1: Hell is Hell

From my brain to your eyeballs in 62 days! Here it is, the first chapter of Fifty Shades of Grace.

I wanted to do one more blog title in the "____ is Hell" series and it was just so perfect to do what I did given the setting of this fanfic. Future blog posts in the series will just be the chapter title. :)

I would be remiss if I didn't share a few words of gratitude first:

To the Redditors of the Alastor Cult: I feel so much less alone and crazy in there amongst you all. If you're here for smut, please just remember that good things come to those who wait. ;)

To Christina, my faithful beta reader, one of my best friends, and my second-oldest friendship: Thank you for your ceaseless support and the enthusiasm for pretty much everything I do. I am forever grateful for your friendship and feedback. It is my great pleasure to share my obsessions and this crazy journey with you.

To Allison, another of my best friends. I could sum up my gratitude in 5 words: you know what you did. But we both know I'm seldom shy of words, so here are a few more. Thanks for being the voice of reason when my voice is broken, for being the enabler I don't need, and for taking this recent bout of insanity of mine in stride.

Strawberry shortcake mead, jambalaya, maque choux, and strawberry eton mess for dessert.

And of course, thank you to my husband, Scott, who pulls quadruple duty -- not only is he my husband, he is my partner, my alpha reader, and my best friend. He's the one keeping our household afloat while I'm too obsessed with my writing to be able to function in any other capacity. For 26 years, he has been my biggest fan, my loudest cheerleader, and I would be nowhere and nothing without him. He makes me want to be not just a good girl, but the very best girl.

Here I am, sharing a free silly little fanfic on my blog to an audience of approximately 0 (accounting for a 5% margin of error) and he goes all-out to celebrate my accomplishments, no matter how insignificant. It's practically a party up in here! This is the meal he made for us to commemorate the release of Fifty Shades of Grace.

So without further ado, away we go!

Recommended Listening

1: "You Can't Hug Your Children With Angelic Arms"

It was only when Vox had FUX NEWS playing on one of his array of televisions at headquarters that he questioned his sanity. This blazing day in Hell saw the commentators on FUX—a 666 NEWS competitor—bickering over the sale and use of Angelic Arms. Never mind that Heaven had made it a necessity of life in Hell with their exterminations.

Were they still on the annual schedule or the more recent biannual one that had ended more-or-less in disaster for the exterminators, a few of Pentagram City’s residents, but most notably for first man, Adam?

More importantly, why did Vox care and why was he asking himself these stupid rhetorical questions?

“Angelic weapons have repeatedly been used to commit some of the worst murders in recent months and they contribute to the daily toll of violence across Pentagram City. They are weapons of war that have no place in our society!” Female commentator Diane Simmons quipped. “Lucifer must enact a full ban on Angelic Arms to keep these dangerous weapons out of Hell’s communities.”

Where Diane had been a bitchy fixture on FUX NEWS for about fourteen years, her portly co-host who bore vague resemblance to a squid, was far newer. To Vox’s best recollection, the bald windbag came to Hell about three years back. In short time, Limbaugh had amassed a frighteningly large fanbase; something about that rapid rise to power reminded Vox of another demon he despised.

Rush flapped his jowls back at Diane, “Criminals, by definition, do not obey the law. Angelic Arms control laws only affect law-abiding souls who go through legal, proper avenues to obtain their weapons. Criminals overwhelmingly obtain their weapons through illegal channels and will never be deterred by the letter of the law.”

“We’re in Hell, Rush. What law-abiding citizens are there?” Diane clapped back. 

“I know I’m far from alone here—”

Diane continued her argument regardless of whatever tangent her co-host was attempting to launch. “When Angelic Arms are used, six times the number of souls were destroyed when compared with those incidents in which standard weapons were used.

“The existence of Angelic Arms in Hell increases the likelihood that a particular assault will result in a high death and injury count. These weapons are designed expressly for the purpose of increasing the lethality of attacks on Hell’s citizens.”

“Oh, please,” Rush scoffed. “Compared with other weapons, Angelic Arms have been responsible for very few deaths in Pentagram City outside of the extermination; banning these weapons will not reduce crime here and will only lead to the further erosion of our rights. Besides: these weapons will still wind up in the wrong hands even if banned. An Angelic Arms ban would only serve to open the door to further weapons restrictions. Then what will we protect ourselves with? The magic of overlords just as susceptible to death by Angelic Arms as all the rest of us?”

When the talking heads’ bickering overlapped, Vox had to turn the channel off. Who Wants to Kill their Neighbor for Money? had far more civilized behavior than the commentators on FUX NEWS. The fact FUX NEWS was not intended for entertainment purposes the way WWtKtNfM was made it especially Hellish to watch.

Vox mused over the type of soul who would be interested or find FUX in any way enjoyable. With a wry chuckle, the TV-headed demon overlord answered himself aloud, “A masochist, probably.”

Grace Bedgood switched off her aging television, letting her head fall against the back of her equally aged chair. The debate over Angelic Arms was reaching fever pitch in the aftermath of the last extermination and she, for one, was sick to death of hearing about it. The existence in Hell of these weapons didn’t affect her, anyway; being a recluse ensured that.

What difference did it make if the things were banned? They were all in Hell. There would be some new-awful-thing-or-another flooding the streets before long. Things quite possibly worse, somehow, than the Angelic weapons.

Her stomach growling prompted Grace to pay a visit to her pantry even though she knew damn good and well what was available: nothing. Having a stocked pantry meant going out, which meant … going outside. And going outside was, well … Hell.

Regrettably, Grace couldn’t starve to death. She’d tried on more than one occasion, each time surprising herself anew at just how miserable starving-to-not-death could be. There was little point in attempting that again.

And so she kissed her kitty companion on the head between her little snow-white ears and said, “Be a good little Wubby. I’ll be back soon.”

Grace grabbed her wallet and what little Hell currency she’d managed to scrape together before departing for the market.

There were attempts here and there over the years to make portions of Pentagram City a little less intolerable. Grace really didn’t see where any such improvements were. 

Perhaps her general outlook had been so bleak that she just couldn’t see anything good here. She had no aspirations of greatness or delusions of getting out of Hell. The only thing there was for Grace was nothingness; her eternal torment was to fade into nothing but an unfeeling ghost.

When Grace could pull her head out of her own depressed ass long enough to observe other tormented souls, she could see there were demons who not only seemed at home here, but who seemed happy. Who reveled in the nightmare around themselves.

“Masochists, all of you,” she muttered under her breath, passing by a group who staggered, laughing, out of one of the numerous porn studios lining this particular street. The way they walked, they were either drunk, drugged, and/or had been fucked senseless by a monster-sized dick.

Actually, none of that sounded objectionable to Grace; she hadn’t had a good lay since before she died. But she couldn’t afford booze or drugs, and wasn’t especially eager to catch whatever Hell had to offer in venereal diseases.

Gargantuan gonorrhea? Super syphilis?

No, thanks. Not worth the three seconds of euphoria it was highly debatable she’d even get out of a physical transaction. It’s Hell. I’d wager my left tit that Hell sex is terrible, and that’s really saying something since Lefty is the nicer of my pair. Never mind that the souls emerging from the porn studio looked pretty damned satisfied. Maybe they don’t know good sex from bad.

Grace snorted at her ridiculous internal dialogue, lowered her head against the blazing wind, and marched on toward the market.

After the circus known as a typical midday FUX NEWS debate, Vox switched over to his Voyeurscopes for entertainment just in time to catch some action right outside the porn studio district.

A demon of considerable size with the features of a bull elephant turned a street corner, confronting a comparably tiny, shapely woman. Lilac skin, bright blue hair. To Vox’s best guess, she was some sort of antelope. 

The elephant demon pulled a knife on the slight antelope who, up until he shoved the knife against her neck, didn’t seem to even notice he was there.

When the sheen of the knife caught the light, Vox laughed; its blade was made of Angelic Steel. “Ohhh,” he mocked her as if she could hear, “you don’t have a chance!”

He leaned back in his chair, kicking his feet up onto his desk and grabbing the nearby mug of coffee to nurse throughout this reality show.

“Your wallet,” the elephant demon demanded.

The pastel antelope leveled an impressively unruffled stare at the mugger. “I have nothing of value,” she said flatly.

“Your wallet. Now!”

She heaved a heavy sigh, passing a small, sad little wallet to the elephant demon. He flipped it open, his eyes darkening further when he saw its contents—nothing, Vox assumed. The antelope demon would have been a fool to lie about that.

Nonetheless, one quick stroke of the blade and blood poured from her neck. He snapped the wallet shut and dropped it on the ground in the pool of the antelope’s blood as she dropped to her knees, hands flying to her neck.

“Thanks for nothing, Grace Bedgood,” the elephant snapped before lumbering off.

“Well, one fewer soul to worry about next extermination, I guess.” At least it wouldn’t give an exterminator the pleasure of murdering this sinner. Vox set his now empty mug on his desk, whistling a few bars of Another One Bites The Dust. 

When he glanced back at the Voyeurscope, his eyes widened. The shapely little lilac sinner was down—but not out. Not yet. 

He zoomed in on Grace to see if he could get a better look at her wound.

She extended a hand tipped with lime green claws to a passerby. All Vox caught of that sinner was slim, dark brown trousers and a wide stride. The screen glitched briefly but when it cleared, Vox could see said passerby hadn’t stopped to help.

What demon would help another? What help could be offered to a soul bleeding out from an Angelic wound to her neck, anyway?

Likely the passerby realized that, too—if they’d even noticed her curled up there on the ground; she looked less like a sinner and more like a pastel pile of dirty laundry atop a red puddle.

The antelope demon was a lost cause, but boy was she fighting her demise tooth and nail.

Vox watched her, utterly rapt while awaiting her final breath.

And then she lifted her head.

Vox sat back. “Sinners don’t survive Angelic Steel wounds,” he said, as if berating her audacity to survive.

Grace struggled back to her hands and knees, and then much to Vox’s chagrin, to her feet. She kept a hand to her neck, taking lurching steps around a corner.

Now Vox was angry she was fighting. He switched Voyeurscope feeds to the one on the adjacent street to follow her.

This pain was unlike anything Grace had experienced before—and unfortunately, she had experience with knife wounds to her upper body. She had experience with a fatal blow. This injury somehow trumped those. It was like a firestorm of razorblades slicing her veins, leeching from the laceration all throughout her limbs as if the elephant demon had carved her up. 

Heaven would conceive of devices capable of such torture.

Maybe if she ever fully recovered from it, she would be able to marvel at how being hurt in hell was infinitely worse than being hurt while alive. Someday. Maybe.

As Grace staggered around the corner, she discovered another sinner in a puddle of what she assumed was his own blood and suspected she was not the first violent encounter of that elephant demon’s day.

She dropped to her knees—the intention was to stoop but she was too blinded by her own pain to do so—and carefully lifted this victim’s head. Where she expected to find a wound similar to hers, Grace discovered a single stab wound to his chest.

This sinner was a beautiful man possessing numerous duck-like features. Were she to speculate, Grace suspected he was a porn actor. Well, she mused, he likely does porn. To call it ‘acting’ seemed somehow inapt.

At her touch, his gaze shifted to hers. “You’re still alive?” she rasped, feeling the blood still seeping from her neck bubbling against her skin. This shit isn’t healing! Fuck!

He took her wrist in a weak, shaky grip; that was enough to draw her attention from her own problems. And yet despite said “own problems,” Grace put her hand to her mouth, drooling into her palm before pressing it hard to the injured sinner’s chest wound.

He hissed, groaned, writhed beneath the contact.

“Shhh—” Oddly enough, focusing on helping this soul made her own pain less noticeable, at least for the moment. 

It made her miss her vocation.

Fuck Travis and what he did to me.

Maybe if she’d actually fucked Travis as a dutiful wife should have, she wouldn’t be here. No. Not fucking him wasn’t the problem.

The sinner pushed away from Grace with a gasp. There was a bit more oomph in his actions. “What did you just do?”

Grace’s mouth fell open. “I — I saved you —”

He slowly got to his feet, groping his blood-soaked chest. If his wound was anything like hers, it would likely seep for who-knows-how-long and hurt, for all she knew, the rest of eternity. But at least now it wouldn’t cost him his afterlife. “Fuck you!” he yelled.

A deep, quiet chuckle seemed to echo from the end of the street.

She retreated, tripped over her own hooves and landed hard on the ground, the back of her head striking the brick wall behind her. Jesus fucking Christ can anything else go wrong today?! She managed a quiet, “Excuse me?” in return.

"That injury was my way out of this misery, you dumb cunt! I was almost gone and now I’m still stuck here! Thanks for nothing!" Without another word, he stumbled off in the opposite direction.

Grace exhaled, the firestorm of razorblades sluicing her body as if the Angelic Steel wound was fresh. She rubbed her fingertips against her denim shorts brusquely to clean them of blood before pressing them to her neck again. It was still bleeding but the torrent was little more than a trickle now. Stop hurting, stop hurting, oh please stop!

As if bargaining with a wound would get it to magically heal. She knew better than that by now. Grace silently chastised herself for such stupidity.

A loud electric sizzle caught Grace’s attention and she looked up in time to see a bolt of blue lightning leap from the nearest VoxTek Voyeurscope perched on the streetlight overhead.

The CEO of VoxTek loomed over her, his hypnotic eyes wild—even more than they usually were, as far as Grace was concerned.

He grinned maniacally down at her, his television face more teeth than any other feature. “Grace Bedgood!” he announced, “today’s your lucky day!” 

She swallowed painfully, probably loudly enough for Vox to hear. “You know my name?” she croaked, then added vapidly, “that's alarming.”

“Have I got a deal for you!”

Before he could announce what that deal was—although it didn’t take much imagination to guess what was coming—Grace shook her head. She may have been naive, imprudent, and an all-around bloody fool, but Grace didn’t spawn in Hell yesterday.

“VoxTek wants you—” his voice fizzled out as his gaze drifted upward from Grace’s face. Up, up, up. And then up some more.

The grin on his screen vanished, his hypnotic pupils retracting to mismatched pinpoints of light. He made an altogether heinous noise, staticky sizzles drowning out a string of creative expletives before he leapt back into the Voyeurscope as a dazzling flash of electricity.

Something had driven him off. Something had damn near made him piss his pants in terror. Something that’s right behind or above me. Grace twisted in her spot only to find —

a perfectly normal brick wall.

Chapter 2: "Stuck Between Charybdis and Scylla"

Stay sane, deer friends!