Charlotte

“Malina,” I whispered. Her name was like ash on my tongue. It was a name I’d never intended to say again. A name I’d tried my absolute best to forget about. A name I’d never, ever wanted to even think of again. I mean, that was the whole damn reason I’d conspired to have her work schedule changed in the first place! To make sure she’d never be where I was, when I was. Not exactly hard to do, considering my station - I’d even made it seem like I was doing it for her, seeing as how I knew for a fact how much of a night owl she was.

Not that it was all that big a deal to know it, mind. Most vampires were night owls, when you came down to it. Not because they died to the sun or anything silly like that, though. I mean, yeah, they were pretty sensitive to bright lights, but mostly they just were nocturnal because Granny Liz had built them that way.

Because yeah, vampires were one of the few species she had taken an active part in designing. The first vampires had been demons, after all - true demons, who had immigrated from Hell to the mortal realm. Why Granny Liz thought that turning some of those immigrants into blood sucking vampires was a good idea, I had no clue - I mean, I could guess easily enough. She’d probably just thought of it as a cool Earth idea. It was pretty much the same reasoning that had gone into making others into succubi, after all. Plus, she’d had this whole plan - as she put it - to make the newly mortal-ish demons semi-reliant on the completely mortal inhabitants of their new world, by having them draw the unholy magic they needed to survive out of mortal hosts. Succubi did it through lust, using it to form a connection with mortal women so that they could pull forth the unholy energy found within every mortal soul. Vampires - obviously - did it through blood. Except, in their case, it had to be blood willingly given - a rare case of Granny Liz actually thinking through the potential consequences of her actions, I guess.

“You’re doing it again,” Malina growled, her voice low.

“Doing what?” I asked, still not turning around. I didn’t want to face her. I didn’t want to remember her. Even though I already sort of did - I could feel the memories at the edge of my consciousness, could feel the heartache and the fear I’d tried to bury, but I still hadn’t allowed myself to dwell on them. Even knowing I’d soon have to.

“Distracting yourself. Going off on mental tangents. I used to think it was cute, how you could get so lost in your own head. Now I have to wonder how much of it was just you trying to think up new ways to make a fool out of me.”

“I was never trying to make a fool out of you!” I protested. “And it’s not like you told me who you were, either, you know. Not at first, anyway.” Not when we’d first met in the Unholy Hole - a dive bar, in the lower floors of the tower. I still remembered how she’d looked standing there, with her red hair and her pitch black eyes. She was checking me out, too, from the very moment I came through the door - not that the average person would’ve been able to tell, considering the whole ‘pure black eyes’ thing demons have going on, but you didn’t grow up with a succubus for a dam without learning the tells.

Though, I guess she had the exact same advantage with me, seeing as how turning my own eyes pitch black hadn’t stopped her from shooting me a knowing grin that left me weak in the knees and silently swearing to get her into bed that night. An easy task, I figured - I mean, demons like us, whether true descendents of hell or monster girls who’d been collected under the same banner, all tended to have pretty high sex drives and basically zero reservations about jumping in bed with one another… but she actually made me work for it, for once. Flirted with me, teased me, asked me if I was sure I could satisfy her - something I definitely didn’t take laying down. If getting her off had been a video game, I’d have hit the top of the leaderboards with my score.

“Why are you smiling?” Malina asked. I could hear the frown in her voice, even without turning around.

“What makes you think I’m smiling?” I deflected, wiping the expression off my face. “You can’t even see my face right now.”

“There’s a mirror on the wall, you dolt,” she replied, and I could tell from her tone that she was probably rolling her eyes. Not that she was even trying to hide it, from what I could see in the mirror she’d just reminded me of. “You know, it’s just like you to miss the details like that - I assumed that to be just another part of your act, but no. How does one even forget they have a mirror in their own damn room?”

I bit my tongue, instead of replying. Not that I didn’t want to. I wanted to tell her that I’d never put on an act in front of her. That every bit of time I’d spent with her had been sincere. That part of what I’d loved about being with her was how free it had made me feel.

I didn’t say any of it, though. Mostly because I knew she wouldn’t believe me. Partially because I wasn’t sure if I’d want her to. I’d let slip a lot of things during my time with her - stuff she could probably use against me, if she ever realized I’d meant every word of it, instead of assuming that it was all part of some big ploy.

“What are you doing here?” I asked, instead. I wanted to make my voice cold. Pointed. Except I’d never actually been all that great at faking my emotions, so instead it came out sounding pained.

Malina scoffed, probably assuming I was just faking it to gain sympathy. “Why wouldn’t I be here? It’s night, isn’t it? The shift you put me on.”

“Didn’t I have you assigned to the other half of the floor, though?” I asked. “Somewhere we’d never run into each other?”

“You mean the empty part of the floors?” Malina asked, her voice cold enough to send a shiver down my spine. “The part where nobody’s lived in decades?”

“I… I mean, someone has to clean there, still, don’t they?” I said, weakly. “There’s probably… dust or something, right?”

“You do know that the tower has a self-cleaning function, don’t you?” Malina replied, her expression in the mirror shifting to one of disbelief. “It may not be powerful to keep up with people who are actively making messes, but the places where nobody lives? Spotless.”

“So?” I asked, next, trying to sound indifferent. I failed, again, of course. “That just means you had an easier job, right?”

“No,” said, the temperature of her tone somehow managing to drop a few degrees. “It means I was lonely, bored, and basically assumed to be a spoiled favorite who got the easiest job in the whole damn tower due to her connection with you. As if I didn’t have enough isolating me from the other girls, already.”

“Isolating you?” I asked, worried despite myself. “Why? Because you’re a bloodliner?”

“Probably,” she confirmed, frowning now. “Why do you sound like you care?”

“You’re imagining it,” I replied, rolling my eyes - and making sure she could see it in the mirror, too, since my pupils were actually visible at the moment. “I’m just surprised. I mean, you’re a maid for the Demon Queen, aren’t you? Being from an important family is kind of the norm, for something like that.”

“Maybe it used to be,” Malina replied, “but you know full well that no bloodliner has been willing to work with Queen Devilla for almost three decades - at least until I joined up. So to the commoners working here, I’m just some rich girl taking up one of the best paying jobs in the tower while doing absolutely no work to earn it. Even worse, the other maids actually had to do all the work that should have been mine, since we were basically an employee short with me working elsewhere.”

“I’m pretty sure my parents would have just hired another maid if anyone told them,” I pointed out, only to flinch when Malina glared at me.

“And who do you think they should have complained to? The infamous brat of a Demon Queen who spends most of her days sulking about in her rooms, and interacting with the populace as little as she can possibly get away with? You do realize that most of the women working here have never even met her, right?”

“I-” I really wanted to protest. I mean, the only reason Mama didn’t talk to anyone was because she was worried about scaring them! Her reputation tended to make the servants pretty nervous, after all - but Malina wasn’t done talking.

“Or perhaps they could go to the Shadow Queen, who tamed that brat and now rules this tower in her stead?”

“You’re making Dam sound way scarier than she is!” I exclaimed, not willing to let this one pass by. “I mean, she used to be a maid herself, you know? I’m pretty sure she’d be willing to listen to any of them!”

“If she ever had a free minute, perhaps,” Malina conceded. “But do you really think it’s that easy to get an appointment with her?”

“That’s…” I hesitated. “Okay, good point, but what about-”

“Your ‘mom’?” Malina scoffed. “Who in their right mind would go to the former Heroine for anything? It’s not like she actually cares about us demons, you know - if she did, she’d spend more time amongst us. Not to mention the fact that she isn’t even trying to live by our customs - I mean, just look at how she has you refer to her!”

“What’s wrong with calling Mom ‘Mom’?” I demanded, feeling a bit insulted now.

“Perhaps the fact that she isn’t your mom?” Malina replied. “She’s your dam - or, well, your second dam, really, seeing as how you have two of them… but no. She goes by ‘Mom’ because ‘dam’ is a demon word and there’s no way the Heroine of all people could let herself be referred to with something like that is there? I’m sure the only reason she even pretends to care about us is to preserve that oh-so-precious alliance with the humans - I mean, she even put her name all over it. The Lucy Treaties - it doesn’t even mention us demons at all, just her!”

“It’s not like she asked for that! And that’s not even the official name of them, anyway - the proper term is the ‘The Liz-Approved Interspecies Peace Treaty of Love and Acceptance and also Devilla is Cute and Lovable and Should be Told so for the Rest of Eternity’ treaties. Mom’s name isn’t even on there!”

“Right, because that’s so much better. Let me guess - your ‘Mama’ asked for that, and your ‘Mom’ let her have it because she knew that nobody would ever be bothered to say it all out loud anyway? She probably even told all the human nations to just call it by her name for short, or something - I mean, it would make sense, wouldn’t it? Any Heroine willing to stay together with your bitch of an egotistical mother must be some sorta fame-crazy, right? Why else would one of those murder-loving monsters ever even try to make peace, if not for the recognition? Not to mention who she agreed to put up with to make it happen - no way she could do that if she wasn’t getting something out of it.”

“You take that back.” My voice was quiet, almost to the point of being a whisper, but I knew that Malina heard it. I could tell from the way her face paled in the mirror - and from the way she took a step back when I finally turned to look at her.

“F-finally turned around, have you?” she said, trying to act brave even as I glared at her.

“Take that back,” I repeated, distantly aware that the world around me was beginning to distort. The air had color to it - normal colors, like red and blue and purple, but also cosmic combinations the likes of which had no place within this world, beyond what mortal eyes were meant to see or even conceive. There was screaming, too - not the screams of a person, but the painful cries of reality itself as it desperately tried to hold itself together in the face of a power that threatened to tear it apart and stitch it back together again into something new - or perhaps even replace it, wholecloth.

For the third time in my life, the divinity within me had awoken - and I knew it would be oh so easy to grab it, to shape it, to push it upon the world and remake it.

All I’d need to do was give up on my place in this world. Give up on the holy shell that constrained me, and the mortal realm that held me, and take the first steps towards my ascension. A terrifying idea that I didn’t even want to think about, let alone actively consider - and yet, for some damn reason, I could not bring myself to reject it.

At least until a pointed ‘ahem’ caught my attention, dragging my focus away from the trembling vampire and towards the door, where a blonde succubus stood, her spaded tail lashing at the air behind me.

“What,” my dam asked, “is going on here?”

~~~Author's Notes

This one gave me a bit of trouble, at first. I wasn't sure what I really wanted to have happen in the chapter? But in the end, I just kinda let it go where it would, with just a bit more brain storming to figure out some extra details about the relationship of these two - and uh... here we are!

Hope you enjoyed? Next chapter we'll hopefully get some more actual details on Malina's identity and her relationship with Charlotte~!

(...Kinda feel like Charlotte's voice got away with me at times here, too, but I did some editing to try and fix that? And I do think it makes sense for her to be a bit more... dramatic than she'd normally be, here. So. Again, I hope you enjoyed!)