Chapter 4

Dolls On A Stage

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The two walk down the streets of the pentagram city, hearing the demons shouting, cussing and lots more from all the directions. Suddenly Melody stops, making Alastor stop too. He notices that they had stopped in front of an alleyway, a dark one too. He could hear a few people down there, Melody turns her body towards the alleyway, having to close her umbrella because of how small the alleyway is.

Her face is blank as usual as she hangs her umbrella on her wrist and steps forward into the alleyway. Alastor stays quiet as he followed close behind, the deeper they go in the more inaudible the sounds of the sinners outside.

"You're fucking boring. Get out of my sight." A voice spat out from around the corner, Melody stops as she stood there with her other hand behind her back. The radio demon did the same as they could see a demon with a chain around their hand chokes the other with it. The other demon makes a disgusting sound of choking as they desperately claw on the chain, trying to pry it off but it was useless as it chokes them to death. The demon holds his hips as he looks around him, down at the dead bodies of three other demons with bruised necks and a big bloody hole in their chest. "I should look for Angel instead." He talk to himself as he spits out saliva on the dead corpses.

Melody steps backwards quietly, a red puff of smoke covered her features as her horns appears and her right eye turns black and white - just like that night when Alastor first met her. "I should really stop doing this shit, but how could I?" The demon talks to himself again as he kicks the dead body. "These sinners are better off dead and wiped out from existence." He spat out, Melody turns to Alastor which the taller demon looks back at her. She whispers but didn't lean in,

"Stay here, I'll call you if I need help." She says, the demon only smiled. Melody turns back to the other demon as she walks forward, purposely making her boots click on the pavement floor. The demon turns to her, he turns his head as he throws his chain to trap the girl but instead she holds her right hand up as she catches the chain, its sharp end slowly piercing the girl's palm.

"Oh hey, nice catch." He smirks, he walks forward as his features came into view. Believe it or not, he almost looked like Angel Dust. Expect the blue colours on him and the black suit. Alastor watch from afar as the girl tilt her head, putting up an act.

"Heard cha' saying you wanna stop?" She asks, her voice a bit soft. The taller demon sighs as he scoffs,

"What about it? Here to mock me, babe?" He glares at the girl. Melody shakes her head as she grips on the chain and pulls him closer.

"Nope, I just happen to work at a place where it'd help you rehabilitate." She says, from being pulled by the chain - the blue spider demon stumbled forward a little.

"You can come over and see if you'd like to check in." She adds in as she pulls him closer again, and hands him a card. The taller blue demon tilts his head as he takes it from the girl, he looks at it as Melody pulls the chain from her wrist - immediately showing red lines. It must of went deep into her skin.

"How do I know this shit ain't bullshit?" He asks as he eyed her wounded wrist but didn't question it.

"It's hosted by the princess of hell, I'm guessing you haven't see it on the news. On that card there I had wrote down the address, one way to find out is by coming by." Melody slightly grin at her last sentence, the girl pulls put her phone and checked the time - half an hour had passed. "I have to go now, I'll be seeing you there." She waves as she walk back into the alleyway where Alastor is.

"Melody, dear - is your hand alright?" He asks, Melody glances up at him.

'Why would he even care?' She thought to herself and looks at her hand as she raises it. "It's just a cut, it's fine." She says as she start walking out of the alleyway when they arrive out, the bright lights of the buildings blinded the two for a mere second. Melody was about to walk a bit to the side and open up her umbrella until she was pushed to the wall, letting out a small gasp escape her lips.

"Hey hot stuff, how are ya doing?" A taller demon says, Melody cringed for a second before looking up at him. Instead of probably punching the guy in the guts and letting him suffer in pain, Melody smirks - it was the first time Alastor had ever see her make that face.

"I'm doing good, how about you darling?~" She cooed, the man didn't expect her to reply back so he widened his eyes for a moment before chuckling as he leans closer to Melody's face. Then for a split second, a red smoke surrounded the two and she is out of his grasp and the man is nowhere in sight. The girl grunts as she brushes off the dusts on her clothes and fixes her dress, finally opening her umbrella and hovering it above her.

"What a performance! Where have he gone to?" Alastor laughs, Melody glances up at him. She held her index finger on her chin as she wonder,

"Let's just say, Having fun with the dead." She snicker lowly, "Let's head back to the hotel, I'm starting to feel tired again." Her expression immediately fall back to it's blank face. She began walking as Alastor followed close behind, the red demon looks down at her who's in front of him as his smile grew wider. He managed to make her feel emotion for a split second, this is going to be very entertaining for him.

As soon as they arrived Melody closes her umbrella, Alastor was about to open the door when a loud banging came from behind the doors. He opens it and the two looks inside to see Angel being chased down by Vaggie. Melody rushes in as she uses the hook of her umbrella to tug on Angel and pull him away, making Vaggie stop. Angel looks down at Melody as he chuckles,

"Oh, now you want me-" he was cut off short the second Melody holds up the top of her umbrella up in his face, it is sharp and have the faint smell of dried blood even though it looks perfectly clean.

"Shut up before I jab this in your eye." She growl lowly as she turns to Vaggie and sets her umbrella down like a cane. "What happened?" Her voice turns soft, Vaggie puts away her spear that was in her hand.

"He tried going out and I clearly told him not to which he did!" She says clearly pissed off, Melody glares at Angel which he looks away in response. Melody sighs as she hangs her umbrella on her wrist and pushes Angel towards the couches by his back.

"Go sit down before I make you sit down." She says as she was about to walk away towards the worried Charlie who can't control the whole chaos on her own,

"How are you going to make me sit down, babe?~" He teases, Melody turns around a new look on her face. Angel was surprised for a moment, she walks up to him and pulls him down by his collars,

"I'll cut your legs off." She sneered and pushes him back, making him stumble a little. That was really threatening and dark - the girl smiles, a fake one which showed all the rows of her sharp teeth and walks away towards Charlie. Angel shuddered as he walks to the couch and sit down beside Sin who just watched the whole scene unfold in front of her without even caring.

"Char, guess what?" Melody smiles at the girl who's a bit shorter than her. Charlie smiles back excitedly,

"What?" She reply, Melody smiles with her eyes closed.

"I found someone who'd willing to rehabilitate! Don't worry, I made sure they're not bad." Melody opens her eyes again as she looks at the girl who have a very big smile on her face. She was so excited she rubs her cheeks from smiling too hard. "Ya excited, red-cheeks?" Mel grins at the nickname. Charlie nods her head multiple times and jumps up and down.

"I'm so happy!" She shouts every single word louder than before. Vaggie walks over, smiling. Charlie immediately release her excitement by hugging Vaggie which the girl softly smiles and hugs back. Melody softened at the sight,

"I'm going to be in the office, kay?" She reminded and walks over to the office door and walks in. The warmth in the room immediately hugging her, "Why must it be so cold outside.." Melody muttered quietly to herself as she rubs her arms trying to get herself warm faster. The girl walks over to the couch and sits down as she stare off into space,

'Is it just me or I feel like I should be extra careful around that demon?' Melody thought to herself as she rests her cheek on her elbow, on her thighs. 'I mean like, I didn't even know why he's here. All I know when he comes to a new place, he just wants to claim territory just like how Cherri tried to do so with Sir Pentious - which we'll never know how those two ended up.' Melody sighs as she pulls out her phone that she gotten recently and takes off the black cover, revealing a small picture between the phone and the cover.

Melody takes it out as she sets her phone and the case down on her lap, she traces her thumb over the picture of three girls, one of them being herself and the other two was her best friends. Her lips quivered for a second,

"Do they even know I'm gone? Permanently? Like hell they'll ever end up down here, especially not you.." She mumbled to herself as she trace her thumb on the middle girl who's the shortest in the middle of the picture. A melodious knock came from the door, making Melody jump in surprise and quickly hide her photo back in between the phone case and the phone as she shoves it back inside her skirt pocket. "Come in." She calls out, just as figured it's Alastor.

"Oh Melody, dear! Are you doing quite alright?" He asks, Melody tilts her head in question. "Well it took you some time to let me in and.." He gestures to her right hand, her glove is a bit torn on her palm from that demon's chain before. Melody looks down at her hand, she had forgotten about that. It did hurt but pain was too normal for her to even find it annoying.

'Once again, why does he care?' Melody thought as she stares at her hand. "I'm fine, it's just a cut." She says as she rests it on her lap. Alastor shook his head,

"Oh, no no! As you said, a lady should value her self-worth. Shouldn't they take care of themselves too?" He asks as he walks closer, Melody was about to protest - discomfort really came to her when she saw him walking closer. Like I mentioned before, she was never really comfortable around him but she tried to ignore it much as possible. That night when they first met, it was years ago - a decade! Melody had looked away as if in fear, not knowing what would happen next.

But instead, as cheesy as it sounds; she feels her hand being carefully lifted as her glove is carefully removed. Melody looks back in front of her, gasping a little of how close he was. She tried pulling her hand back in reflex but Alastor pulled it back by the wrist. She looks down at her hand to see a deep and nasty wound, plus the red line around her wrist from her death.

"This is not a cut! This is such a deep wound how can you manage the pain?" He asks, his voice still laced with the radio static. Melody stays quiet as she bit the bottom of her inside lip. "Wait here, dear. I'll be right back." He says as he stands up with his microphone cane in his right hand and walks out of the office going to who knows where. The second he left the room, silence absorbed the room.

Melody released her breath that she didn't knew she was holding. Yet, again! Why does he even care? She knew something was up, this wasn't right. What if she's using her? Trying to earn her trust then probably fuck her whole life over? That's probably it, she shouldn't trust such a heartless demon such as himself. But deep within, how can she push away someone trying to help her? Even though she have done it countless of times, it was all because she felt like a useless burden on others - the reason why she kept doing things on her own.

But at the same time, she couldn't stop thinking. He was so close- wait a minute. Why does she even care? He was practically holding her shoulder the first time he came here anyways. All of her thoughts swirled in her mind as she shook them away and gripped her hands in frustration, emotions are so complicated! The woman immediately stop gripping her hands as she lowly hiss, she had dug her nails into her wound on accident as blood trickled out even more.

Instead of the red blood, it looked darker and even looked black. Melody flatten her lips together as she stared at her wound, she almost had the urge to lick it. But restrained herself the second the door burst open with Alastor walking in with a first aid kit in his hands, Melody blinks in confusion. The male walks over as he sets it down on the coffee table beside him as he kneels down in front of her and pulls her hand back closer to him.

Is- Is he trying to bandage her hand up? What the f-

"I-I can do it myself-" Melody managed to get out as she pulls her hand away and hugs it to her chest. Alastor looks at her with his usual everlasting smile. She swore it widened for a second,

"Dear, I'm offering a help! Let me help you for you always been helping others but never yourself." He says as he held his hand out for her to give her wounded hand back. She hesitated as she processed the words in her head, she did push people away when they tried to help - was she being selfish?

The girl clicked her tongue as she gave in and held her hand out, not touching him so he could take her hand himself. He did as she expected and treated the wound carefully.

'Perhaps, maybe another few steps and she'll finally start to trust me. This is going to be much entertaining than the stock market crash of 1929.. which the time she died in.' He thought, lowly chuckling to himself inside his head.

After he was done he turns around to clean up all the things back into the small box, Melody looks at her hand and softly trace her thumb over the bandage. It's neatly wrapped, not too tight and not too loose either. Alastor stands up with the kit in his hand,

"Thank you." Melody thank him as she looks up at him, for once she didn't break eye contact. Alastor smile with his eyes closed as he pats her head due to her being short because of her sitting down.

"My pleasure, dear!" He reply as he walks out of the office, humming. Melody blinks, she raises her left hand up slowly to touch her head where he had just touched.

'Did- Did he just touch me on my head?' She said to herself inside her head, even though her skin is pale almost like snow tint of pink spread across her face. Nobody had ever done that to her before it felt weird someone like him would do something like it. Melody rests her hands on her lap as she stares down at the ground, this is why she left emotions and feelings behind. It makes her weak and pathetic.

The black haired girl lies down on her side on the couch and stares off into space, silence enflunged her as her eyelids grew heavy. It only took a few seconds until she fell back into dreamland.

Little did she know, she was a doll on a stage. Being pulled and tugged by strings by someone she should be careful of.