The chilly autumn air had set in in Ponyville. Autumn leaves scraped across the sidewalk in front of one of the city’s many warehouses in the industrial district. Some of them were abandoned, or went unchecked at night. Hardly a car drove past at this time of night, making it perfect for meetings.

Or at least, it had been.

The metal side door swung open and the shadowy form of a unicorn appeared in the doorway. Piercing crimson eyes scanned the room before she stepped inside.

Her coat was a pristine white, unblemished save for a mole under her left eye. Her mane and tail matched, both long save for a row of evenly cut bangs over her eyes, with a hairband atop her head lined with black spikes like a tiara. She was dressed formally: a red collared shirt, black tie, and black suit jacket. A triangular sigil lapel pin on her left breast matched her cutie mark.

Her horn—curved forward, rather than straight—flickered with crimson sparkles and a sound like steel striking flint. Blood red orbs of fire, each the size of a baseball, flickered to life around her and lit up the warehouse’s main floor like a photographer’s dark room.

And the floor was hardly clean. Dark shapes littered the main area, most of them irregular masses but others identifiable as guns and other weapons. Upon closer inspection, the lumpy forms were pony bodies, shredded and torn open in horrendous fashion. Some of them sported black boils and other manner of grotesque ailments.

The mare simply disregarded them, and abruptly stopped when she started to venture among the bodies – and her leading forehoof made a splash.

Leaning down and concentrating some of the fireballs closer together, the mare saw her faint reflection on the floor, distorted by ripples. An intense odor of copper slowly wafted over her as she looked around and saw similar reflections of her fireballs in amongst the bodies.

“How lovely,” the mare muttered, shaking the blood from her hoof before continuing through the gruesome marsh. Her voice had a posh accent to it.

“Come on out, Beel!” she called. Her voice echoed through the cavernous room. “Let’s make this easy for both of us. I want those souls back and you back in the Abyss – and we’ll be plugging whatever hole you crawled out of for good measure. I’m sure you don’t want a repeat of the last time.”

The mare paused, her ear angling towards a faint skittering noise. She looked to the ceiling, where a series of gangways ran over top of the warehouse floor. Condensing some more of the fireballs skyward, she honed in on the noise.

She found a changeling skittering upside down and low to the underside of one of the gangways. Her chitin was a blood red crimson in color, interlaced with white accents. Her wings were dark grey, sharing the same iridescence of a house fly. She had pale red eyes, and seemed to be licking her lips.

“Savoring some more kills are we?” the mare asked, raising an eyebrow.

The changeling licked her lips and twisted her head all the way around—accompanied by the sickening cracking of chitin—until she was looking down at the mare with her head right side up. She broke into a grin.

“What can I say? Mortal blood just agrees with my tastes. The more wicked the mortal, the finer the wine,” the changeling scoffed, she too with a posh accent.

The mare gritted her teeth. “Well, we’ll be sure to send you a sample platter once you’re back in the Abyss!”

“No thanks. I’ve found… new employment.” And with that, the changeling dropped from the gangway.

The mare flinched, but the changeling righted herself and her buzzing wings caught her fall. She darted through the air, and the mare followed her movements, sending the full force of her fireballs after her.

The changeling ducked and weaved around the shots, but one caught her straight in the chest like a cannonball. It launched her out of the window and into the alley adjacent to the warehouse. The mare galloped through the blood to the nearest exit.

She shoved through a set of double doors, some of the blood running after her as she looked around the sky. “Beel! You can’t hide!” she roared. “We’ll find you!”

“And my little distraction will find you!”

The mare whirled around just in time for the changeling to launch off her perch on the exterior wall and shove her into the stone wall of the adjacent building. The mare was stunned only for a moment, but it was enough time for the changeling to disappear over the rooftops.

That’s when the mare noticed the payphone by her choice of exits. With the receiver hanging down, swaying in the evening breeze.

Red and blue lights flooded the mare’s vision and the wail of sirens assaulted her ears. She winced against the sensory onslaught, turning towards some shadowy figures entering the alleyway.

“Police! Hooves in the air you!” came a male voice, barking orders.

The mare stood there, humming with contemplation. Then a smile crossed her muzzle, tainted with dark intent. Slowly, she raised her forelegs.

“This should be fun…” she thought to herself.

Detective Red Herring stormed through the front doors of the Ponyville Police Department. His trench coat was tossed over a dress shirt, its collar disheveled like his mane. He slammed a forehoof on the front desk, startling the receptionist. “Where’s Chief Case?”

The receptionist simply pointed down one of the hallways towards the interrogation rooms. Red noticed she was trembling, long past his surprising arrival. His eyes lingered on her as he headed in that direction.

Turning at one of the intersections, it was easy to find Cold Case – and at least half of the on-duty officers as well as Dr. Mortis. They all stood outside one of the interrogation rooms, gazing inside intently.

“Cold!” Red stormed over to her. “You know this is my night off, and you know why, so why am I here?”

He was taken aback by the wide-eyed look Cold gave him. She quickly composed herself with a clearing of her throat and puffed out more smoke from her pipe. Red realized the air was heavy with the smell of her pine tobacco.

“I’m sorry,” she said tersely. “But I need everyone we can get right now. The tougher the better.” She jerked her head towards the interrogation room.

Red walked over and gazed through the two-way glass. The white mare was seated comfortably at the interrogation table, stripped naked. Heavy manacles bound her legs, enchanted to prevent her from using her horn’s magic.

And in spite of all that, she was smiling, not of maniacal glee or sneering superiority, but of genuine amusement. She seemed completely nonplussed by the situation without a single hair out of place.

“…Alright?” Red asked, glancing at Cold.

“We’ve had her here for half an hour. She’s not asking for a lawyer, nor has she professed any sort of innocence.” Cold swallowed. “We caught her at a warehouse on Eventide, at another one of those butcher scenes.”

Red’s eyes widened, then narrowed as the gears turned in his head. “She’s not the one who did it,” he deduced.

“She hasn’t said that herself. She’s just sitting there… and that’s not the weird part.” Cold levitated up an evidence bag, holding the unknown mare’s lapel pin. “Look familiar?”

Red studied it for a moment before shaking his head. “Beats the hell out of me.”

They and nearly everyone around them jumped when the mare gave a hearty chuckle from within the room, as if she had heard him.

“Captain Oak took one look at it, crossed himself, and left without a word. Won’t even say anything. Her cutie mark is this exact symbol,” Cold said when her breathing had calmed, putting away the bag. “She’s not in the database and we’ve got nothing on her except she was walking through the blood on the scene.”

“That still doesn’t explain why I’m here and not with Honeydew.” Red jerked his head towards the room.

“Things aren’t adding up, Red. We need answers.” Cold set a hoof on his shoulder. “If you can get answers out of her, I’ll pay for you and Honeydew’s next date myself.”

Red huffed. He moved to leave, then noticed Dr. Mortis standing among the crowd. Unlike the others—who looked, for lack of a better term, spooked—she seemed chipper, and was jotting stuff down on a notepad.

“Why’s the doctor at an interrogation?” he asked Cold.

“That would have to do with this mare’s… peculiar conversation topics. She’s talked about quite a bit about anatomy… of the deceased. I believe one of the newer officers is in the bathroom losing his lunch as we speak,” Cold explained.

“Great.” Red huffed. “Anything else I should be worried about?”

“I think you’ll know when you see it,” Cold said with a frown. “She doesn’t react to violent outbursts either.”

Red blinked, but shook it off. He opened the door and slammed it shut behind him, storming over to the table and stomping both forehooves on the table, trying to make some noise to rattle the mare.

But visually, nothing changed in her demeanor. Her eyes simply focused on him… and the longer they lingered, the more he felt they were looking through him instead.

He opened his mouth to speak, but she beat him to it:

“Detective Red Herring,” she said merrily. “Don’t you have better things to be doing this evening? Or better ponies, hmm?” She raised one eyebrow with a satisfied smirk. “You really want to blow a shot with your former wife?”

Red’s jaw would’ve fallen through the table, if it hadn’t set into a snarl instead. He would have flipped the table had the mare not been shackled to it. He leaned in with a growl. “The fuck are you talking about?” he seethed.

The mare’s crimson eyes bore into his, and he blinked, backing away and averting his gaze. She simply chortled.

“Not only have I read the books, I can read you like a book,” she explained in a matter-of-fact tone. “Tell me, do you know what happens to a wing when it starts to decay?”

“…What?” He looked at her with a bewildered expression. She was still calm and collected.

“Well, it locks into place first. Rigor mortis sets in rather early on. The flesh of the wing starts to rot away ever so slowly, but not the feathers – oh no! The feathers fall out… one by one…”

“You’re crazy,” Red interrupted.

“Not at all. But when you do reunite with Honeydew, give her my best, won’t you?” The mare’s smirk deepened.

Red’s eyes widened and he opened his mouth to speak, only to snap it shut with a growl. He stormed out of the room and glared at Cold. “How the fuck?” he seethed.

“I don’t know. She knew Mortis was here without any of us saying anything either – and no one here knows her,” Cold replied. “This is why I wanted the best.”

“Then call Phil and Daring for the weirdos. I don’t like strangers knowing everything about me,” he said, jabbing a hoof at the mare in the room.

“Oh, please do.” Cold and Red turned to the mare, who seemed to have her eyes locked on Cold’s through the two-way glass. “I’ve been asking for someone competent for the past half hour, Chief. Ring them up, won’t you?”

Cold’s pipe clattered to the ground.

Phil sat at the glass, staring at the mare. Daring, behind him, checked through the evidence bags that held the mare’s clothes. She stopped at the sigil lapel pin and studied it.

“What’s she doing?” Daring asked over her shoulder.

“She’s making eye contact. Even though I’ve shifted my position four times. She’s following me,” Phil replied. “Otherwise, she’s just sitting there.”

“Well, I’m not a religious pony, but this sigil rings a bell.” Daring offered it to Phil, who looked it over through the plastic bag. “Some mythologies have a sigil that’s supposed to belong to a fallen pony that fell into Tartarus with the Old Gods. This looks like it.”

“And it’s her cutie mark.” He sucked in a breath. “Daring… we’ve faced monsters before… here and in Aushaylia. We know they exist.” He looked to the mare, who flashed a friendly smile. “Do you think we’re looking at one now?”

“Well, I guess we’ll have to ask her ourselves.” Daring set the bags aside. “And seeing as she asked for us specifically, we should be on our guard.”

Phil nodded, getting up and stepping inside, followed by Daring. They approached the mare slowly, hooves on the pistols in their shoulder holsters.

“Detectives Finder and Do,” the mare said. “A pleasure to meet you in the flesh and blood.”

“You seem to know a lot about others, how about you cough up something about yourself?” Daring said.

“Very well.” The mare turned to them, as much as she could still shackled down. “I am Lucifer, Queen of Hell… or, as you know it, Tartarus. Leader of the demons who keep the dead in their rightful pits or send them off to their paradise.”

Phillip and Daring glanced at one another, and collectively took a step back. Phil’s hoof gripped his pistol tightly. “A demon… you mean like—”

“Zugzwang?” Lucifer scoffed. “Hardly. But enough small talk. I have urgent business to attend to and I have to find my colleagues.”

“There’s more of you?” Daring asked. “You’re not going anywhere, not until we get more information.”

Lucifer sighed. “If you want information, and to help stop the apocalypse about to be unleashed upon your world, then the more the merrier. I only have one thing to ask of you.”

“What’s that?” Phillip asked.

The demon smirked. “I simply ask that you pledge your souls to me.”

“Not a chance in Tartarus,” Phil grunted. “If that’s even where you’re from.”

Lucifer frowned at this, holding up her shackled legs. With a simple tug apart, the chains snapped. Crimson flames ate away at the remaining metal like it was paper and she hopped out of her chair.

“If you aren’t going to enlist your services,” Lucifer said coldly as she walked up to Daring until she stood over her. “Then stay out of the way. I have no time to be babysitting mortals.”

Her horn flickered with red sparkles. There came several audible bursts of fire and exclamations of surprise from the hallway, and blood red flames swirled around Lucifer’s form. Daring and Phil stepped back as, piece-by-piece, Lucifer’s wardrobe reapplied itself to her.

“If you think we’re just going to let you walk away…” Daring growled.

Lucifer adjusted her lapel pin. “Well, if you two think you can keep up, I’ll be heading to the Apple Pie In Your Eye next. You’re not the only one who needs information.”

Phil and Daring shielded their eyes as a column of blood red fire enveloped where Lucifer was standing. When it vanished, she was gone, leaving behind the stench of brimstone and a slightly torched circle in the floor.

The pair glanced at one another before bolting out of the interrogation room, past a stunned Red, Cold, and the crowd gathered that watched them leave.

“I can’t believe it…” Cold muttered.

“I can’t believe she didn’t set off the fire alarms,” Red said.

Author's Note

What? Thought I could only rock a goat form?

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to find yourself inside the book you were reading, living an adventure amongst your favorite characters? To get to have the same kind of fun they get to have?

Well that’s what I’m living through now. Stay tuned, dear readers. Things only get hotter from here.

~L