When my lieutenant entered my office holding a videotape between two fingers, I immediately understood that my morning had probably just lost some of its tranquility.
He hadn’t said anything alarming.
There was no urgent report accompanying him, no siren echoing through the complex, and the soldiers visible through the windows continued their activities with their usual efficiency.
Despite that, the mere sight of that tape was enough to remind me of a conversation I’d had a few days earlier with an excessively enthusiastic princess.
I set down the financial report I had been reviewing and held out my hand.
“I assume that came from the Hazbin Hotel.”
“Yes, Commander.
The delivery arrived eleven minutes ago with a note from Princess Morningstar requesting that the contents be passed on to you.”
“She didn’t include another twelve pages of explanations?”
The lieutenant remained still for a few seconds before answering.
“One page.”
I looked up at him with perfectly genuine surprise.
“She’s making progress.”
He placed the sheet in front of me as well.
Unlike the infamous summary Charlie had sent me a few days earlier, this one contained only a few handwritten lines.
The commercial was finished.
Alastor had just presented it.
Charlie had kept her promise to send me a copy.
All of that seemed relatively normal until the final sentence, where the handwriting became slightly more forceful.
For the record, this is NOT what I had in mind.
I read the sentence again.
Then looked at the tape.
“Well.
This is becoming interesting.”
My lieutenant tilted his head slightly.
“Would you like to watch it now?”
I glanced at the folders still stacked in front of me.
None of them were urgent, and after devoting part of my time to correcting Charlie’s observation methods, I could hardly pretend I was no longer curious about the result of this new experiment.
“Bring the player into the small sitting room.
If I’m going to waste a few minutes, I might as well do it comfortably.”
“Understood.”
He left the room with the tape while I finished my coffee.
A few minutes later, I joined him in a room adjoining my office that I mainly used whenever I wanted to receive someone without seating them directly in front of my workspace.
The place was modest, with a few armchairs, a bookcase covering an entire wall, and a television set I rarely used.
I sat down while my lieutenant inserted the tape into the player.
“You can stay.”
He turned his dark face toward me.
“Commander?”
“You’ve met the inhabitants of that hotel.
Your opinion might be interesting.”
“Understood.”
He took up position beside my chair as the screen came to life.
The first few seconds were enough to teach me two things.
The first was that Alastor had indeed participated in creating this commercial.
The second was that he clearly didn’t give a single fuck about convincing anyone that the project was viable.
I had expected something old-fashioned.
Alastor had an almost comical aversion to much of modern technology, and television seemed to rank particularly high on the list of inventions he considered a personal insult to civilization.
I had not, however, expected him to deliberately turn a commercial meant to present the Hazbin Hotel into such an obvious caricature.
The hotel was portrayed as a questionable establishment populated by characters whose qualities seemed to have been specifically selected to discourage any potential customer.
The presentation felt more like an old radio advertisement awkwardly forced into a visual format than a genuine modern commercial.
As for redemption, which was supposed to be the entire reason the establishment existed, it seemed to have been relegated somewhere behind the Radio Demon’s personal amusement.
I watched without commenting for a while.
My lieutenant said nothing either.
When the commercial finally ended, the screen remained lit in front of us.
I slowly crossed my legs.
“Well.”
The lieutenant waited.
For several seconds, I searched for wording accurate enough to summarize what we had just witnessed.
“Technically, he presented the hotel.”
“Yes, Commander.”
“He showed several members of the staff.”
“Yes.”
“He also managed to barely explain the principle that distinguishes this establishment from any other shitty hotel in Pentagram City.”
“That is correct.”
I turned my head toward him.
“Do you think that commercial makes you want to stay there?”
My lieutenant stared at the screen.
“No.”
His answer came with such simplicity that I smiled.
“Thank you for that in-depth analysis.”
“You asked for my opinion.”
“And I received it.”
I returned my attention to the screen.
What almost annoyed me was that Alastor clearly wasn’t bad at this sort of thing.
He knew perfectly well how to capture attention, understood showmanship, and possessed enough presence to sell practically anything if he actually wanted to.
That was precisely the problem.
He had never intended to take Charlie’s project seriously.
To him, the hotel was entertainment.
Charlie, on the other hand, was trying to build something she genuinely believed in.
I didn’t have much time to think about that difference, however, because the communication device resting on the table began to ring.
I looked at the display showing the origin of the call.
Hazbin Hotel.
“Remarkable timing.”
I picked up the device and answered the call.
“Hello, Charlie.”
“Did you watch it?”
No greeting.
No lengthy introduction.
Her voice contained enough frustration to make the answer obvious.
“I just finished.”
A sigh came through the connection.
“So?”
I looked at my lieutenant, who was still staring at the screen.
“Do you really want my opinion?”
“Yes.
No.
I mean…
yes, obviously, otherwise I wouldn’t have called, but I already know what you’re going to say and I just want to make it clear before you say it that I asked for something completely different.”
I settled deeper into my chair.
“I wasn’t going to say ‘I told you so.'”
“You were thinking it.”
I remained silent.
“Tanya.”
“I am making a considerable effort not to say it.
You could at least give me credit for that.”
I heard a noise that sounded suspiciously like Charlie dropping her forehead onto a table.
“I knew I should’ve listened to Vaggie.”
“That is generally an excellent policy whenever Alastor is involved.”
“She said exactly the same thing after the screening.”
“I’m genuinely beginning to like that woman.”
Charlie let out a small laugh despite her mood.
At least she wasn’t completely devastated.
“It’s not even just that the commercial is bad,” she continued.
“It’s that it doesn’t say anything I asked for.
I wanted us to explain why the hotel exists, show people that they can come here without being judged, tell them about the possibility of becoming better and maybe having a real chance to change.
Instead, it looks like Alastor is trying to sell some sleazy boarding house run by psychopaths.”
I glanced at the screen again.
“In his defense, several of the inhabitants do fit that description.”
“Tanya!”
“Angel would probably agree with me.”
“Angel asked if he could use the commercial for his own career.”
I pressed my lips together to keep from laughing.
“Of course.”
Charlie sighed again, but this time her frustration already seemed a little lighter.
“I just wanted people to take us seriously for once.”
Her voice had lowered.
That sentence, unlike the previous ones, wasn’t really something to joke about.
I motioned for my lieutenant to leave us alone.
He inclined his head, switched off the screen, and silently left the room.
“Charlie, a decent commercial probably wouldn’t have been enough to make that problem disappear.”
“I know, but it would’ve been a start.”
“Certainly.
Which is why I think you should make another one, this time with someone who actually wants to promote your project.”
She sounded surprised.
“You really think we should try again?”
“Why abandon a good idea simply because the first execution was bad?
The principle of making a commercial is perfectly logical.
The problem was entrusting its production to someone who views your hotel as a source of entertainment.”
A silence followed.
“I think Alastor does want to help us.
In his own way.”
“I don’t doubt that.
I simply doubt his definition of the word ‘help’ resembles yours.”
“Yeah…
probably.”
I stood up to retrieve the cup of coffee I had left on a small table.
“And even with an excellent commercial, you’ll still face the same obstacle.
You’re asking sinners to believe they can achieve something no one has ever proven possible.
To you, redemption is a possibility you’re trying to demonstrate.
To most of Hell, it’s just a theory put forward by Lucifer’s daughter.”
“That’s exactly why I have to succeed.
And I will.
I just don’t know how yet.”
I smiled slightly.
Now that sounded more like her.
“In that case, perhaps start by no longer allowing Alastor to handle your audiovisual communications.”
Charlie laughed properly this time.
“I’ll think about it.”
“I strongly recommend reaching the correct conclusion.”
The conversation continued for several more minutes.
Charlie told me about everyone else’s reactions to the commercial, particularly Vaggie’s, who had apparently been considerably less diplomatic than I had, and Angel’s, who had found the whole thing funny enough to request a second screening.
I listened while gradually making my way back toward my office.
I had eventually grown accustomed to this strange habit Charlie had developed of calling me to tell me what was happening in her establishment.
A few days earlier, I probably would have considered these conversations an unnecessary distraction.
I still thought they could last half as long if Charlie ever learned how to tell a story without opening four separate tangents in the middle.
I was no longer entirely sure I wanted her to learn.
“Anyway, we’ll figure it out tomorrow,” she was saying as I entered my office.
“I think we’re going to try starting over from scratch and maybe have Vaggie supervise more closely because she already has a bunch of ideas and—oh.”
She suddenly stopped.
“What?”
“My dad’s calling me.”
I stopped in front of my desk.
“Lucifer?”
“Yeah.
He doesn’t call me very often like this in the middle of the day.”
Her tone had changed, carrying a hint of uncertainty I hadn’t heard until then.
“In that case, I suggest you answer.
I would prefer to avoid the King of Hell discovering that his daughter ignores his calls because she’s talking to me about a failed commercial.”
Charlie gave a small laugh.
“Probably a good idea.
I have to go.”
“No problem.”
“I’ll call you later.”
“If you have something to tell me.”
She paused briefly.
“Tanya, with this hotel, I always have something to tell you.”
I could hardly argue with that statement.
“Then talk to you later, Charlie.”
“Later!”
The call ended.
I placed the device on my desk and looked at the folders waiting for me.
After spending almost half an hour on the Hazbin Hotel, it was well past time for me to return to my own affairs.
Charlie didn’t call back immediately.
I paid it no mind.
My afternoon was busy enough to occupy my attention, particularly because of a commercial dispute between two companies that maintained business relations with my domain.
Neither wanted to terminate their agreements with me, but each seemed convinced that I would be delighted to serve as arbitrator in a dispute that normally could have been settled by two adults capable of reading a contract.
Two hours later, I was sitting in a meeting room with their representatives.
“Your company agreed to these terms four months ago,” I explained, sliding the contract toward the demon sitting to my left.
“Clause seven clearly states that any increase in transportation costs remains your responsibility for the initial duration of the agreement.
You may find that unfair now, but no one forced you to sign.”
The demon opened his mouth, but I raised a finger to silence him.
“And before you tell me once again that fuel prices have increased, understand that I grasped that perfectly well the first three times.
It does not alter the wording of the contract.”
The representative from the other company gave a small, satisfied smile.
I immediately turned my eyes toward her.
“As for you, your company is three weeks behind on the deliveries specified under clause eleven.
I would therefore strongly advise against looking quite so pleased.”
Her smile vanished.
There.
A comprehensible situation.
Clearly identified interests, written contracts, and two people each trying to obtain more than they had negotiated.
Hell was finally functioning normally again.
When the meeting ended, my lieutenant was waiting for me in the corridor.
“Commander.”
“Tell me no one else wants to renegotiate a contract today.”
“No.”
“Excellent news.”
He handed me a small piece of paper.
“A message arrived for you during the meeting.”
I took it while continuing to walk.
“From whom?”
“Princess Morningstar.”
I stopped.
Her again.
I opened the message.
Fortunately, this one wasn’t twelve pages long.
My dad wants me to take his place at a meeting with Heaven.
I’m going to their embassy.
Apparently, I’m supposed to meet the leader of the Exorcists.
I’ll explain afterward.
Wish me luck.
I reread the final sentence.
My mood changed immediately.
Alastor’s commercial had suddenly become far less important.
“Is there a problem?” my lieutenant asked.
I folded the message.
“Charlie Morningstar has just been sent to the Heavenly Embassy to meet the commander of the Exorcists.”
He remained silent for a moment.
“King Lucifer is not attending personally?”
“Apparently not.”
I resumed walking, though more slowly.
I had known the Exorcists long enough that I didn’t need anyone to explain what they represented.
Every year, they descended into Hell with terrifying regularity, slaughtered the sinners they found, and left once their allotted time had expired.
Over all those decades, I had learned the same lesson as the rest of Hell:
When they arrived, you didn’t try to win.
You survived.
I had personally tried, long ago, to determine the exact limits of their abilities.
The results had been clear enough to discourage me from wasting further resources.
Conventional weapons were not an answer, and even attacks capable of tearing an ordinary demon to pieces offered no guarantee against them.
Angelic steel could permanently kill demons.
That was a certainty known throughout Hell.
On the other hand, no one I knew of had ever managed to bring down an Exorcist.
That created a fundamental difference between a war and an Extermination.
In a war, even a superior enemy could lose soldiers.
During an Extermination, Hell supplied the corpses.
“Commander?”
The lieutenant’s voice pulled me back to reality.
“Yes?”
“Would you like to modify our procedures?”
I thought for a few seconds before shaking my head.
“No.
Nothing indicates that this meeting changes anything for us.
The next Extermination is still far enough away, and our procedures are already established.”
I slipped the message into my pocket.
“However, inform me immediately if we receive any official announcement from the embassy or the royal family.”
“Understood.”
He walked away.
I remained in the corridor for several seconds.
The leader of the Exorcists.
I realized I knew practically nothing about that person.
Their identity wasn’t public, nor was the exact structure of their command.
Heaven had always been remarkably stingy with information regarding the forces it sent down to massacre Hell’s inhabitants.
Charlie was therefore about to meet someone whose name almost no one down here even knew.
I took out my communication device.
After a brief hesitation, I simply wrote:
Good luck.
And don’t sign anything without reading it first.
I looked at my own message.
Perhaps it was unnecessary.
I sent it anyway.
No reply came.
Not during the following hour, so I continued my day as usual.
That proved more difficult than I wanted to admit.
I wasn’t worried about Charlie in the strictest sense.
The Heavenly Embassy existed precisely to allow this kind of meeting, and murdering Lucifer’s daughter during a diplomatic conference would have been a decision stupid enough to provoke consequences even Heaven would presumably prefer to avoid.
That didn’t mean the conversation would be pleasant.
I nevertheless made an effort not to check the time every ten minutes.
When the sun began to descend, I finally left my office and made my way to the terrace behind the manor.
The complex stretched below me, its dark buildings dotted with lights as the day shifts gradually began giving way to the evening crews.
A soldier brought me coffee.
I took the cup and settled near the railing.
Shortly after making myself comfortable, my device rang almost immediately.
I pulled it out.
Charlie.
I answered at once.
“Well?”
There was no response for two seconds.
Then her voice came through.
“…Hi.”
I frowned.
That single word was enough to tell me the meeting had not gone well.
“Are you all right?”
“Yes.
I mean…
yeah, physically.”
I set my cup down.
“What happened?”
Charlie exhaled slowly.
“I met the leader of the Exorcists.”
“I gathered that part.”
“It’s Adam.”
I remained motionless.
The name was well known enough that I didn’t need to ask which Adam she meant.
“Adam.”
“Yes.”
“The first man.”
“Yes.”
“The one from Genesis.”
“Tanya, there aren’t fifty of them.”
I straightened slightly.
“Forgive me for wanting to confirm that the first man in the history of humanity personally commands the squads responsible for descending into Hell to slaughter sinners once a year.”
“Trust me, I had the same reaction.”
I stared out at the landscape without really seeing it.
Now that was interesting.
Extremely interesting.
To think that the father of humanity personally came down to Hell to exterminate his own cancerous offspring.
“What’s he like?”
A strange sound came through the connection.
It took me a few seconds to realize Charlie had probably just stopped herself from swearing.
“You want the diplomatic version?”
“No.”
“He’s an asshole.”
I smiled despite myself.
“That is remarkably concise coming from you.”
“I could elaborate for several hours.”
“I have absolutely no doubt.”
Charlie then began telling me the story.
And, as expected, she elaborated.
She described Adam’s attitude, his arrogance, his almost complete lack of interest in her project, and the way he had treated the question of redemption.
Several times, she had to interrupt herself to go back to a detail she had forgotten or clarify a remark that had particularly pissed her off.
I listened without interrupting unnecessarily.
Then her voice changed.
“There’s something else.”
I immediately stopped smiling.
“I’m listening.”
“The next Extermination has been moved up.”
I straightened completely.
“By how much?”
“It’s happening in six months.”
This time, I didn’t answer.
The distant noise of the complex suddenly seemed much louder.
Six months.
Until now, the Exterminations had followed a rhythm regular enough for all of Hell to organize part of its existence around them.
Businesses adjusted their inventories.
Residents prepared their shelters.
Overlords secured their territories.
Even the stupidest criminals in Pentagram City generally knew when it was preferable to disappear from the streets.
Suddenly cutting the interval in half wasn’t simply a change of schedule.
“Tanya?”
“I’m here.”
“You got really quiet.”
I stood and began slowly walking along the terrace.
“Did Adam give you a reason?”
“He mostly just said they’d decided to move the date up.
He didn’t exactly seem interested in justifying himself.”
I liked that even less.
“And did your father know this announcement was going to be made?”
“I don’t think so.
He didn’t tell me anything.”
I watched the soldiers moving between the buildings below.
Something had changed.
I simply didn’t know what.
Heaven already possessed an absolute advantage during the Exterminations.
There was no obvious reason for it to alter a system that worked perfectly in its favor, especially not so abruptly.
“I’m sorry,” Charlie murmured.
“I know this affects everyone here, not just the hotel.”
“You don’t need to apologize.
You weren’t the one who made the decision.”
“But I was supposed to try to show them there was another solution, and I couldn’t even get them to listen for five minutes.
Now we only have six months, and I don’t even know how I’m supposed to prove redemption works in that amount of time.”
Her voice trembled slightly at the end.
I could imagine her trying not to cry.
“Charlie.”
She fell silent.
“You’ve just learned that the timeline you were relying on has been cut in half after a meeting with someone who had absolutely no intention of taking your proposal seriously.
You have every right to be angry.
But deciding right now that you’ve failed won’t accomplish anything.”
“I don’t want to give up.”
“I didn’t say you did.”
I rested one hand against the railing.
“But tonight, you don’t need to solve the next six months in an hour.
Go back to your hotel, explain the situation to the others, and take some time to think before deciding what comes next.”
She remained silent for a few moments.
“That’s almost reassuring, coming from you.”
“Don’t get too used to it.”
A small laugh answered me.
That was already better.
“And you?
What are you going to do?”
I looked over my domain.
The immediate answer would have been simple:
Adjust the schedule for our Extermination procedures, verify supplies, inspect protected areas, and make sure no one had planned any major operations during the newly established risk period.
And yet that wasn’t what was truly occupying my thoughts.
“I’m going to start by figuring out why Heaven suddenly changed a rule it has followed for years.”
“You think there’s a specific reason?”
“There has to be one.
That doesn’t necessarily mean it directly concerns us, but powerful institutions generally don’t overturn their habits without a reason.”
I picked up my cup, now nearly cold.
“And I hate not knowing the reason.”
Charlie sighed.
“That sounds more like you.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment.”
“It was one.”
We remained on the line for a while longer.
Charlie seemed to need to talk, and for once, I had no particular desire to interrupt her.
She returned to certain details of her meeting with Adam, mainly to insult him in ways that were surprisingly imaginative for someone who usually tried to see the best in everyone.
I thus discovered that the Princess of Hell possessed a far richer vocabulary than she usually displayed.
That information reassured me almost as much as everything else.
By the time we finally ended the call, night had completely fallen over my domain.
I returned to my office and summoned my lieutenant.
He arrived a few minutes later.
“Commander?”
I gestured toward the chair in front of me.
“We have a change of schedule.
The next Extermination will take place in six months.”
He showed no visible surprise, but his body stiffened slightly.
“Official confirmation?”
“Directly from Charlie Morningstar, who just learned it from the leader of the Exorcists.
That’s enough for me to begin preparations.”
“Should I activate the protocol?”
“Not entirely.
We’re not on the eve of the Extermination, and I refuse to paralyze the domain for six months.
Simply move all scheduled inspections forward, check the supplies allocated to the secured areas, and make sure our business partners know the new schedule as soon as it becomes public.”
“Understood.”
I clasped my hands in front of me.
“And Lieutenant…
no offensive initiatives.”
He tilted his head slightly.
“None were planned.”
“I prefer to make it perfectly clear.
Our weapons are designed to kill demons, not wage war against creatures no one in Hell has ever managed to bring down.
If the Exorcists approach the domain, our priority remains exactly the same as in previous years: limit their access, protect the occupants, and wait for them to leave.”
“Understood, Commander.”
He stood, and I watched him reach the door before stopping him one last time.
“And find everything we have on recent changes in celestial activity.
I don’t want barroom rumors or ridiculous theories.
Only what can be verified.”
“I’ll take care of it.”
The door closed, leaving me alone in my office.
A few hours earlier, Charlie’s biggest problem had been a shitty commercial made by a demon who hated television.
Now we had learned that the first man commanded the Exorcists and that Heaven had just taken six months away from all of Hell without providing the slightest serious explanation.
I looked at the calendar on my desk and mentally calculated the consequences of this new deadline.
For decades, the Exterminations had been a regular but predictable horror, and that predictability had eventually become a kind of balance that everyone had adapted to as best they could.
Heaven had just altered that balance without warning, despite already holding every possible advantage.
I still didn’t know why.
I only knew that after two lives, several wars, and far too many experiences with higher powers convinced they had the right to decide the fate of others, I had learned one very simple thing:
When an all-powerful authority suddenly changed the rules without bothering to explain why, it was better to start asking questions before the answers came crashing down on top of you.
And something told me the next six months were going to be particularly long.