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The staff of the music department were acting strangely.
To most of the staff of Joey Drew Studios, the difference wasn't even noticeable. The band was odd on a good day. They were rarely seen anywhere but in their department unless they were arriving or leaving. Some of them followed after their director like lost ducklings, others acted like they worshiped the ground he walked on. They picked fights with the other department routinely, especially the art department. They were either skittish or aggressive, seldom anything in-between.
The department's director was even more odd to the outside observer. Alternately excessively loud or snappish and insistent on silence. He wore his hair long, but was involved in a very well known long-running 'rumored' relationship against company policy with the studio's best known voice actress. He'd lock himself in his office for days at a time and emerge with a completed song, or he'd be found roaming the department and snapping at anyone he deemed should be doing something else.
So members of the band sneaking around, swiping things out of supply closets, and generally being flighty and not talking to anyone was nothing out of the ordinary, as was the increasing rarity of Sammy Lawrence's appearances outside of his department.
To nearly everyone.
Susie Campbell's heels clacked with every step she took, taking care to avoid the lingering ink puddles on the floor of the music department. There were more stains than puddles in the past few weeks, she'd noticed. Unusual, since Sammy had a tendency to chase Franks out of the department purely by existing.
"Good morning, Miss Campbell!" greeted one of the drummers.
Susie gave a perfectly pretty and polite smile and a little wave. The drummer turned a light, flustered sort of red.
Unlike nearly every other soul in the studio, Susie was allowed free reign of the music department. She was practically one of the band, as far as the gaggle of musicians was concerned. The fact she did most of the Foley in the studio when the other departments weren't paying attention helped with that. A girl had to keep up a reputation, and mashing cardboard against drum kits and stomping around in old shoes on chunks of brickwork didn't exactly project the most elegant image. The musicians could get a horse whinny out of a trombone, but without her they'd never get the proper sound of hoof-beats to go with the damned musical number.
More musicians greeted her as she wove her way through the department, morning setup still in progress, the band scrambling to get everything together for practice. It was the ordinary chaos she was used to.
Minus one little, but noticeable, factor: Sammy was nowhere to be seen.
Morning setup, when Susie bothered to be around for it, was always abject chaos. And Sammy was normally in the middle of it, either moodily making his way through yet another cup of coffee dark and viscous enough that it could easily be mistaken for tar or ink without saying a word and glaring daggers at anyone who dared drop so much as a folder, or shouting to direct the chaos into something vaguely resembling order.
And it wasn't the first time either.
"Mornin' Miss Campbell," said a voice behind her.
"Have you seen where Sammy disappeared to, Norman?" Susie asked without missing a beat.
"In his office last I checked."
"Good."
Susie pivoted on one heel and started down the hall toward Sammy's office, Norman Polk following closely behind her.
"Any idea what our resident composer has gotten up to?" she asked.
No one knew the studio's gossip better than Norman Polk. If there was a rumor, a secret, or something out of the ordinary, he'd know about it. No one paid much mind to the studio's lone projectionist, ever busy with running projectors across the studio entirely on his own. No one ever noticed him until he made himself known.
"I got a couple ideas, but I'm not sure just yet."
"You don't know?"
"Only that Sammy's bein' real weird. Workin' late, showin' up early, and he isn't even in the middle of a new piece."
"And his little gaggle of helpers?"
"I've been keepin' an eye on the supply closets. The one we keep the candles and matches in for when the power goes out's just about empty. The whole department's about out of ink, and there's paintbrushes missing from the animation department. Not a dime out of place on the budget, though, 'least not from here, poor Grant's about ready to tear his hair out about the Machine costs though."
It wasn't like Sammy to embezzle funds anyway, the only reason that the man cared about money in the first place was to pay rent and buy halfway decent cigarettes. That, and the occasional show on Broadway, because employment didn't have the power to change a man's proclivities.
The candles were what stood out more than anything. Susie frowned at the thought. Sammy probably thought he was being subtle.
"Mind the door for me, Norman?"
"Of course, Miss Campbell."
Sammy's door was closed, unsurprisingly. A cutout of the studio's darling lead sat right beside the door. The curtains that Sammy had installed to cover the glass window were pulled closed, and a note reading 'knock first' had been taped to the door. There were muffled voices coming from inside.
Frowning, Susie knocked.
The voices behind the door went abruptly quiet.
A few moments later, the door cracked open, the displeased and visibly sleep deprived face of Sammy Lawrence appearing in the doorway.
"We're not recording until after lunch," he said tersely. "I have work to do."
He tried to shut the door, but Susie had already stuck her foot into the gap.
"We need to talk," she said.
Rumors would fly at that phrasing. Let them. Off-again, on-again kept suspicion off of the both of them.
Sammy glared. Susie held his gaze. Sammy's glare might intimidate the band, and even manage to scare the shit out of Joey Drew, but it would take more than a nasty look to phase her .
Sammy looked over his shoulder, sighed, and opened the door.
"Fine."
Susie stepped inside and made sure the door closed behind her.
There were no obvious signs that anything was amiss in the office, other than the pump switch that had been installed in the wall two months prior when the one staircase out of the department flooded three days in a row. Everything was either tidily in place or a complete mess, no in-between. The floor was clear, but the desk was covered in papers haphazardly thrown all across its surface.
Save for the ink dripping down one wall from a leaking pipe, everything seemed normal.
With the exception that there was no one but the two of them in the office, and Susie knew damn well that there was no phone installed anywhere nearby.
Sammy dropped back into the chair at his desk, shuffling papers. Susie caught a glimpse of what looked like blueprints before they were covered up with loose pages of sheet music.
"Polk's going to tell everyone about this," Sammy said blandly.
"Good, it's been a while since one of our 'lover's tiffs.' People will talk if we don't keep things interesting."
"A necessary evil, I suppose... What do you want, angel?"
Ah, 'angel.' Everyone else thought it was a pet name. Susie knew better. It was a compliment as easily as it was an insult, coming from Sammy. He was prickly in that way. She liked it, but she knew that what she liked didn't really matter. Not with Sammy, at least.
Using it instead of her name spoke volumes about how little he wanted to be listening to her right now.
"We need to talk," she stated.
"So you said. About what, exactly?"
She leaned on the corner of his desk, arms crossed, looking the picture of a femme fatale walking into a proper noir detective's office, black dress and furs, dress gloves and high-heeled pumps. Not that Sammy could ever play the part of a detective, he didn't have the temperament for it.
"Whatever it is that you're scheming at the moment."
Sammy snorted. "I don't scheme."
"You could have fooled me. Skulking around after hours. The band's more skittish than usual. And taking things that they don't even need, by the sound of it."
Sammy crossed his arms, one eyebrow raised, projecting nothing but skepticism behind those big round spectacles of his.
Susie didn't buy it.
"And what, exactly, do you think that my band's been taking?"
"Ink. Paintbrushes."
Which earned her an eye roll.
"Candles and matches."
Sammy's momentary freeze was incredibly brief, but Susie spotted it.
Her smile was thin and vicious.
"I remember all the things you've mentioned you got up to back in the day," she said with false pleasantness. "Especially all those fancy ones you like to brag about whenever you get completely drunk at those staff parties that you hate and I have to hide you in a coat closet so you don't do anything stupid."
She leaned forward, Sammy's gaze never once leaving her face.
"Drawing ink and paint brushes? A little different from chalk and charcoal, but they'd work just about the same, wouldn't they, Sammy?"
She pressed a single, slender finger to his chest.
"And I bet that little hidey-hole of yours has all those little books you've found over the years saved up nice and tidy, circles and symbols and all."
Sammy's jaw clenched. She was right.
"Are you really throwing a party without little old me?" Her range lightened right up into Alice Angel. "Or did you already throw it and just forget to tell me?"
"This doesn't involve you, angel," Sammy shot back with a scowl.
"Oh," she said, voice dropping back down, then going low . "But I think it does. Or do you think you can get away with something like this without telling me?"
Sammy was silent.
"After all," Susie said, leaning back, "you can't just round up your little cult and not invite me."
"It's not a cult," Sammy snapped.
Then stilled, clearly realizing he'd slipped up and said too much. Susie's grin was wicked.
"...Fine," Sammy said. "Fine. I didn't want you involved in this for a reason , angel, but if you're going to be this difficult about it, fine. But don't interrupt. And tell Polk if he's going to snoop, he's going to help. And either of you so much as breathe a word to anyone from Gent, especially Thomas Connor, we're all going to regret it, more than you could even begin to comprehend. Understood."
"Dramatic of you. Fine."
"We convene before midnight. Now get out of my office."
Susie did. Norman was waiting at the door for her.
"Sounds like we've got a date tonight," she said. "Though I can't imagine what's got Sammy so worked up about all this."
"Maybe whatever's got Joey all in a twist," Norman suggested. "He's been squirrely more than usual lately."
"As if Joey Drew could ever figure something like that out. The man can't even draw a circle."
"I think we've gotta hope so, Susie. Something's wrong with the studio, and I don't think all of it's Joey Drew."
"I suppose we'll see. You free for dinner tonight, Norman?"
"For you, Miss Campbell? Consider my evening free."
Routing back to the Studio after a pleasant dinner out, plus a well deserved nap, was simple. The trains ran at all hours, after all, and Susie, Norman, and Sammy were all part of the first handful of employees the studio had ever had.
And Joey Drew was too cheap to change the locks even all these years later.
The studio was silent, save for the distant churning of the Ink Machine, the slosh of ink through the pipes overhead and in the walls. It was dark and undeniably eerie.
Norman had enough foresight to bring a flashlight, though Susie always kept her favorite lighter on her just in case.
Their own footsteps sounded so loud in the absence of anything but the sounds of the Machine, the sounds of dripping ink.
The stairwell to the music department was shut tight. Susie knocked. 'Shave and a hair-cut.'
The answering knock of 'two bits' was accompanied by the door opening, the violinist with the long dark hair that nearly hid her entire face that Susie knew was one of the odder ducks in Sammy's flock on the other side, a candle contained in a little metal lantern lit the stairwell and threw odd shadows along the walls.
A cardboard Bendy mask was looped around one of her arms.
"He mentioned you would be joining us," the violinist said, "follow me."
They did.
The lights in the music department were off, instead the space was lit by candles contained within what looked like anything anyone had to spare, soup cans cut in half, candelabras, a few even perched on chipped saucers. People clustered into small groups around the space, staying to the edges of the department's foyer. Susie counted heads.
Every last member of the band was here. Even Jack Fain, off to one side and busy with writing something down, doubtlessly working on song lyrics.
And every last soul in the room was either wearing or holding onto a cardboard Bendy mask.
And, most noticeably, a giant circle filled the center of the space.
It was a complex thing, symbols and squiggles and lines. All drawn in ink, all surrounded by candles, currently unlit.
And in the center stood Sammy Lawrence, turning in a slow circle, clothes splattered with ink and a mask on the side of his head. He was muttering to himself, a paintbrush in hand moving like a conductor's baton.
"Real show tonight, huh?" Norman commented.
"A little bigger than I expected," Susie agreed. "I wonder whose idea it was."
"I'm gettin' the feeling it might not be Sammy this time."
Susie had to agree, but kept the thought silent. Sammy was eccentric as a rule, but this was a bit much, even for him. Unless he'd gone completely insane, which was a distinct possibility with all the ink fumes filling the building.
The violinist – Violet, Susie was reasonably sure her name was – held out a Bendy mask. One for her, and one for Norman.
"They are necessary," Violet said. "But only to have, you don't have to wear them."
Norman fastened the one he was handed to one side of his head. Susie slipped hers around one arm.
At least she had an idea of what exactly this was now.
Eventually Sammy seemed satisfied with the organized mess in the middle of his department. He picked his way out of the circle, careful not to smudge any of the painted ink lines, and made his way over to them.
"I thought you said no summoning demons in the department, Sam," Norman commented.
"This isn't a summoning," Sammy responded, and Susie could see the bags under his eyes.
"Then what exactly is it?" Susie inquired. "You and your little demon cult that you started without me."
"I doubt you'd believe me if I told you."
"Try me."
Sammy was silent for a long moment before letting out a sigh.
"The short answer," he said, "is that Joey Drew intends to create a demon. Whole cloth, from ink, questionable sigilwork, and that damned Machine."
Norman raised an eyebrow. Susie crossed her arms.
The cartoons weren't doing well, it was true. The recent announcement of an amusement park, of all things, smelled of a publicity stunt with a desperate attempt to increase interest in a floundering series that couldn't even be bothered to include color.
Creating, though. Not 'summoning,' 'creating.' Meaning that–
"He wants to make Bendy ?" she realized, incredulity filling her tone. "He's a cartoon character, not a real demon."
"The Hays code folk'd have a field day with that," Norman commented. "Shut us down the second word got out if it worked. So why all this?"
"It is... complicated. But this isn't for summoning."
"Then what is it?" Susie asked.
"Countering what Joey Drew's already set into motion. The ink churning through the Machine is like water through a prayer wheel, slowly turning toward an end. If we wish to prevent that end and save ourselves, we have to counter it. Damaging the Machine isn't enough, but this–" He gestured to the circle, the room full of band members with unified masks enough to be a cult's worth of them, and then, oddly, up to the pipe in the ceiling. "Should be more than enough to counter the curse within the ink."
"What end, Sam?" Norman asked.
"Do you really think that Joey Drew will be satisfied with a soulless monster created from ink and imagination? A monster created in the image of a demon with none of the power of a real being of Hell? It won't be enough. He aims to do the impossible. And when ink alone isn't enough, he'll turn to more desperate measures."
His words hung heavy in the air. Everyone was silent.
"Sammy," one of the band said. "Five til."
Sammy nodded. He removed his glasses, tucking them into the pocket on his shirt, and slid the mask over his face.
"It is nearly time," he intoned. "Stay out of the circle and whatever happens, no matter what you hear and what you see, do not interrupt me."
With that, he strode back across the space and started lighting candles.
He moved slowly. Deliberately. The milling members of the band all stopped and slowly took spaces around the circle, masks moved to cover their faces.
Norman gave Susie a questioning look. With a shrug, she found a spot in the circle to stand, Norman stepping up beside her. She wasn't putting the mask on, though, that was a step too far.
Either Sammy had completely lost his marbles, or they were about to see something they never had before. Something that, by all logic and reason, should be impossible.
When the final candle was lit, a hush fell over the department. Sammy stepped to fill the last empty spot in the circle.
"Tonight," Sammy intoned, his voice not raised to excess, but so loud in the silence it felt near deafening, "we gather to break the rope slowly starting to encircle our necks before it can tighten and choke the life from us."
The inflection he was using was one that Susie had never heard him use before. It wasn't just speaking, wasn't just a speech. No.
It was preaching. It was a sermon.
(A reminder that, long ago, Sammy had fled seminary school, repulsed by the need to lie before the pulpit, and sought to learn music instead, a story he seldom told to anyone. Susie only knew it because it came from Sammy's own mouth, many years into knowing each other.)
"We offer not our souls," he continued, "but our devotion, our praise, our energy. Our imagination, our thoughts, and our will. We gather to combine what little we can give so that the Demon of Creativity, the Demon of the Ink will free us from these binds. The witching hour draws close. Speak naught and offer in thought only what you will give. What you are willing to sacrifice to spare our souls from a fate worse than anything we could ever imagine. Song, image, anything you can give will help. And, if you faint, do remember to faint backwards and not break the circle."
The last line was delivered in Sammy's usual conductor intonation. Susie quirked an eyebrow, but said nothing.
She'd heard enough about how magic worked to know the rules. Don't break the circle, don't interrupt the caster, and don't say anything stupid.
And don't give up anything you weren't willing to lose.
Creativity, though. Susie wasn't really the creative type, that was why she let the other departments handle things. Still, she could imagine up a few things just fine. A particularly vivid mental image of Joey Drew being squished under a falling piano with Alice Angel perched atop it felt appropriate.
And Sammy started to chant. In Latin, Susie not understanding so much as a word of it.
His voice grew louder, the words faster, the cadence more of a song than a chant.
The pipe overhead burst. Several members of the band flinched backwards, but didn't take more than a half step away.
The ink that poured out didn't break the edges of the circle.
It filled the space quickly, deliberately, a growing mass of ink, impossibly suspended in space, coalescing until the pipe ran dry and the mass within took a defined form and stood.
Before them, in the center of the circle, was a monstrosity of claws and teeth, muscles and spikes. Taller than any of them, horns brushing the ceiling even as it stooped. Ink wriggled along the walls, along the floor, writhing in tandem to the sound of the monsters breathing, a pulsing heartbeat so loud that it blocked out everything else.
A beast with shreds of gloves clinging to its clawed hands (only four digits, the shreds ink-stained yet somehow still white), with a tattered bowtie half sunken into its chest, with cloven hooves and a long, thin tail.
A tail with a tip like the end of a dip pen.
A demon. A real demon.
With horns in a swoop in a still familiar shape. One that Susie had stared in the face every day for nearly twenty years, from posters to reels.
Bendy .
A real living, breathing demon. Henry's little devil grown up and twisted into something monstrous.
The beast growled a low bass as the sound of the heartbeat faded to something so faint it was almost inaudible, a rumble that Susie felt resonate down to her bones. The flames around the circle shuddered as the ink that danced on every surface around them shuddered, turning the walls black. A pitch black so dark that it felt like it was eating away at the meager light the candles were still managing to give as they sputtered and flickered.
The demon turned, stalking forward to Sammy. It lowered its head down to Sammy's level and breathed in.
Sammy visibly swayed for a moment before resuming his chanting in earnest.
The flames of the candles hissed and sputtered. The demon stalked the edges of the circle, dragging its tail along the edge. Each flame it passed flickered, turning from flame to illustration, glowing motes of hand-drawn fire impossibly suspended in real space.
Each person it passed swayed or staggered, falling backwards or falling onto whoever they were standing beside. Someone broke into tears, but with the masks it was impossible to tell who it was.
The demon stopped in front of her.
It lowered its head down to her level. It had no eyes, its face obscured with ink, and yet it somehow looked through her. It let out a low, bassy rumble.
No... a purr . Sounding more akin to a car's engine than anything else. It bowed its head and moved a claw in a quick plucking motion.
Something in Susie's chest felt tugged forward. The scenario in her head of bodily harm cartoonishly inflicted on the pathetic little insect of a man that signed her paychecks left her mind and for a moment all thoughts were blank. Nothing in her head but the deep blackess of ink.
Susie lurched forward, the world spinning. Norman caught her before she could break the circle.
It did the same thing to Norman, who swayed but stayed standing, fixing the demon with a look of confusion but said nothing.
The demon was faster on the rest of its way around until it had completed a full circuit of the circle. It walked, hooves clopping on the wooden floor, to the center of the circle. The pipes gurgled.
The demon looked up. It growled low in its throat. It turned slowly, pen-tipped tail tracing the lines and symbols within circle. The scribbled flames turned from white to gleaming gold.
The demon roared, rearing up and slamming its claws into the ceiling, claws dragging along the exposed pipe overhead. Gleams of gold crawled from the gashes it made, up and into the pipes.
The Machine, many floors up, shuddered so loudly that it shook the walls throughout the studio.
The flames of the candles turned black as ink.
The demon's tail flicked, splattering ink across the circle.
An image flooded Susie's mind, a full scene in sharp detail, as vivid as if she was seeing it in front of her. A pentagram on the floor surrounded by black candles. Joey Drew looming over it, expression blank and cold.
Looming over her corpse. Her corpse with a jagged dagger through her heart and a halo in ink drawn around her head.
(Norman shuddered beside her, the image of his head replaced with a projector and blood leaking from the seam where metal met flesh tore through his mind without warning or ceremony and left his neck sore.)
There were choked sobs around the circle, startled screams and gasps smothered behind hands and masks.
The candles went out all at once, plunging the center of the room into near darkness.
And then the image overtaking her thoughts was gone. The ink writhing along the walls vanished as the sound of ink through the pipes gurgled, sputtered, and stopped.
The monstrosity in the center of the circle nodded, flicking a tail in Sammy's direction. The music director – who Susie could see was visibly shivering – smudged the circle.
All at once, the members of the band collapsed with the sound of the heartbeat vanishing when the circle was broken, musicians falling to the floor or onto each other, sobbing or frozen into silence. Susie staggered, using Norman for support, who barely kept his feet himself.
Sammy pitched forward and was caught by the clawed hand of the demon in the center of the circle. Its rumbling purr filled the room as it plucked the mask from his head and tossed it aside, pulling his glasses from his pocket and carefully fixing them back onto his face.
"It... is done," Sammy managed. "...Take five, everyone."
Someone turned the lights back on.
The demon didn't go away when the lights returned. It remained, carefully holding Sammy upright as the man made his way across the circle.
"What the hell," Susie managed, "was that?!"
The demon tilted its head to one side for a moment, as if thinking, then tilted it toward Sammy.
"That," Sammy answered, "was the net effect of every spell and bit of intent of magic Joey Drew has been considering for all of us being broken at once. All of the things he planned out for us, drawn into the ink by intent, deliberately or accidentally. Every ounce of intent he directed toward the magic that fueled the Machine that would have grown stronger and stronger the more it flowed, until the ink would have made it so."
"He wanted to..."
"Kill you? Most likely."
The demon let out a low, rumbling noise.
"...Ah. Worse, it seems."
"Worse?"
"He intended to use you in a ritual to create Alice Angel if the Machine didn't work the way he wanted it to."
Susie's stomach lurched for a moment, fear flooding through her.
And then, abruptly, it was replaced with rage .
"I'll kill him first," she hissed.
"Unless you want to be tried for murder, you'll wait. We're... working on it."
"We?"
The demon, despite its teeth and claws and spikes, its size and its presence, gave a bashful sort of little wave. And grinned.
Grinned in a mischievous way that Susie would recognize anywhere.
The demon grinned just like Henry Stein .
"We," Sammy repeated. "Bendy has... painted a fair few vivid images for me for potential options, but we needed to deal with the more pressing matter before we tried to figure out a way that would work that wouldn't result in one of us being caught."
"The big guy really is Bendy then, huh?" Norman asked, sounding winded and looking like he'd broken into a cold sweat only moments before. "Don't suppose he knows about the projector bit."
The demon grimaced and nodded.
"To keep you silent," Sammy said, likewise grimacing. "Permanently."
Norman shook his head. "Can't say I'm that surprised, Joey's always had it out for me for knowing more than I should. I can't say this whole demon thing makes much sense to me, but I ain't gonna say a damn word about it to a soul. Joey's been runnin' this whole place into the ground since Henry left, I don't think any soul here'd miss him. Speaking of which." He looked up at the demon. "I don't suppose you know if Henry Stein sold his soul at the crossroads for those drawings of his, did you?"
The demon only grinned his Henry-like grin.
Somehow, that didn't surprise Susie in the slightest.
"Whatever you're planning," Susie said, "I want in."
Sammy was quiet for a moment, then sighed.
"Alright, angel. But don't try anything on your own. I..."
"Don't want me ending up with a dagger through my heart? Sweet of you to want to save a girl from getting cut up like a cheap side of beef."
Sammy was silent at that. The demon chuckled, clearly amused. It gestured, and carefully set Sammy on his own two feet.
It took a few steps back, ink collapsing into a puddle that didn't so much as stain their shoes as it condensed and reshaped itself.
Reforming at a grand total of maybe three feet tall.
Into a pair of devil horns, a perfectly even bowtie, and a mischievous smile all on a familiar figure.
"Don't sweat it, angel cakes," Bendy the Dancing Demon himself said. "I've already got an idea cooked up. Just need'ta give it a bit'ta simmer before the whole thing blows its lid, so'ta speak. That said, I'm a big fan'a yers, ain't gonna lie. Ain't a soul that could voice that angel'a mine better than you, no matter how much of a headache she gives me in the show. And since ya helped out here, I'll call this one a freebie."
"...Freebie?"
The demon's grin broadened. "Ain't everyday a movie star gets a deal that pays twice as much as Joey Drew ever could. So this–" The demon reached to his side and, impossibly, pulled out a piece of paper. "Ain't ever gonna hit anybody's desk. So we can call this one even, no soul needed. I'd rather ya stick around an' keep on voicin' that angelic foil'a mine, ya know?"
Susie snatched it. It was a notice. Of her replacement.
Effective immediately.
She tore it in half with a furious sound.
Bendy grinned, clearly amused.
There was no denying how much the little terror looked like his illustrator when he smiled like that.
"Like I said, it's a freebie. So." He held out a hand. "Anyway, the name's Bendy. Pleased'ta meet ya! I think this is gonna be the beginnin' of a beau-ti-ful friendship. Love yer style with the piano, by the way, ya can't beat a good classic."
Susie, despite her better judgement, took the demon's hand and shook on it, the demon's mischievous grin a far cry from her own furious snarl at the prospect of what she was going to do to Joey Drew for this.