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Charlie is sitting at a bar in downtown New Orleans. It is 1925 and the people are gathered underneath yellowed lights, trading laughter and warmth and hushed conversation. Cigarette smoke floats in and out of existence and halos around her skull, mimicking the movement of her index finger as it traces the rim of her glass. Angel had ordered something simple for her, and it’s become watered down by the ice cubes that have sunk to the bottom of the cocktail glass. Somebody across the bar giggles so hard they snort and the sound of it makes Charlie smile. She finds she enjoys people watching.
Her eyes are big and unfamiliarly brown in the mirror adjacent to her, a lingering reminder that she does not belong here in this realm. It is bittersweet, really, to imagine that the only place suitable for her is a home she cannot save. Her goal is far in the back of her mind as she spins in her barstool.
New Orleans is pleasant. She takes in the people and studies their faces and she sees in them what she has always seen in sinners; humanity. There is a group gathered around a table in the corner of the speakeasy, huddled together and exchanging secrets. Three women are dressed to the nines and pressed together on a leather sofa, cocktails in hand and lipstick faded just above their cupid’s bows. There are couples dancing together to the jazz record spinning away in the corner of the room, and for a moment Charlie is in a universe that is completely void of good and evil. All that exists here is the present, and it is remarkable like it never has been before.
The bartender waves softly to someone behind her and she fights the urge to turn and look. Angel had told her to keep her head down—go unnoticed. The last thing she wanted was to mess this up, not after Heaven had been so kind. The fact that they had even gone this far to help her still felt unfathomable.
When the portal had first opened she thought she’d wake up soon. She would roll over and peel her eyes open and be met with Vaggi’s face, soft in sleep and painted by sunlight. The day would continue on and Heaven would be in the back of her mind as she greeted the hotel’s newest guests. Instead, Sera beckoned her forward and held Charlie’s hands in her own. Hues of blue spiralled behind her as the seraphim explained it.
“My sister and I have had many conversations leading up to this decision, and you must understand that this is of the highest privileges, Princess Morningstar.”
Footsteps tap their way from the coatrack by the entrance to one of the tables to Charlie’s left, where greetings are exchanged between old friends. She hears someone mention radio and something almost fond rests quietly in her chest.
“In order to truly accomplish redemption, we understand that you have been working directly with sinners in the Pride Ring. This method has proven successful with Pentious, but Emily insists upon… further research.”
There is another round of laughter somewhere behind her and Charlie is so very homesick.
“She believes that in order to save sinners you must also be acquainted with the human experience. You must know first-hand what they have seen. Are you sure you can handle this, Charlie?”
“Boudreaux! What’re you doin’ here? Ain’t you got work in the mornin’?” the bartender calls to whoever now sits two stools down from Charlie, and she perks up and listens. Sera’s words are heavy on her shoulders as she straightens her back.
The responding voice is one she thinks she’s heard before.
“Oh, one drink won’t hurt. Besides, I earned it today, I think.”
Charlie tosses her head to the right, and the man beside her doesn’t look familiar like she thought he would. He has dark, curly hair parted down the side and brown skin only a few shades lighter than the bartenders. He perches his chin on his propped up hand and works on rolling down the sleeves of his white button up. Charlie likes the color of his bowtie; a deep, wine red. His silver-framed glasses are crooked where they are perched upon his thin nose and a dimple sits deep in his left cheek. She wonders if he has one on the other side of his face, too.
“What’s that supposed to mean? You got news or somethin’ for us?” The barkeep raises a brow at his friend as he pours scotch into a short glass, “Don’t you hold out on me, man.”
“Somethin’ like that.” He replies with a shrug, and he looks just past Charlie’s head to the patron beckoning the barkeep a few stools down, “Do your job an’ maybe I’ll tell ya.”
The bartender rolls his eyes and leaves the drink right where he poured it before scooting to the other end of the bar.
Charlie knows she shouldn’t ask. She’s supposed to be keeping her head down while Angel’s away and sparking up a conversation would draw unnecessary attention, but she’s curious and bored and the man to her right seems so happy with himself.
She turns to him, finally. “What’s your news?”
His gaze flicks up from his drink and his lips part to say something. His eyes are wide behind his spectacles and they flit around her face; a deer in headlights, almost. He takes a moment to examine Charlie before cocking his head to the left and narrowing his eyes. Something about that is familiar once again, but it is gone just the same.
“Sorry, I was eavesdropping,” Charlie says, but she isn’t really sorry, “You had said you had news.”
The man laughs, almost exasperated. “You ain’t from ‘round here?” he asks, and Charlie shakes her head.
He nods, and his head falls back down until he can see his reflection in his drink. There is a brief moment where Charlie thinks she’s going to be ignored, but then he takes a careful sip of his scotch and crosses his legs as he swivels his barstool to face her. He’s still laughing, and she’s not sure what was so funny, but she laughs too. He’s infectious. The man extends his arm, offers her his open palm, and she takes it. He smiles big at her, wide with his perfectly white teeth. His canines sit sharp in his mouth and there is in fact a dimple on the other side of his face.
“Alastor,” he says, introducing himself.
All the gusto Charlie just had is knocked out of her in one single blow. Suddenly his hand is heavy against her own and her throat is dry, words crawling up from the pit of her stomach and bleeding out on the tip of her tongue. She surely looks foolish—like a child lost in a department store, her nails digging into the thin padding of her barstool. She wants to run out into the alleyway that the speakeasy is tucked behind and scream into the gravel beneath her feet. She wants to yank Alastor by his sleeve and drag him with her. She wants to never know what could have possibly happened between now and 1933 to create whatever it is that he has become. She wants to do the one thing she’s always been so terrible at.
“You alright, Miss?” he asks, and Charlie wants so desperately to save him. She blinks and swallows down her melancholy. Now is not the time and this is not the place. She drops his hand and nods, frantic.
“Fine,” she mumbles, “I’m Charlotte. My brother and I are just passing through town for the weekend.”
“Oh, lovely. Hope you two are havin’ a decent time—not much to see down south this time of year.” Alastor says, and his voice is so familiar now. Somewhere in her head his accent is different and layers of static fog over his dialogue, but it’s certainly still him.
Charlie laughs, “No! It’s been great! Neither of us have ever been down here, so we’re making the most of it. It’s all been pretty…” she pauses, “nifty.”
“That’s good to hear, Miss. I don’t meet a lot of folks from outta town.”
She smiles and picks up her drink. Her fingers twitch at the cold sensation and she knows they will dampen her skirt when she folds them back into her lap. She hadn’t been so hyper-aware just a moment ago, and she wishes the world would fade into the fuzzy blur it was before Alastor had sat at the bar.
“They’re, uh,” she says between sips, “missing out then.”
He wheezes out a laugh—not gloating but far from bashful, “You are much too kind, my dear.”
My dear. He’s so himself and so completely different. Charlie forces the thought away before taking another hesitant sip of her cocktail. She turns to him again and finally releases a breath.
“Your news.” She says, and his eyes widen again, as if he had forgotten too.
“Oh! Yes, yes, apologies.” He begins, cracking the knuckles of his left hand, “Well, you see, I work down at the radio station on the corner of Iberville and Burgundy. I been an intern there for a long while now; my mama would say ‘since I was a boy,’ but I had just turned eighteen when I got the job, I think. But, lately, ‘stead of just scripting and lending out cigs they been having me on the air. Just, y’know—side characters here and there. Maybe an ad or two, nothing to fuss about. I figured even if I was on the up and up I was still the only colored man on the staff, too. Thought that was about as good as things would get. Well, ‘til today.”
Alastor grins and it is painfully sincere. The corners of his eyes are wrinkled behind his glasses and his dimples have reappeared. His shoulders are not stiff and straight, and he rests his chin atop the back of his wrist with his head swung to the left in Charlie’s direction.
“Today, I walk in and everyone’s looking at me, right? And I’m used to getting looks, sure, but this was different. I tip my hat, and the secretary—Miss Lévêque—she tells me that our boss wanna see me. He sits me down in his office and he’s calling me son the whole time and he says they got a new show… new show means new host… and they’re picking me. My auditions back in '18 were unforgettable, he said. Now, Alastor Boudreaux hosting his own goddamn radio show, can you believe that?”
He sounds starstruck towards the end, like he’s still convincing himself that it’s real. There is something so foolish about the way he drags his eyes to the ceiling, as if to look upon the Heavens beyond it. He is met with a God that is not watching him. He thanks a being who has willfully ignored his prayers. Charlie does not understand why any divine creature would allow Alastor to change so much. She does not understand how a man so earnest and passionate could already be damned—how so much light could be snuffed out so fast.
“Congratulations!” she bursts, and her voice comes tumbling out from her throat, “That’s huge news! Way bigger than stranger-at-a-bar-news… Shouldn’t have wasted it on me.”
He shakes his head and laughs, “Thank you, Miss. Don’t you worry, it’s better I told someone about it tonight. If not I would’ve been buzzing around the house just waiting ‘til morning. Lord knows Otto ain’t gonna come back.” He gestures to the bartender, who is now fully engulfed in whatever conversation he has struck up with a woman at the other end of the counter.
“Besides,” he continues, and Charlie’s attention is drawn back, “this was practice for breaking it to my mama tomorrow night. She’ll be a mess about it, I just know she will.”
She doesn’t think before responding.
“Oh, I’m sure they both will, right? Her and your dad?”
Alastor freezes. His smile goes tight before releasing altogether and she is unnerved by the sudden straightening of his spine. He sits up now, alert and rigid in his seat as his fingers curl tight around his near-empty glass. She has said something terribly wrong and a million sorry’s come to mind before he blinks away unease.
He huffs out a breath before letting himself relax once more, “Sorry. Christ, maybe I’m the real mess.” He presses the meat of his palms into his eyes and pushes his glasses off his nose, letting them hang from his neck. Calloused hands slide back through his curls, nails dug sharply into his scalp.
“He, uh,” Charlie doesn’t have time to form an apology before he’s laughing again—wry and awkward, “He died about eight summers ago.” Alastor looks up at her once more, a subtle panic washed over his face that she has never seen in him before. He wrinkles his nose and shakes his head as he continues, “Maybe! I guess we don’t really know. He came home drunk, did a number on ma mère, and then stumbled out the front door. We never did see him again.”
Charlie does not know what to say to that. Everyone she’s ever cared about has been long dead by the time she meets them. There is no proper reaction she knows how to give, so instead she doesn’t give much of one at all.
“I’m sorry, Alastor.”
“No, don’t.” Alastor says, and his hands finally comb themselves free from his hair, “Don’t you waste your sorry’s on him. He was not worth ‘em.”
A fragile quiet overcomes the two of them and neither are eager to break it. Part of Charlie wishes she had never been curious. Part of her wishes that she could run back to Sera and beg on her hands and knees for a universe in which nothing bad has ever happened to anyone. A world where no life ends in death and no death leads to Hell. A world without fear and sadness and everything in between them. She wishes desperately there was something she could do to save every soul before damnation reaches them and she suffocates in the knowledge that she can’t.
What’s done is done and there is no undoing it. These lives have already been lived and their eternity’s already blackened. Her skin crawls with an itch she’ll never reach as she takes what is nearly the final sip of her drink. It’s a Mary Pickford, she realizes as she swallows the grenadine. She can’t quite tell if she liked it.
She turns to Alastor, a new brand of sadness knotting in her stomach and she raises her cocktail glass. He quirks an eyebrow at her and squints. His eyes are a deep shade of brown, and for the first time ever, Alastor is not the Radio Demon.
He is human, and he will die in eight years, and Charlie is helpless to stop it.
“Your glasses.” She laughs, and he looks down at where they rest upon his chest before sighing and returning them to the bridge of his nose.
Charlie smiles, and she extends her arm, “To good news and not-so-good dads.”
Alastor laughs. She hopes he means it.
“To good news,” he picks up his glass and clinks it against hers, “And deadbeat dads, I suppose.” He mutters before slinging back the rest of the drink and finishing it in one big sip.
“I’d offer to buy another round, but I ought to get home. And I think your brother’s lookin’ for you, Miss,” he says, standing from his stool and pulling a leather wallet from the pocket of his dark trousers. He nods just past Charlie’s head and she turns, her eyes meeting Angel’s from across the room.
“How’d you know that was him?” She asks, and Alastor shrugs.
“All do respect, Miss…” He chuckles, “You two are the only white folks here.”
She gazes at the room and realizes for the first time that night that he is correct. He must think she’s a fool.
Alastor slips a bill underneath his empty glass and pushes it toward the other side of the counter. He calls something to the bartender—Otto, Charlie recalls—and turns to her one last time.
“Thank you for indulging me tonight,” he grins as he straightens his coat, “It was a pleasure to meet you Charlotte, quite a pleasure. You two travel safe, now.”
Charlie smiles, wide and toothy. She remembers when Alastor first showed up at the hotel and she remembers when he met her dad, too. He had said the same thing both times.
“The pleasure was all mine.” She says, and he exits the speakeasy.
Angel’s hand lands on her shoulder as he finally pulls himself to the bar.
“Let me pay our tab an’ then we can head back,” he says and he waves to the bartender, “who was that guy?”
Charlie lets out an empty laugh. Her body shudders at the sound and doesn’t stop until tears spill over her eyelids, running down her cheeks and through her makeup. She sucks in as much air as she can muster before her throat closes up and she collapses into Angel’s chest.
“Hey, woah,” he says, catching her by the shoulders and holding her up, “The fuck happened? Who was that—what’d he say to ya?”
She doesn’t have it in her to respond anymore. She looks up into Angel’s face and he is human too.
She huffs in through her nose and lets out a shaky breath, “He got a promotion.”
Angel looks confused, but he knows better than to question her.
“Well, uh,” he starts, taking the napkin that the barkeep is offering him and patting at Charlie’s damp cheeks, “good for him. Why’re ya cryin’?”
“He’s telling his mom tomorrow.”
“I’m sure she’ll be happy.” Angel nods.
“He was happy, too.” She mumbles, pushing a curl of blonde from her face and pressing her head into her palms.
Charlie knows that this is the happiest she will ever see Alastor. Down in Hell there is no time for happy—no place for it amidst turf wars and dealmaking. Not for someone like Alastor; someone like the Radio Demon.
“Okay. That’s good, I guess.” He smiles down at her and holds her steady until her sobs have halted, “We should get outta ‘ere, Charlie. You’re a mess, ya poor thing.”
She rocks back on her heels and nods. Angel pays their tab and apologizes to the bartender. She thinks she hears a gentle ‘happens to the best of us,’ but she’s too tired to pinpoint it.
Everyone is gawking at her as Angel drags her to the exit. A lump forms in her throat as they walk back to the train station they came from, the night air thick and fuzzy. Fireflies dance around her feet as they pass a particularly overgrown garden, a woman on a porch smiling big and bowing her head to them.
“Evening, Ma’am,” Angel calls, and Charlie only waves. Her voice will certainly crack the next time she puts it to use.
She never does tell Angel who she saw at the bar.