, Vincent soared rapidly upward, leaving the landing pad of the Celestial Chancellery far below. The air whistled in his ears, but it was the only external sound that reached his consciousness. The inner world of his mind was deafening.

He flew without looking around, his multicolored eyes were focused on the void in front of him. But it wasn't a lack of attention—it was full concentration on a multitude of tasks. Streams of data flowed through it with a river, dividing into streams:

In the upper-left corner of the mental interface:
Incoming emails.Another notification from the Angelic Synod requesting comment on the atonement. The template response: "Thank you for your request. The details will be covered in the next broadcast." Shipped.

In the upper right corner:
Network recovery statistics.The graphs showed that the Internet supply had stabilized by 99.8%. Good. To accept.

In the center, in the most prominent place:
A draft script for an interview with Sir Pentius.The text floated in front of his inner eye, the lines changing and rearranging with superhuman speed.

Question: "Sir Pentius, tell us, what does it feel like to experience grace after centuries in a sinful world?"
Intended answer (agreed in advance with the propaganda department):"It's like being born again! I've finally found peace and purpose that I didn't even know I had!"

Vincent mentally crossed out the cliched phrase and inserted a more neutral one: "This is an indescribable feeling. It was like a heavy stone had been lifted from my soul." It sounded a little less fake.

His flight was masterly. He was rushing at full speed to his studio, located in the famous "Tower of Babel" — an ironic name for the center of celestial broadcasting, if you recall the biblical story of pride and confusion of languages. But Vincent didn't think about the irony. He wasn't even looking at the path.

He didn't need it. His consciousness was connected to countless surveillance cameras, motion sensors, and navigation beacons scattered throughout the Celestial Palaces. Right now, a live, three-dimensional map of the area in real time was being broadcast in his head, against the background of working on the script and mail. He "saw" everything: the floating islands ahead, the slowly floating angels, the changing air currents.

His body was acting on autopilot, driven by this direct flow of information. He masterfully flew around a group of unhurried seraphim at full speed without even turning his head. He dived sharply down to pass under the arch of the floating bridge, then just as smoothly returned to his previous height. His wings, cybernetic and precise, reacted instantly to the slightest adjustments his brain sent based on camera data.

He was like a supersonic aircraft controlled by a perfect autopilot. His physical form raced through the shining expanses of Paradise, while his true self was absorbed in work: creating a perfect, blissful narrative for the first redeemed sinner in history, filling cracks in his reputation after a failure and maintaining an impeccable facade of heavenly order.

And as he flew, in the very depths of his being, where there used to be a gaping void, servers were now quietly buzzing, incoming message lights were flashing, and the soulless, highly polished text of the future interview was displayed in an even line. This was his normal state. The only thing he knew now.

Vincent landed with perfect precision on the sun-drenched landing pad at the foot of the Tower of Babel. His cybernetic wings folded behind his back with a soft hissing sound, and he walked towards the entrance with a steady, energetic step, without wasting a second. The internal interface in his head kept flashing notifications, but now the external load was added to them.

As soon as he crossed the threshold of the shining lobby of white marble and crystal, he was surrounded. The angels. Dozens of them. Colleagues from the production department in bright, fashionable clothes, technicians with tablets, couriers with bundles of documents, extras from his own show.

"Vincent, hi! Brilliant broadcast this morning!" the angel beamed with a perfect smile, patting him on the shoulder.

Vincent responded with a nod and his trademark open smile.
"Hello, Jonathan. Thank you, it's a team effort."

"Leave me alone. I've got half a ray in my head, and you're talking about the ether," it flashed through his head at the speed of thought.

"Hello, Mr. Whitman! Can you take a look at the rehearsal schedule?" the assistant jumped up, holding out a holographic tablet.

"Of course, Serafina," he glanced at the schedule, his brain instantly processing the information. "Reschedule the sound engineering room an hour later, adjust it to my guest."

"And why should I go into every little detail? You're needed for something here, after all."

"Vince! Glad to see you! Did you hear there were some minor network issues? Is everything okay?" It was the head of the security department, his face expressing genuine concern.

"Everything is perfect, Marcus," Vincent gently slapped him on the shoulder, continuing to move. — Just a planned update. Nothing to worry about."

"Yes, I fainted and almost brought down the entire infrastructure, but thank you for reminding me. Now step back."

He kept walking, his smile an impregnable fortress, behind the walls of which irritation raged. Every greeting, every nod, every exchange of pleasantries cost him an inner effort. Those endless, beaming faces, that cloying concern, that eternal need for his attention... They were like annoying pop-up windows in his operating system, which he was forced to close manually, with a polite smile.

He could feel the familiar tension building in his temples. Not pain, but annoyance — an acute, burning desire to shout at them all to shut up and leave him alone, to let him just get to his studio and drown in the silence of pure data, without these unbearably emotional, demanding creatures.

But he couldn't. He was Vincent Whitman. The face, voice, and nervous system of the entire Paradise. And his job was not only to broadcast information, but also to be its friendly, accessible interface.

After passing through another corridor and giving a couple more orders, he finally reached his private office. The door with his name silently closed behind him, cutting off the outside world. Only then did his smile finally crumble, replaced by an expression of icy, lifeless weariness. He went to the sink, splashed ice water on his face and, looking at his reflection in the mirror, mentally sent the last command: "Activate the Do Not Disturb mode on all internal and external channels, except for priority emergency alerts from Sulfur and other priority persons."

A different world reigned here —sterile, technological, devoid of decorations. Glowing panels on the walls displayed scrolling lines of data, and in the center of the room stood a massive translucent desk that served as his work terminal.

Vincent sat down heavily in a chair, leaning back. He ran a hand over his face, brushing away the remnants of forced politeness, and closed his eyes for just a second. But even with his eyelids closed, he could see that the same holographic window with the unfinished interview script was floating in front of him.

His fingers touched the surface of the table without looking at it, and keys made of light materialized under them. He made the latest edits, honing every remark, every question, squeezing the maximum predictability and the necessary emotional response out of a future conversation with the gray snake. The final touch and the finished script were sent to the production and censorship department. It's one thing from the shoulders.

Without a pause, his mind switched to new tasks. The interview window was replaced by drawings and diagrams. He immersed himself in the development of new technologies — the improvement of the celestial broadcasting system, the modernization of network protocols, and the development of the idea of interactive holographic broadcasts. It was his outlet—pure, emotionless logic, the mathematical elegance of code and schematics. There was no need to smile and put up with others here.

Then the next routine task came to the fore — writing a script for a new news release. His gaze fell on the headline automatically generated by the system: "Memorial edition. Eternal glory to the fallen warriors of light in the battle for righteousness."

It was about the fallen fighter angels. About those who went to Hell and did not return after a clash with sinners.

Vincent's fingers, which had been fluttering across the keyboard at lightning speed, suddenly froze. They hovered over the ghostly keys, unable to bring out a single word. An unpleasant, bitter residue settled on my tongue like ashes. A lump formed in my throat.

He was looking at a blank sheet that needed to be filled in with the right words. With words about duty, about sacrifice, about eternal glory in shining palaces. But instead of the text, fragments flashed before his inner eye for a moment — not memories, but rather sensations. A loud, hysterical female voice, full of rage and pain. The voice of Lute. A feeling of heavy, sticky guilt. And the all-consuming emptiness that had been living in him since that fainting spell in Sera's office.

He jerked his hands away from the table as if he'd been burned. The holographic keyboard blinked and went out.

"Later," he growled to himself, getting up and walking away from the table. — First we need to finish with priority projects. This... it can wait."

He fiercely convinced himself that it was just a matter of allocating time and effort. That he would definitely return to this scenario. Soon. Very soon.

But deep down, he knew the truth. He could not write these false, pretentious words about the fallen, because vaguely, on the level of instinct, he felt that their death was not so bright and righteous. And his role in the whole story was nowhere near as pure and innocent as he would like to believe. And until he remembers exactly what he forgot, any word about those events will be a poisoned lie.

Silence. A blessed, artificial silence, broken only by the quiet hum of his own systems. He took a deep breath. Now it was possible to work.

The silence in the office was deceptive. It wasn't empty—it was filled with the barely audible hum of servers, the flickering of holographic panels, and the feverish work of Vincent's own mind. He spent the last few hours immersed in schematics and code, debugging a new data compression algorithm for broadcasts. It was a difficult but clean job, requiring no pretense.

When the task was completed, he mentally called up a to-do list in front of him. The items marked as completed faded out gently. His gaze fell on the following task, highlighted in red: "Evening broadcast. The announcement of a general day off." Time was pulsing nearby. Right now.

Vincent groaned inwardly. Not loudly, not expressively —it was a soundless, desperate exhalation somewhere in the depths of his being. That clowning act again. Once again, he would have to sit in front of the camera for hours with his "colleagues" — eternally smiling, empty-headed newcomers who could not distinguish megabytes from megahertz and whose main talent lay in perfectly styled hair. Once again, he would have to endure their silly jokes, their obsequious glances, and pretend that he was enjoying this conversation.

He closed his eyes for a second, feeling a familiar heaviness build up—a mixture of irritation, contempt, and fatigue. He suppressed it. Pressed deep inside, under a layer of cold, professional necessity.

When he opened his eyes, he already had that flawless, disarming smile on his face. The mask was back on, the screws were tightened to the limit.

He stood up, adjusted the immaculate folds of his tuxedo, checked in the reflection of the dark terminal screen that not a hair had escaped from his hairstyle. Everything was perfect. Everything except for a barely noticeable void in his own gaze, which only the most astute observer could see.

The office door slid open noiselessly, letting him out into the brightly lit hallway. Step. One more step. With each movement, his gait became more confident and energetic, his shoulders straightened, and his smile became wider and more lively.

He entered the set, where he was greeted with enthusiastic cheers and beaming faces. He exchanged a couple of light, non-committal remarks with the trainee presenters, his laughter sounded natural and relaxed.

"Attention to the camera! Broadcast in five seconds! Five... four..."

Vincent took his place in the center, his posture relaxed and collected at the same time. He was looking at the camera, and his multicolored eyes — blue and green—radiated warmth and friendliness.

"...three... two..."

Somewhere deep down, behind that perfect picture, annoyance was still smoldering. But it didn't matter now.

"...alone!"

A bright red light lit up above the camera.

"Good evening, radiant inhabitants of our halls! His voice, velvety and full of sincerity, poured into the ether. — I have great news for you! We're announcing a general rest day tomorrow!"

He was smiling, looking into millions of invisible eyes, and no one could have guessed that the person uttering these words about the importance of rest and leisure was himself a workaholic who did not recognize his workaholism and whose only day off would be the same workday filled with work.

The broadcast is finally over. The last, unnaturally wide smile left Vincent's face, as if a mask had been removed from him, leaving only a haggard, pale mask of his real face. Off-screen, he felt the familiar, oppressive rhythm of an incipient migraine pounding on his temples. Every remark from the careless interns, every awkward glance at the camera, and every one of his own forced hints cost him a piece of peace of mind. He was tempted to bang his head against the wall—not figuratively, but in the most literal sense, just to drown out this inner hum of irritation.

He still found the strength to say goodbye to the film crew, throw in a couple of standard, invigorating phrases like "Great job!" and "Tomorrow will be even better!", feeling how each of them burns his throat with lies. Nothing was "great." Everything was terrible. But the image had to be maintained until the very end.

He stormed out of the studio, barely waiting for the door to close, and rushed home. The cold wind refreshed his flushed face a little, but it could not wash away the heavy fatigue. He didn't stay to finish the paperwork, and it wasn't that Sera, in some inexplicable way, always knew when he was overworking and expressed her disapproval with icy silence.

Already in the building, going to his door, he reached for the scanner, but the door to the neighboring apartment opened earlier.

"Vincent, my dear!"

A wave of warm, sweet fragrance washed over him—something like candied violets, old wood, and fresh pastries. His neighbor, Matilda, was standing in front of him. Dark-skinned, dark brown hair with copper sparks, arranged in an intricate, vintage hairstyle with a bun at the nape. Her dark, almost black eyes looked at him with an abyss of warmth and slight reproach. She was wearing an elegant dress in a dark purple shade, clearly of antique cut, but it fitted her flawlessly. It accentuated her figure, and the modest rounded neckline and three small black buttons on her chest gave the image a refined dignity. Her white wings were neatly folded behind her back, and a simple golden halo floated above her head.

Matilda. She died sometime in the 1910s, according to his reports, quietly and peacefully, of old age. And now she was one of the few rays of calm, demanding light in his eternal race. But her maternal, sometimes suffocatingly protective care often baffled him, causing a strange, forgotten feeling — embarrassment.

When she saw him, she smiled softly, but alarm immediately flashed in her eyes.
"Good God, my child, you look terrible! Her voice was low, melodious, with a slight, barely perceptible accent that betrayed her past as a New Orleans resident. "I haven't eaten anything since this morning, I have no doubt."

Without giving him a chance to say a word, she took his hand in a light but undeniably domineering movement and dragged him into her apartment.
"No objections!I just took the pie out of the oven and made the jambalaya. You won't refuse."

Vincent didn't try to object. He knew it was useless. Matilda was the only force in this shining place, before whom his will melted without a trace. Besides, as always, she was right. He didn't eat. Just coffee. In liters. The thought of eating made him feel sick, but the thought of offending Matilda by refusing was even more unbearable.

He allowed her to draw him into his apartment, which smelled very different from his sterile dwelling — it smelled of history, perfume, homely comfort and that same pie. And while she was busy in the kitchen, he stood in the middle of the living room, littered with books and decorated with antique knickknacks, feeling like at least a drop, but the chilling emptiness inside him begins to recede, replaced by a warm, awkward and such a rare feeling — the feeling that someone cares about him.

Vincent tried to feign a mild protest, muttering something about a pile of urgent matters and the need to get back to work, but Matilda just clicked her tongue, a sound that left no room for objections.

"Things will have to wait," she said, effortlessly seating him at a carved oak table already covered with a snow—white tablecloth. — But hot food is not. Besides," she added, disappearing into the kitchen and returning with a steaming plate from which the divine aroma of jambalaya emanated, "I should have thanked you for that radio a long time ago."

She placed the plate in front of him. Vincent picked up his fork automatically, still feeling uncomfortable.

"There's nothing to thank you for, Matilda," he said, and there was a sincere, albeit tired smile in his voice. "It was a mere trifle."

And it was true. A few weeks ago, her beloved, rare radio, the same age as her earthly youth, suddenly went silent. Matilda, in desperation, knocked on his door. And to his own surprise, he managed to fix it. She was lucky that the principles of operation of these old New Orleans-built tube receivers were strangely familiar to his hands. His fingers, accustomed to holographic interfaces and cybernetics, dug through the web of wires and dusty lamps with a kind of nostalgic tenderness until he found a break. And when the raucous, warm sounds of old jazz poured out of the speaker again, the glow on her face was worth all the hours spent.

They had dinner in a relaxed, almost family atmosphere. The conversation flowed easily, about nothing in particular — Matilda told funny stories from her past, he listened, occasionally inserting remarks, and felt a heavy lump of irritation and fatigue in his chest gradually melting under the warmth of her care and fragrant food.

When the plates were empty and the cups of herbal tea were finished, Vincent, relieved to see that his headache had receded, got ready to leave. He thanked her, feeling much more alive than he had an hour ago.

"Wait, child," Matilda stopped him, disappearing into the living room and returning with a neatly wrapped object in her hands. "This is for you."

She unfolded the cloth and he saw the radio. Small, but sophisticated. The case is made of black oak and acacia mahogany, with polished brass controls and an Art Deco fabric speaker. It breathed history and craftsmanship.

"I can't accept that," Vincent replied automatically. "It's an antique."

"It's nothing," she said. — You said when you gave me my repaired one that you like this kind of thing. That you like the radio. Let you have your own. So that you remember that there is more to life than just work."

Vincent took the gift in his hands, feeling the warmth and smoothness of the old wood under his fingers. He smiled at her, genuinely touched.
"Thank you, Matilda. This... unexpectedly."

But behind the outward gratitude, a cold, disturbing signal lit up in his head. He didn't remember saying anything like that. Moreover, he was sure that he had never had much sympathy for the radio. It was analog, noisy, and inefficient. It couldn't compare to the pure, silent streams of digital data that flowed directly into his mind. "I like the radio"? It sounded like he was saying he preferred a quill pen to a holographic stylus.

He thanked her again and left, holding an antique radio in his hands. The door to his sterile apartment closed, and he was left alone in silence, broken only by the quiet hum of his own systems. He put the radio on the table next to his state-of-the-art terminal. Two worlds. Two epochs.

Vincent looked at him, and a strange, incomprehensible feeling stirred in the very emptiness that lived inside him. It wasn't just gratitude. It was a vague, disturbing feeling, as if someone else, not he, had said those words to Matilda. And this someone really loved the radio.

The door to his apartment closed noiselessly, cutting off the last traces of warmth and the scent of jambalaya, leaving only a sterile silence filled with the low-frequency hum of working machinery. Vincent placed the vintage radio on the hallway bedside table and, bending down, took off his shoes with a practiced movement, placing them in perfect line with the other pair. Every action was deliberate, almost mechanical.

He picked up the radio and walked deeper into the apartment. The contrast was striking. The polished gloss of the white surfaces, the bluish illumination of the panels, the strict lines of the furniture — and this ghost of the past is in his hands, warm, wooden, with rounded shapes and soft highlights on the brass fittings. He seemed like a foreign body brought from another planet, where efficiency was not valued, but the soul invested by the master in every detail.

Vincent did not go into the living room or the study, but into the bedroom. There was another closet in the far corner, next to the wardrobe for his immaculate suits. It's also tall, with glossy black and white panels and sliding doors. One of the doors was a huge full-height mirror, which now reflected his own figure with an absurd object in his hands against the background of this place.

He slid the other door open with a flick of his hand. There were no clothes hanging inside. The cabinet was divided into three vertical sections, with three shelves in each. And they were all forced... junk. Useless, irrational, not fitting into any logical pattern of his existence. But he kept it. Like it was something important. Something that he was afraid to throw away, even though his mind kept repeating the meaninglessness of such an archive.

The first section greeted him with a familiar, sweet scent that he could not relate to anything — a mixture of old perfumes, dust and cloth. There was a chaos of creativity that he had never participated in. A new sewing machine that has never been used. Nearby lay a hinged doll with no face, its smooth skull a blind and silent reproach. A miniature mannequin wrapped in a piece of silk fabric. Countless boxes of pins, spools of thread in all colors of the rainbow, needles stuck in a small velvet cushion. A stack of fashion magazines with yellowed pages. And fabrics — lots of fabrics: silk, velvet, chiffon. And among them is a piece of corduroy, rough and tactilely familiar. There was a small vintage-framed desk mirror in the corner, surrounded by tiny lights, like a star in a theater dressing room.

The second section smelled different — there were notes of bolder, powdery and slightly metallic perfumes in the air, mixed with the smell of old leather and film. Here lay the trappings of some ostentatious, glamorous existence. A neon lamp in the form of a curved female figure, not connected to anything. A scattering of gold chains and rings with large, tasteless stones. Fancy glasses with pink lenses and heart-shaped frames. A long, elegant mouthpiece made of dark wood. A piece of white fur, soft and cool to the touch. And several reels of film from an old projector, on which, as he vaguely suspected, some movies or clips could be recorded.

Vincent stood and looked at this collection of oddities. His face was expressionless, but something was clenching inside. He didn't understand why he kept it all. It had no practical value. It didn't fit into his life. But the thought of getting rid of something caused him a vague but distinct panic.

He turned his gaze to the third, still almost empty section. Several shelves were completely clean. Others were occupied by single, unrelated items that did not find a place in other categories.

That's where he decided to put the radio. He carefully placed it on the middle shelf. Ebony and mahogany acacia perfectly fit into this collection of forgotten items. It looked like it had always been there. Another artifact, another mystery that he was doomed to keep without knowing the answer.

He took a step back and slid the door open, hiding from view and the mirror this mute evidence of some other, not his life. The silence closed over him again, but it was heavier now. Now it was disturbed not only by the humming of the systems, but also by the silent question coming from behind the glossy black door.

Vincent did not change his clothes. He simply threw his jacket on the nearest armchair, unbuttoned his shirt collar and fell on his back on the perfectly made bed. The white ceiling above him was empty and endless, like his own memory. He put one hand behind his head, covering his forehead with the back of his hand, as if trying to physically hold back his scattered thoughts. He put his other hand on his stomach, feeling unaccustomed satiety and warmth from dinner under the fabric of his shirt — the only anchoring sensation in this sea of inner emptiness.

He was trying to remember. Not Heaven, but before. My life. The one before the shining halls, before the halo and wings, before the tons of information that flowed through it.

And it was like trying to see a painting through thick, cloudy, rippled glass. Vague, colorless images. He knew that he was born in 1920. He knew he had died in 1950. Why is that? Unclear. A disease? An accident? He didn't feel any pain or fear associated with it.

He knew he was a TV presenter. But not like this. Not the central figure whose word shaped reality. Something less. Something... local. The weather forecast? Yes, I think so. He saw in front of him a blurred image of a map with moving icons of clouds and the sun. His voice, but lighter, without the metallic confidence he had now.

Was he a believer? Probably. Like most people. But not a fanatic. Not to those who pray for salvation day and night. Simply... I believed it. As a matter of course.

That's all. Nothing else. No faces. No names. No family voices. No smells of home. No taste of your favorite food. No feelings. No joy, no sorrow. Just the dry, catalogued facts, as in his official database: He was born. Worked. Died. Exalted.

One day, he dared to ask Sera about it. He asked why his memory was so hopelessly damaged, while the other angels seemed to remember their earthly lives perfectly.

Sera then looked at him with her all-seeing white eyes, and something flashed in them for a moment... tired.
"Dear Vincent," she said, and her voice sounded like a distant bell, "the process of transporting a soul to Heaven is a delicate matter. Sometimes, unfortunately, they happen... failures. Damage. Especially with those whose death was sudden or traumatic. But don't worry," she put her cool hand on his shoulder, and it should have been comforting, but it only made him shiver. "That's okay. Over time, everything will fall into place. All the memories will come back."

Vox believed Sera, and he still does.

———

In the red-hot furnace of inferno, where heat and suffering flowed like a river, Velvet, a demoness with razor-sharp features and eyes burning with fierce rage, tore up another failed sketch. The thin paper that had once promised to be the epitome of her design genius was now turning into tattered shreds, settling helplessly on an already impressive pile of its own kind. Each such fragment was not just a failed creation, but a small fragment of her shattered hope, a symbol of the inexorable chaos that engulfed Hell.

Velvet was furious. I was mad about everything. From this endless heat, from the screams of lost souls, from their own helplessness. But most of all, she was tormented by the emptiness that gaped where Vox had once been. His rapid and inexplicable disappearance almost a year ago took with it not only the most charismatic and influential demon of the ether, but also everything that made Hell an acceptable place.

Electricity. The Internet. Connection. Everything that was the foundation of their modern, albeit sinful, world evaporated in an instant. Hell, which yesterday was seething with life, technology and rampant consumption, seemed to have been thrown back centuries. Panic gripped everyone. Chaos reigned everywhere, and it seemed that the world was doomed to eternal immersion in primal fears.

But Hell is Hell. And even in the darkest times, its inhabitants found ways to adapt. Slowly, painfully, they began to survive. Radio, a forgotten legacy of the past, has become popular again. The soft crackle of old broadcasts, the voices of the announcers full of nostalgia, became the only thread connecting them with at least some form of civilization.

And the Corduroy… Velvet was bored. I missed you so damn much. Vox was more than just a colleague, more than just an influential employer. In her wounded soul, hiding under layers of anger and disappointment, he was... a parent. Yes, that's right. He was the figure who guided, patronized, and, paradoxically, cared. He saw in her not just a tool, but a talent that needed to be developed. He gave her everything she had. And now he was gone.

Together with Valentino, they tried to find him. They combed every corner of Hell, interrogated everyone who might know something. But in vain. Months passed, and there was no sign of Vox. With each passing day, hope faded, replaced by icy despair. And now, when almost a year has passed, they finally reconciled. They accepted the terrible truth: Vox is dead.

The day this thought finally took shape in Valentino's mind, his world collapsed. He left without saying a word, and returned only in the evening. But this was no longer the Valentino they knew. His eyes burned with a mad fire, and his whole being exuded a primal rage. He started a bloodbath in the streets of Hell. He tore, crushed, and destroyed everything in his path. It was an explosion of pain, rage, and despair that spilled out.

Velvet didn't blame him. She understood. She herself felt a similar hurricane raging inside her. But she held back. Her rage was colder, more focused. She poured herself into these tearing sketches, into this useless work that was supposed to somehow distract her from her overwhelming grief.

Her fingers, covered with a thin layer of black glove, trembled as she reached for the next sheet. He was wearing a sketch of a costume. The costume she wanted to create for Vox. The costume that was supposed to be a symbol of his triumph, his greatness. Now it was just a mockery.

"Idiocy!" she hissed, tearing the fabric with force. "This is all idiocy!"

Velvet hated it. I hated this old-fashioned, this primitiveness. She missed the life where you could create anything, where her ideas could turn into reality with the push of a button. And now... now everything had to be done manually. Every stitch, every pattern – everything required tremendous effort and time.

She walked over to the window, which offered a view of the scorching infernal landscape. In the distance, the outlines of a city, once sparkling with neon lights, could be seen. Now it seemed gloomy and empty, with only a few fires flickering in the depths.

She remembered that day. The day everything changed. Vox, as usual, was full of energy, his eyes shining as he talked about some new project. He was in his office, surrounded by monitors on which numbers and graphs flashed. Velvet came in to show him the latest sketches. He smiled at her with his trademark, slightly predatory smile.

"Great, Velvet, just great!" he said, his voice, as always, sounding confident and infectious. "You've really outdone yourself!"

She remembered how he reached out and took the sketch, and then left the office. A couple of hours later, when she was giving instructions to the models, everything disappeared. There was no flash, there was no sound. Just emptiness. All the lights and screens went out. At first she thought it was some kind of glitch, some kind of joke. But when she came out of the office, she saw that their whole world was plunged into darkness.

The first days were the scariest. People were panicking. They were shouting and running, not knowing what to do. Valentino tried to take control of the situation, but even his authority could not do anything about such a scale of chaos. Velvet just locked herself in her studio, trying to figure out what had happened.

She went through all the possible options. Maybe this is some new kind of attack? Maybe someone decided to destroy them all? But it was pointless. Vox was too powerful to be destroyed just like that. He was the epitome of power and technology.

So when Valentino suggested starting a search, she agreed. They searched everywhere. They interrogated every demon, every lost soul. But no one saw anything, no one heard anything. Just silence. And the silence was maddening.

Gradually, as hope began to fade, they began to find evidence. Scraps of information that, when put together, painted a grim picture. Vox seemed to be trying to do something grand. Something that could change Hell itself. Something that might have gone wrong.

And so, when almost six months had passed, Valentino, whose search was more active and ruthless, came to her with empty eyes. He just said, "He's dead, Velvet. I'm sure."

She remembered how her breath caught in her throat. My heart clenched in my chest. At first she denied it. I couldn't believe it. But there was no lie in Valentino's eyes. Only sorrow and desolation.

That evening, Valentino staged his "bloodbath." Velvet didn't try to stop him. She understood that he had to vent this pain. She could barely contain herself. Her only consolation was her job. A job that now seemed only a pale shadow of what it had been before.

She walked over to the table, where there was another sketch. This time it was a costume. A suit that she would like to wear herself. Which would emphasize her strength and confidence. But now he seemed ridiculous to her.

She leaned back in her chair, and her posture, despite her fatigue and despair, still retained the remnants of its former grandeur. Her pointed chin was raised high, and her burning eyes slowly glided over the room she was in.

This was not her shining studio on the upper floors of the Voxtech tower, not the temple of glamour and technology from where she dictated fashion to all Hell. No. It was her old place. The studio that Vox had given her when she was just starting out, when she was just a budding designer with a sharp tongue and ruthless taste.

He saw potential in her. Not just a talent, but a weapon. And he invested resources in her, gave her this platform, this power. He made her Velvet, a name that was now known and feared.

Her gaze swept over the familiar walls. Everything was simpler and rougher here. The piles of fabrics piled in the corner are not on perfect shelves, but just on the floor. A large, cracked mirror in a gilded frame, in front of which she once tried on her first daring creations. An old mannequin riddled with pins is a witness to her early, imperfect, but fiery experiments. The smell here was different—not sterile cleanliness and the latest materials, but dust, sweat and ambition.

She was still Corduroy. A strong Lord. Her authority did not evaporate along with the electricity. He didn't rely on Vox's technology, but on her will, her sharp mind, and her ruthlessness. The demons were still afraid of her. They were still fawning over her, hoping to get at least a little bit of her attention, her approval. Her name still carried weight in the dark alleys and at the surviving aristocratic receptions. She still kept a tight rein on her industry sector, even though it now ran on kerosene and manual labor.

The thought of it lit a new fire in her eyes—not rage, but cold, focused determination. Yes, there was no Vox. The world has descended into primal chaos. But she wasn't going to slide down with him.

She ran her hand over the surface of the table, brushing away the pieces of torn sketches. Her fingers found the edge of a blank sheet. She pulled him towards her and picked up a pencil. The movement was sudden, almost violent.

If the world has returned to the old, then she will be the queen of this old world. If it is impossible to create a future, she will reshape the present according to her own pattern, as Vox did. Her style, her vision— was something that no one could take away from her. No amount of power outages could extinguish the fire of her ambitions.

The corners of her lips twitched, curving into something vaguely resembling a smile.

"Okay," she whispered, and her voice sounded like the rasp of steel on glass. "Let's see what I can do.".. without you."

Chapter Text

The set was immersed in an unusual, almost deathly silence. There was usually a lively bustle of dozens of angel technicians, lighting technicians, and assistants. Today, at the guest's insistence, only the most necessary personnel were present: two cameramen, a sound engineer and a prompter, frozen in the shadows. Even the lights were dimmed to a soft, almost intimate glow, which cast warm reflections on Vincent's immaculate suit and Emily and Peter's shining robes.

In the center, on a cozy sofa, sat Sir Pentius. His long snake tail was twitching restlessly, and his blue-gloved fingers were nervously tugging at the edge of his white jacket. His top hat with a huge yellow eye was pushed to the back of his head, revealing an expressive, confused face. Vincent, Emily, and Peter sat next to him in the adjacent chairs, creating a kind of friendly circle.

Getting him to go on the air was a feat. For many days, Emily, with her inexhaustible enthusiasm, and Peter, with his calm, fatherly manner, coaxed, convinced, and comforted the former sinner. In the end, he gave up, but with one condition — a minimum of people. And now he was sitting here, feeling like he was on pins and needles.

"So, Sir Pentius,— Vincent began, his voice, usually carried over the airwaves with icy confidence, was now deliberately soft and velvety. — We are all incredibly glad to see you here. Could you tell our viewers... about your hobbies? What you loved to do... Down there?"

Pentius flinched as if he had been poked with a stick.
"Y-hobbies? His voice sounded hoarse, and he cleared his throat. —Well, me... I designed it. Different things. Cars... devices..." He paused, staring at his hands. "I had one... The blaster. Very big. "The Apocalypse." A shadow of his former pride flashed across his face for a moment, quickly replaced by embarrassment.

Emily, beaming, joined in, trying to help:
"Oh, that sounds so interesting! You must have been very resourceful!"

Pentius just nodded uncertainly, his gaze dimming.

Vincent, catching the mood, smoothly changed the subject.:
"What about... well, let's say, your eating habits? Hell has its own, I hear... unique cuisine."

"Eggs,— Pentius almost whispered... I loved eggs very much. I had minions... small, ovoid. I ... them... Well, anyway..." He didn't finish, and a spasm ran down his long neck. He swallowed, and his eyes filled with sudden moisture under the heart-shaped glasses. He missed his stupid, brainless minions. In his workshop. By his giant, useless blaster.

With every innocent question—about the music he listened to, the places he visited, even the weather in the circle of Pride—the wall of his insecurity slowly crumbled, revealing what was hidden beneath: a deep, piercing longing. He didn't say it directly, but it was evident in the tremor in his voice, in the way he looked away, in the way his tail curled helplessly around the leg of the sofa.

He missed Hell.

Not by suffering and chaos, but by what was home to him. Through familiar streets, through his lair, no matter how ridiculous it may be. For those he left there. The thought of Charlie, Waggie, Cherry... The fact that they thought he had simply disappeared or, worse, died, caused him physical pain.

Vincent saw it. His professional radar, tuned to the slightest fluctuations of emotions, detected a growing wave of sadness. He could see Emily starting to worry, and Peter's face clouding with sympathy. He himself felt nothing but mild irritation from the deteriorating ether, but his mask remained flawless.

"Sometimes," Pentius said quietly, answering a question about what he considered his greatest achievement, "the greatest achievement... This is not a car or a conquest. This... when someone is waiting for you."

The broadcast continued, but the atmosphere in the studio became heavy and bitter. A planned cheerful interview about the triumph of goodness turned into a quiet, poignant confession about longing for a lost past, albeit a sinful one. And Vincent, with his forced smile, understood that this broadcast would have to be seriously edited to match the heavenly narrative. However, as it often happened, it turned out to be much more complicated and inconvenient than a beautiful fairy tale.

Vincent felt the ether begin to slip out of control. Tears, nostalgia for Hell — this was absolutely not the message he planned to convey to the heavenly audience. His mind, sharpened like a blade, was instantly looking for a foothold, a way to turn the conversation into a safe, productive channel. And he found her.

"Designed...— Vincent repeated softly, and for the first time in the entire broadcast, a note of genuine, professional interest sounded in his voice. He leaned forward slightly. — You said devices. Cars. This... unbelievable. You know, I have something to do with technology myself."

His multicolored eyes met Pentius's gaze from behind his heart-shaped glasses. The snake's gaze was still moist, but there was a spark of recognition in it. A colleague in the shop.

"Really? Pentius wheezed, his tail straightening slightly. "You too.".. Are you creating something?"

"In a way," Vincent replied evasively, but with a slight smile. — My work is more related to.. network architecture, information transmission. But the principles are the same. Logic, engineering, search for solutions."

Emily, seeing that the tension had subsided, smiled with relief, and Peter nodded approvingly. The ice was broken.

"Oh, oh, oh! Pentius exclaimed, and his voice suddenly regained its former, though still nervous, energy. "Then you must understand! It's down there... It was just boiling! Especially in the circle of Pride! All those neon signs, giant screens, communications..." He paused, as if realizing that he was talking about Hell with delight again, and sheepishly adjusted his top hat.

Vincent, however, didn't let him shut down. He saw it as a chance.
"Awesome.And who was at the head of all this... the technological boom?" — his question sounded like the natural curiosity of a colleague.

And that's where Sir Pentius was transformed. His melancholy and confusion seemed to evaporate, giving way to the excitement of the narrator, familiar with the subject.

"Who? Yes, of course! He even stood up on his couch, his tail moving to the beat of his speech. — Of course, VoxTek! A huge, simply gigantic company! They were responsible for everything! For electricity, for the Internet, for television, for all these new things... even for entertainment, it seems! If something was working, beeping, glowing, or transmitting a signal, it was from VoxTek!"

He spoke quickly, with enthusiasm, forgetting about the cameras.
"And he ran it all... Pentius paused dramatically, impressed by the scale of the figure he was talking about. — The CEO Himself. A media mogul. The strongest Lord... Well, or was..." For a moment his enthusiasm faded, but he immediately rekindled it. "Media demon Vox!"

Vincent listened with polite interest, but his analytical mind was already processing the information. VoxTek. The media demon. Centralized control over the entire technological infrastructure of Ada. It was valuable, structured information, not tearful memories.

"Vox... Vincent said thoughtfully, as if tasting the name. "Must be an incredibly powerful figure. And, apparently, a brilliant engineer."

"Oh, yes!— said Pentius, nodding so eagerly that his top hat almost flew off. His face is on all the screens, his voice is in every speaker! He... he was this world, you know? Without him... everything just stopped."

The last sentence hung in the air, but this time it wasn't so much grief as a statement of a grandiose, almost biblical fact. One demon disappeared, and an entire technological civilization collapsed.

Vincent gently brought the conversation back to technology by asking a clarifying question about the principles of VoxTek networks. Pentius, animated, happily immersed himself in the technical details, as much as his knowledge allowed.

The ether was saved. Tragedy and longing were cleverly replaced by a neutral, almost scientific discussion about technology. Vincent was pleased to note that an excellent, informative segment could be cut out of this monologue. And the mention of the collapse of the system after the disappearance of its leader... Well, this part might be worth omitting. It suggested uncomfortable thoughts about the fragility of any system, even the most seemingly durable. But that was already a problem for the installation. His job, broadcasting— was done flawlessly.

Sir Pentius continued to talk, gesturing enthusiastically and describing the wonders of hellish technology. The words flowed out of him easily — the topic was close and understandable to him, unlike the painful questions about feelings and the past. He talked about giant screens, the pervasive VoxTek signal, and how all Hell depended on that network.

But while his tongue was pronouncing memorized phrases, a part of his mind, like a separate, disturbing minion, began to give quiet but persistent signals.

He was looking at Vincent. At his flawless smile, at his calm, confident gestures, at that unflappable, professional interest in his multicolored eyes. And something was clicking inside. Some vague, elusive feeling, as if he had seen it before. Not this angel, but... that very manner. This style.

It was a feeling of deja vu, but not clear, not vivid. Rather, it's like a scent that you can't identify, but which insistently reminds you of something long forgotten. Vincent seemed both familiar and completely alien to him.

"It's weird... Pentius thought as he explained the principle of neon advertising at full speed. "Like that.".. smooth. Everything is under control. Not a single unnecessary emotion."

And then his inner gaze came across a memory. Not an image, but a feeling. The way he himself used to look at the screens in Hell, where Vox reigned supreme. The same highly polished professionalism. The same charisma that hypnotized millions. The same power over the ether.

My thoughts were confused. Vox... Vincent. Two media titans. One was the embodiment of hellish, aggressive energy, his voice was like a roar, and his presence was like an electric shock. The other was the epitome of heavenly calm, his voice was velvety, and his aura was cool and detached.

But under this different shell, Pentius, without realizing it, caught the same framework. It's the same principle. Both were voices for entire worlds. Both were holding threads of information in their hands. Both knew the power of a well-spoken word and a perfectly chosen frame.

This realization caused him to slightly dissociate. He was sitting in a shining heavenly studio, and he had a strange, disturbing feeling, as if he was looking at the ghostly reflection of the infernal media giant in the purest heavenly stream. The similarity was not in the features of the face or in the voice, but in the very essence, in the role they played for their worlds.

He stopped in mid-sentence, staring at Vincent with a new, puzzled expression on his snake face.

"Is something wrong, Sir Pentius?" asked Vincent politely, his smile never wavering.

"No way! No, it's... it's okay," Pentius muttered hurriedly, looking away and feeling the color rise on his cheeks. — It's simple... It seemed so."

But the feeling wouldn't go away. It stayed with him, a quiet, vague dissonance. The angel in front of him was perfect, kind and calm. So why did it give him such a strange, ambivalent feeling, as if he was talking to someone he had already met in the heat of his past?

———

A year ago

The first few minutes were almost funny. The light in the lobby of the Hazbin Hotel dimmed, blinked with a hiss and went out, plunging the luxurious, albeit slightly shabby lobby into twilight twilight. Only a parting crackle escaped from the speakers, where invigorating jazz had been playing a second before.

"Oh, great,— Husk's grumpy voice rang out in the silence. He was sitting at the bar, as usual, and was just about to pour himself an evening glass. "That narcissistic idiot threw a tantrum again."

In the corner of the sofa, Angel Dust snorted, putting aside his communicator, the screen of which was now black.
"Another breakdown on live TV?I hope he blew his studio to smithereens this time. It will at least entertain the audience a little."

Even Sir Pentius, who usually cowered timidly to the side, hissed something approving under his breath. They were all familiar with Vox's antics. His emotional outbursts sometimes caused network outages. Unpleasant, but not fatal. Usually, everything returned to normal in about twenty minutes, half an hour at the most.

Charlie Morningstar, looking out of her office, tried to reassure everyone with a smile:
"It's okay!It's a great reason to have a candlelit evening! We can sing songs or..."

No one shared her enthusiasm. An hour passed. The light did not return. Nifty, who was wandering around the hall with a broom, began tapping the shaft nervously on the floor. Two more hours passed. The darkness outside the windows was replaced by the ominous crimson glow of eternal hell, but inside the hotel it was still dark and quiet.

A murmur began in the streets of Pentagram City, quickly escalating into concern and then panic. Without neon signs, without giant screens, without music from the windows of bars, the city seemed dead. Screams, swearing and sounds of broken glass became the new soundtrack of the night.

The atmosphere in the hotel was oppressive. Alastor was not there — he was visiting his old friend Rosie in her cannibal city, where, as luck would have it, technology had never been in high esteem, and therefore the collapse went almost unnoticed.

Charlie, still trying to find the positive, gathered the few inhabitants of the hotel in the main hall. By the light of several candles found in the back room, their faces seemed tense and tired.

"Okay, then... — she began, trying to sound decisive. — It's certainly longer than usual, but... can't his partners just... start everything back up? I mean, aren't there backup generators, backup servers? VoxTek is a huge company!"

In response to her words, there was such deafening silence in the hall that the candles could be heard crackling. Everyone was staring at her—Husk, Angel, Nifty, Sir Pentius, Cherie, and Vaggie. There was genuine amazement mixed with pity in their gazes. They looked as if she had just declared that the sky in Hell was green with purple stripes.

Vaggie, always sensitive to her girlfriend, gently put her hand on her shoulder.
"Charlie...Dear," she began, choosing her words carefully. "You.".. You know that, right? That Vox... he didn't just own the company."

Charlie looked at her with genuine incomprehension.

Hask couldn't stand it. He slammed his empty glass down on the counter.
"God almighty, princess," his voice sounded hoarse. — VoxTek is not just a company with generators. Vox was a generator. He was the Internet. He was electricity. All these things... He waved his hand, tracing the darkness around him in the air. — It wasn't the machines that were working. It was his power, his will, his demonic essence that fueled all this crap. Personally."

Sir Pentius, nodding with unusual confidence, added,
"Oh, yes! His brilliant, albeit hysterical, mind was the central processor! Without his command... The whole system is just a piece of metal and wires!"

Charlie froze, slowly realizing the scale of the disaster. Her face fell.
"That is...you mean that... He's not here yet... Is nothing working? In all of Hell?"

Angel Dust grinned darkly from his couch.
"You've hit the nail on the head, sweet pie. Welcome to the Stone Age, hellish style. No TV, no porn, no food delivery. All that remains is to start eating each other."

At that moment, in the flickering candlelight, Princess Ada finally understood. It wasn't a breakdown. It was the apocalypse. Not fiery and loud, but quiet, dark and de-energized. And no one knew for how long.

The silence that followed Hask and Pentius' words was thick, heavy as pitch. She absorbed the crackle of candles and the rapid breathing of the hotel's inhabitants. Charlie stood in the middle of the room, and her brain, refusing to accept the monstrous scale of the disaster, clung to the only logical, albeit frightening, explanation.

She slowly looked from Husk to Pentius, then to Vaggie, looking for a rebuttal in their eyes. But all she found was the same stunned anxiety.

"But... but wait," her voice sounded low, almost frightened, breaking the oppressive silence. "If.".. if all this"—she gestured desperately at the darkness surrounding them-"really depends on a single sinner... from him... his powers..."

She swallowed the lump in her throat before saying the scariest thing.
"... and if the lights haven't turned on for so long... it's... That can only mean one thing, right? That Vox... Did something happen to him? That he could..."

She couldn't finish. The word "die" hung in the air unspoken, but its terrible meaning penetrated the consciousness of everyone present.

The reaction was immediate and unanimous.

"Don't talk nonsense!" Hask exhaled sharply, turning to the counter and pretending to pour into a glass again, even though the bottle had been empty for a long time. The very idea was absurd. Vox? Is he dead? It was like announcing the death of the very principle of noise, violence, and glamorous chaos. He was one of the pillars that supported the familiar Hell.

"Oh shit, Charlie, don't say that! Angel Dast screamed, hugging himself convulsively by the shoulders. "That big—eyed jerk... He's simple... He went on vacation! He just took off to some demonic resort! Yes?"

But there was no confidence in his voice, just a growing hysteria. Without Vox, there would be no resorts or entertainment. There would be nothing.

Sir Pentius hissed and cowered, his tail twisting convulsively around his legs.
"N-this can't be happening!"What is it?" he whispered. "Him.".. He's a Vox! It's impossible just like that... eliminate it!"

And Nifty, as always, continued to sweep the same area of the floor.

No one liked the idea. At all. Vox's death... It was different. It wasn't just a loss of life. It was the death of an entire epoch. The death of progress, even if it is sinful and ugly, but still progress. It was the threat of a return to something primitive, dark and hopeless, to what it was before the Vox era.

Charlie saw the horror in their eyes and realized that she had touched the most painful part. Her own heart clenched with cold fear. She didn't like Vox, he was the epitome of everything she fought against—cynicism, exploitation, superficiality. But he was part of the ecosystem, part of the landscape. His disappearance threatened to upset the delicate balance in which her hotel existed, her dream of redemption.

"Maybe he's just... Are you very ill?" Charlie offered timidly, trying to find at least some straw to hold onto.

The darkness outside the Hazbin Hotel suddenly took on a new, sinister meaning. It wasn't just darkness. It was the silence after the crash. The emptiness left after one of the loudest and brightest creatures in Hell suddenly fell silent. Is it forever? No one knew. But the very possibility hung in the air, poisoning him like carbon monoxide.

Alastor's return to the Hazbin Hotel was as silent and sudden as his disappearance. One evening—if evenings could be distinguished in this eternal twilight—he simply materialized in the doorway of the main hall, his unchanging wide smile seemed even wider against the background of the surrounding darkness. As usual, he clutched his microphone in his hand, and from his jacket pocket came the soft, crackling sound of old jazz — his personal, independent soundtrack.

He did not tell anyone that as soon as he saw from above the unnatural, oppressive darkness that enveloped the circle of Pride, he stopped. His eyes, burning with red dots, curiously surveyed the blackened skyscrapers and silent streets. And as his physical form continued on its way to the hotel, a shadow detached itself from him—a shapeless, sliding patch of darkness, rushing towards the heart of the media empire, the VoxTek tower.

He was interested. Very. What made this hot-tempered, tech-obsessed upstart mad this time? A tantrum capable of extinguishing the entire circle for such a long time must have been of truly epic proportions.

While Charlie and the others greeted him with excitement mixed with anxiety and began vying to tell him about the disaster, Alastor nodded politely, his smile did not waver a millimeter. But part of his attention was focused on the information that flowed to him along an invisible thread connecting him to his shadow.

And what she "saw" was amazing.

A shadow glided through the dark, echoing corridors of the Voxtec tower, where chaos of a different kind reigned — not quiet and depressed, like in a hotel, but feverish, panicked. She reported on the rushing figures. About Valentino, whose usual mawkish and threatening behavior was replaced by pure, uncontrollable rage. He wasn't just shouting—he was smashing everything in his path, his roars echoing through the empty halls. About Velvet, whose icy calm cracked, revealing razor-sharp anxiety; she gave sharp, jerky orders to her trembling subordinates, who ran around the floors with their eyes wide with horror.

It was hectic. It was loud. It was desperate.

But Vox himself... his shadow did not find him. Nowhere.

Not in his personal office, which was usually flooded with the blue light of monitors, but now plunged into darkness. Not in the studio, where his chair was empty in front of the dead cameras. Not in his private quarters. He did not give orders, did not sit in ambush, did not make new plans.

He disappeared. He disappeared. It was as if he had never existed.

It was at this moment, listening to Charlie's alarming guesses about a possible "illness" of Vox, Alastor allowed himself a quiet, barely audible laugh, more like static.

"Darling," his voice sounded sweet as molasses, but with a poisonous admixture, "don't waste your precious worries. I'm sure it's our common one... My friend, I just started some new, extremely theatrical adventure."

But inside he was raging with delight. This discovery was more interesting than any scenario. Vox, the eternal rival, the eternal symbol of noisy, obsessive progress, this "king of the ether"... He simply disappeared. And his own empire, all that fragile technological splendor, collapsed after him like a house of cards.

Alastor turned to the window, looking out at the dark, silent city. His radio in his pocket was playing a little louder.

Time in Hell flowed differently, but even by his distorted standards, enough had passed for despair to grow into a new, grim norm. Weeks turned into months. The light never came back.

Initially, only Velvet and Valentino were engaged in the search. Their efforts were fierce, almost hysterical. They scoured every corner of the circle of Pride, broke into the domains of other lords, interrogated and intimidated anyone who might know anything. Valentino, with his connections in the criminal world, has spread a network of informants. Velvet used her channels—what was left of them—trying to extract information through fashion, rumors, and trade. But it was all in vain. Vox disappeared without a trace, as if he had been erased from reality itself.

But as the consequences of the collapse worsened, others began to join the search. Silence and darkness have ceased to be just an inconvenience — they have become a threat to business, influence and very existence.

The overlords, whose empires were tied to technology, began to lose control. Even those who were engaged in more mundane things — arms shipments, racketeering, illegal fighting — faced logistical and communication problems.

Their joint search was not a matter of desperation, like Velvet and Valentino, but of cold, selfish calculation. They didn't need Vox as a person, but Vox as a function. As a source of energy. Their combined squads roamed the circle of Pride, no longer stealthily, but openly and aggressively, clashing with those who refused to cooperate, or with each other when a lead seemed valuable.

Hell plunged into a new kind of chaos — not instantaneous and deafening, but smoldering, lingering. A war of all against all for the wreckage of a collapsed system.

And Alastor was watching over all of this.

He was sitting in his hotel, drinking a drink that Hask had prepared for him (now the bartender had to work with what was there, and the cocktails were much less refined), and his smile had never seemed so pleased. He enjoyed watching his competitors, these upstarts obsessed with innovation, dig their own graves, fighting for the ghost.

But behind his calm mask, there was an equally predatory curiosity. He couldn't afford to stay away. Vox's disappearance was the most intriguing mystery since his own appearance in Hell. What could eliminate such a powerful demon? A new power? An unknown weapon? Or had Vox, in his madness, done something to backfire on himself?

And that's why Alastor was looking too. Quietly. Shady. His shadows glided through the dark streets, eavesdropping on conversations, penetrating into nooks and crannies where the rude henchmen of other lords could not reach. He wasn't chasing rumors about Vox's location—he was looking for anomalies. Bursts of strange energy, traces of unusual magic, any deviations from the usual order of things.

He knew that Velvet and Valentino were looking for the body. The other lords were looking for a battery. Alastor was looking for a clue. And deep down, he cherished the hope that when he found her, it would open up new, exciting opportunities for fun and rebuilding the already chaotic landscape of Hell.

Despite all his theatrical sighs and sarcastic comments that he "didn't give a damn" about the fate of this "loudmouthed, gadget-obsessed nouveau riche," the truth was much more complicated. And Rosie, his longtime friend and perhaps the only soul in all of Hell capable of reading him like an open book, saw this from the very beginning.

During his visits to her quiet, untouched town, she noticed the smallest details. How his fingers, usually lying relaxed, sometimes began to beat a nervous rhythm on the handle of his microphone when the conversation turned to the situation in Hubris. How his eternal jazz soundtrack sometimes broke into a static spike when his shadows informed him of another fruitless day of searching. How his smile, which usually became a little more natural in her presence, froze for a moment, becoming tense as he looked towards the blackened horizon.

"You know, darling," she once said, handing him a cup of fragrant tea, —for someone who 'doesn't care at all,' you spend a lot of energy watching it... What do you call it... "house of cards.""

Alastor looked away, his ears—the most prominent and honest parts of his appearance—quivering slightly.
"Simple curiosity, my dear Rosie," he retorted, —Watching arrogant fools dig themselves a hole is one of the greatest pleasures in our immortal lives."

"Of course, of course," she gently agreed, but there was a bottomless, understanding tenderness in her eyes. — It's simple... remember that even the most durable house can collapse, taking something with it... valuable. Even if it's just the usual noise outside the window."

And that was the bitter truth, which Alastor did not admit even to himself. Vox was more than just a rival. He was a counterweight.

Their feud was a dance honed over the years. On—air challenges, sarcastic comments, attempts to outplay each other - all this was a form of recognition. Alastor despised Vox's modern technology, but he respected its power, its influence, its ruthless efficiency. Vox was a worthy opponent, loud, bright and predictably unpredictable. He was someone to direct his ridicule at, whose existence justified his own more refined and old-fashioned concept of power.

And now he's gone. And in the silence that followed, Alastor began to miss the noise. Miss the excitement of the confrontation. Vox's disappearance had left a vacuum, and Alastor realized with disgust that it was beginning to be filled by other, much smaller and uninteresting figures. Their chaos was fruitless, their ambitions were vulgar. They lacked the sheer scale, the theatricality that made Vox... worthy of his attention.

And because his search was motivated not only by curiosity. Deep down, beneath the layers of cynicism and complacency, anxiety stirred. If something—or someone—could eliminate Vox, one of the strongest Lords of Hell, so easily and without a trace... what prevents this "something" from referring to it next?

His shadows were looking for more than just a mystery. They were looking for a threat. A new player on the board who broke all the rules without introducing himself. And Alastor hated the unpredictability that he couldn't control.

So, sitting in the bar of the Hazbin Hotel with a glass in his hand and a beaming smile on his face, Alastor was lying. He lied to everyone, and most of all to himself. He didn't give a damn. The loss of the Vox deprived Hell of its most deafening voice, and its worthy rival. And in this new, silent reality, even the eternal jazz in his pocket sounded a little more sinister and lonely.

On the very day that the empire of Vox collapsed, plunging the circle of Pride into mute darkness, something happened high above Hell that went almost unnoticed against the backdrop of the grand collapse.

The gates of Paradise, which usually shone with a steady, unshakable light, suddenly burst into flames. It wasn't just a flash—it was a blinding, furious pulse, as if an incredible current had been passed through a heavenly portal for a moment. The light was so bright and sharp that for a few seconds it pierced the usual crimson haze of inferno, casting clear, distorted shadows from the pointed spires and bleaching the faces of demons who happened to look up to a ghostly pallor.

Then, as suddenly as it had begun, the glow faded. The gate returned to its usual majestic and detached radiance. It was as if nothing had happened.

In the panic-stricken Hell, this phenomenon was almost ignored. Someone mistook it for another Vox special effect, which he may have triggered before his disappearance. Others decided that it was just a strange celestial anomaly that had nothing to do with their immediate problems. Their house was on fire — they had no time for strange lights on the horizon.

Even Alastor, whose attention at that moment was focused on the fading screen and the growing chaos, only glanced at the sky for a split second. He recorded the surge of energy, noted its unusual nature, but postponed the analysis — the current events in Hubris were a much more exciting and urgent spectacle. It looked like a random malfunction of the holy gate, nothing more. The magnificent collapse of his main rival overshadowed everything.

Thus, the key piece of the puzzle was ignored. The moment when the gates of Paradise briefly opened with unnatural force was ignored. No one connected this sudden, violent flash in the sky with the quiet, disappearance of the King of Ether from the earth.

Chapter Text

The long silence in the tower where the meeting of the lords was usually held was finally broken. Not with the loud hum of former power, but with a painful, intermittent squeak and flickering light that cast nervous, jumping shadows on the walls of the meeting room. Several screens on the wall came to life, showing distorted, noisy images and jumping numbers, clearly working to the limit of their capabilities.

In the center, around a massive table, gathered those whose influence and wealth were fading with each passing day of this endless darkness. The atmosphere was thick with irritation, fear, and pent-up hostility.

Velvet, standing at the head of the table, with the air of a commander desperately holding a crumbling front, announced the situation.
"Attention everyone! Her voice, usually full of sarcastic confidence, was strained now. — We have started the emergency backup generators. The energy is there now, but... — she paused, looking at the flashing lights, — it won't last long. There is only enough power for the most necessary things and only at the key points of Pride. And this is not a solution. This is a postponement. Until we find Vox, we need to... an alternative solution."

A hum went through the hall. The idea of living on meager emergency power rations did not suit anyone.

Carmilla Carmine, whose weapons business suffered from disruptions in production and communications, raised her hand, her movements economical and precise.
"While our colleague is away, can't we use the old, proven methods? The wind, the sun... Hell has its own natural resources."

Velvet rolled her eyes, and an expression of utter contempt appeared on her face, which she usually reserved for particularly gaudy outfits.
"The wind? Her voice became a blade. "Honey, Vox has already tried. The gusts are too chaotic here. Then a calm, then a hurricane, which demolishes all structures. It's unreliable and uncontrollable."

A melodious but cold voice came from the other end of the table. This was Vassago, one of the princes of Ars Goetia, whose bird-like figure and aristocratic bearing contrasted sharply with the surrounding bustle. His domain, built on ancient magic and alchemy, was virtually untouched by the collapse.
"You won't be able to do anything with water either," he said, adjusting his cuff. — Leviathan monopolized all water resources in a circle of Envy. Any attempt to build a dam or turbine will be regarded as an encroachment on his possessions. And trust me, you don't need it."

An oppressive silence reigned in the hall again. The last option remained.

"Solar energy," someone muttered without the same enthusiasm. — The infernal sun... It's shining."

"And it incinerates everything! Velvet retorted, tapping her finger on the table. — Vox has spent a lot of energy on solar panels! Each new model melted, cracked, or simply failed under it... By this fierce luminary! He was working on a new, improved version right before his own... by disappearing."

She fell silent, letting the audience absorb the bitterness of the situation.
"And even if we find the blueprints, there's no guarantee they're working. Or that we have enough resources and knowledge to replicate his latest prototype."

The meeting of the lords has reached an impasse. The wind was unpredictable, the water was inaccessible, and the sun was hostile. They sat in the semi-darkness, with the ghostly light of the emergency systems, and realized the depth of their dependence on a single demon. Their power, their empires, were built on sand, and whoever held that sand together disappeared without a trace. And now they could only hope for a miracle or that the backup generators would last long enough for them to find a replacement for someone who could not be replaced.

While some of the lords were rushing around in search of a solution, others remained icily calm. Their possessions were based on other, much more ancient and stable foundations. For them, the lack of electricity was a slight inconvenience, a strange innovation that appeared and just as quietly disappeared.

Alastor, sprawled in a chair in the shade, just grinned, watching the panic. His radio on his cane was playing jazz softly. He didn't need screens—his voice and shadows achieved their goals without them. Rosie, sitting next to her, watched the fuss with maternal concern, but her cannibal empire flourished for centuries without a single wire. Vassago, with his ancient grimoires and alchemical formulas, only looked with slight disdain at these "new rich men" whose power turned out to be so fragile. Zestial just enjoyed watching the noisy, vibrant world slowly return to its original, corruptible state.

It was at this moment of intense silence that one of the few mistresses, whose presence had so far remained almost unnoticed, rose from her seat. Her name was Masquerade.

She was the epitome of duality and illusion. Her figure, tall and slender, was dressed in a dress of iridescent dark silk, which changed color from deep indigo to blood-red depending on the incident light. But her main feature was the two masks fixed on her face.

On the right is a mask made of white porcelain, polished to a mirror shine, with elegantly drawn features and a frozen, serene half—smile. On the left is a mask made of dark, cracked wood, with rough, distorted features and a single slit for the eye, from behind which a pupil burning with yellow fire could be seen. The two masks were connected at the temple by an elaborate gold clasp in the shape of a snake devouring its own tail. No one saw her real face, and her voice, when she spoke, seemed to come from two lips at the same time — one voice was melodious and sweet, coming from a white mask, the second was low, raspy, coming from a dark one.

"Dear Velvet," both voices sounded, creating an eerie, discordant polyphony, "you're talking about resources, about the elements... but are we forgetting about the most valuable resource? About brains."

She gestured smoothly around the meeting.
"VoxTek was not just a tower with machines.It was a forge of cadres. Vox, in his quest for monopoly, literally dragged every first sinner to himself, whose skills were somehow related to technology. Engineers, technicians, programmers... Where are they all? Can't this army of experts assemble something that works?"

Velvet, whose face was already distorted with annoyance, grimaced even more. She put her hands on the table with force.

"The army? Her voice rose to a scream. "What the hell kind of army?" Where were you during the last Extermination? The angels have thinned our ranks like weeds! They've cut out entire departments! And those who stayed..."

She paused, swallowing a lump of rage.
"Those who were near Vox that day... They disappeared. They disappeared with him. It's like they've been erased with an eraser. There are only a handful of terrified, not the most talented demons left, who are barely able to keep these pathetic generators running! They can't create something new. They can only try to copy blueprints that no one can decipher now!"

Velvet's confession hung in the air, heavy and merciless. It wasn't just the energy source that was the problem. The problem was the brains. Vox was not only the battery, but also the ingenious architect of this whole system. And his best engineers either died from angelic weapons, or disappeared without a trace along with him, taking with them unique knowledge.

Masquerade slowly nodded to the two masks at the same time, her double gaze filled with gloomy understanding. The matter was settled. Without Vox and his chosen specialists, they were not only de-energized, but also intellectually drained. They weren't just sitting in the dark. They sat in the silence left after the most brilliant minds of Hell were torn from reality.

The meeting, which had lasted four exhausting hours, was finally over. It did not bring high-profile decisions, but only stated gloomy facts and outlined shaky, almost hopeless paths. It was decided to create a coalition to survey old, abandoned power plants and search for surviving engineers who are not directly connected with VoxTek. But there was a general understanding in the air.: It was an attempt to patch a hole in a sinking ship with a piece of gold.

Velvet came out of the tower, and the infernal wind, devoid of the usual hum of neon and music, greeted her with ominous silence. She walked through the dark streets, ignoring the figures flickering in the shadows and the muffled screams. Her mind was occupied with other things. He replayed over and over those first hours after Vox's disappearance, when the panic was fresh and there was still hope.

He and Valentino, barely recovering from the shock, broke into his private office. While Valentino was raging and destroying furniture, she connected the emergency power supply to his main computer with trembling hands. The system booted up with difficulty, and she was immersed in Vox's digital archives.

He was always meticulously paranoid. He had folders for every case: "A plan in case of Valentino's betrayal," "A plan in case of stock Market collapse," "A plan in case of angel invasion," "A plan in case Velvet decides that her talents are worth more." He calculated everything, down to the smallest detail. Each scenario was written out like a script for his show: goals, objectives, resources, sequence of actions.

And so she found it. A folder with a concise and now chilling title: "Unforeseen. The vacuum. (The "Silence" Protocol)".

Velvet's heart began to race. She opened it.

And she was stunned.

Unlike the other point-by-point plans, it was here... almost nothing. A few lines. Stingy instructions, devoid of his usual theatricality.

· Point 1: Do not search. Uselessly.
· Item 2: Activate emergency generators (schematics in the "Reserve-A" folder).
· Point 3: Refer to the old schemes. Archive of the "Past Era".
· Point 4: ...

That's all. No explanation. No backup communication options. No hints of what this "Unforeseen" might mean. Not a word about how to proceed. Simply... stop.

And now, walking through the dark city, Velvet bumped into this mental wall over and over again. Her fists were clenched in impotent rage.

"Too meticulous... She growled in her mind, her heels beating a furious rhythm on the pavement. —Everything, damn it, everything! One hundred steps ahead! For every sneeze! AND for THIS... You didn't have anything for that? Just "refer to the old schemes"? What the hell kind of schemes?!"

He, the eternal control frame, the architect of everything that surrounded them, left them with outdated drawings and illusory hope. He provided for everything except his own disappearance without a trace. Or... Did he provide for him too? Maybe these stingy lines were his last, most bitter calculation? Counting on the fact that they can't do it without him? That his system won't survive his departure?

The thought was humiliating and poisonous. She was poisoning her from the inside out. Vox always saw them as tools—talented, sharp, but still tools in their own hands. And now that his hands were gone, the tools lay like useless weights, bumping into old, dust-covered instructions that he had personally sent to the scrap yard.

Velvet squeezed her eyes shut, feeling tears of rage rising. She wouldn't let that happen. If Vox thought his disappearance would make a point, then she'd damn well turn that point into an ellipsis. She'll find a way. With the help of old schemes, with the help of these pathetic remnants of his empire, with the help of anything. She'll turn on the lights again, even if she has to set the rest of Hell on fire to do it.

The darkness around them seemed even thicker, even more hostile from the realization of their helplessness. And in this oppressive silence, amidst the ruins of his empire, Velvet's memory naturally threw her back to those days that seemed so annoying and meaningless to her then.

She stood in his shining laboratory, bathed in blue light, and looked at the disassembled server unit. The smell of ozone and hot metal tickled his nostrils.

"Why would I do that, Vox? She heard her own arrogant voice from the past. — I have a team of technicians. A whole army. I create fashion, I create trends! I shouldn't be digging into this one... wiring!"

He stood in front of her, arms folded. His screen showed a slight, condescending grin.
"Armies have a habit of letting you down, dear," his voice, distorted by static, sounded calm and insistent. — Trends are changing. It's about understanding how things work... — he pointed a long finger at the chaos of wires and microchips, — this is power. Real power. Not the kind your outfits give you. The one that makes the world work. Or... stop."

He made her learn the basics. Principles of energy transmission, network architecture, elementary logic of system construction. For her, whose mind was honed by aesthetics, social manipulation, and ruthless marketing, it was agony. Numbers, diagrams, formulas... She hated every second of it, considering it a humiliating waste of her brilliant mind on some kind of "technical routine."

He was patient, which was rare for him. He explained it over and over again until she got the gist of it with annoyance. Sometimes he took her to the old, abandoned power plants, pointing out the rusting mechanisms.
"Look," he said. "Primitive?" Yes. But this is the basis. The alphabet that makes up all the words. Remember him. Just in case."

"What the hell kind of accident is this?" she snapped back then, barely able to see the rusted turbines in the semi—darkness.

Now, walking through the silent streets, Velvet clenched her jaw so hard that her temples hurt. Damn it. Damn it, he was right.

These hateful lessons, this "technical routine" were the only thing she had left now. His "army" of engineers either disappeared or turned out to be incompetent. His ingenious blueprints were useless without him. But these basic principles, hammered into her head with such difficulty... they were her lifeline.

They were the ones who allowed her to figure out how to start the emergency generators. They were the ones who suggested where to look in these old, outdated schemes, which he pointed out at the time. They were the ones who gave her the ghostly, but still hope that she would be able to, if not recreate, then at least understand the wreckage of the system he had built.

Gratitude. Yes, now, through her rage, despair, and fatigue, she could feel it—acrid, bitter, but real. Thank you, Vox. Thank you for making me learn the damn alphabet when I really wanted to just write poetry.

She stopped, raised her head, and looked with hatred at the blackened sky where its screens had once shone.

"Okay, old man," she whispered into the silence. "You wanted me to understand the basics?" I got it Now watch me assemble something new from these fragments. And trust me, it's going to be pretty damn stylish."

And with that, she strode forward again, her step firmer.

Of course, here's a follow-up with Vincent's thoughts.

---

The broadcast has finally come to an end. Vincent conducted his guests with impeccable courtesy — a beaming Emily, a calm Peter, and a still somewhat confused Sir Pentius, whose stories about life in Hell, albeit censored, aroused the keen interest of the heavenly audience. He also said goodbye to the small film crew, thanking them for their work.

It was then that his own staff, looking with concern at his face, on which even a professional smile began to crack, gently but persistently escorted him out.
"Vincent, you should rest. You look exhausted. The broadcast was heavy. Go home. We'll do the rest ourselves."

He wanted to object, to say that he still had a lot of work, reports, plans... but the words stuck in my throat. The physical fatigue that he had been ignoring all this time hit him like a heavy wave. He nodded, unable to argue, and left the studio.

With a powerful flap of his cybernetic wings, he was floating in the cool air of Paradise again, heading for his apartment. But the usual flight ritual, usually filled with checking emails and mental planning, didn't work this time.

His mind, against his will, kept coming back to the same name over and over again. Vox.

It was like an obsessive melody stuck in my head. Pentius's stories are about the technological boom in Hell, about the all-pervading VoxTek empire, about the demon who was both its head and its heart... It all added up to a picture that caused Vincent a strange, unpleasant feeling—a mixture of professional curiosity and vague, inexplicable anxiety.

He, Vincent, was the central node, the living processor of the entire Paradise. And this one... Vox, apparently, performed the same function in Hell. They were mirror images, only on opposite sides of the sky.

Thoughts flowed randomly:
"Centralized control over the entire network... His power powered the entire infrastructure... The disappearance led to the collapse..."

He found himself drawing frightening parallels. What would happen to Paradise if... Did he suddenly disappear himself? How fragile would their ideal system be?

But most of all, he was attracted by one detail mentioned by Pentius almost casually. "He was everywhere! His face is on all the screens, his voice is in every speaker!"

Vincent blinked, and his multicolored eyes narrowed. He was also "everywhere." His voice, his image, is the face of heavenly news, the voice of virtue and order. But he always considered himself an instrument, a guide of the will of higher forces. And Vox... Vox, apparently, was the creator and god of his own system. That was the difference. And that was the reason for that strange, nagging feeling that Vincent could barely identify. Was it... Envy? No. Rather, a professional reformation. He saw a colleague in the Vox. Even if he works on the "hostile" side. Even if he uses his abilities to spread sin and chaos.

And now this colleague is missing. And his system collapsed. The thought of such an ending for something as grandiose as it was vicious filled Vincent with icy dread. It was a reminder of the fragility of any power built on a single will.

He landed on the balcony of his apartment, folded his wings with automatic precision and went inside. Sterile silence and impeccable cleanliness greeted him, as always. But today they did not bring comfort.

He went to the mini-bar and poured himself a glass of water, his fingers trembling slightly. He walked over to the panoramic window and stared out at the radiant, serene landscape of the Heavenly Palaces.

"Vox..." he said softly aloud, and the name seemed strangely familiar in his language. "What happened to you?"

Vincent's thoughts on the fragility of power, mirror images, and the ghost of a media demon from Hell were rudely interrupted by a quiet but persistent chime. A name popped up on his personal communicator embedded in the frame of his glasses: Emily.

Vincent squeezed his eyes shut, feeling the familiar, oppressive pain pounding on his temples again. He exhaled resignedly, imagining another waterfall of her radiant, unfounded enthusiasm, endless questions about ratings or, worst of all, attempts to discuss his "well-being."

He accepted the challenge, and his voice came out with a familiar, strained lightness.:
"Emily, dear. How can I help you?"

His expectations were only partially fulfilled. Emily really bombarded him with a stream of enthusiastic words about the broadcast, about how great everything had gone, and how Sir Pentius seemed to be relaxing a little. Vincent stood at the window, looking at his reflection in the dark glass, and mentally switched off, sending back monosyllabic "of course," "no doubt," and "glad to hear it."

And so, when he was preparing to end the conversation under a plausible pretext, Emily suddenly changed the subject. Her voice became a little quieter, almost shy.

"Vincent, I've been thinking... She paused for a moment. — Sir Pentius is still very lonely and unaccustomed here. And you... You're so smart and you're so good at having conversations! How would you like to... Well, maybe spend some time with us? Just the three of us? Just to chat? I think it would be useful for him, and for you... well, it probably wouldn't hurt for you to take your mind off work too!"

Vincent froze. This question was the last thing he expected. His first, instant, unfiltered outburst was harsh and negative. Spending time? To let this naive fool into his already limited personal space is enough... A snake?

But before this refusal could form into words, his analytical mind, working faster than light, had already processed the request.

First of all, rejection will upset Emily. And upsetting Sera's pet is tactically wrong.
Secondly, Sir Pentius, for all his absurdity, was the first redeemed sinner. Being closer to such a historical phenomenon could be useful for his own... research.
Thirdly, the snake, despite all his cowardice, was an inventor. Even if it's from the Victorian era. His mindset, his approach to problems... It was primitive, but interesting. He wasn't such a bad conversationalist, apart from his appearance and his perpetual panic.

All this analysis took a split second. The pause was so slight that Emily didn't even notice it.

"Of course, Emily, why not? His voice sounded warm and natural, as if he'd been waiting for this. "I'll be glad to keep you company." Sir Pentius is indeed quite an interesting conversationalist when it comes to mechanics."

There was a joyful, almost excited sigh from the other side of the phone. Emily began thanking him, showering him with glowing phrases, and Vincent was already mentally making a schedule, cutting out the minimum possible time intervals for these "meetings."

He said goodbye and hung up. Silence closed in again. He went back to the window. Thoughts about Vox, Hell, and the fragility of systems have not gone away, but now a new, strange factor has been added to them. Now he had to periodically play the polite companion for the young seraphim and the redeemed sinner. The world, already full of absurdity, has prepared a new, bizarre role for him. And, oddly enough, the thought of it didn't make him as annoyed as it had just a few minutes ago. Perhaps because it was at least some kind of change. Or maybe it was because deep down he was a little curious himself.

With a force born of irritation and the need to stifle obsessive thoughts, Vincent abruptly called up a holographic display in front of him. Bright lines of code, network load graphs, drafts of future scenarios — all this was supposed to be a shield between him and uninvited thoughts. He plunged into his work with almost maniacal concentration, trying to burn the smoldering embers of anxiety in the fire of logic.

But his gaze, gliding through the sterile space of the office, suddenly came across something foreign. On one of the perfectly symmetrical shelves, filled with technical literature and celestial archives, there were several books in antique bindings. They stood out sharply against the glossy covers and holographic spines. They were books given to him by Matilda.

One day, noticing that his apartment looked too much like an exhibition piece, she gently but inexorably handed him several volumes—a collection of poetry, a historical novel, and an art book. "To have something in your house that you can touch, dear, and not just hold your hand through the light," she said then.

The memory of her, of the warmth of her voice, of the smell of her pies, sent a brief but distinct wave of warmth through his chest. It was one of the few feelings he could identify that he didn't reject.

And with that warmth came another, prickly and unpleasant memory. Her words: "You said when you gave me back what I had repaired that you liked this kind of thing. That you like the radio."

His fingers hovered over the holographic keyboard. This statement was like a splinter in his mind. It wasn't the fact that he might "like" something that bothered him-he admitted weaknesses such as liking certain music or architecture. He was confused and angry by the fact that he didn't remember.

He couldn't remember saying anything like that to Matilda. He meticulously recorded all his social interactions, all the data. This phrase should have been in his archives. But she wasn't there. There was only a gap, a gaping void that was filled only by the words of his neighbor.

And it's a radio. This old wooden trinket, which was now in his closet among other "junk". When he carried him to his apartment, a wave ran down his back... what? Not just inexplicable longing. It was homesickness. Sharp, piercing, and completely irrational.

What the hell is a "house"? His home was here. This sterile, high-tech apartment in the shining halls of Paradise. It was the only home he knew and should cherish. But at that moment, with this radio in his hands, he was seized by a deep, instinctive feeling as if he was holding something in his hands... yours. Something long lost and incredibly familiar. And this contrast between the cold logic of his existence and this sudden, wild outburst of emotion was so strong that it caused him to have a fit of pure, impotent rage.

His fist clenched, and the holographic interface in front of him shuddered nervously, distorting for a second.

"What's wrong with me?" flashed through his mind. "Blackouts in memory. Headaches. And now these... feelings tied to some kind of junk."

Vincent squeezed his eyes shut, trying to willpower his trembling hands and steady his breathing. He repeated to himself the logical, soothing arguments: "This is overwork. A malfunction in neural connections. Consequences of information overload. I need to rest. Just relax."

But it didn't help. On the contrary, the internal tension was building up like a compressed spring. He could feel something hot and wet rolling down his cheeks. He ran his finger over the skin and stared in amazement at the wet trail. Weeping.

He didn't understand. Absolutely. There was not a single thought in his head that could cause such a reaction. There was no image of grief or loss. There was no conscious sadness. There was only a fierce, impotent anger at his own loss of control and a vague, oppressive heaviness in his chest that had no name or reason.

He was crying, not knowing why. That was the worst part. The emotions came from somewhere outside, as if breaking through the dam that he had so carefully built all his heavenly life. He could feel them physically—the spasm in his throat, the heat in his eyes, the telltale tremor in his limbs—but he couldn't identify their source. It was as if someone had ripped out a whole piece of his emotional palette, leaving only raw, raw signals that his mind refused to decipher.

He felt angry. Fierce, all-consuming. But this was not the cold, calculating rage that he sometimes allowed himself to feel towards negligent colleagues or idiotic orders from above. It was something animal, primitive. The rage of a cornered creature who doesn't understand who his enemy is or where to run.

His breathing became short and ragged. He gripped the edge of the table to steady himself, his knuckles turning white. Dark spots swam before my eyes.

"What... what is it? — the thought raced in panic. "What's happening to me?"

He was trying to catch his breath, as he was taught in the heavenly manuals on emotion control: take a deep breath, exhale slowly. But his lungs refused to listen. Every breath was labored, as if his chest was being squeezed in a vice.

And the tears kept flowing. Hot, salty, and silent. They flowed down the face of a man who was supposed to be the epitome of impeccable calm, a cold-blooded processor of Paradise. They were evidence of a monstrous malfunction in the system.

And that made him even angrier. He was angry at his own treacherous tears. My hands are shaking. At this suffocating void, from which feelings unknown to him were erupting. He was angry at Matilda for her gifts, which stirred up something alien in him. He was angry at Sera for her mysterious looks and half-truths. He was angry at Vox, whose name had caused this crisis like a virus. He was angry at this whole damn, perfect Paradise, which suddenly turned out to be full of cracks.

The door to Vincent's apartment, which he had not fully closed in a state of distraction and inner storm, opened with a soft click. Matilda stood on the threshold, illuminated by the soft light from the hallway. Her normally serene face contorted with worry when she saw him.

Vincent was sitting on the floor, leaning against the wall, his shoulders shaking treacherously. Traces of tears glistened on his cheeks in the bluish light of the holograms that were still blinking nervously in front of him. He heard footsteps and abruptly raised his head, his multicolored eyes, full of panic and shame, met her gaze.

"Matilda, I..." his voice broke, hoarse and broken. He tried to get up, pretend that everything was fine, that it was just dust in his eye, a migraine, whatever. "That's okay. Simply... overwork. Don't worry."

But she didn't leave. She walked over softly and, without saying a word, sank down on the floor next to him. Her rustling dress formed a dark silk lake around her. Before he could say anything else, she gently put her finger on his lips, silencing him.

"Hush, Vincent," her voice was warm and unreservedly accepting, like a hug. "Just breathe."

She didn't question him. She didn't demand an explanation. She was just there. Her presence was as dense and comforting as the smell of fresh pastries from her apartment.

"You know," she said softly, looking into space in front of her, "I had a son when I was alive. I loved him very much."

Vincent froze, listening. His own breathing gradually began to even out.

"When he was little, he was often plagued by nightmares," she continued. — And I sat on the edge of his bed, just like that, and stroked his hair..." Her hand in a thin glove slowly, almost weightlessly touched his black hair. He tensed instinctively, but then, following the hypnotic rhythm of her movements, he relaxed.

"... and I sang him an old lullaby," her voice, low and melodious, sounded softly in the silence, humming a simple melody unknown to Vincent. There was no heavenly pathos in her, only endless, soothing tenderness."

And so, under her soft singing, under the warmth of her hand, the wall that Vincent was trying to build around his chaos finally collapsed. A wave of emotions that he could neither name nor control surged with renewed, crushing force. It wasn't just anger. It was an abyss of grief, longing, and loss, so vast that it was impossible to contain it in one being.

And in that moment of complete, absolute loss of control, his subconscious, his deepest, hidden essence, compressed into a tight ball of pain, released what had always been a part of him.

An invisible, intangible impulse for ordinary perception. A powerful electromagnetic wave, distorted by agony, burst out of him and rushed through the walls, through the shining palaces, through the very fabric of reality, away from Paradise.

---

Far below, in the crimson twilight of Hell, Alastor was just raising a glass to his lips. And suddenly he froze.

His smile did not waver, but his eyes, burning with red dots, narrowed. He felt... an echo. Faint, barely perceptible, like a whisper at the other end of a gigantic hall, but absolutely, unmistakably familiar.

It was a unique, special frequency. An energy imprint that he would recognize among millions. The same one that has been coming from VoxTek screens for years, which has fueled this whole noisy, intrusive world. The one that belonged to him.

Vox.

He was alive.

A wild, jubilant spark flashed in Alastor's eyes. It was amazing! So that's where he was hiding! Not in the depths of Hell, not in some forgotten hole, but... He tried to grasp the echo, trace it to its source, determine its location.

But he failed. The pulse was too short, distorted by agony and... something else, something that masked its true nature, making its source blurry and indeterminate. It was as if the signal was passing through a dense, impenetrable filter.

Alastor slowly lowered his glass. His smile widened, revealing sharp teeth. The hunt, which had seemed hopeless, suddenly took on a new, dazzling meaning. Vox was alive. And he's out there somewhere. And Alastor now knew what to look for. It wasn't the body he needed, it wasn't the battery. He needed to catch that unique, treacherous signal again.

And upstairs, in his apartment, Vincent, unaware of anything, finally found silence. Dripping with tears and exhausted, he slowly bowed his head, and his forehead touched Matilda's shoulder. And she was still humming softly, stroking his hair and calling him by name.

"It's okay, Vincent," she whispered. "It's okay. I'm here."

And for him, at that moment, it was enough.

Chapter Text

The subsequent days were tinged with strange, dual tones for Vincent. On one hand, he felt a sharp, almost physical awkwardness from Mathilde having caught him in such a helpless, humiliating state. Every time he met her in the hallway, he felt a treacherous heat spread across his cheeks, and his first impulse was to avoid her gaze.

But Mathilde behaved as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened. She didn't mention his tears, didn't interrogate him about the reasons. She simply smiled softly each time she met him and said, "It's alright, Vincent. Everyone has difficult days. It's normal to feel." And there wasn't a drop of condescension or pity in her voice, only calm, unconditional acceptance.

It was this acceptance that became the most effective medicine for him and... the most exquisite punishment. Because it made him feel guilty. Guilty for his coldness, for his walls, for the emptiness he couldn't fill.

And then the "walks" began. With a maternal, yet iron resolve, Mathilde began to literally drag him out of the apartment. At first, they were short outings to the nearest park, then visits to quiet, secluded gardens on the outskirts of the Heavenly Spires. She wouldn't accept excuses about work. She would simply appear on his doorstep with a picnic basket and say, "You need a change of air, dear. Let's go."

And he, to his own surprise, went.

During these walks, Mathilde talked a lot. Most often—about her son. About his first steps, about the funny words he made up, about his hobbies, about his growing up. Her voice, calm and filled with warm nostalgia, had a hypnotic effect on Vincent. He listened, and the world around him temporarily lost its sharp, irritating edges. These stories were like a balm to his wounded, chaotic soul.

But on the other hand, they also wounded him. Sitting next to her on a bench, looking at her soft profile, he felt a sharp, aching guilt. She was sharing her most cherished memories with him, and he... he couldn't give anything in return. His past was a scorched desert where the wind only drove the dust of dry facts: "born," "worked," "died." He had no funny childhood stories, no warm family anecdotes. He had nothing to offer her except the humming silence of his own amnesia.

One day, they had a picnic on the edge of one of Paradise's glowing forests. The air was filled with the scent of unearthly flowers. Mathilde, having laid out the treats, began telling him some complicated recipe for a dish from her childhood, while simultaneously hand-feeding a couple of trusting, glowing squirrels. Vincent sat nearby on the perfectly manicured grass, with an air of deep concentration, trying to figure out a ball of soft yarn that Mathilde had thrust into his hands with the words, "Try it, it calms the nerves. Just wind and unwind it."

He felt ridiculous. His fingers, accustomed to holographic interfaces and the finest microchips, were helplessly tangled in simple woolen threads. But there was a strange rhythm to it. And under Mathilde's monotonous, soothing murmur about the proportions of flour and spices, his mind finally relaxed.

And then, staring at the endlessly tangling threads, he said it. Quietly, almost not for her, but for himself, as if suddenly realizing something that had always been lurking in the back of his memory.

"You know..." his voice sounded muffled. "It seems... I might have had a daughter."

He fell silent, surprised by his own words. It wasn't a memory. Not an image, not a name, not a face. Just a vague, deeply buried sensation. A feeling of responsibility. A shadow of tenderness mixed with eternal anxiety. A feeling that somewhere out there, in that forgotten life, someone was waiting for him.

He didn't remember having a daughter. But in that moment, among the yarn and to the accompaniment of her story, he felt it.

Mathilde stopped feeding the squirrels. She turned to him, and in her eyes there was no surprise, no intrusive curiosity. Only a bottomless, understanding tenderness.

"Really?" she asked just as quietly. "Tell me about her."

But Vincent just shook his head, staring at the yarn again. The thick veil had closed over the breakthrough once more.

"I... don't remember," he whispered. "It's just... a feeling I have."

Mathilde sighed softly but didn't insist. She simply placed her hand over his, on the ball of yarn, and gave a gentle squeeze.

"It's alright, Vincent," she said. "It's alright. Perhaps you'll remember someday. For now... just know that such feelings don't come from nowhere."

And so they sat in silence under the canopies of the glowing trees, while the squirrels finished their treats and Vincent finally began to slowly untangle the ball—both literally and figuratively. Step by step. Thread by thread.

The silence that followed his confession was not awkward, but rather, thoughtful and full of understanding. Mathilde didn't press, didn't demand more. She simply sat beside him, and her calm presence was the best response to his vague revelation.

After a while, as if to lighten the atmosphere, she began to speak again. This time about something inconsequential—about how one of her friends in Paradise had taken up gardening and was trying to cross Paradise roses with something resembling earthly orchids. Vincent listened, still feeling inside the faint, tremulous echo of those words—"I might have had a daughter."

It was then, in the middle of her story, that Mathilde uttered that name. Perfectly naturally, as something taken for granted.

"...and it reminded me of how my Alastor, as a child, tried to grow an apple tree in a flowerpot on the windowsill. Can you imagine?"

Alastor.

The name hung in the air, and Vincent froze. It struck him with an inexplicable force. It didn't trigger a flash of memory, didn't bring any images. It was like a muffled strike on an alarm bell, a sound he felt more in his bones than heard.

He tried the name on his tongue. Alastor. It seemed to him... strange. Old-fashioned. And yet, eerily familiar. It was as if it was on the very tip of his tongue, on the verge of recognition, but his mind, usually clear and sharp, stubbornly provided no information. No dictionary definition, no associations. Just emptiness, framed by a strange, disturbing resonance. It was irritating. Deeply.

Mathilde, unaware of his inner storm, continued, her voice growing quieter and sadder.
"I died a very long time ago,Vincent. And all these years... I hoped. Hoped that he would join me here." She was looking somewhere into the distance, into the shining expanse of the heavenly fields. "My boy... he wasn't a bad person. Complicated—yes. Stubborn, willful... but not evil. Not deep down."

She fell silent, and Vincent felt a slight tremor run through her hand, still resting on his.
"But the more time passes...the more I lose hope. Decades have passed already. People don't live that long. That means..."

She didn't finish. Her voice broke, and she turned away, but Vincent saw the gleam of tears on her eyelashes. It could only mean one thing—her son, her Alastor, had ended up in Hell.

A sharp, almost physical pain clenched Vincent's heart. Pain for her. And anger. A helpless, furious anger at the injustice of a system that could send the son of such a woman to eternal torment.

"Mathilde..." his own voice sounded hoarse. He turned to her, forgetting his own awkwardness, and placed his hand over hers. "Maybe... maybe there's a chance? Maybe he... redeemed himself?" He knew these words were empty. He himself had only just announced the first redeemed sinner in history. The chances were negligible.

She smiled bitterly, wiping her tears with an elegant handkerchief.
"You are very kind,Vincent. But we both know how it is. Alastor... he wasn't one to easily ask for forgiveness. He always preferred to stand his ground. Even if it meant burning." She took a deep breath. "I just pray that down there... it isn't too painful for him. That he finds at least a drop of that light that was in him once."

Vincent couldn't find a reply. All words of consolation seemed flat and fake in the face of such an eternal, maternal yearning. He could only sit beside her in silent support, feeling her grief become another heavy stone on his own, already burdened soul. And the name "Alastor" now burned in his mind like a brand, giving him no peace, offering no answers, only hinting at some terrible, hidden connection he was powerless to comprehend.

The silence after her words about the light in Alastor's soul was thick and layered. Vincent felt Mathilde's hand under his palm tremble again, but this time the tremor was different—not from current sorrow, but from a long-held, deeply ingrained pain. She stared into the space before her, as if seeing through the radiance of Paradise the ghosts of another, distant and dark past.

"You must understand, Vincent," she began, and her voice, usually so soft, became quiet and strained, "my life on Earth... it was far from a fairy tale. Very far."

She began to tell the story. Slowly, choosing her words with difficulty, as if pulling heavy, dust-covered chests from the storerooms of her memory. She told him about her husband. And with every word, an image formed in Vincent's imagination that made him physically sick.

He was a complete alcoholic. A failure who blamed the whole world for his shortcomings, but never himself. An abuser whose mood changed faster than the wind and always fell upon those who were weaker. A bastard who didn't shy away from raising his hand against his wife and his own son.

"He... he was always doubting him," Mathilde whispered, and in her eyes was an ancient, timeless pain. "Alastor. Said he... wasn't his. That I... that I had cheated on him. And that gave him even more 'right' to express his... 'masculine fury.'"

Vincent sat motionless, clenching his fists so hard his nails dug into his palms. He listened, and a cold, pure rage filled him. Rage at this unfamiliar, long-rotten man. At the system that allowed such things. He looked at Mathilde—at her kind, beautiful face, her elegant hands—and couldn't imagine how anyone could raise a hand to her.

And then she came to the worst part. To the day that must have forever divided her life into "before" and "after."

"One day he... didn't come home," her voice became very quiet. "At first I thought he'd gotten drunk somewhere. But not the next day... not after a week..." She paused, swallowing a lump in her throat. "They found him. In a dump on the outskirts of the city. With... a smashed-in skull."

Vincent felt an icy shiver run down his spine.

"And Alastor..." she continued, and now her words were barely audible, "he came home that day... beaten up. Badly. Covered in bruises, in dirt..." She paused, and exhaled the next phrase as if confessing to the most terrible sin. "And... and he was clutching... a brick in his hand. Covered in... dark stains."

She said nothing more. She didn't voice the terrible conclusions that suggested themselves. She just sat there, head bowed, her shoulders shaking silently.

Vincent pressed his lips into a thin, white line and sharply looked away. His brain, always seeking logical chains, had already constructed a gruesome, undeniable sequence. A teenager. An abusive, tyrannical father. A disappearance. A corpse with a crushed skull. A brick in the son's hands.

What could he say? "Perhaps your son is a murderer"? "Perhaps he took revenge for you and for himself"? These words stuck in his throat like a lump. He couldn't say them out loud. Not here. Not in Paradise. Not to this woman, who had already lived a life of hell on Earth and now hoped that her boy, even if a sinner, hadn't committed the worst of deeds.

Instead, he silently embraced her. The movement was awkward, uncharacteristic for him, but the only right one in that moment. He felt her body shudder with silent sobs.

And deep down, beneath the layers of shock and pity, something dark and uncomfortable stirred. Not condemnation for Alastor. No. Almost... understanding. Some deep, primal part of his being, the same part that had cried for no reason and felt nostalgia for the radio, responded to this story with a silent, furious roar of approval. If it was true... then that "bastard" got what he deserved. And the method by which it was done was brutal, primitive, and... effective.

But he immediately pushed these thoughts away, feeling guilty. He sat and held the weeping Mathilde, while his head rang with contradictions. Her son, her Alastor, was not just a sinner. He was a potential patricide. And Vincent, an angel, a TV host from the shining spires, couldn't find a single drop within himself to condemn him for it.

The silence that stretched between them was deafening. Vincent felt Mathilde's shoulder, pressed against his chest, trembling, and this tremor echoed inside him with a strange, alarming resonance. He analyzed his own emotions, and the result of this analysis made him shudder inwardly.

He felt no pity for the man whose image he had mentally constructed. Not a drop. Not the slightest regret for his demise. On the contrary, deep down, in the darkest and most hidden corner of his being, stirred something ugly and unseemly for an angel—a cold, indifferent, almost... satisfaction.

"That damn bastard got what he deserved."

The thought flashed with crystal clarity, and Vincent almost recoiled from himself. These were unforgivable, sinful thoughts. Thoughts for which one could be severely condemned in Paradise. An angel was supposed to grieve for every lost soul, to believe in the possibility of redemption for anyone. But he couldn't. Not for this man. The one who had raised his hand against Mathilde, against a child... in his opinion, had voluntarily forfeited his right to redemption the very moment he first struck them.

He forced himself to discard these dangerous reflections and turned his inner gaze to Alastor. His mind immediately offered a logical loophole, a saving straw.
"And who proved it?"his inner cynic remarked dryly. "A teenager came home beaten. Found a brick. A tyrannical father went missing and was found dead. The connection is obvious, but it's not proof. It could have been a coincidence. There could have been other enemies. It could have been an accident."

And he clung to this possibility. Not because he believed it, but because he saw—Mathilde was clinging to the same straw with all her might. She didn't want to, couldn't bear to think that her boy, her Alastor, could have done such a thing. For her, he remained forever a victim, not an executioner. And Vincent understood that he would not, had no right to, take this fragile illusion from her. He didn't elaborate on the topic, didn't ask leading questions. Some doors are better left closed forever, especially in Paradise.

He looked at her, at her tear-stained but still beautiful face, and was struck by her inner strength. Mathilde was light. She seemed ready to forgive her former husband much—the drinking, the failures, the insults, even the beatings directed at herself. But in her story, there was one clear, indelible line she could not cross. The beating of their son. There was no forgiveness for that. In her quiet, broken voice when she spoke of it, there was an unspoken, frozen rage. That was the one thing she, with all her boundless kindness, had never been able to forgive.

And then, in Vincent's head, already overflowing with contradictions, arose the most insoluble question. How? How could such a woman—intelligent, kind, radiant with inner strength and nobility—tie her life to that... wretch? How could she have married a man in whom, from the very beginning, there must not have been a single spark of the light that burned in her?

He didn't understand. His logic, built on data analysis and rationality, couldn't process this anomaly. People came together based on shared interests, goals, mutual benefit. What could Mathilde have found in that man? What dark magic, what chain of unfortunate circumstances or blind youthful naivety had led to this union, which doomed her to years of suffering and her son to a trauma that may have determined his dark fate?

He looked at her, and he was filled with a mixture of admiration, pity, and a poignant, almost paternal tenderness. She was both a victim and the heroine of her own tragedy. And he made a silent vow to himself. He couldn't fix her past. He couldn't bring her son back. But he could be here now. He could be the one to sit with her in silence, to listen to her stories, and to hold her hand when the ghosts of the past came to wound her again.

He wasn't a guardian angel in the official sense. But for Mathilde, he perhaps could be one.

Of course, here is the conclusion of this emotionally charged scene.

Time seemed to slow its passage as they sat in silence, and only Mathilde's ragged breathing gradually evened out, becoming deeper and calmer. She slowly pulled away, her shoulders straightening, and she ran her palms over her face, wiping the traces of moisture from her lashes. When she looked at Vincent again, there was embarrassment in her eyes.

"Oh, Vincent, please forgive me," she whispered, her voice still weak but without the hysterical tremor. "I didn't mean to... burden you with all that heaviness. All those old, dark stories. It's not right. You're already..."

She didn't get to finish. Vincent, still feeling the phantom warmth of her hand and the moisture of her tears on his palm, gently but firmly interrupted her.

"Mathilde, no," his voice sounded unexpectedly warm and convincing, without the habitual metallic note. He looked at her with his heterochromatic eyes, and in that moment, there was nothing in them but sincerity. "Don't apologize. Please. Never apologize for that."

He paused for a moment, choosing his words, which was a rare occurrence for him—usually words flowed easily and soullessly, like polished scripts.

"I... on the contrary, am very glad. And I deeply appreciate that you..." he hesitated slightly, "that you trusted me with something so intimate. That you shared a part of your life with me, even if not the brightest part."

He looked directly at her, and a smile appeared on his lips, against his will—not the usual television smile, but something softer, more genuine. A small, barely noticeable smile that touched only the corners of his lips but made his eyes soften.

"I cherish our friendship greatly, Mathilde. And it is a great honor for me that you consider me worthy of such trust."

Mathilde looked at him, and her embarrassment gradually melted away, giving way to a wave of boundless tenderness. Her eyes glistened again, but this time not from tears. She shook her head, and a soft, velvety, slightly damp laugh escaped her chest. There wasn't a trace of mirth in that laugh—only relief, acceptance, and a deep, silent gratitude.

"Oh, Vincent..." she exhaled, and her hand found his again in a light, friendly touch. "Thank you. Thank you."

And he, in response, merely smiled a little wider, feeling a strange, unfamiliar warmth spreading through his chest.

The weeks flowed relentlessly, like sand in giant celestial hourglasses, and the day of Vincent and Emily's departure for Hell was approaching at a frightening speed. This impending journey hung over Vincent like the sword of Damocles, exacerbating his already frequent migraines. The background pain in his temples had become his constant companion, a nagging hum to which his life now beat.

The already fragile equilibrium of his nervous system was now constantly tested by these new, forced "meetings" with Emily and Sir Pentious. They were the embodiment of everything that irritated him. Emily—with her inexhaustible, unbridled enthusiasm, which fell upon him in a waterfall of rapturous exclamations and naive questions. Sir Pentious—with his eternal nervousness, inappropriate comments, and that strange, inexplicable manner of sometimes freezing and simply staring at him.

This gaze of his yellow eyes from behind the heart-shaped glasses was especially unbearable. Vincent caught it upon himself at the most unexpected moments. The serpent didn't smile, didn't express approval or disapproval. He just looked with a sort of mute, studying curiosity, as if trying to solve a riddle he saw in Vincent. It made him want to shake him by the shoulders and demand an explanation.

The only islands of relative calm in this sea of irritation were those rare moments when the conversation slid onto the topic of mechanics and inventions. Vincent, to his own surprise, discovered that the Victorian serpent, for all his absurdity, possessed a keen and inventive mind. Their dialogues about the principles of steam engines, gears, or even primitive electrical circuits were devoid of that unbearable emotional load that accompanied everything else. It was a conversation between colleagues, two engineers speaking the same language of logic. In such moments, Pentious transformed; his voice lost its tremor, and his gestures became more confident. And Vincent, whose mind constantly craved intellectual stimulation, found it... almost pleasant.

But these moments were brief, like flashes of light in a tunnel. And then one day, during one of their meetings in the celestial garden, Pentious, who had been peacefully discussing the advantages of copper conductors over iron ones, suddenly fell silent, staring at Vincent again with that piercing gaze of his.

"Tell me, Mr. Whitman," he hissed, his voice becoming quieter and more thoughtful, "you wouldn't happen... to have had a brother? A twin, for example?"

Vincent froze. The question hung in the air, so unexpected and absurd that for a split second his consciousness completely shut down. Inside him, everything tightened into a taut, red-hot ball of pure, silent fury. The first, primitive, unfiltered reaction was an explosive, internal scream: "What the fuck business is it of yours?!"

His fingers convulsively clenched, digging into the fabric of his immaculate trousers. He felt the familiar pressure clamp his skull once more. He was on the verge of snapping, of casting aside this carefully constructed facade and spewing the accumulated irritation onto this annoying serpent.

But he couldn't. Image. Always the image.

He took a deep, almost imperceptible breath, forced the muscles of his face to relax, and pulled on the mask of gentle, slightly sad bewilderment.

"A brother?" his voice sounded even, with only a lightly, artfully emphasized note of pensiveness. "You know, Sir Pentious, I... am afraid I don't remember. In fact, my memories of life before Heaven are rather... scarce."

Emily, always ready to help and smooth over awkwardness, immediately chimed in, beaming her disarming smile:
"Oh,yes! Sera said that Vincent's soul was a bit damaged during his arrival in Heaven! That sometimes happens with... uh... especially intense transportation! That's why he remembers almost nothing about his past life. But that's not the main thing, right? The main thing is that he's here with us now!" Towards the end of her speech, her voice trembled, and an expression of sympathy, which he was already sick of, appeared on her face.

Vincent listened to her, and everything inside him grew cold. These words, which were meant to sound like comfort, were a bitter pill for him, a reminder of his own inadequacy, of the yawning emptiness within him.

But outwardly, he merely nodded, his face expressing calm acceptance of this sad fate. Then he turned to Emily, who was looking at him with an abyss of genuine pity in her shining eyes. He reached out and gently, almost paternally, smoothed her disheveled, iridescent hair.

"Don't worry, dear Emily," he said, and his voice was velvety and soothing. "Everything that happens, happens for the best."

At that moment, performing this gesture and uttering these false, sweet words, Vincent Whitman felt like the greatest hypocrite in all of creation. And from this realization, his migraine only intensified, turning into a deafening roar inside his skull.

The idea that visited Emily was as sudden and bright as a lightning flash. Her eyes, already shining, lit up with a new, dazzling delight.

"The aquarium!" she exclaimed, clapping her hands. "I suddenly terribly wanted to see the glowing jellyfish! They're so calming! Vincent, Sir Pentious, let's go! Right now!"

Without waiting for an answer, she grabbed Vincent by the sleeve and dragged him along. He, gritting his teeth and feeling a new wave of migraine pounding in his temples, was forced to agree. The thought of spending a few more hours in this company made him nauseous, but openly contradicting Emily in her impulse was impossible.

Less than a minute later, they were standing on the threshold of the giant celestial aquarium. The vaulted hall was immersed in semi-darkness, and only a ghostly, iridescent glow came from the giant transparent walls, behind which swam creatures of light and rainbow foam. The air was cool and humid.

It was here, in this mysterious twilight, that Sir Pentious, who had been gazing enchanted at a passing giant manta ray, turned to Vincent. His yellow eyes behind the heart-shaped glasses stared at him again with that unbearably studying look.

"Tell me, Mr. Whitman," he hissed, "do you... have wings at all? I haven't seen you spread them even once. All the angels here fly, but you... you move differently?"

The question, asked with a childlike, utterly unconcealed curiosity, caught Vincent off guard again. He froze for a couple of minutes, his mind feverishly analyzing possible subtexts, hidden mockery, or provocation. But in the serpent's eyes, he saw only pure, unclouded curiosity.

And then Vincent laughed. It wasn't his usual, television-polite laugh, but a short, slightly hoarse, yet surprisingly... genuine sound. His wings were one of the few things in this world he was sincerely proud of.

"I do," he replied, and a light, almost conspiratorial smile sounded in his voice. "I just don't like to show them off unnecessarily."

He took a step back into a more lit part of the hall. His cybernetic wings, when folded, fit snugly against his back, forming a sort of stylish, geometric cloak made of white and blue panels with inserts of matte black and blue.

Then, with a soft, almost inaudible mechanical hum, he unfurled one wing.

The light from the aquariums fell on it, and Sir Pentious let out a quiet, admiring hiss. Even Emily, tearing herself away from the jellyfish, gasped.

It was unlike any angelic wing in Heaven. It wasn't soft and fluffy, nor did it consist of feathers in the conventional sense. It was a work of engineering art. Long, thin segments, resembling feathers, were made of shining white and blue polymer with sharp, geometric shapes. They were arranged in even rows, creating perfect, flawless symmetry. Towards the base of the wing, the segments were shorter and stiffer, forming a powerful, angular structure with large square panels connected by thin, almost invisible plates. Scattered across the entire surface of the wing were small round elements—screws, fastenings, glowing blue dots—that gave the structure an incredibly technological and complex appearance. The wing looked both fragile and incredibly strong, as if forged from light and steel.

Vincent watched Pentious's reaction with unconcealed pleasure. He saw not just delight, but professional, engineering interest ignite in the serpent's eyes. He saw him examining the joints, the panels, the very architecture of the wing.

"Marvelous..." whispered Pentious, his finger trembling as if he wanted to touch but didn't dare. "What craftsmanship... What precision! It's... pure mechanics, enhanced by... uh... celestial materials?"

Vincent nodded, still smiling. At that moment, he wasn't a TV host or a tormented official. He was a creator, showing off his best creation.

"Something in between," he replied, allowing the wing to fold back with the same soft hiss. "They are functional. And... yes, I love them. They are a part of me."

And in that moment, under the ghostly light of the aquarium, looking at the sincere admiration in the eyes of the former sinner, Vincent felt a surge of pride.

With a soft, almost inaudible mechanical hum, Vincent's cybernetic wing folded back, returning to its usual, cloak-like appearance. For a moment, silence reigned, broken only by the steady hum of the aquarium systems and the muffled splash of water. Then Emily, still under the impression, swept them along again, continuing her enthusiastic march.

They passed halls with shimmering schools of tropical fish, drifted past grottos where majestic rays floated leisurely like shadows from another world, and finally found themselves before a giant, towering aquarium where different, more formidable inhabitants ruled.

Sharks.

Vincent stopped, his heterochromatic eyes gazing through the glass into the cool, bluish water. There, in the semi-darkness, several creatures glided, smoothly curving. Their bodies were the embodiment of ancient, ruthless efficiency. They didn't fuss, didn't dart about. Their movements were full of calm, predatory grace.

He couldn't say he liked sharks. That word was too soft, too emotional for what he felt. But he couldn't say he disliked them either. They... fascinated him. There was a sort of primal, inexorable force in them. Their cold, empty gaze, the perfect streamlining of their forms, their very essence, honed by millions of years of evolution—all of it evoked a strange tremor in his soul. Not fear, but something like respect for a perfect killing machine.

Emily and Pentious were discussing something in low voices nearby, but their voices reached Vincent as a distant hum. His consciousness was completely absorbed by the spectacle. Slowly, almost unconsciously, he raised his hand and pressed his palm against the cool surface of the glass.

It was at that moment, looking at the ruthless maw of one of the sharks, that a question was born in his head. He turned his head, his gaze sliding past the radiant Emily and falling upon Sir Pentious.

"Tell me," Vincent's voice sounded thoughtful, without its usual announcer's tone, "in Hell... are there analogues of animals? Its own... fauna?"

Pentious flinched, tearing himself away from contemplating the shark, and his yellow eyes behind the glasses stared at Vincent. He hesitated for a moment, as if digesting the question and deciding how deep to go into this topic.

"Uh-h-h... yes," he finally hissed, nervously adjusting his top hat. "There were. There are. Various... creatures. Often... dangerous. Or... unpleasant."

He didn't go into details. He didn't describe swarms of shrieking, flying creatures with needles instead of feathers, or slimy, multi-legged beasts writhing in the infernal muck, or those that were pure nightmares. The sight of the sharks behind the glass seemed to evoke enough grim associations on its own.

Vincent, sensing his reluctance to elaborate, nodded. He wasn't insisting. The fact itself was important to him. Hell wasn't just a gathering of sinners. It was a whole world, with its own ecosystem, its own predators and prey. A world living by its own, cruel, but its own laws.

He turned back to the aquarium. His hand was still on the glass. One of the sharks, a large one with an almost black back, slowly turned and swam right past him, so close that he could see every tiny tooth in its gaping maw. Their gazes met—the cold, bottomless gaze of an ancient predator and the dual, analytical gaze of a cybernetic angel.

And in that moment, Vincent felt a strange, almost mystical kinship. Not with the shark itself, but with the principle it embodied. Cold efficiency. Impartiality. Strength unburdened by morality or doubt. The very same strength that, perhaps, ruled in Hell. And the very same that lay hidden somewhere in the deepest depths of his own, locked-away memory.

He stood like that for a few more minutes, motionless, until Emily tugged at his sleeve to show him the "adorable little octopuses" in the next hall. Vincent allowed himself to be led away, but the image of the shark, swimming in the blue abyss, remained with him—cold, fascinating, and provoking anxious thoughts.

———

Deep night in Heaven. The light in Vincent's apartment was dimmed to a minimum, only the flickering holographic screens cast bluish reflections on his concentrated face. The migraine, his eternal companion, had receded, giving way to a feverish, almost obsessive focus. An idea was spinning in his head, like an obsessive motif. A small one. Strange. Bordering on madness.

What if... he tried to connect to Hell's network?

It sounded absurd. Heretical. Monstrous. The two realities were separated not just by space, but by their very essence. But Vincent wasn't just an angel. He was a living gateway, a central processor. His nature allowed him to perceive information in its purest, electronic form. What if the chasm between the worlds wasn't so insurmountable for a signal of a certain frequency?

It was a needle he was trying to thread on a cosmic scale. The next four hours were a true hell of effort and torment for him. He broke through frequency barriers that burned him from the inside like electricity. He hacked encryption protocols that made his halo flicker like a damaged lamp. He felt the resistance of reality itself, dense as lead. Sweat streamed down his temples, and his fingers, flying over the holographic keyboard, trembled from overexertion.

And then, after four hours of titanic struggle, he felt it. A click. Quiet but distinct, in the very depths of his consciousness. The barrier collapsed.

He was in.

Before his mind's eye, superimposed on the celestial interfaces, the digital landscape of Hell unfolded. And his first mental sigh was colored not by horror, but... by disappointment.

It's the same stupid content as on Earth, ran through his head with caustic sarcasm.

Social networks full of angry posts and self-aggrandizement. Memes, only even darker and more cynical. Endless streams of meaningless videos. Yes, there was an order of magnitude more pornography and gore, it popped up at every step like intrusive ads, but the essence remained the same—the same chaos, the same thirst for attention, the same base instincts, just presented without cuts or embellishments.

He scrolled through the feed, feeling a strange déjà vu, when his gaze caught on a random screenshot. It showed a demon with a TV for a head, its screen distorted by a furious scream. Vox. The very one Pentious had talked about so much.

And at that moment, Vincent felt an inexplicable, sharp pang in his chest. A small but distinct longing. And something like... recognition? As if he had seen this demon not in a picture, but somewhere else. Where? He didn't know. The thought was so absurd and frightening that he immediately, forcefully, pushed it away, as if swatting away a poisonous insect. "Nonsense. Overwork," he mentally grumbled and continued his search.

He wasn't interested in Hell's pop culture, but its infrastructure. He was looking for databases, official documents. And soon he found what he was looking for—an archive with documents on the population recount. The last update was dated... 2011.

Vincent mentally bluescreened, and a crooked, silent smirk appeared on his lips.
Well then,he thought with icy sarcasm, at least for some time the Queen and King of Hell gave absolutely zero fucks about their kingdom.

Then his attention was drawn to another folder—"Overlords. Current List (Conditional)."

He opened it. It was a chaotic collection of files, dossiers, rumors, and outright fiction. There was no unified system, just a pile of information that someone had lazily swept into one heap. And so, scrolling through it, he stumbled upon an article. Not a dossier, but an article, written with a mixture of bilious envy and obsequiousness. It was dedicated to an Overlord who, apparently, evoked mixed feelings in Hell.

And there, in the text, flashed a name that made Vincent freeze, rooted to the spot. A name he had heard very recently from Mathilde's lips. A name that evoked a strange, disturbing resonance in him.

Alastor. The Radio Demon.

The name "Alastor" burned in Vincent's consciousness like a warning light. He focused, blocking out all other data streams, and immersed himself in reading.

The article, like everything in this network, was written in a venomously rapturous tone, but facts—or what passed for facts in Hell—shone through it. With each paragraph read, Vincent's inner turmoil grew, and the image formed from Mathilde's stories began to crack and crumble.

According to the text, Alastor was a powerful Overlord, "who suddenly appeared in Hell in the 1930s." His arrival was marked by a "great and terrible slaughter," during which he single-handedly destroyed several influential demons and seized their domains. He was called the "Radio Demon," and his power was based on ancient, "shadowy" magic and incredible strength that allowed him to subjugate other sinners.

Vincent blinked slowly, shifting his gaze from the text to the ghostly reflection of his own face in the dark screen. The 1930s? But Mathilde died in the 1910s. Her son, if he had ended up in Hell, would have arrived there around that time. The chronology matched. But everything else...

He read on. His methods were described: soul deals, sophisticated tortures, psychological manipulation. He was feared. He was respected. He was hated. He was charismatic, theatrical, ruthless, and... powerful. Very.

And here Vincent experienced cognitive dissonance. The image painted by Mathilde—a boy, a victim of domestic abuse, perhaps driven to despair and committing a terrible deed—did not mesh with the portrait of a calculating, powerful arch-demon who wasn't a victim of circumstances but created them himself. Victims rarely become Overlords of Hell. For that, you need not just rage. You need an innate, unprincipled will to power, a thirst for dominance, and a certain... propensity for cruelty.

"Could it be... the same person?" he asked himself mentally, feeling a cold uncertainty grip him.

He tried to imagine it. The boy with a brick in his hand, trembling with fear and rage. And... that same boy, become a demon who makes deals with a smile and tears his enemies apart with shadows. A chasm lay between these two images. Yes, trauma could harden someone. But to give birth to this... it must have been not just trauma. It must have been something that was inside from the very beginning.

Vincent leaned back in his chair, running a hand over his face. He looked at the name again. Alastor. It no longer seemed to him just the name of his neighbor's unfortunate son. Now it was filled with a different meaning—power, danger, and a thousand unsolved mysteries.

He didn't know what to think. But one thing he understood clearly: he would never, under any circumstances, tell Mathilde what he had found. Some hopes, even the most fleeting, were more merciful than the harsh truth. And he wasn't going to deprive her of that last comfort. Let her continue to believe that her Alastor, whatever he was, still held deep within him that spark of light she had once seen in him.

Sera's radiant office seemed especially bright and oppressive today. Every beam of light falling from the stained-glass windows felt like it was drilling directly into Vincent's eye sockets, exacerbating his already hellish migraine. He stood before the massive desk, trying to maintain a posture of composure and attention, while Sera outlined the final details of their upcoming "visit" to Hell. Her voice, even and authoritative, reached him through the growing roar in his ears, as if from under a thick layer of water.

"...and remember, Vincent, your task is to observe and record. No independent initiatives. We don't know what to expect from this... establishment..."

Her words merged into a monotonous stream. Vincent nodded, his gaze glassy, his fingers clenched behind his back trembling weakly. The pressure in his skull intensified, turning into an unbearable, throbbing pain. He felt sweat trickling down his temples.

And suddenly...

The world swam. The light in the office dimmed, replaced for a moment by another—muted, warm, yellowish. In his ears, drowning out Sera's voice, music began to play. A hoarse, soulful saxophone, a steady drum rhythm... jazz. Old, vinyl jazz. He felt the weight of a glass in his hand, the coolness of the glass. And... someone's voice. Low, velvety, full of hidden mockery. He was saying something, laughing... Vincent couldn't make out the words, but he felt the tone—biting, intellectual flirtation, full of mutual... respect? Rivalry?

He saw vague outlines—a red-and-black jacket, sharp shoulders, long fingers wrapped around an old-fashioned microphone...

"...never understood your obsession with that noise, my dear. True music is silence, interrupted by the right... pauses..."

The voice. It was so close. So familiar.

Vincent felt the floor give way beneath him. Nausea rose in his throat. The roar in his ears turned into a deafening howl, ready to tear his skull apart from the inside. He saw Sera's hand on the table clench into a fist, her white eyes widened, but he couldn't make out her expression. He was on the edge. One more second—and he would collapse.

And at that moment, as if by magic, as if someone had pressed an invisible button, the vision disappeared.

Abruptly. Silently.

The music cut off. The image dissolved. The sensation of the glass in his hand vanished. The voice fell silent. The roar in his ears subsided, leaving behind only a ringing, deafening emptiness and the familiar, pressing pain.

He stood, swaying, and remembered nothing. No music, no voice, no feeling of being on the verge of fainting just a second ago. In his memory, there was only a gap, a white noisy spot, and from it—slowly, treacherously—a trickle of warm, golden blood flowed from his lip.

"Vincent!"

Sera was already beside him. Her movement was swift. She sharply lifted his head, her fingers digging into his chin with a force that left no room for resistance. Her white, all-seeing eyes peered intently into his heterochromatic pupils, searching for an answer, traces of what had just happened.

"What's wrong with you? What happened?" — her voice was sharp, devoid of its usual velvety coating. There was alarm in it. Deep, genuine, and therefore even more frightening.

Vincent blinked, trying to focus on her face. His own voice sounded hoarse and distant, as if coming from another room.

"I... don't know." He ran his tongue over his lip, smearing the blood. "Just... suddenly... my head. It hurts badly. The blood... again."

He saw her gaze linger on the golden drop by his nose, saw her own features momentarily twist into something resembling... guilt? Fear? But that expression immediately disappeared, replaced by the usual, firm mask.

"You need rest, Vincent," she declared, releasing his chin. Her voice became even and authoritative again. "Right now. I cannot allow you to go on a mission in this condition. Go home. Lie down. We will talk later."

He didn't argue. He just nodded, feeling completely broken and drained. He turned and walked towards the exit, unable to shake the tormenting feeling that he had just seen something very important... and immediately forgotten it hopelessly. And in his ears, like a ghost, the melody he had never heard echoed.

The way home was one continuous wandering in a fog for Vincent. The pounding in his temples merged with the rhythm of his steps, and that same ringing howl that had drowned out Sera's voice still echoed in his ears. He flew through the corridors mechanically, barely seeing anything in front of him, his only goal being the silence and darkness of his apartment.

When he finally turned into his corridor, he was stopped by an unexpected sight. At his door, on the cold, shining floor, sat Emily. She had her legs tucked up, hugging her knees, and her head was bowed so low that her long, iridescent hair completely hid her face. Her wings drooped helplessly, forming a disheveled, sad halo around her. Her entire being, usually so light and airy, seemed unbearably heavy.

She was crying. It was clear from the quiet, ragged sobs shaking her shoulders. It was unclear how long she had been sitting there—minutes or hours.

Vincent's first reaction, through the veil of his own pain and fatigue, was irritation. "Again. More of these emotions. More of someone else's problems. Right now, when I'm at my worst..."

He wanted to walk past her. Politely ask her to leave. Say he wasn't in any state. But his legs refused to obey. He looked at her hunched figure, at this defenselessness, and something stirred inside him. To leave her here, in such a state, on the cold floor... he couldn't. It would be... wrong. Completely irrational, but wrong.

And then it hit him. In this state, vulnerable, almost curled into a ball, she reminded him of... He froze, trying to grasp the elusive image. Who? Someone's shadow? Someone's forgotten grief? The thought flashed and evaporated, leaving nothing but an aching feeling in his chest. Anyway, it didn't matter now.

With a deep, internal groan, feeling his migraine respond to his movement with a new wave of pain, he slowly knelt on one knee before her. The parquet felt cold even through the fabric of his trousers.

"Emily?" — his voice sounded quieter and hoarser than he had intended. "What happened?"

She didn't answer, just buried her head deeper into her knees. Her shoulders shuddered. Vincent hesitated for a moment, then, with a movement full of unexpected caution for himself, reached out. He gently pushed aside a strand of her hair that had fallen on her cheek to see her face.

What he saw made his heart clench. Her shining eyes were red and swollen from tears, wet tracks ran down her silvery skin, and her lips trembled. She looked utterly lost and childishly unhappy.

"I... I..." — she tried to say something, but her voice broke into a plaintive, incoherent babble. She covered her face with her hands again. "Can't... can't say..."

She wasn't just upset. She was in despair. Vincent had never seen her like this. Her usual, inexhaustible optimism had evaporated, leaving behind only the bitter residue of genuine grief.

And at that moment, looking at her face distorted by suffering, Vincent forgot his own pain. Or rather, it didn't go away, it just receded into the background, becoming a background hum to someone else's, more acute tragedy. He forgot his irritation, his desire to be alone.

He didn't know what had happened. He didn't know what to say. But he knew he couldn't leave her alone. Slowly, giving her time to pull away if she wanted, he placed his hand on her head, just as Mathilde did with him when he felt bad. His fingers touched her soft, rainbow hair.

"It's alright," he said quietly. "It's alright. Don't rush. Just... breathe."

And they remained sitting like that in the quiet, deserted corridor—the crying young seraphim and the angel with a bloody nose and a splitting headache.

Several long minutes passed before Vincent managed to gently but firmly help Emily up from the floor and guide her into his sterile, shining apartment. He sat her down on the snow-white sofa, which sharply contrasted with her sad, disheveled appearance. He himself, fighting nausea and the hum in his head, poured a glass of cold water in the kitchen and pressed it into her hands.

"Drink," he said shortly, and his voice sounded not like an order, but a statement of necessity. "Slowly."

Emily obediently took a few small sips, her fingers trembling, making the water sway in the glass. Gradually, her breathing evened out, and her shoulders stopped shaking so desperately. She sat, staring into the transparent liquid as if hoping to find answers to her questions at the bottom.

Vincent sank into an armchair opposite, feeling every muscle in his body ache with fatigue. He watched her, and his professional, analytical mind, through the veil of his own malaise, began processing the data. Her despair wasn't a random outburst, but something accumulated.

"So," he broke the silence, his voice quiet so as not to startle her. "Now that you've calmed down a bit... is everything alright?"

Emily guiltily averted her gaze, staring at the wall. Her fingers gripped the glass so hard her knuckles turned white.

"No," she whispered. "It's not alright."

She fell silent, choosing her words.
"It's...it's Sir Pentious," she finally exhaled, and her voice trembled again, but this time from helplessness, not sobs. "Lately... he... he's stopped being happy about anything at all."

She looked up at Vincent with her huge, moist eyes, which held genuine pain.
"He doesn't look happy.At all. He... he looks lost. Unhappy. As if he's not here, but somewhere far away, in the worst place imaginable."

She spoke faster, the words spilling out like from a breached dam.
"I really tried,Vincent! I took him to the most beautiful gardens, showed him the choirs, introduced him to other angels, we watched the glowing jellyfish! I thought if I surrounded him with all this light and beauty, he'd get better! But... but nothing works! He smiles, nods, says 'thank you,' but I can see it! I see there's nothing behind that smile! Only emptiness!"

She covered her face with her hands again, but this time there were no tears—only a bitter, heart-wrenching despair.
"Did I do something wrong?Did I offend him without even noticing? Or... or am I just not trying hard enough? Maybe I'm not good enough to help him?"

Her voice held such sincere, childlike confusion and guilt that Vincent felt something sharp and stabbing in his chest. He looked at her—this shining, kind being who was desperately trying to bring light and joy, and who was now blaming herself for not being able to heal the deep, ingrained sorrow of a soul that had passed through Hell.

He wanted to say something cynical. Something like: "He spent decades in hell, what did you expect?" But the words stuck in his throat. Because he saw—for Emily, this wasn't just about "fixing a sinner." It was personal. She had invested her heart in it. And now that heart was breaking because her efforts were in vain.

Vincent listened to her tirade, and his first impulse was irritation. This naivety, this childish belief that a little radiance and kindness were enough to erase centuries of sin and sorrow. He wanted to tell her the truth—the cruel, cynical, and bleak truth. That some wounds don't heal. That some voids cannot be filled.

But he looked at her trembling shoulders, at her eyes full of tears and self-reproach, and all his barbs got stuck in a lump in his throat. He just sighed quietly, with infinite weariness.

"Emily," his voice sounded unexpectedly soft, interrupting her stream of self-flagellation. "Listen to me."

He forced himself to stand up, walk over to her, and sit down next to her on the sofa. The springs softly gave way under his weight.
"It's not your fault,"he said firmly, looking directly at her. "Do you hear me? None of it is."

She tried to object, to mumble something about "not trying hard enough," but he gently but inexorably continued, taking the initiative.
"You've done more for him than anyone else in this place.You gave him friendship, you showed him kindness. But you can't... rewrite his past. You can't erase his memories."

Mentally, he cursed himself. His words sounded clumsy, rough, as if he were reading a dry manual. "If only Mathilde were here..." he thought wistfully, "she would have found the right words. She would have known how to comfort." But Mathilde wasn't there. There was only him, his splitting headache, and the crying young seraphim.

"Sometimes..." — he struggled to find the words, feeling completely out of his element — "...people, even those who have made it to Heaven, need time. Just... time. To come to terms with what they've lost. Even if what they lost was terrible."

He wasn't sure she understood. How could she understand longing for Hell? But it seemed his words, however awkward, had reached her. She stopped trembling and looked at him, listening intently.

And then it dawned on him. He didn't need to philosophize. She didn't need complex explanations. She needed a distraction. To give her overheated brain and broken heart a respite.

He stood up and walked over to his holographic interface. A few quick commands—and a screen lit up on the wall.
"You know what,"he said, returning with two packs of heavenly chip analogues, "sometimes the best way to help is to just stop trying to help."

He shoved one pack into her hands and kept the other for himself. Then he took a perfectly folded soft blanket from the back of the sofa and draped it over her shoulders.
"We're not going to solve anything right now.We're just... going to watch a movie."

He chose the first cartoon he found in the children's section—"Finding Nemo." A story about loss, fear, and how love makes us overcome any obstacles was perhaps not the best choice, but it didn't matter now.

An hour later, a strange but peaceful atmosphere reigned in the apartment. Emily, wrapped in the blanket up to her ears, was snuggled against his shoulder, mindlessly crunching on chips. Her wings lay softly on the sofa, and the tension had finally left her body. Vincent sat beside her, his own headache dulled to a tolerable background hum. He wasn't watching the cartoon so much as looking through it, but his presence was stable and calm.

They sat like that—the angel TV star, exhausted and bloodied, and the young seraphim with a broken heart—watching the story of a little fish. And in this absurd, quiet situation, there was more genuine, sincere "grace" than in all his televised sermons. It was simple, silent human compassion. And, strangely enough, it worked.

The day of departure arrived, cold and emotionless, like all schedules in Heaven. The meeting point was the empty, echoing Hall of Judgment. The high vaults soared into the radiant heights, and the marble floor reflected their vague figures like an underground lake. The silence here was special—not peaceful, but viscous and ominous, as if the walls still held the echo of long-uttered sentences.

Vincent stood motionless. His usual impeccable suit was now complemented by functional details. Compact headphones with a microphone were attached to his ears, their black matte plastic sharply contrasting with his light hair. His hands were covered by thin black gloves that didn't restrict movement but, as he knew, could serve as an additional interface for communication or analysis. But the most noticeable change was the translucent blue sensor covering his eyes like a mask. Through its flickering surface, one could guess the outlines of his eye sockets, but the eyes themselves—their blue and green colors—were not visible. He looked like a cybernetic spy ready for a landing in a hostile environment, not a messenger of good.

Beside him, like a bright butterfly against the backdrop of severe architecture, Emily fluttered about. She was nervous; it was evident from how she fidgeted with the hem of her dress and kept glancing at the portal flickering in the center of the hall—a rift in reality beyond which lay Hell.

"Ready?" her voice echoed in the emptiness of the hall.

Vincent only nodded silently, his gaze (hidden behind the sensor) fixed on the vortex of shining energies. Emily, gathering her courage, smiled at him—an attempt at encouragement that looked rather pitiful—and took a step forward. Her figure dissolved in the portal's radiance, leaving behind only a slight trembling of the air.

Vincent had already taken a step to follow her when Sera silently emerged from the shadow of one of the columns. Her appearance was as sudden as ever.

She stopped in front of him, her white, all-seeing eyes studying his cybernetic mask. The air around her seemed denser, colder.

"Vincent," she said, and her voice was quiet but heavy as lead. "Good luck."

There was no warmth in this wish. No hope for the mission's success. It was a cold, calculated message. A wish for survival. A wish not to fail. A wish to do what was necessary and return with results. And in the depths of her gaze, which he caught even through the blue filter of the sensor, he read the unspoken order, the one she had implanted in his mind: "Protect Emily. At any cost."

He nodded to her, briefly and respectfully. No words. No unnecessary emotions. Then he turned and stepped into the blinding, silent void of the portal. Cold pierced him to the bone, and for a moment the world turned into a mush of light and static. The last thing he felt before reality flipped was the icy, motionless gaze of Sera, seeing him off into the inferno with a smile on her lips.

On the other side of reality, in the main hall of the Hazbin Hotel, the air shuddered. For a moment, in the center of the room, where the piano usually stood (now silent), a dazzling vortex of shining energy hovered. From it, as if from a burst star, Emily fluttered out. She almost stumbled, but her face shone with joyful relief.

"Charlie!" she exclaimed and, without wasting a second, rushed to the Princess of Hell, wrapping her arms around her.

Charlie, though a bit startled, readily hugged her back, her own smile wide and genuine.
"Emily!I'm so glad to see you!" — she looked over the seraphim's shoulder into the flickering portal. — "And where is that... reporter? The one Sera wrote about?"

Emily, still beaming, pulled back and gestured towards the portal.
"Oh,Vincent? He... he's probably saying goodbye to Sera right now. He's very responsible! He always..."

She didn't get to finish. The portal flared up again, and this time, he emerged.

In the semi-darkness of the hall, illuminated only by a few pathetic, flickering lamps (a legacy of Vox's disappearance and the sinners' desperate attempts to restore some semblance of light), Vincent's figure seemed alien. His white suit and impeccable appearance sharply contrasted with the shabby, slightly grimy luxury of the hotel. But he himself stood out the most. His cybernetic wings, folded behind his back, and the holographic halo above his head emitted a steady, soft blue glow, casting ghostly, moving shadows on the walls. He looked like a walking lantern in a world plunged into gloomy twilight.

A smile was frozen on his face. Calm, collected, perfectly rehearsed. It was soft, almost kind, but in its immutability, its flawless precision, there was a deceptive quality. It was a mask, behind which nothing was visible.

His gaze, hidden behind the translucent blue sensor, instantly assessed the situation, slid over Emily and Charlie, and settled on the Princess of Hell.

"Princess Charlie Morningstar," his voice sounded like a velvety, warm baritone that made the air vibrate. He made a small, respectful bow. "Allow me to express my gratitude for your hospitable reception."

Charlie, still holding Emily in the embrace, froze. The compliment delivered in such a voice, her official title coming from the mouth of a heavenly guest... a bright scarlet blush instantly flooded her cheeks. She looked down in embarrassment, smiling shyly.
"Oh!Well, I... we're very glad too! Welcome to the Hazbin Hotel!"

However, not everyone shared her delight. Emerging from the shadows where she observed the proceedings with her usual skepticism, was Vaggie. Her arms were crossed over her chest, and her face showed frank, unconcealed displeasure. Her sharp gaze studied Vincent from head to toe, lingering on his shining halo and impeccable suit. She didn't like this angel. She didn't like his smoothness, his radiance, and how he'd made Charlie blush from the very first glance. A silent but palpable tension hung in the air between the radiant emissary of Heaven and the cynical fallen angel, whose devotion to her girlfriend knew no bounds.

Vincent, with the same unchanging smile, slowly turned his head, surveying the hotel's main hall. His gaze, hidden behind the sensor, slid over the cracked walls, dusty candelabras, and the pathetic, flickering bulbs that barely dispelled the gloom.

"You know," he said in his velvety voice, breaking the prolonged pause, "it's rather... dark in here. Don't you think?"

Before anyone could react to this pointed, albeit politely delivered remark, he turned to his companion. From a small portable container, he retrieved and handed Emily a pair of stylish dark glasses.

"Just in case, my dear. Eye protection."

Then he turned back to Charlie and the others, his smile widening slightly, taking on a shade of businesslike confidence.
"As a token of gratitude for your hospitality,allow me to fix something. Consider it a gesture of goodwill."

In the corner of the room, Husk, without looking up from his glass (which he seemed to manage to refill even under total collapse), grumbled loudly:
"Oh yeah,sure. This saccharine, shiny popinjay is gonna fix our power grid with a wave of his wing. I can feel the heartburn from his holiness starting already."

Emily, putting on the glasses, immediately defended him, her voice ringing with pride:
"You don't understand!Vincent is... he's like the very concept of electricity and technology in Heaven! Everything flows through him! If anyone can help, it's him!"

Vincent didn't comment. He simply closed his eyes behind the blue sensor and slightly inclined his head. For a moment, silence fell, broken only by the nervous tapping of Sir Pentious's claws on the floor.

And then it began.

First, his cybernetic wings, usually folded behind his back, unfurled with a quiet mechanical hum. The white and blue panels glowed from within, and dazzling pulses of blue light raced along the vein-like conduits. The holographic halo above his head flared up, transforming into a bright, rotating ring of energy.

He stood like a living conductor, and a slight tremor ran through his body, from the tips of his gloved fingers to the very tips of his wings. He wasn't just "fixing" something. He was connecting. His consciousness, his will, his very essence, permeated with celestial technology, reached out to the remnants of Hell's energy grid—to the very electromagnetic waves once powered by Vox.

It was like a dying heart receiving a powerful, clean jolt from a defibrillator.

The lightbulb above Husk's bar counter, which had been barely glowing before, flashed on with a sharp CLICK, flooding the counter and the skeptical bartender himself with bright, warm light. One after another, throughout the hall, chandeliers, sconces, and floor lamps flickered and buzzed to life. The hotel's neon signs, dead all this time, lit up venomously and joyfully, casting familiar pink and green reflections on the walls.

The hum of revived refrigerators behind the bar, the steady noise of ventilation, the quiet, upbeat melody starting to play from long-silent speakers—all of this crashed down upon the hotel's inhabitants, deafening them after months spent in oppressive silence and semi-darkness.

To say that everyone, except Emily and Vincent himself, was surprised, would be a gross understatement.

Charlie stood frozen with her mouth agape, her eyes as wide as saucers. She looked at the radiant angel as if at a miracle made manifest.
Vaggie stopped frowning,her cynical expression replaced by purest astonishment. She slowly uncrossed her arms.
Husk dropped the rag he was using to wipe his glass and stared at the lit lamp above his head as if seeing it for the first time in his life.
Angel Dust whistled,taking off his new dark protective glasses and wiping them.
Cherri Bomb squealed with delight:"Yeees! Finally, we can play some proper tunes!"
Baxter adjusted his glasses and muttered something about"incredible energy efficiency."
Even Niffty let out a joyful squeak.

The Hazbin Hotel was bathed in light again. Bright, clean, heavenly light, emanating from the most unexpected source. And at the center of this suddenly revived world stood Vincent Whitman, still with the same calm smile, slowly folding his radiant wings. The "gesture of goodwill" was complete, and it had the effect of a bombshell.

"That's much better," he said in his velvety voice, as if he had just straightened a crookedly hanging picture, not brought an entire energy system back to life. "It's much cozier in here now."

Vincent, satisfied with the effect produced, was already contemplating his next move. Connecting to Hell's network was like opening a sluice gate—he now felt it from the inside, its broken threads, its dormant nodes. He could do more. Tune frequencies, stabilize the signal, perhaps even restore some communications. This would raise his authority in the eyes of these sinners and give him an undeniable advantage.

"And now," he began, addressing Charlie again with the same disarming smile, "I suppose we could also set up…"

He didn't finish. His hand, raised for a gesture, was suddenly grabbed by the wrist. The grip was steely, burning cold, and left no room for resistance.

From behind him, as if from nowhere, a voice sounded. Irritated, yet unpleasantly pleasant, like an old waltz played on a cracked vinyl record. A voice that sounded like a recording filtered through the roar of radio static.

"Don't rush, my technologically-inclined friend."

Chapter Text

Alastor felt it even before the lights flared. A sharp, clean surge of energy, piercing through the usual, dismal hum of Hell. It was unlike the crude attempts of local overlords to jolt the remnants of the network with their pathetic powers. No. This was different. Strangely familiar in its nature, yet utterly alien in its source. He hadn't felt a signal of such power and purity since... Well, since back then.

His shadows reported to him instantly: heavenly guests were at the Hazbin Hotel. One of them, a male angel, was the source of this disturbance. Interesting. Extremely interesting.

He materialized in the shadow of an archway, remaining invisible to the gathered crowd, and observed. He watched as this radiant dandy in an impeccable suit lit up the entire hotel with a mere act of will. Theatrical. Naive. Predictable.

Alastor watched with delight the mixture of shock and gratitude on the faces of the hotel's inhabitants. That little mouse, Charlie, was looking at the angel as if he had personally descended into her parlor. Delicious.

But when the angel, clearly proud of his trick, prepared to do something else, Alastor decided the show had gone on long enough. No one jolts his airwaves without an invitation. No one gives out gifts on his turf without paying the proper price.

He moved forward. His appearance was silent and instantaneous. With one hand, he grabbed the angel's wrist. The skin under the thin glove fabric was cool, and the pulse was rapid, even, like the ticking of a metronome. Electric.

The angel froze but didn't flinch, didn't try to pull away. Instead, he slowly, with exaggerated calm, turned his head. His face was framed by some kind of blue visor, hiding his eyes, but his lips were stretched in that same perfect, unbearable smile that Alastor detested with all his soul. Such smiles were worn by corrupt politicians and lying preachers.

"Don't rush, my technologically-inclined friend," his own voice sounded, filled with static and sweet, molasses-like venom. "No need to be so diligent in bringing your own rules to another's monastery."

He saw the angel's wings tense, heard a quiet mechanical click within them. Good. Let him know who he's dealing with.

The angel, however, didn't flinch. Instead, he laughed softly. The sound was as velvety and fake as his smile.

"Monastery?" he repeated, and a mocking note rang in his voice. "Forgive me, but observing the... technological vacuum that prevailed here before my arrival, I allowed myself to assume that Hell, since your Media Demon disappeared, preferred to return to antiquity. Civilization, as I see, is clearly not held in high regard."

The mention of Vox, uttered with such light, familiar condescension, struck Alastor like a whip. His own smile tightened for a moment, almost becoming a snarl. How dare this shining nobody utter his name? How dare he speak of him as if it were a mere passing fact?

Alastor leaned in a little closer, his staticky voice hissing like an overloaded radio.
"Oh,don't fret about our preferences, dear guest. We manage perfectly fine without your... newfangled luxuries. And as for my colleague..." he paused, letting the word hang in the air, "...his affairs are none of your concern. You'd do better to focus on your own. On observing. After all, that's why you were sent, isn't it?"

He intentionally squeezed the wrist a little tighter, making it clear his patience was not infinite. The game was only beginning, and Alastor intended to play it by his own rules.

Alastor looked at this angel, at his unflappable smile, and something clicked in the very depths of his memory, like a skipping record. The feeling was fleeting but persistent—as if he had already seen this manner of carrying oneself, this specific, polished-to-a-shine cynicism masked by courtesy. It was strange. Disturbing.

While Alastor mentally rummaged through the archives of his memories, the angel, without attempting to break free, slowly shifted his gaze from the hand gripping his wrist back to his face. He didn't seem bothered by such familiarity at all. On the contrary, his posture suggested curiosity, almost a scientific interest.

"It seems we haven't been properly introduced," his velvety voice didn't waver in the slightest. "Vincent Whitman. At your service."

The name hit Alastor with unexpected force. Vincent.

For one moment, brief as a static discharge, his own smile faltered. In his eyes, burning with red light, flashed something resembling shock. It was impossible. It was... too cruel a coincidence.

Vincent. That very name. The name he had heard only once, exhaled in a moment of rare, almost uncharacteristic nostalgia from Vox, when he, intoxicated by the power of his growing empire, had let his mask slip for a second. The name belonging to who the Media Demon was once, before the Fall. Before he was reborn as Vox.

But... no. It couldn't be him. This shining, cybernetic dandy from Heaven? This embodied ideal of righteousness? The thought was so absurd it caused Alastor almost physical revulsion. No, that Vincent, the local TV host, had died decades ago. It must be just a coincidence. A quirky, irritating trick of chance.

He quickly composed himself. His smile returned to its place, becoming even wider and sharper to hide the momentary lapse. The static in his voice intensified, hissing venomously.

"Oh, do forgive my tactlessness!" he released Vincent's wrist with exaggerated politeness, giving a small, theatrical bow. "Alastor. The Radio Demon. The proprietor of this... establishment, so to speak."

He straightened up, his cane tapping sharply on the floor.
"Vincent Whitman..."he drew out the name, tasting it, and found it bland and insipid. "What a... quaint name. Perfect for the midday heavenly news. So what brings you to our humble, civilization-deprived domain, Mr. Whitman? Besides, of course, a sudden urge to play electrician?"

He watched the angel, his hidden gaze, trying to catch any reaction to the spoken name. He searched for the slightest crack in this icy, radiant facade. Because if it really was a coincidence, it was far too convenient. And Alastor didn't believe in coincidences. He believed in conspiracies, in hidden plans, and in old enemies returning under new, devilishly inconvenient guises.

Vincent's remark about the "technological vacuum" and his familiar mention of Vox hung in the air, then crashed down upon the gathered crowd with a silence louder than any explosion. The universal amazement at the lights instantly turned into shock at his words.

Charlie straightened up sharply, her eyes again as wide as saucers, but this time with shock, not delight. "W-wait... You... you know about Vox? And about... Alastor?" her voice trembled with incomprehension. For her, Alastor was a mysterious, powerful partner, and Vox a distant, almost mythical rival. The thought that a heavenly angel possessed such knowledge was staggering.

Emily, who had been beaming with pride for Vincent just moments before, froze with a puzzled expression. "Vincent? But... how?" she whispered, looking at him as if seeing him for the first time.

Even Husk, usually indifferent to everything, raised an eyebrow, his gaze sliding from Vincent to Alastor and back. Vaggie frowned again, her initial astonishment replaced by suspicion. Angel Dust whistled: "Not bad, glowbug! So you're here on a spy mission after all?" Cherri Bomb stopped bobbing her head to the music and stared, while Baxter muttered: "Curious. So dossiers on Hell's Overlords are kept in Heaven..."

But Alastor himself seemed the most affronted. His smile remained in place, but sharp, red sparks of irritation danced in his eyes. Vincent didn't just know. He knew enough to make a biting remark. And now this angel... was turning away from him. Turning his back, albeit metaphorically, to address this motley audience. This sudden shift in focus, this feeling that his presence was no longer the center of the universe for this heavenly guest, grated on Alastor. It was... disrespectful.

Vincent, feeling the weight of the collective gaze upon him, sighed softly, like an adult forced to explain the obvious to children. He turned, now addressing everyone present, and his smile became slightly more condescending.

"My dears," he began, and his velvety voice sounded soothing, "how, pray tell, could I be sent on a mission to... such a specific place, being completely unprepared?"

He made a theatrical pause, letting the question hang in the air.
"Of course,I familiarized myself with all available information. And I must say, our mutual acquaintance, Sir Pentious, proved to be an incredibly generous source of knowledge."

He said it lightly, almost casually, but the effect was that of a thrown grenade.
"He was quite...eloquent when it came to the so-called 'Vees' and, in particular, their leader. About Vox. His tales of the media empire fueled by his power were truly... impressive."

Vincent didn't go into details, didn't say he had infiltrated Hell's network himself. He simply presented a convenient, plausible version, shifting the "blame" onto the absent Sir Pentious. It was an elegant trick that simultaneously explained his awareness and reminded everyone that the first redeemed sinner was now on their side—on Heaven's side.

Silence fell over the hall again, but this time it was tense, full of reassessment. The angel from Heaven was not just a radiant diplomat. He was informed. Very informed.

Alastor watched as his barb—the mention of Vox—was parried with such ease it inspired almost... respect. This angel didn't make excuses, didn't show nervousness. He simply redirected the blame to the absent serpent, presenting it all as routine intelligence gathering. Amazingly brazen.

But what was even more interesting was that Vincent, having finished his explanation, turned back to him. Not to Charlie, not to the others. To him. And his smile, still flawless, now seemed to Alastor a little more meaningful. A little more... targeted.

"Thank you for the introduction, Mr. Alastor," Vincent said, and his velvety voice was sweet as poison. "And now, if you don't mind..." His gaze, invisible behind the blue sensor, slid down to the hand still gripping his wrist. "My mission here is observation. And for that, I will require the ability to... move freely."

Alastor froze for a moment, his red eyes narrowing. The tone was polite, but there was steel in it. It wasn't a request. It was a demand, cloaked in courtesy. And this contrast—soft words and unshakable will—clicked in his memory again. He had encountered this before somewhere.

True to his theatrical nature, Alastor slowly, with exaggerated gentleness, unclenched his fingers. He even made a slight, dismissive gesture with his hand, as if shooing away a pesky fly, not a powerful heavenly emissary.

"But of course, my dear fellow!" his voice rang out piercingly sweet. "Forgive my... eagerness. We denizens of the lowlands can be so direct in our hospitality at times."

He took a step back, giving Vincent space, but his attention never left the angel for a second. He watched as he, finally free, turned to the other hotel inhabitants.

And then, as Vincent interacted with the others, Alastor caught it. That very manner.

He saw how Vincent addressed Husk—a short, succinct nod, a gaze assessing the bartender not as a person, but as a piece of the setting. Angel Dust—a polite but detached smile, as if he saw not a living being before him, but a set of statistical data on vice. Charlie—a slightly warmer, almost paternal tone that, however, didn't hide its mentoring superiority.

It wasn't just politeness. It was a cold, calculated management of social interaction. Every word, every gesture was calibrated and aimed at achieving a specific effect: to establish control, to obtain information, to maintain distance. This was the speech not of a preacher, but of... a corporate director. Or a television producer accustomed to the world revolving around his script.

And this manner... it was eerily familiar. He had seen it in the very beginning, when Vox was just starting to build his empire. The same charisma, the same hypnotic, polished glamour, behind which lay a steely, unprincipled will. The same way of looking at people as tools or an audience.

The difference was in the packaging. Vox was flashy, aggressive, explosive. His smoothness was like that of a polished razor blade—it cut and frightened. Vincent's smoothness was different—cold, sterile, like the surface of liquid nitrogen. It didn't cut; it froze, draining all life.

Alastor stood leaning on his cane, his smile becoming thoughtful. The coincidence of the name... The coincidence of manner... Too many coincidences for one evening. His initial irritation was replaced by a chilling, predatory interest. If this "Vincent Whitman" was indeed more than just an angel... if behind his radiant facade hid a shadow Alastor had once known... oh, then this business trip to Hell promised to become a truly delightful spectacle. And he eagerly awaited the moment this angel would tear off his mask. Voluntarily or... not.

The tour of the Hazbin Hotel was an endurance test for Vincent, comparable only to trying to debug chaotic, eternally glitching code. Emily, like a predictable and noisy processor, radiated delight over every little thing—from a dusty candelabra to a crookedly hanging picture. Her energy was almost tangible and, he regretfully admitted, exhausting.

"Oh, Vincent, look!" she exclaimed, grabbing his sleeve and pointing at another hole in the wall patched with something bright pink. "What... creative restoration! They're putting their soul into it!"

Vincent responded with a nod and his unchanging smile, mentally cataloging all the safety violations, architectural flaws, and frankly tasteless decisions. "Marvelous, dear Emily," he murmured, while his gaze, hidden behind the sensor, recorded another exposed wire. "Truly... a unique approach to design."

But his irritation, caused by Emily's naive enthusiasm, was merely a light background compared to another, much sharper and more gripping sensation. His attention, like a compass needle, constantly returned to Alastor.

The Radio Demon didn't openly participate in the tour. He was a shadow, sliding on the periphery, a ubiquitous static background. Vincent felt his gaze—heavy, studying, full of silent, mocking interest. He saw him at the end of a corridor, silently emerging from the shadows, then sitting in an armchair in an empty lounge, as if waiting for them. He didn't utter a word, only his cane tapped out a quiet, steady rhythm on the floor, like a metronome counting the seconds of this unbearable performance.

And each time he caught that gaze, Vincent felt a mixed shiver run down his spine—irritation and something else he couldn't define. The thought that this powerful, theatrical demon, this master of an adapted den of iniquity, could be that same boy with the brick, the son of the kind, gentle Mathilde, caused in him a cognitive dissonance so strong that his head began to ache again.

He watched how Alastor interacted with others—with Husk, with Angel, with Charlie herself. In his manners, there was the same detached politeness as in his own, but backed by a bottomless, predatory confidence. He saw how the demon inspired the princess, weaving his own, much more insidious threads into her naive speeches. And, to his greatest displeasure, Vincent had to admit: Charlie's idea, for all its utopian nature, here, under his wing, was taking on strange, bizarre, yet tangible forms. It wasn't hopeless. And a part of him, the one that analyzed data and calculated probabilities, couldn't help but note this fact.

But what bothered him most was this intense attention. Alastor watched him not as a threat or a guest. No. He looked at him as an interesting puzzle. As a new, complex riddle to be solved. And Vincent, who had spent his entire heavenly life being the one who asked questions and controlled the narrative, suddenly found himself in the role of the object of study.

And, he had to admit, it... amused him.

The thought flashed quickly, like an unauthorized impulse, and he immediately suppressed it. No. That was wrong. It was inappropriate. He should feel revulsion, righteous anger, disgust. But deep inside, beneath layers of fatigue and irritation, a tiny, dark feeling of satisfaction stirred. Being the object of such intense, almost obsessive attention from such a powerful being... there was a perverse compliment in that.

He immediately dismissed these thoughts, feeling a treacherous heat spread across his cheeks. He focused on Emily, on her endless stream of words, on the need to maintain the image. But he knew what he felt. And he knew that Alastor, with his piercing, all-seeing smile, had most likely noticed it too.

The tour was coming to an end, and Vincent felt as if his processor was overheating from processing too many contradictory data. But besides fatigue and irritation, he began to be haunted by another, stranger sensation—déjà vu.

When they passed by the bar, his gaze slid over Husk, shuffling a deck of cards. For a second, it seemed to him that he had already seen this scene—the hunched back, the tired look, the movement of the hands. He brushed the thought aside. "Statistically probable image of a bar regular," his inner logician whispered to him.

Then their path crossed with Angel Dust, who threw another ambiguous remark at him. And again—a vague feeling, as if this conversation had already happened. The same tone, the same biting playfulness. "Typical behavior for such a personality in a stressful situation," Vincent scolded himself.

Even Niffty, aimlessly sweeping the same patch of carpet, and Baxter, muttering over his test tubes, evoked an echo of some vague recognition in him. As if he had already seen this strange troupe assembled.

But the thought went no further than these fleeting sensations. Moreover, each such flash of pseudo-memory was immediately punished by a sharp attack of migraine, forcing him to squint behind the blue sensor. His mind, as if defending itself, flatly refused to dig deeper. "Not now," he ordered himself. "Focus on the current mission."

Finally, Charlie, beaming with pride for her establishment, led them to two adjacent doors in one of the more-or-less decent corridors.

"That's it!" she announced, clapping her hands. "I hope you like it here! Emily, your room is right here, next to mine and Vaggie's. I think you'll be more comfortable here."

Emily nodded joyfully, glancing at the door behind which, judging by the smell of hairspray and glitter, Cherri Bomb resided. It was all relatively logical.

Then Charlie turned to Vincent, and her smile became a bit more nervous.
"And you,Mr. Whitman... your room is... across the way."

She pointed to a massive, dark door directly opposite Emily's room. And Vincent, following her gaze, felt the blood freeze in his veins. Directly opposite his future refuge, at the end of the corridor, was another door. It was unlike the others—dark wood, intricate, almost gothic carving, and it seemed to emanate a faint, ominous vibration. Alastor's room.

Vincent barely managed to suppress a wave of the choicest, purely infernal curses that threatened to escape his tongue. His fingers involuntarily clenched into fists. "Across the way. God damn it. Across the way?!"

He forced his lungs to take a slow, controlled breath and his lips to stretch into a smile.
"Curious...allocation," he said, and his voice sounded surprisingly even, though everything inside was seething. "Could you clarify the logic?"

Charlie fidgeted in place, her cheeks reddening.
"Oh,it's... uh... just a little precaution!" she blurted out, avoiding his gaze. "Just in case! So that Alastor can... well, you know... be nearby. If anything happens."

Vincent and Emily exchanged glances. Emily's look expressed mild bewilderment and concern. Vincent's gaze, hidden behind the sensor, was full of icy, silent fury and cynical understanding. "Precaution." Of course. He had been placed in a cage opposite the predator himself, so he could keep an eye on the precious heavenly "asset."

He saw Charlie's genuine awkwardness and understood it wasn't her idea. It was Alastor's own will. The demon wasn't just observing. He had marked his territory. He had placed him directly under his watchful control.

"I see," Vincent nodded, his smile becoming hard as steel. "Very thoughtful. Thank you for your care."

He turned to his door, feeling the heavy, mocking gaze of Alastor, invisible but palpable, burning into his back. The room across the way. This promised to be a long and extremely tense visit. He grasped the doorknob, and the quiet click of the lock sounded like a shot announcing the beginning of the most intricate and dangerous game of his life.

The door clicked shut behind him, finally cutting off the noisy, irritating world of the Hazbin Hotel. Vincent leaned his back against it, allowing himself to lower his head and close his eyes for a moment. Silence. Blessed, albeit ominous, silence.

But he couldn't remain in that position for long. His gaze fell upon the room. A standard, worn-out room with pretensions of former luxury. Dust, faded velvet, the smell of old wood and something sweetly-putrid that seemed to permeate the very air of Hell.

No. This wouldn't do.

He straightened up sharply, and his fingers ran over the holographic interface on his wrist. With a quiet hum, several small drones, resembling shining metal insects, materialized in the air. Without a word, with a mental command, he sent them flying.

His first order of business was to sterilize the space. The drones got to work, emitting invisible ultraviolet rays that burned away dust and microbes. Simultaneously, they sprayed a fine, barely perceptible scent—pure, cold, devoid of any emotional notes, the smell of ozone and sterile polymer. The smell of his personal lab in Heaven. The smell of control.

As the drones buzzed, his gaze fell on the bedside table. And he froze. On it stood an old, Art Deco-style wooden radio. Exactly like the one Mathilde had given him, which was now gathering dust in his closet.

For some reason, the sight of this radio didn't evoke a wave of nostalgia, but a surge of acute, almost physical irritation. He already had enough of that "static-ridden fop" outside the door, with his eternal interference and theatrical antics. The thought of listening to someone else's hissing, crackling radio was unbearable.

He stepped sharply towards the nightstand, grabbed the radio, and without looking, shoved it into the farthest, darkest corner of the wardrobe, pushing it behind a pile of equally useless dusty pillows. "Let it stay there," he thought irritably.

And it was at that moment he realized how uncharacteristically he was behaving. His movements were sharper, his thoughts more venomous. While outwardly he still maintained a mask of calm, inside everything was boiling. And all because of him. Because of Alastor.

These strange, fragmented feelings that rose in him with every glance at the Radio Demon... this inexplicable irritation mixed with something else, something sharp and gripping that he refused to acknowledge... it was dangerous. It threw him off balance. He was a processor, a logical machine. And these feelings were like a virus, a glitch in the program.

Vincent took a deep breath, trying to regain control. He walked over to the table against the wall—the only more-or-less clean surface after the drones' work—and ran his hand over its surface. A large holographic screen flared to life in the air, and a keyboard of pure light materialized under his fingers.

"Log Entry #1. Status: Arrival. Location: Hazbin Hotel, Hell," he dictated, and the words immediately appeared on the screen.

He began typing, his fingers flying across the keys with familiar speed. He described the landing, the restoration of the power grid, the first inhabitants encountered. His report was dry, factual, devoid of emotion. He was turning chaos into structured data.

But even as he typed, he felt the weight beyond the door. The sensation that someone was standing behind the dark wood. Listening. Smiling his wide, static smile. And because of that, every typed word came with difficulty. He wasn't just writing a report. He was building a digital wall between himself and what awaited him outside this room. A wall that, he felt, was surprisingly fragile.

Vincent continued typing, outputting neat lines of the report onto the holographic screen. His fingers moved automatically while his mind was occupied with preparing for the next day.

"...the familiarization with the redemption methodology scheduled for tomorrow, according to Princess Charlotte, should demonstrate..."

He paused for a second, searching for the word. "...the effectiveness of the Hazbin Hotel's approach," he finished, mentally adding to himself: 'Provided, of course, this "methodology" is something more than primitive trust exercises, group singing, or, Heaven forbid, art therapy.' He mentally pictured Angel Dust enthusiastically smearing paint on a canvas and felt nauseous at the very image. No, real change in the nature of a sinful soul required much deeper, systemic work. Perhaps even something bordering on... reprogramming.

His gaze, lifting from the glowing lines, fixed on the room's single window. Beyond it lay Hell. Not the shining, fiery chaos from sermons, but something else—vast, darkness-shrouded expanses dotted with sparse, dismal lights. Giant, ghostly silhouettes of ruins and towers stood out against the eternal crimson sky.

And then his attention was caught by one object. In the distance, yet dominating the horizon, stood a huge, dark tower. Its outlines were angular, modern, but now it was almost completely immersed in darkness. Only on the very top floors did a few emergency lights flicker, dim and lonely, like the last sparks of a dying life. VoxTek. The lair of the Vees. The very nerve center he had forcibly revived a few hours ago.

He looked at that tower, and something flashed in his mind. Not an image, not a memory. Rather... a sensation. A feeling of dizziness from height. The sound of wind beating against glass walls. And... a smell. A sharp, sweetish smell of expensive cologne, mixed with ozone and...

AAAGH!

The pain hit him suddenly and mercilessly. Not the usual pressing migraine, but a deafening, splitting blow, as if someone had driven a red-hot nail right into his temple. He grabbed his head, swallowing a throat spasm. The holographic interface in front of him flickered nervously and died. A ringing started in his ears.

When the pain receded, leaving behind only a dull, throbbing hum, Vincent slowly straightened up. He was breathing heavily. He looked at the dark screen, then back at the window, at that very tower.

And... nothing.

Emptiness.

He tried to strain his memory, to catch a fragment of what had just flashed through his consciousness. Height? Wind? Smell? But there was only a smooth, impenetrable wall. As if an invisible censor inside his own mind had taken a red stamp and marked this data: NON-RECOVERABLE.

He blinked in surprise, still feeling the echo of the pain. "What was I just thinking about?" he asked himself, and received only silence in return. The thought, the sensation, however fleeting, had evaporated without a trace, leaving behind only the physical memory of pain and a vague, unpleasant sense of loss. As if something important had been stolen from right under his nose.

He ran his hand forcefully over his face and reactivated the interface. The report needed to be finished. He couldn't let these... glitches distract him. He focused on the text, on the facts, on the mission. But somewhere on the periphery of his consciousness now lived a new, troubling question.

Chapter Text

It was quiet. But not in the usual way. This silence was thick, cold; it seemed to envelop and swallow him whole, as only happens in the deepest, lucid dreams or nightmares.

The first thing Vincent could hear or see were voices. Then outlines appeared—distant, unclear, but familiar. He caught fragments of a conversation.

The voices were barely distinguishable, as if reaching him from under a thick layer of water. One of them was his own, but... different. Lighter, mocking, insolent, and insistent. It was saying something and laughing, and this laugh didn't sound like his rehearsed, memorized, and ingrained television smile.

"You know, sometimes I think that old bitch does everything on purpose to spite me!" — the voice sounded hysterical, bubbling with different shades of emotion that could easily burst forth and, like a tsunami, wash away everything living in its path.

Across from him was a girl, at least, that's what it seemed like to him. Her facial features were blurred, like in an old, long-overexposed film with footage damaged by time. A rather strange comparison, but at that moment it seemed right to Vincent.

"Hahah, forget about her," came the reply, a rolling laugh with a breathy quality.

But he felt her presence—warm, bright. The barely perceptible tension gradually faded, and something bright, weightless, began to blossom in his chest, making him giggle at the strange situation. She was answering something, her voice sounded pleasant, but at the same time sharp, full of life and something else, perhaps...

There, in the depths of the scene, flickered another shadow. A third person. A familiar presence, but... complicated. It carried a whiff of tobacco smoke, as well as perfume, cloyingly sweet, the kind you remember long after smelling it just once. A smell that he liked; if Vincent could, he would inhale it deeply, just to feel it again.

Perhaps Vincent's attempt to turn his head in the dream to get a better look at them was a stupid idea, but could he be blamed for his curiosity? Definitely, he blamed himself then, because as soon as he tried, everything began to blur into haze.

In those moments of that insignificant and meaningless conversation, he felt an inexplicable lightness, groundedness, and happiness from something as simple and mundane as dialogue. Something that he wouldn't remember now.

As tragically as it might sound right now, he couldn't really recall a single instance in his entire waking life—before his ascension to Heaven and before his life on Earth—when he had ever experienced anything like it. Then, in the dream, he was sure he was truly where he was meant to be; he liked it, he wanted to stay longer, perhaps even forever in that dream.

But sooner or later, all good things come to an end and are cut short, as if someone slammed a door in his face. It was irritating.

He didn't exit the dream—he was torn out of it. Sharply, roughly.

Vincent jolted upright from where he had fallen asleep, stretching his hand forward in a pathetic attempt to grab...

His chest heaved, trying to catch air, while icy sweat streamed down his back, sticking to his clothes. The room was plunged into darkness, with only a faint glow from the hellish sky outside picking out the outlines of his new room from the gloom.

He didn't want to be here.

He looked around with wildly gleaming, multicolored eyes in the dark, trying to reclaim the reality of what was happening. But to his displeasure, nothing remained of the dream. No faces, no words.

Only the now-familiar feeling. The sensation that something infinitely precious, and therefore significant and dear, had been in his hands just minutes ago, and then had slipped through his fingers. Again.

Vincent took a deep breath, coming to his senses. He ran a hand over his face, wiping away the moisture, and immediately felt the familiar, and therefore hated, pressure on his already poor skull. A headache.

It hadn't just returned; it came with triple the force, like a hammer striking an anvil, pounding in his temples in time with his previously racing heartbeat.

"Perfect, just fucking perfect. This is all I needed for complete happiness," raced through his head.

Every pulse beat echoed with a fiery flash, causing Vincent to literally see white spots before his eyes. Everything darkened and blurred, just like back then, in Sera's office. As it always was.

"What... what was that even?" he whispered into the darkness, and his voice sounded hoarse and helpless. He didn't like how his voice sounded at that moment; he shouldn't feel this way. He was a media angel, so much depended on him! So why...

In response, there was only silence and the increasing pain in his head. His memory was as clean as a scorched field after a fire. Only a vague, restless feeling that he had forgotten something again.

He had experienced something similar so many times—you couldn't count them on the fingers of both hands.

It always appeared when it all started over again. And from this realization, he felt... Strange...

Vincent was left alone in this alien, dark room, with a splitting headache whose source he couldn't even understand. There was nothing new in this; he should have gotten used to it long ago, but he never managed to.

The texture of the fabric under his fingers was rough and soft. An ordinary, unremarkable bedsheet fabric, the same as he had in Heaven, of course, aside from the color, but generally similar.

"Shh... What's the point in chasing after what eludes you? Wouldn't it be better to just leave everything as it is?" — the words seemed alien to him, but he had been thinking about it for a long time.

What was the point of trying to remember what his stubborn-to-the-point-of-madness brain was so diligently trying to hide!? Perhaps what he didn't remember wasn't so bad after all.

Vincent lowered his feet to the floor, put on his shoes, and then, getting out of bed, surveyed his "modest," temporary dwelling in the rays of the red, hellish, night sky.

A large carved wardrobe, handcrafted, as far as Vincent could tell then. A desk, on which charging stations now stood, on which his drones now stood. A chair, with his white jacket draped over its back. Two nightstands standing by the bed, on both its sides. The double bed itself with a canopy, a crystal chandelier on the ceiling. Two doors, one leading out of the room, the other to the bathroom. One large window and a balcony.

And, of course, all of it was in red tones and their shades, with symbolic images of an apple with a snake everywhere. This brought a slight smile to his face.

The room was completely tasteless; everything blended into a single mush due to all this red mess consisting of a monochromatic palette. It seemed the person who did the interior design had no taste, but considering the interior design in Heaven...

Hell and Heaven weren't far apart in that regard. This thought made him wonder: what, in principle, distinguished Heaven and Hell from each other? Besides the color scheme.

At that very moment, answers formulated themselves in his head, answering his own question. — "An abundance of rules that made life in Heaven not bad, souls of innocent people who in life weren't crazy psychos who hid behind their traumas."

There were many factors Vincent could list as arguments, but there was no particular point in that now; the answer to his own question had been received.

Vincent himself walked over to the window; the light from his halo softly fell on the surface of the glass, allowing him to see his reflection. His blue sensor and headphones were still on him...

"...Seriously?" — Well, Vincent could expect a lot from himself, but not that he'd fall asleep right in them. For a couple of minutes, he wanted to facepalm. He couldn't be so careless.

The most interesting thing was that he didn't even remember falling asleep. He could recall sitting and writing a report for Sera, and then... It seemed he really had fallen asleep. How unprofessional...

Hell was clearly having a bad influence on him; first his strange and sharp behavior towards one specific demon. Vincent knew how to keep himself in check and not give in to emotions, so why all of a sudden...

Although it wasn't so important now, he just needed to endure a little while longer, and he would return to Heaven. Back to his film crew, to his sterile clean apartment, and to the junk he collected and kept on his wardrobe shelves. And most importantly, he would be able to return to Mathilde, his, perhaps, only friend whom he could trust.

At the thought of Mathilde, Vincent felt better, as if a weight had been lifted from his soul. Mathilde had always been his quiet harbor. Vincent mentally turned to the times when they first met.

These were his very first memories associated with her. They were pleasant and simultaneously shameful, because back then he had behaved like a complete ass towards her.

He had just moved into his new apartment at the time, which was next door.
He was returning from a broadcast,exhausted, with that same strained smile that was already starting to burn his facial muscles, with a desire to punch something.

And then, in the hallway—this woman. Elegant, in a dark green dress with short puffed sleeves, ruffles, holding a box full of some trinkets. She smiled at him then. Not a dutiful, polite smile—but a radiant, warm one, coming from the soul. The very smile he was now accustomed to seeing.

And he? He nodded. Politely, coldly. Muttered something like "Welcome" and walked past, mentally categorizing her as "naive, boring souls living in the past." Oh, how wrong he was back then.

He found her cloying. Rather foolish. Her concern seemed suspicious to him—what did she want from him, a media angel, the central node of the entire celestial network? Such were the thoughts in his dark-haired head back then.

He built a wall, erected barricades from his own cynicism. He was a distrustful, cynical, and suspicious-of-everything personality, who, clearly, didn't meet Heaven's standards, as many might think, but literally millions arrived here every day much more traumatized.

"Idiot," he mentally cursed now, looking at his reflection. How mistaken he had been. An unpleasant aftertaste of this epilogue remained on his tongue.

Remembering now how she, undeterred by his coldness, week after week, softly but persistently knocked on the door of his life. Evoking the tremors of incense and gratitude.

First, there were stupid, in his view, pretexts—to ask for salt, to inquire if his TV was too loud. Then—invitations for tea. He made excuses, found things to do, and she... she didn't take offense. She just smiled and said, "Some other time, dear."

And that "other time" came. On one of those days when a migraine was driving him crazy, he himself, without realizing it, knocked on her door; it seemed he wanted to ask her for pills then. He had no words. He never managed to explain the reason for his visit. He just stood on the threshold, pale, with trembling hands.

And she didn't ask about anything. She simply let him in, sat him down in the kitchen, poured tea, and began telling some meaningless, cozy story about how in her youth, ladies wore hats with entire gardens of fruit. Her voice, calm and melodic, was what brought him back to his senses then.

Vincent sighed heavily, leaning his forehead against the window. His breath fogged the glass briefly. This was strange, given the fact that the temperature in Hell was much higher than it should be.

"What the? Oh, right..." — Vincent stepped back from the window, watching as the window returned to its original state. His body temperature was always a bit lower than others'. So it wasn't particularly surprising that the glass fogged up.

But he had more important matters, for example, to check on his report, which he had been so meticulously and detailedly writing for four hours.

Vincent snapped his fingers, and with a quiet hum, as if by magic, a holographic panel flared to life in the air, casting a bluish light on the red walls. His gaze immediately went to the report file.

Vincent felt his shoulders drop, feeling a wave of relief when he saw it—intact, saved, and even sent in automatic mode, judging by the mark. The system had worked flawlessly, even while he… was out cold.

"Good," he whispered, and it sounded like a statement of fact, not praise. "At least that."

He closed the interface, and his thoughts returned to where they began, namely, the moment he fell asleep. It was time to think it over and perhaps even admit it.

That he was a workaholic.

The man winced as if he had tasted a lemon. The word seemed so… vulgar to him. It smelled of earthly offices, burnt-out light bulbs, cheap coffee, and people running from their empty apartments and failed lives.

It had nothing to do with him, Vincent Whitman, engineer of the celestial networks, the Voice of Heaven.

But… denying it was useless. Facts were stubborn things. He didn't just work a lot. He lived for work. He was obsessed with work; it wouldn't be a sin to say he was married to his job.

The thought that his impeccable professional shell was merely a symptom, a refined form of escape, was disgusting. It called into question everything he was. After all, if you took away the work… what would remain? Nothing. There was the answer.

No. He wasn't a workaholic. He… was simply very dedicated to his work. Yes. Exactly. He was an important, integral part of the system. His constant busyness was a necessity, not a choice.

"God, who am I kidding... I really am a workaholic," — with these words, Vincent took off his headphones, dropping them around his neck, and then, with his characteristic care, placed his blue sensor on one of the nightstands.

Now, without his improvised protection, he felt... Naked. His fingers unconsciously went to the pocket of his impeccable trousers. And bumped into something. Not a tablet, not a notebook, but a small, rectangular, rough-to-the-touch box.

He froze, then slowly pulled it out. A pack of cigarettes. The very one Adam had shoved into his hand with that casual, friendly grin once, clapping him on the shoulder. "Here, pal. They say my ancestors on Earth indulge in this when their nerves are acting up. Relaxes you! Give it a try. Don't worry, I won't tell Sera."

Vincent looked at the small red-and-white box with the word "Marlboro." Primitive design, no particularly standout details in the design, everything simple and tasteful. Just like Adam preferred. Who knows where and how the first man had gotten this in Heaven. Back then, Vincent had just winced fastidiously and stuffed the gift into his pocket to throw away later. But later never came.

This didn't exist in Heaven. There was no smoke, no intoxicating substances, nothing that could defile the shining purity of the angelic essence. It was wrong. It was unworthy. Sera would be furious, would perhaps be disappointed.

But Sera isn't here, — sounded in his head with striking clarity. He… had already admitted he wasn't flawless. But no one is flawless. He was a workaholic. And now, possibly—though not yet certain—a smoker too.

Well, he would just try it; nothing terrible would happen, the world wouldn't explode from this, well, at least Vincent hoped so.

Clenching the pack in his fist so hard the cardboard crumpled, he strode resolutely to the balcony door. His hand found the cold handle. He pushed it, and stuffy, hot Hell air, smelling of sulfur and ash, burst into the room.

Vincent stepped onto the balcony, and the infernal heat enveloped him completely. The air was thick, stuffy, scorchingly warm, with a distinct taste of sulfur and metal? Seriously? Did the inhabitants of Hell really enjoy breathing something like this? Okay. Vincent would try not to judge the tastes of Hell's denizens.

He leaned on the cool, carved railing, looking at the pack in his hands. Well, it would be comical to see an angel smoking.

With one motion, he pulled out a thin white cigarette, held it between his fingers. Without thinking, he brought it to his lips. A tiny, bright spark flashed at the tip of the cigarette—a short, controlled electrical discharge born from his own essence.

The purest heavenly technology, used to light an earthly vice. The irony was so thick you could cut it with a knife.

Vincent tentatively took the first, experimental drag. The smoke, acrid and bitter, burned his throat. He coughed, his eyes involuntarily filling with tears. It was disgusting. And… strangely familiar. As if some deep, muscle memory in his lungs remembered this gesture, this taste.

Well, it seemed that before his ascension, he had often indulged in something similar. It no longer evoked such a storm of emotions as it perhaps should have, but now, now there was nothing.

Well, he tried, and he didn't like it. Vincent was just about to put out the cigarette, deciding this stupid idea wasn't worth the effort, when a voice came from the darkness of the neighboring balcony.

That very voice. Crackling with static and with a slight hint of interference, which he had been forced to listen to for the past six hours of his life.

"Well, well, well..." — Alastor drawled, and Vincent felt his spine straighten into a ramrod. — "Didn't expect to see such a pious creature indulging in such a... mundane vice. Or have the rules in Heaven finally been relaxed, my technological friend?"

Vincent hadn't expected anyone to be awake at this hour, but this was the Radio Demon, and he was a specific individual, if one could judge by what he knew about him.

The cigarette froze in his fingers, still lit and slowly smoldering. And meanwhile, a traitorous embarrassment, sharp and prickly, flashed deep inside. He had been caught. In an unworthy, sinful, human action that angels shouldn't be prone to.

But the panic was instantly suppressed, swept away by years of training. He slowly exhaled a thin stream of smoke into the hellish air and turned his head towards the voice.

Alastor stood in the shadow of his balcony, leaning on his cane. His wide yellow smile was visible even in the semi-darkness, glowing with an unnatural golden light.

"He should brush his teeth, they're so yellow they gleam in the dark," — the thought raced quickly through his mind, and Vincent barely restrained himself from saying it aloud; something told him the demon probably wouldn't appreciate his words.

Vincent allowed himself a slight, almost imperceptible smile in return, closing his eyes. His voice, when he spoke, sounded even and mocking, without a trace of the embarrassment he had just felt and physically experienced.

"I, for my part, didn't know the Radio Demon took such... keen interest in the pastimes of his guests," — he retorted, taking another small drag with an air of complete indifference, but with a sly squint. — "That's called stalking, if I'm not mistaken. Or does Hell have its own, more colorful term for it?"

He watched as the interference in the static aura emanating from Alastor intensified for a moment, as if from a light, weightless irritation. He gripped his cane a little tighter, and his ears twitched in displeasure. But the demon's smile didn't falter; on the contrary, it grew even wider. It seemed that while the deer* might have been irritated by the angel's words, they had also amused him.

*[Translator's note: The word "оленя" (olenya) is the genitive/accusative case of "олень" (olen'), meaning "deer." This is likely a reference to Alastor's deer-like features, such as his ears. The phrasing "оленя пускай и раздражали" is a bit ambiguous but translates to "the deer, while he may have been irritated..." acknowledging the character's hybrid nature.]

"Oh, I beg your pardon!" Alastor's voice rang with a false and equally theatrical remorse, especially as he placed a hand over his heart. "I had no idea my utterly modest presence was so burdensome. Just old habits... observing anything interesting that happens in my domain."

Vincent took another light drag, exhaling the smoke from his lungs. His voice sounded even, but sparks of excitement danced in his eyes. It was unworthy. Stupid. Utterly childish. But damn... fun.

Vincent couldn't deny himself the pleasure of teasing Alastor.

"Interesting?" he repeated the word, stretching it out, tasting it. "Oh, Mother of God, I'm flattered. I didn't think the great and terrible Radio Demon himself, one of the most powerful overlords of Hell, would find a simple angel-reporter such a fascinating object of observation." — Vincent smirked, looking directly into the utterly red eyes opposite him.

"Oh, don't be modest!" His smile widened, revealing a row of perfectly sharp teeth. "Simple angels don't manipulate the power grid of an entire Ring just so some hotel can function again. And they certainly don't indulge in earthly vices with such... a connoisseur's air." — Only a blind or deaf person could have missed the provocation; it was as obvious as day.

"Ah, yes, the power grid..." Vincent mused, studying the fabric of his gloves before shifting his gaze back to Alastor, a barely perceptible, sarcastic smile touching his lips, "Someone had to do it. Since the local... specialists clearly weren't up to the task. I sincerely hope that's not a problem."

He said it with all the ease and condescension he could muster, and something twinged in his chest. Oh, if only he could blow this smoke right into that arrogant, grayish face...

Vincent felt not just satisfaction from a successfully delivered barb, but a feeling vibrating like a phone from notifications. Almost... happiness. Momentary, fleeting, but real. Yes, perhaps he was acting just like a child, trying to get a rise out of someone, but who was to stop him?

He argues, teases, challenges. Just as Alastor wanted.

Alastor froze, his red eyes narrowing into two glowing slits. For a couple of seconds, it seemed to Vincent that instead of pupils and irises, the demon had clock faces like old-fashioned timepieces.

"Oh, believe me," his voice became sweet again, but now there was ice in it, "the most interesting part of any performance always begins after the intermission. And I'm sure our... show... will be simply delightful." — Alastor seemed satisfied with his own little charming performance, but it appeared today's show had come to an end.

With those words, he gave a slight, mocking bow, and winking, silently retreated into the shadow of his balcony, dissolving into it as if he had never been there.

"What an asshole... But credit where it's due, a charismatic asshole..." — the thought was quick and therefore vivid, but when he realized what he had just thought, he shook his head, trying to quell his already strange thoughts that had appeared ever since he met Alastor in person.

And so.

Vincent was left alone. The cigarette in his hand had burned down almost to the filter. He stubbed it out, feeling the adrenaline slowly recede, leaving behind a strange emptiness and a slight tremble in his fingers. It was wrong. Dangerous. Stupid. He was playing with fire, or to be more precise, with a predator, one that unfortunately didn't subsist on grass.

But, goddamn, it was so... thrilling.

A victorious smile spread across Vincent's face as he stepped back into the room; this round was clearly his. But who knows who would win the next one.