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Things had been going well for the hotel lately. Perhaps a little too well. That easy success should have been the first sign that trouble was imminent.
It had been months since Vox suffered his humiliating defeat and the war with Heaven had been successfully avoided. Ever since Alastor returned, he had been in a particularly magnanimous mood. This unusual generosity had made the Overlord genuinely pleasant to be around. It had even reached the point where he and Lucifer were starting to get along. Insults were still exchanged of course, but now they were delivered in a joking manner rather than as attempts to strike a nerve.
Alastor had even been acting less like a terrifying cryptid. If he was in a particularly good humor, he would actually engage in conversation with the other hotel guests.
This period of peace allowed the sinners staying at the hotel to grow too comfortable. It had apparently allowed them to forget precisely who Alastor was. The Radio Demon, a sovereign Overlord, a figure most people instinctively knew to avoid if they valued their eternal existence.
So, when a small group of sinners approached the demon where he sat at the bar with a glass containing two fingers of whiskey, Husk gave them a warning side eye. He sighed deeply before turning around to clean the already spotless glasses.
The group consisted of three new arrivals. They knew Alastor only as the "nice tall guy with the cool voice." They pushed their way to the bar, riding high on the hotel's recent and profoundly delusional sense of security.
“Alastor, my man,” chirped the leader, a demon in a greasy bowling shirt. “I heard you were from the 1930s. I bet you haven’t heard any of the good modern classics, eh.”
Alastor raised a skeptical eyebrow. “Modern classics. I assure you, my dear fellow, the only thing modern about this age is its appalling lack of tact and sophisticated entertainment.”
The sinner merely winked. “Nah, man, this stuff is timeless. It is all about the setup. See, a guy has to be good at insulting people to be funny, right. Like, real savage.” He leaned in, lowering his voice conspiratorially. “Take you, for instance. You are all about power, but you are still really skinny. I bet that is because your mama did not feed you enough as a kid.”
The other two snickered. Husk’s ears flattened entirely against his head. He froze, one claw resting on a perfectly clean glass.
Alastor’s smile remained, yet it instantly became a thing of bone and pure terror. The easy static that usually accompanied his voice was instantly silenced. For a full, agonizing second, the only sound in the bar was the frantic, desperate polishing of Husk’s rag and the low, constant drip of condensation. Alastor’s entire form was utterly still, and the shadows pooling around his feet seemed to breathe.
The sinner, emboldened by the silence, which he hilariously mistook for confusion or stunned appreciation of the joke, elbowed his friend and laughed harder. “See. Got him. He is processing. Alright, here is the real kicker, Al. The one that will make you laugh until your lungs give out, just like my buddy said. Yo mama is so poor, when I saw her chasing the garbage truck, I thought she was running for the bus.”
The silence that followed was a vacuum, a sudden, oppressive void where every sound was crushed into nothingness. The low hum of the hotel's electricity, the distant clatter from the kitchen, the very breathing of the sinners in the bar. It all ceased. Alastor’s smile did not fall, but his eyes turned into radio dials..
"Modern classics," he repeated, his voice a low, resonant hum full of extra static. "How quaint. And how utterly uninspired."
Before the lead sinner could even begin to process the shift in atmosphere, the shadows at Alastor's feet surged. Tendrils of black, slick as oil and sharp as obsidian, erupted from the floor. One snaked around the greasy sinner's ankle, and with a sickening, wet crack, yanked him off his feet. His head slammed against the polished bar, yet that was merely the overture.
The shadow tendrils multiplied, writhing around all three sinners. The demons screamed as the darkness became a physical presence, penetrating their flesh like water into sand. One sinner’s arm was ripped clean from its socket with a sound like tearing canvas. The limb flopped to the floor in a spray of red ichor. Another was hoisted upside down, his legs pulled in opposite directions until his pelvis disintegrated in a shower of bone and gore.
Husk did not move. He simply ducked behind the bar, covering his head with his large wings. As a veteran of Alastor’s rage, he knew better than to watch. The sounds were more than enough. The wet, rhythmic thump and squelch of bodies being systematically disassembled. The high-pitched shrieks that were abruptly cut short with a final, definitive snap.
Alastor stood amidst the carnage, a conductor leading a symphony of slaughter. His shadows moved with a terrifying grace, dismembering the trio with methodical precision. Limbs were torn, torsos split open, and heads crushed. Within thirty seconds, there was nothing left that resembled a living being. The bar, the floor, the walls. Everything was coated in a thick, dripping layer of viscera and demon blood. The air was heavy with the coppery tang of it all.
The silence returned, but this time it was filled with the gentle drip of gore from the ceiling. Alastor took a deep, theatrical sniff of the air. His smile returned, wider and more genuine than it had been in months.
"Ah," he sighed, content. "A much-needed palate cleanser."
He then stepped forward. His pristine shoes made soft, wet squishing sounds in the carnage. With a flick of his wrist, a shadow tendril coalesced into a sharp, elegant claw. It speared a hunk of torso from the floor and lifted it to Alastor's level. He took a deliberate, messy bite, chewing with an audible crunch of bone and a satisfied hum. He swallowed, then took another.
It was at that moment that Niffty, who had been skittering down the hall to clean, peered into the lobby. Her single eye widened to an impossible size. A tiny, ecstatic squeak escaped her lips before she turned and scurried away, shrieking, “BLOOD. MEN. VIOLENCE. YAY.”
Her shriek was the catalyst. Other guests, drawn by the initial noise and now by Niffty's screams, peeked into the lobby. The scene that greeted them was a pure nightmare. Alastor, the Radio Demon, calmly eating the remains of three mangled demons in a sea of blood and shadow.
The effect was instantaneous, a collective, blood-curdling scream ripped through the hotel. Panic erupted. Demons trampled each other to get away, scrambling for the exits, for the stairs, for anywhere but the bar. The relative peace of the hotel shattered into a million terrified pieces.
The commotion brought the main crew running. Charlie was in the lead, her face pale with alarm. “What happened?! Is everyone okay.” she cried, skidding to a halt at the top of the stairs. Her eyes locked onto the scene, and her worried expression dissolved into one of pure horror.
Vaggie was right behind her. A spear in her hands, Her jaw tightened, her gaze darting from the gore-splattered walls to Alastor, who was now wiping his mouth with a handkerchief that materialized from the shadows.
Lucifer appeared in a flutter of feathers. His usual smug grin was gone, replaced by a grim, serious frown. “Good lord,” he muttered, taking in the carnage. “Someone is having a tantrum.”
Angel Dust arrived last, peering around the corner with wide eyes. “Holy shit,” he breathed. His usual flirtatious bravado was nowhere to be found.
Alastor turned to face them. His smile was placid and utterly serene, a stark contrast to the bloodbath at his feet. He gave a little bow, the gesture dripping with theatrical condescension.
“My apologies for the mess,” he said. His static-filled voice returned with a cheerful crackle. “But it seems some guests required a more permanent reminder of hotel etiquette.”
Vaggie stomped her way down the stairs, “Etiquette! Alastor you cannot just go around killing our guests. One of our benefits is safety from the overlords as long as they are under this roof.”
The only response she got was a high pitched hum.
Vaggie got up into Alastor's personal space. Her fists clenched and her eye was burning with righteous fury. “You smug, self-serving piece of.”
“Enough.”
Vaggie faltered, startled by the sheer sharpness and force of the single word. Alastor’s smile was still fixed, but the static in his voice had intensified to a high, unnerving whine. The air around him felt suddenly thick and cold. His shadow stretched and writhed violently behind him, resembling a monstrous, tooth-filled maw.
“Normally, my dear,” Alastor said, his voice dropping in pitch to a chillingly smooth baritone, “I would simply agree that all of your rather colorful notions about my character are absolutely correct. Then I would continue doing whatever I please. After all, what is an overlord but a creature of delightful self-interest.”
He leaned in. His glowing red eyes met her singular gaze, and the intense sincerity in his next words was far more frightening than any threat.
“However,” he continued, static picking up, his antlers growing out from his head, “I will not tolerate any form of disrespect toward my Manman. By extension, I will not stand here and listen to you lecture me on the very principles she instilled.” He gave a slight, formal bow, utterly dismissive of her previous outburst. “So, I must respectfully decline your notions.”
With that, Alastor’s form shimmered, dissolving into the pulsing, oily blackness of his own shadow, which then collapsed inward, vanishing completely. A sound like an old radio station losing its signal echoed through the room.
The sudden silence was deafening. Charlie gasped, pressing a hand to her mouth. Angel Dust lowered the cigarette he had been about to light, his expression one of utter, stunned confusion. Lucifer looked around in disgust at the mess.
Vaggie stood stock-still, her chest heaving, staring at the empty spot where the Radio Demon had been. The steam seemed to leak out of her fury all at once, replaced by a deep, unsettled perplexity.
Niffty, however, was already in motion. She zipped across the floor, dragging a mop, her face glittered with manic enthusiasm.
Husk let out a tired, guttural sigh. He reached underneath the counter for a particularly large, unlabeled bottle of liquor.
"Gotta close the bar," he grumbled, pulling the bottle out and tucking it securely under his wing. "Too much damn emotion in here for a Monday. Give me a call when this gets cleaned up."
He shambled toward the door, taking a long, unceremonious swig straight from the bottle before disappearing.
“What is a Manman?” Angel muttered, shaking his head.
“An affectation. It means Mother.” Lucifer explained with a wave of his hand.
Angel blinked, then his wide eyes shifted from the empty space to the remains coating the walls. “Wait. So all this, the whole murder show, was because those bozos cracked some dumb jokes about his mom.”
“Evidently,” Lucifer said, leaning down to inspect a splotch of gore.
Charlie suddenly snapped out of her daze. Her eyes widened, and she pulled a small, sparkling pink notebook and a pencil from her pocket. She furiously scribbled down a note.
Vaggie turned to look at her girlfriend, “What are you doing?”
“New rule,” Charlie stated firmly, tucking the notebook back away with a heavy sigh. “Absolute Rule Number One hundred and forty three of staying at the Hazbin Hotel. We are avoiding any and all conversations regarding Alastor’s mother. I need to make sure everyone knows this is an emergency boundary.”