The jail was nothing more than a corner in the smallest police station in the city, a tiny booth that didn't even have its own bathroom. A proper uniformed officer took note of our names and crime, but didn't press much for details, as was the Hell way of doing things.
Blake had been shaking from the moment we entered, and I was beginning to suspect he had some kind of fear of authority figures- or maybe it was just general anxiety. The officers here- just two of them- were completely chatty with the both of us and each other, seemingly sympathetic to our soon misfortune, though still stern in reminding us of the law.
"I usually don't get caught." I had remarked to one of them, and Blake looked ready to faint.
She laughed with a lot more charm than most people had in their laughs. "Good luck with Glenn tomorrow, kid."
"I think we both know the likely outcome of that," I said, probably at the highest level of cheeriness Blake had ever seen me at. This all, to me, was sort of like a joke. I knew what cards to play tomorrow with Glenn- most people did.
She was one of The Few, the Pisces, as anyone important in Hell had to be- she'd gotten there through some level of bloodlust, but you'd never have guessed her capable of such a thing. I remember when she first got to Hell, conservative blonde bun paired with the least interesting outfit choices. A week into running the courts- without any law experience, naturally- she had cut all her hair off and adopted a habit of only wearing pink.
You'd have figured that if she was going to snap, it would have been during combat. Her hair was longer now, and she maybe ruled the legal system a little less vivaciously, but she was still living evidence of how fucked the internal infrastructure of Hell was.
The trick to winning against her was to make her like you, and I knew exactly how to do that. I figured pulling this skill out of nowhere tomorrow would really impress Blake, which... I guess... was something I suddenly wanted to do now?
After all out papers were filed, we were given our tracker bracelets, devices so understandably simple that they needed no other description but that.
"We expect you back by six," the officer who set them up said with a smile. It was exactly four twenty-one.
"I'll just stay here then," I said, sitting on the little stool provided for criminals like myself. "Blake, go ahead and explore the city on your own."
"Um, is that... safe?" He whispered. He had been very dodgy about giving too much information to the officers, perhaps worried they might stress him for being a human.
"Yeah. Look at these fine officers of law here, and tell me you don't feel at ease." When he still looked unsure, I sighed. "It's midday and you have nothing mug worthy on you. Stick to the center and there's even less than a zero percent chance that something will go wrong."
He really, really, reluctantly went out the door, still rubbing his upper wrist where the tracker was applied.
"Am I allowed to watch TV here?" I asked, after sitting on the stool for around ten minutes, just clearing my mind.
"Go ahead." The officer that was still here said, and she tossed me the remote to the station's tiny government-issued television. I immediately skipped to channel five. The gossip channel. Fuck yes.
The first piece was uninteresting to me, something about rumors concerning one of the military generals, the Jamie Pollina, and how no one knew a thing about them. The news was always throwing in this roundtable discussions of their identity on slow news days- all that mattered to most people was that they were a good killer.
People were really big into debating their gender, which was one of those things that didn't really exist back when I was on Earth. But now it made for acceptable television.
I'd met her once before. She didn't talk, and I figured that if we were to meet again, we'd probably get along.
After that came something about how the capricorn guy might've had a secret boyfriend in the army, and then a little bit about the expected haul for the cycle change. An investigative report about how Kell might be gay.
Boring stuff. I loved hearing the more crazy rumors they made up, about addiction and manslaughter. Hell having a supportive gay community had seemingly backfired in how much the daytime television could devote to such commentary, able to claim there was nothing wrong with their questions, and that they merely wanted to know.
After only half an hour, I was feeling pretty bored, and I decided it was an appropriate time to take a nap. I got on the floor and curled my head into the nook of my arm, compressing myself into a ball. The officer paid me no mind as I quickly settled into resting.
And...
Well, who doesn't know sleep? It takes a lot of work to get into sometimes, but then it happens, and you're never aware for it. And you rarely get to know what it's like to wake up, either- you just are.
It's one of the nicest sensations the brain can cook up, and I'm quite fond of the effect.
Except.
My thoughts were wild, erratic and often inaccurate, but then there was a man. I was on the floor, trying to sleep, and I heard the clicking of dark dress shoes, and I looked up and there-
Was a man. He had on a long grey coat with an off white fur collar, and he looked at me, and looked at the policewoman. I guess I was pretending to sleep, but my eyes were wide open and he had to know I was awake. Something about his presence threw me off, and it likewise bothered the policewoman- she was all 'apologies' and 'thank you' to this man. Every other word seemed to be an effort to come off as polite.
He was talking to the police, and the police seemed fully willing to do whatever he asked- though he wasn't asking much.
Then he walked over to me, each step a hearty click against the tiled floor from his slightly platformed shoes. He leaned over me. "Come."
And what I should have said was: 'I have someone with me, who I need to wait for. No thank you, strange man.'
What I said was: "Of course."
I felt lucid, like I should've known this man, like I was committing a crime by going with him. Well, wait- I did know him. He knew me.
It is a bit of a walk to the center of the city, but it felt like a literal second, just a dizzy moment between here and there.
And there was his apartment, suddenly, a luxurious place. All too soon he had cooked me dinner, and we were on the roof, and fuck did my head hurt.
"It's good to see you again." That was the only phrase that stuck with me, but we were talking the whole time through. Down the city streets, up the stairs, into his apartment- neither shut up. Neither minded.
It was a total disconnect, a memory that I was living through. Again.
That couldn't have been good.
He ran his fingers through his messy dark hair and called me by my other name, and I laughed and did likewise.
Blake didn't even stand a chance, even though something about my heart hurt when I thought about him wandering the streets, returning to find me gone. The police wouldn't tell him who had picked me up. This man had made sure of it.
So he'd sleep in a cell tonight. I'd sleep on the couch. We'd reunite tomorrow, and if he was mad, well-
I was too.
The man in the dark coat brought me a mug of hot chocolate, the top obscured by mini marshmallows. I took a deep breath of the night air and wrapped the blanket around me.
The man sat next to me, with a mug of his own.
I woke up in another room, on a comfortable couch, exhausted. The floors were real dark wood, and the couch was leather, and the blanker over my body was an old and stained quilt.
At some point, I had changed my clothes. The more I looked around, the more I became sure something had really fucked up in the universe, and I had somehow glitched through space time- I had the foggiest sense that I knew exactly what had happened, and where I was.
But I also couldn't remember a damn thing. There had been a man in a moonlit room, and I could still hear the steady click of his dark dress shoes on his expensive floor. And he had been short, and we had laughed, and- and we had a lovely night together.
The fuck was going on? I didn't tend to drink, and I wasn't one for drugs, but there must have been one or the other involved last night. And...
When I thought it over, my perfect internal clock told me it was the day after that, after my supposed court date. It was way early in the morning, like six. I rubbed my wrist- the tracker had been removed by the man in the dark room.
Of course it had. My brain had the tendency to do this, delete things, skip over past events. But it was rare something like this would get repressed so instantly.
Or at least, purposely ignored.
I got up. I had taken a shower the night before, and I was wearing a new tank top- white fading to gray, a gradient that I definitely found neat. On the side of the couch was a long black double-breasted winter coat with gold embroidery. God, it was gaudy, but it was exactly the kind of thing I liked.
This apartment was huge for Hell, about the size of an actual house. Behind me was a balcony that appeared to overlook the entire city. If I picked through this place, I would likely find out the exact identity of that dark skinned man in the dark clothes in the dark room in seconds.
But I think I knew who he was already, even if my brain was throwing a fit. It was capable of worse, so I slipped the coat on and left.
And as I jammed my hands into the pockets of my new, slightly too warm for October coat, I felt a single piece of paper in there.
'It's always lovely to see you again. Now get going, L! See you in a few hours~', the note read, in a lovely cursive script. The man had included a small doodle of a smiling devil.
That was never good.
This wasn't an apartment complex. I realized that as I arrived in the lobby and took in the sheer size- it resembled a hotel if anything. I stepped outside and wasn't surprised to recognize that this was the main government headquarters for Hell- part of a trio of towers that marked the center of the city.
Pride was a series of circles, and at the center was the central square, a park that for the most part resembled a roundabout, except there were no cars in Hell. There were pigeons though, and street musicians.
The trio of skyscrapers officially had names like the rest of Hell- Melchior, Casper, and Balthazar. Out of those three, the lamest name went to the most important central tower. The two on either side were merely luxury apartments.
Casper wasn't used for much, and was short and squatter than its siblings, and obviously also had a few apartments in the upper levels.
On all three buildings, in dazzling high definition, were gigantic screens that cycled through the news, advertisements, and headlines.
I had to find Blake. That was it. That was my answer.
Continue like nothing had happened.
Where would he have gone to...? It was the day after his supposed trial, so either he was out in combat, absolutely dead, or he had been released to wander. My immediate guess was that he'd return the my dorm room- it wasn't locked, and it was the only place he knew besides the cell they kept him in back in Wrath.
So I had a goal. A lead. A sense of direction. Good.
I got antsy when things weren't to my liking, and nothing sent me stumbling like a lack of purpose.
The entrance to the lower levels was due south of the circular city, straight across from the building I had come from. It'd be a walk.
The city was crowded, but the lack of actual streets left the crowd more evenly spaced, and meant it was easy for me to weave around business folks and duck under inconvenient horns.
The was a bike lane on one side, but it was uncommon for people to use it besides the police, who were granted access to the only motorized vehicles in Hell. Because of the peoples' tendency to avoid walking in it regardless, I started walking along, head down to keep me moving quickly.
Time goes a lot slower when no one is talking to you. I knew every tick of time better than my own irregular heartbeat, and knew that was a dumb concept- nothing ever slowed.
But it did.
The note, from the man on that moonlit deck, had a subtle warning in it. See you in a few hours.
See you soon, again, he had promised me. Why has it taken this long? You've been here for so long.
Yes. And so had he.
I didn't remember the game he was playing until it was too late, in the same vein that I could remember every contour of his face without knowing quite his name.
At the end of the city limits, a few steps from the glass of the atrium, there was a high pitched alarm, followed by the barking-ish sounds that could only have been from a hellhound.
Suddenly exhaustion hit me as I contemplated what surely had to happen next: the running. The fear. I would've yawned if my heart wasn't beating so fast. The hound- hounds?- was still far off, which really said a lot about how loud they were. The moment I ran I would identify myself as a target to the local security, and I tried not to look nervous as I quickened my pace.
The moment I was in the slightly less busy inter-level passage, I started to run. The howling gasps from the hellhound echoed miserably in the tunnels, like a ghost in a rainstorm. My stamina was nonexistent, and the moment I began I had to stop, clutching my side in pain.
A few onlookers looked ready to stop me themselves, but I was such a non threat that I could tell they weren't too concerned. The hound was approaching. I coughed.
I threw myself onto the first metal maintenance door I could open, and scrambled to close it shut behind me. I huddled in the dark, feeling exceedingly tired. I'm not afraid of anything. Not the dark, not heights, not small spaces, not bugs, not lightning, not anything at all, but right now I was maybe a bit scared.
Instinct has never fared well with humanity, and the primal horror of being hunted was overpowering everything else.
Someone opened the door and I backed up even more into the darkness. A long reptilian snout extended through the door, far too large to enter.
I was almost feeling safe as it sniffed the air and backed up.
And then a woman entered the darkness. She still wasn't fully back to a humanoid shape, but she was back to a humanoid size and she began to creep towards me.
I do not say creep lightly. Every step was slow, her animal eyes frantically skirting, her long tongue moving like it had a mind of its own. Her head tilted curiously as I tried to back away. My hands tripped themselves as I attempted to pull myself along.
As she inched herself forward she began to open her maw. Rows upon rows of jagged teeth lined the walls of her jaw, far too many to fit. She slowly took back her hellhound form, careful not to get too big. Her paws billowed as her claws appeared, her skin shimmered with her scales, her hair bristled like liquid as it became fur.
The sounds were of her heavy feet, my sweaty palms, her drooling mouth and my desperate breaths. I could smell peppermint in her breath.
I was definitely fucked.
I had a briefly violent thought of killing myself before the hellhound got to me, maybe if I slammed my skull against the metal walls hard enough I'd at least be knocked out. Or maybe I could find a loose sheet of metal to slice my throat open on.
I hit a wall. It wasn't a dead end, just a corner, but I was so delayed it gave the woman enough to time reach my legs. I tried to desperately round the corner and hurry.
But it was too late for that. She was over my legs, and then my torso, and then her face was to mine.
I was covered in a cold sweat, fever forehead, clammy hands, dry throat and sore back. My hair was frizzy, my eyes were watery and my whole body smelled terrible.
"Oh!" Was all I muster, as she took her time to kill me. I almost whimpered and then I really did whimper and then I groaned and then I made all sorts of strange sounds. This is how it always went.
Eventually she leaned forwards and a tooth grazed my throat.
And I cried out. And I cried in. I was just fucking crying everywhere at this point.
She was being careful, humane almost- but that was a hard task for a hound to try, and though she was condensed to perhaps the uneven size of a great dane, her long clawed paws, on either side of my neck, had still caught on my skin.
And though she was taking her time, lining up her bite with the soft flesh of my neck, in adjusting her angle one of her paws stepped on my chest, causing me to yelp with pain.
She wasn't alarmed by this, but I was dizzy with pain; she was extraordinary heavy for her size, and I swear to god she had broken something. Maybe a rib. It wasn't the worst pain I'd ever felt, but it was heavy, and I was struggling to breath.
Not like breathing had been easy before- the panic, the fear. The typical.
But it being typical didn't exactly make it welcome, or not awful.
Everything felt like an eternity, and there were two moments I was sure of:
First, she moved. The paw that had been digging into my chest suddenly carried all her weight for a moment, and I screeched as I felt something snap and then dig against the inside of my body, scraping internal skin. I had been hyperventilating before, but now I was breathless. Wide eyed and choking.
Still screaming.
The second moment: a nick against my throat. A few more nicks. A careful line of blood, pain, and the scent of pennies. There was a sensation of scooping, and eventually the pain stopped.
I was dizzier.
And then I was out.