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“Blitzy, darling, I’m here for our Val— ehm…Blitzy?”
The I.M.P office was never calm. Stolas had long since learned to accept that, and quite frankly, he was a fool to expect otherwise to begin with. Sinner clients arrived in all shapes, sizes and through every wall. Typically, those still keyed-up and vengeful after an unexpected death, and reeling from the fact that yes, murdering two people will, in fact, get you sent to Hell. And that was just the customer base! The staff themselves were also a…lively rainbow of personalities, all working under one roof. And often, using any time they were actually under that roof (rather than up in the human world) practicing their…unique skillset. So, Stolas had long since adjusted himself, mentally, to the idea that I.M.P would always be an eventful destination.
All that to say, even by I.M.P standards, things were rather chaotic.
Their receptionist, that delightful hellhound girl Loona, appeared to be filming the carnage, so Stolas edged around the room from the door to her desk. Keeping to the walls, just to be safe. “Hello, Miss Loona,” he began, tentatively.
She looked up from her phone, but didn’t stop filming. “Heya Stolas. And stop calling me Miss. It makes me sound like an old lady.”
“Right, right-!” Not the first time she’d reminded him, but old habits died hard. Calling her simply by her first name still felt too familiar. Especially considering that they didn’t really know each other all that well— something he intended to remedy at some point soon, but still. Those were her wishes for now. “Hello, ah…Loona. May you explain…what this is?” Stolas asked, waving his hand at her filming area.
“Oh, right. I forget how weird this is to, like. Everyone.” She transferred her phone to the other hand, and rifled around under her desk until she had retrieved a stand-contraption, presumably to keep it steady. Once it was set up, Loona spun her chair to face him. “So. Blitzø won’t tell us what started this, but Moxxie’s in gay baby jail.” A dismissive hand gesture in that direction. Gay Baby Jail consisted of a cardboard panel propped up in a corner of the office for the front wall, and a piling of nearby furniture on each side, to keep the ‘prisoner’ from being able to push over the front wall and walk away.
“I…Right. And, ah…?”
“Millie? Yeah, when she heard Moxxie was in jail, she figured she’d get him out. By being his lawyer.”
“Ah. Hence the suit.”
“Hence the suit,” Loona agreed.
“And the…hitting Blitzy with her briefcase? I don’t feel that’s standard legal practice.”
“Nope. That’s what makes it fun~”
“And we have no idea as to the reason?”
Loona’s grin was positively wolfish, as she waved him closer, scooting the rolling chair back a few inches. The bottom drawer slid open, and Stolas was perplexed to see the grimoire laying within. There's no mistaking the pearlescent sheen of its cover, the shining copper that covers each edge, the glimmer of its golden lettering. It was undoubtedly the real thing. But it was in Loona's desk, which is...not its usual home. Stolas glanced back at Blitzø's office, where he knew there was a nice little stand for the book. A stand installed after protests that leaving a priceless grimoire sitting on his desk for any client to haphazardly set fire to is...foolish.
"Alright...so how does that...relate to...all of this?"
Millie had graduated from hitting her boss with her briefcase, and was now throwing its contents at him, which appeared to be immaculate legal notes, balled up into little projectile weapons.
"How are we-" Smack. "-supposed to prove-" Bonk. "-that he didn't take it IF WE DON'T KNOW WHAT YOU LOST?!" And then, having run out of ammo, she pivoted seamlessly to once more bonking him with the empty case. Hopefully it was less heavy now.
Loona leaned over to check her phone was still filming, then turned back to Stolas. "See, he fell asleep in here last night, looking through that thing. And when you see an opportunity like that, welllll~"
Goodness. If there was ever a more stark reminder of who her father was, Stolas had yet to hear it. He summoned every ounce of diplomacy in his body and gently replied, "...Your appetite for chaos may be more, ah...developed than my own, my dear."
She shrugged. "Hey, it was getting quiet around here. Besides," Loona continued, steepling her fingers like some sort of supervillain, "if you promise not to tell, I'll let ya in on some juicy insider info on my dad~"
...
Now, Stolas was, generally speaking, of impeccable moral character and would never sell out those important morals for personal gain. Generally speaking.
So, surely, if he did so on one occasion, that would be fine.
They shook hands covertly, sealing the agreement. It was like making Super Secret Handshakes with Via all over again. Now, all he had to do was keep Blitzø from noticing. Which should be fairly straightforward. It was already in line with his plan for the day: hang out with Blitzy! All they had to worry about was making their dinner reservation in a few hours. With their luck as of late, it seemed safer not to set too many time-sensitive commitments. Besides, it was nice not to have a packed diary.
Blitzo suddenly grabbed the briefcase and stepped out of range, with a shout of “COSTUMES!”
All four voices in the room made similar noises of confusion. But it fell on deaf ears! Already Blitzø was on the other side of the office, elbow-deep in an oversized wooden trunk. Feather boas and fake beards and fancy hats flew past as he rooted through. What appeared to be a cat costume landed on the floor. Grumbling in frustration, the imp dug in deeper as Stolas approached slowly. “Come on, I know I have some here, I know I— AHA!”
And next thing he knew, a deerstalker cap was being thrown at him, followed by a cape-type-something of the same tweed fabric. A detective outfit, like something out of a book. He glanced up from the bundle to Blitzø, and then back down. There were no clues to be had from the imp, after all. Blitzø was sticking on a plastic handlebar moustache, and he was attempting to balance a bowler hat on one horn. When that didn’t work, he moved it to the other one, to similar results. Eventually, he just tossed the hat back into his costume trunk and spun around with both hands on his hips. “Ta-da! Preeeesenting Blitzø, Ace Detective!”
“Ace defective, more like,” Moxxie grumbled from his ‘cell’, only to be resolutely ignored by all but his long-suffering wife.
“Shuuuut the fuck up Moxxie nobody asked you!” Blitzø scurried right up to Stolas with a half-manic, half-adorable gleam in his eye. Although the adorable part may be bias on the Goetia’s part. “Stolas! I need to find—”
Silence.
“I need to find a thing! So come help me! We can be detectives! Like, investigate the case! Talk to suspects! Solve it!”
Solve the case of the…oh. OH. So Blitzø wasn’t planning on telling him what it was, then? Stolas set the deerstalker hat on his head, smoothing his feathers around it, and pretended to consider the idea. “Well…that does sound fun, I admit…But what case would we be solving here, darling~? Nothing appears to be missing in here. Did a client commission you to investigate their death again?”
Blitzø was quiet for much too long, eyes darting back and forth. It was Millie who replied, without looking up, even as she began to saw at the cardboard bars of Moxxie’s cell with an imposing serrated blade. “He lost something. Won’t tell anyone—” with a glare “—what it is. He put Moxxie in Gay Baby Jail for it, though!”
“Yeah!” Moxxie chipped in. “And it should be Bi Baby Jail, not Gay Baby, especially if I’m the only one in here, and,”
Everyone seemed to tune him out around the same time. Stolas hadn’t been paying him much mind in the first place, and it was no difficulty at all to turn his attention back to Blitzø. “So, we’re playing detective for Valentine’s, hm~? Love Detectives, maybe? I make no promises not to investigate you thoroughly~”
“Yeah, yeah, ya sap. Just investigate first and piss off HR later, yeah? Come on. There’s not a lotta people who’d pull this kinda prank on me, so we’re gonna go ask the only guy who’d pull such a weird fuckin’ trick on me just for fun.” A beat passed. “…The only guy who knows where my office is that wouldn’t use that to burn it down.”
Stolas buttoned his tweed jacket and offered a hand to his Blitzy. “Well, then, it seems the game is afoot!”
“Why a foot, and not, like, an arm—"
“Just hold the ladder, Stolas! Don’t question me!”
Personally, he didn’t see much purpose in sneaking up to anyone’s window like this. At best, they just wouldn’t be home. At worst, no amount of holding the ladder would save Blitzø from the wrath of whoever lived there. Add to that the inherent discomfort of enabling some no-lines-blurred breaking and entering, and Stolas was pretty sure he shouldn’t be helping with this. It certainly couldn’t be standard police practice. Although that didn’t stop him from doing so. More just made him glance back and forth anxiously at the surrounding street.
Most people ignored them. A tall pink-and-white sinner even gave him a thumbs-up in passing. Stolas wasn’t really sure how to feel about that endorsement.
Up above, feelings seemed to be less mixed on the topic. The window slammed open in time with Blitzø’s shout of “OPEN UP BIATCH-! I need— Fizzarolli, stop screaming, it’s me.”
“IT’S VALENTINE’S YOU MOTHERFUCKER, GET OUT OF MY HOUSE!”
“Your mother’s my Valentine!”
“My mother’s dead, you freak!”
“Doesn’t mean she doesn’t like a good time! Bow-chicka-wow-wow!”
A shoe sailed toward his head, and Blitzø ducked under it. “OUT! Get out! I’m busy!”
There was a pretty obvious Asmodeus-shaped lump under a blanket, and Blitzø could make a wild stab at what Fizzarolli had been ‘busy’ with. Which meant he probably hadn’t snagged the grimoire for a prank. “Okay, okay, I’m going! Geez, it’s like you didn’t even miss me!”
“Get out! And did you steal my fucking ladder?!”
“It’s a stepladder, Fizz! Ha!” The other shoe came to join its twin, and Blitzø cackled. “Have fun, you two!”
“Okay. So. Fizzarolli was a bust. He was busy.”
Stolas nodded.
“And he was my only suspect.”
“Indeed he was.” Stolas folded his arms behind his back as they walked. This area was on the edge of the Cannibal Colony, as he recalled, and their style had bled out into these streets. Wide, neat boulevards with sweet little cafés. Now, the graffiti was an unfortunate addition, but it was nice enough, especially for the Pride Ring. He’d have to bring Blitzø here on purpose sometime…
“But hear me out here. I got a plan!”
Stolas tried, really tried, to give him a supportive grin. But if it was half as shaky as Stolas felt, then it wouldn’t do much. “A-Alright…and what is the plan? Blitzy? Why are you run— you’re not listening to me, are you?”
Of course not. That was nothing new. And Blitzø was sneaking up to the patio of a café, where various tables had been crammed full of people. Likely couples, given the date, but there was no need to assume, and it was a charming little—
Ah, there he was. Blitzø was creeping up on a table in the corner, hiding under the tablecloth of a couple that were, thankfully, too absorbed in each other’s faces to notice him. Stolas sighed and moved to a better vantage spot for when this, too, inevitably blew up in his face.
"A-HA!"
Blitzø burst up like a dolphin breaking the surface, only less elegant and with less water, so maybe not much like a dolphin at all. His dramatically-pointing finger had landed on a demon who looked...either amused or murderous, the smile was kind of hard to read. But the way he narrowed his eyes was threatening enough to make him pull his hand back out of biting range.
The demon was obviously a sinner, going by the deer ears nestled in his bright red hair and the general aura of Crazy Bitch. His hand had frozen mid-grab over a cup of tea, fingertips barely touching the handle.
The other one was somehow even weirder-looking than the first. Even with the borderline ridiculous white top hat he wore, he was clearly short. Barely taller than an imp, even. And dressed like he'd been dragged through the eighteenth century backwards, with a fancy little vest and fancy overcoat accented by little hints of gold. Theatre kid when he was alive, probably.
Moxxie would be so vindicated, if he wasn't currently in Baby Jail.
The short demon blinked at him, also frozen, but he seemed to recover faster than his...date? "A-ha? What's a-ha? What are we ha-ing at?"
Blitzø's eyes flicked back and forth. "You look SUS! We were detecting! Detective-ing. Following clues! To a burglary! And the clues lead right here! So fess up, you overdressed creeps!"
Two very different reactions. The demon in white seemed to wilt a little, his shoulders drooping. But the deer's smile only spread wider as he turned his head. And kept turning it. Boy, that couldn't be a comfortable angle for his neck. When he spoke, it was overlaid with a high whine of radio static. "Overdressed, you say?"
Yikes. Talk about tryhard. “Yeah, yeah, whatever you say. So where’s the b—”
A hand closed on Blitz’s shoulder. Digging in, even. He whipped his head around to see who the heck would dare, only to find Stolas on the end of that hand, wide-eyed and staring directly at Shortcake over on the table. “Oh goodness— Oh gosh— Your Majesty! I, ah- How unexpected!” And now the hand was pulling him back! Well, this was just too weird for his liking! Blitz wriggled himself free of the hand and turned to face Stolas. “Whaddya mean ‘your vag-esty’? Who is this shortcake, anyway?”
Stolas made a noise like he’d been suddenly compressed. “B-Blitzy, darling, let’s discuss that far away from here. FAR. Away. Right now, in fact!”
“Why?! Who is he?”
“That’s-! How do you not k— I’ll tell you later!”
“Who’s the short—”
Now the hand slammed over his mouth. Stolas laughed nervously, pulling the imp back into his chest, and backed away another step. “Again, I apologise— actually, I don’t know if I apologized in the first place, I’m sure I must have, but I apologize again, please enjoy your tea, we’ll be leaving now!”
Now, Blitz considered it very fair and patient of him to not lick Stolas’ hand the minute it came down over his face. He even managed not to say anything until the owl had shuffle-dragged him all the way around the street corner and out of sight. But the minute they were no longer in visual— or more importantly audible –range, he wriggled himself free and rounded on Stolas. “What the crap was that all about?! How about asking before you start tryna gag me, huh?”
“Blitz. Darling. Sweetheart.” Stolas crouched slightly and grabbed both his shoulders. Not hard enough to hurt, but enough to emphasize his point. “That…’shortcake’, as you put it, is Lucifer Fucking Morningstar! King of Hell! Tell me you recognise the name!”
Silence ballooned between them for a few moments. Then, Blitzø mumbled: “So is his middle name actually Fucking, or was that just an emphasis thing— Oh, you’re not listening—"
He followed Stolas to the corner of whatever building they’d been dragged around and joined him in peeking around. Even from this distance, he could see the taller demon still surrounded by swirling creepy symbols and a halo of fuzzy static, glaring off in the direction they’d retreated. Though, thankfully, not directly at the pair of them. “Who, that one? Yeah, he looks pretty fuckin’ creepy. And pretty mad, too. He’s not gonna magic my head off, right?”
Stolas’ hand turned his head gently to the right. “The other one.”
“But…But he’s tiny.”
“Stop calling the ruler of Hell short!”
“He is, though! Look at him! His hat’s as big as his torso. How does that stay uack— Stop pulling me around, you’re gonna stretch my jacket! How do you know they don’t have it?”
“Because I know what it is.”
Blitzø made a choke-wheezing noise. “WHAT?! HOW DID YOU-“
Then he coughed. “I mean. No wayyyy, whaaaaat? That’s so cray-cray, Stoly, HAHA!”
Stolas leaned forward and set a hand on the imp’s shoulder. "Blitzy, darling, I...the grimoire has a set position in your office, atop the desk. It wasn't there when I came in. And if that wasn’t enough to convince me, there’s everything else about your behaviour today. You were concerned about a stolen object from your office, something of key importance. You told them not to bother emptying their pockets, which means the object in question is too large to be concealed in that fashion— or upon one's person at all."
Blitzø blinked at him, one eye and then the other.
"Hm. I mean that what we were looking for is bigger than a pocket. So it couldn't be hidden in your jacket, for example. The grimoire is missing, isn’t it?"
"Right! Right, yeah, that- how the fuck did you figure that out?!"
“I just told-!” Thankfully, Stolas looked to be less incensed than amused. So that was neat. At least he wouldn’t be murdered by any pissed-off demon royalty. Besides the big boss of Hell himself, who’d had his little date interrupted with jabs about his wardrobe. Ah, well. Problem for later, surely. Stolas pat him on the shoulder. “I’m not upset. I’m sure it will, ah…turn up somewhere!”
“You’re way more chill about this than I thought you’d be.”
Stolas froze for a moment, shoulders jumping to his ears. That tone was…bordering on suspicious. And now Blitzø was squinting up at him, tail flicking back and forth. Suddenly the detective costume felt awfully warm. “A-Ah, well, I just— I’m feeling optimistic! I’m sure it will turn up!” Blitzø was craning up on tiptoes to peer suspiciously at him. The sheer sight of it was cute enough to make guilt gnaw into him anew. "Well, I— You must promise not to be upset."
"...That's what Loonie says when she's messed up."
"Really? Somehow I doubt the young lady uses those exact words-
"Stolas."
"Alright, alright!" He stopped dead in the middle of the pavement, toying with the clasp on his detective coat. "I...may have...known where the grimoire was. This entire day. While we were running around looking for it. It's been at the office the entire time. Since this morning. Possibly longer. Please say something now? You're being uncharacteristically quiet."
"...So Loona totally hid it while I was conked out, huh?" Blitzø mumbled. But his contemplative look was slowly inching toward becoming a grin.
"Yes, I believe that’s what she said! She showed me her desk drawer. I’m…very sorry for going along with the scheme. Admittedly, I was bribed into participation, but it’s no excuse.”
“Aw, I’m a bribe~” Blitzø reached up to take his hand, without comment, and Stolas relished in the moment. No need to brush it off with a sardonic comment, or insist that there was totally another reason. It might have been silly to others, especially considering what Blitzø had interrupted throughout the day.
“You know, I did make us reservations for some dinner. If we cut through the north side of the Doomsday District, we’ll have plenty of time to make the booking~”
Blitzø’s tail curled around his waist as they walked.