In the two-floored house of the Abaddon's, Mrs Abaddon hummed a melody from Tchaikovsky's most renowned works. She flitted from the dining room into the kitchen of the open-plan first floor, mentally weaving the events of her first Collection as she crossed the boundary of wooden floors onto the white tiles. Her long, pitch-black hair trailed behind her like a funeral veil, complimenting the deep red suit she danced in. At the sink, she stopped and slowly opened her eyes to the back of the house. She peered through the false window at the sink through the living room and into the backyard where a large, rotten tree was planted.
The tree was like a willow tree in shape but was rotting from the inside out so that the green hanging leaves took on a sickly grey colour and the branches creaked horridly whenever the breeze swept by. Even now, lurid screams of aching wood echoed through the house and Mrs Abaddon revelled in it.
Beneath the tree, among the crooked roots snaking through the short, dry grass growing in the rest of the yard, her husband was crawling out of Below. As Mr Runi-Tineiden rose from the crumbling soil, bright red thorny branches clung to his dark blue suit. He hastily shoved the thorns from his clothes and dusted himself off beneath the tree. Mr Runi-Tineiden was a fellow of peculiar interests, but his loyalties lay firmly with the Clairvoyager that had Claimed him, Mrs Abaddon. He wore his light brown hair in a side part in hopes of impressing the woman and smoothed his suit to utmost presentability before approaching the house.
Mrs Abaddon stood frozen at the sink, observing his efforts appreciatively. Mr Runi-Tineiden jogged up to the back door and after yanking it open, he rushed to her side and placed an enthusiastic kiss on her cheek.
"My Dark Lady," Mr Runi-Tineiden breathed against her neck.
"What did Below have to tell you, Jaako-baby?" She said bluntly, swatting his face away with a playful hand.
"You're too cruel," Mr Runi-Tineiden pouted. "Not much, but the Demons there had so much more to offer," he said giving her a mischievous grin.
"And what might that be?" She raised an eyebrow at him.
"There's been murder," he replied.
Mr Runi-Tineiden took up her hand and led her to the tree, not saying a word more as though the details were a lovely surprise just for her.
"May we Fall further, Below," he whispered once they had reached beneath the tree.
A foul stench of burned flesh and damp ash assaulted Mrs Abaddon's nose, but before she could expel the scent through a harsh breath, thorns wrapped around her and her husband's ankles. Just as quickly, they were catapulted into darkness as the thorns dragged them down into the soil. It was a cold and complete blanket of absolute black like the centre of a black hole. If she did not know what to expect next, she would have been blinded by the sudden light that erupted before her.
The pair descended in a ball of fire, through a raging sky of smoke. They tore through the air along with other balls of fire, Demons and Hybrids alike visiting Below. As they neared the ground, towering buildings of rotten wood, rusted iron, and dilapidated concrete emerged beneath them. To Mrs Abaddon's chagrin, the buildings in Below did not hold for any reasonable amount of time and collapsed or teetered amongst the heat and smoke rushing around them. Yet, as soon as one building would fall, another skeleton of rot and rust would rise beside it.
With practised ease, Mr Runi-Tineiden swept Mrs Abaddon into his arms and took the brunt of the hard landing onto Below's soil. Roads of hard dirt led in all directions yet took one nowhere.
Once the fire they arrived in dissipated, a new heat threatened to boil the skin right off Mrs Abaddon's bones. However, she was used to it and allowed bits of her flesh to be sacrificed to Below's uncontrollable hunger. Chunks fell away from her arms and legs and evaporated in the searing air until she looked like a recently turned zombie with pink flesh and exposed teeth. When she looked at Mr Runi-Tineiden, the same had happened to him so that they looked like a very unromantic pair of rotting corpses.
"Lead the way," she gestured down the alleyway they had landed in.
Mrs Abaddon followed her husband through the rough terrain. When they exited the alleyway, the full force of activity in Below bombarded her ears. Screams and wails, raucous laughter and squeals of ecstasy and delight. She pulled in a deep breath and allowed the stench of sweat, blood and fire to take over her senses. Her shattered red slashes, indicators of her handing her Control over to an heir, lit up as she allowed the excitement and terror of the hellscape to enter her system. Below's gravity turned upside-down, from a debilitating weight to an exhilarating flight. Mrs Abaddon imagined a bird possessed this amount of freedom and wished she could remain in Below forever. Mr Runi-Tineiden walked backwards as he led her to witness the sudden change of her expression; the odd habit of his to watch as she was overcome with Below's depravity and ruthlessness always sent an extra rush through her arteries. The exhibitionism of the act heightened her awareness of the wrong that felt right here.
Once Mrs Abaddon was fully acclimatised, she caught up with Mr Runi-Tineiden and wrapped herself around his arm. Her husband made no effort to hide his pleasure. The coarse dirt turned to crooked cobblestones and Mrs. Abaddon's 3-inch heels clicked gaily against them.
On all sides, other zombies of Below, the Demons and Hybrids that inhabited her section of Below, her Den, gave them wary looks and stopped in their tracks to gawk at the pair; some stared out of respect, and others looked on in fear. After all, you do not become the leader of a Den by being nice. She recognised the faces of some of her council, also on their way to view whatever murder her husband had informed them of. Mr Runi-Tineiden was swift and efficient like that, it was one of the reasons why she kept him.
"Are your Demons safe?" A stocky and blemished man said as he looked up at her.
Mrs Abaddon recalled him as Mr Montegomory, father to Otto Montegomory; the one currently clasped in a bloody struggle with her daughter, Lei-selle. After defeating Winnard Jadnus, the previous head of Aalish Secondary's council of Clairvoyagers, the boy had been making obvious moves to challenge her.
"I swear it," Mrs Abaddon responded to the greeting used by Clairvoyagers.
"I hear something exciting has happened," Mr Montegomory stuck decrepit hands into his rotund waistcoat. He was an old-fashioned fellow, and as such was much appreciative of men's business fashion from the 1920s. He was clad in full suit and tie, paired tastfully with a waistcoat with the subtle embossing of azaleas.
"Yes, though we take human lives every moon it has been centuries since we've come across killing among Demons!" A pair of pencil-thin women pulled up on Mr Runi-Tineiden's right.
The two were Ms Fetish and Ms Judas, both their children Abyss Fetish and Escari Judas respectively had yet to challenge Lei-selle. In the meantime, the women made advances on Mr Runi-Tineiden with a bet that whoever got him into bed first would send their child to challenge Lei-selle. Mrs Abaddon paid no mind to their childish games and would send her husband to whichever irritated her more once Otto was put six feet under in due time.
"Wasn't the last time a Demon was killed nearly 200 years ago, Mrs Abaddon, when you killed that Khaalida scum?" Ms Judas placed a hand to her mouth in mock shock.
That settled it, Escari would be next.
"Why yes!" Ms Fetish answered for her. "They were doing some nasty business in trafficking Lightes from Above for some horrible experiments with their Hybrid spawn."
Ms Judas shivered to add effect to her friend's words. "It was surely a mercy you got rid of them! Who knows what destruction the Lightes would have enacted as revenge!"
"You needn't exaggerate!" In one sweep a woman that could equate as Mrs Abaddon's best friend slammed a hand into the backs of the women's heads.
It was Mrs Casper who rightfully scolded the foolish pair; a short lady wearing a severe black pantsuit and sporting a pixie haircut that complimented her elfish face and pale skin. She despised all members of the Den equally but even she knew when and where to speak about the leader of the Den.
"Now what is this about some Demon killing?" Mrs Casper looked expectantly at Mrs Abaddon.
"We're about to find out," Mrs Abaddon responded.
The falling buildings around them had turned to crooked forests of dried, leafless trees and the group stepped into it. As they entered, the noise of the city fell away and a stifling silence seemed to deafen Mrs Abaddon more than the constant wail of Below. Soon enough, a torch in the distance became their new guide and Mrs Abaddon, knowing they were approaching the scene, abandonned her husbands arm and took up the helm to lead the Demons through the forest.
The scene, an apparent ditch, stood three more Demons; Caesar Abaddon, Mr Jadnus and Mr Razulin.
Caesar was her brother, a tall man with caramel skin and sharp, attentive eyes. He wore his hair shaggily over his eyebrows and, despite not being a registered doctor, he wore a white lab coat over a pair of jeans and a stained t-shirt. He dabbled in medical sciences and was smart enough to have passed university with flying colours but justified not attending as spoiling the fun of the scientific method. Her brother was not a member of the council but in times when specific insight was needed, he was the first one she would call on.
Mr Jadnus stood behind him and fidgeted with his checkered tie. He was a head shorter than Mr Abaddon and even more messy with wispy blond hair, a shirt that had not seen a laundromat nor an iron in months and a pair of brown trousers two sizes too big. After his son, Winnard, lost the challenge against Lei-selle, the already shy man became even more skittish at every council meeting.
Finally, Mr Razulin, a ghost-like member of the council in the way he barely attended meetings, stood with his back to them as he surveyed the scattered limbs on the ground. He had requested his son, Acacius Razulin, be exempt from challenging Lei-selle as he ran a business in the Pierce My Heart games held in Below and he needed his son in the best shape possible to carry on the legacy of victory they were building. His presence at the murder scene cemented Mrs Abaddon's theory that this was no petty rivalry among Demons. Further investigation of the circumstances solidified her worries about what trouble had entered her Den.
"Sister! Why haven't you returned my calls?" Caesar raised his arms for a hug, but Mrs Abaddon remained firmly out of arms' reach.
"You were not needed at the time," she responded flatly.
Her brother lowered his arms and placed a hand on his chest as though he had been wounded, but his shrewd smile did not leave his lips, "That's cruel, sister."
"Are… are your demons safe?" Mr Jadnus stuttered, keeping behind Caesar as though it were his only safeguard.
"I swear it," Mrs Abaddon said and then quickly turned her attention to Mr Razulin. "It's been months since I last saw you, Mr Razulin, is business going well?"
"Quite!" Mr Razulin turned his head to the gloomy sky, and his hearty laughter echoed against the dead trees. "My son will have won more Spixses than he could possibly care for, the little bastard," he said as he gave her a wry smile. "But that matter can wait. Why's there a dead Nowt and Demon in my Logger Woods? It'll be bad for business, you know?"