Page 14 of Hellfire & Bowties
Luc glared at Zorun, then turned to Oren. “No Pits.”
“But—”
“There are more than just your standard hellbeasts down there, and not all of them are trained not to eat on sight.” Luccut him off before Oren could persuade him with those big eyes magnified by his glasses.
“Especially yummy fleshies!” Tarik grinned, giggling behind his hand.
“Yum, yum, yum!” Azoth giggled along.
Luc sighed, giving Oren a final stern look. “No Pits.”
Oren pouted, rubbing a hand over Beast’s head like he was trying to console himself with just having the one hellbeast. Luc barely contained his eye roll.
“Can I use Oren to tessst out sssome of my experimentsss?” Jek suddenly asked from the back.
“Well, if I can help…” Oren started.
“Absolutely not!” Luc said, beginning to feel the edge of panic now. “Protect. Oren. Each and every one of you. Got it? If he goes somewhere alone, the first person who sees him will be held responsible for whatever happens to him if you ignore him. I’ll be personally seeing to any punishments.”
A faint shiver went through the room, followed by a chorus of huffy agreements.
“We do have jobs to do though, boss,” Kassel said logically. “The new intake is stretching our limits, and we have the culling and the egg laying and hatching coming up. Not to mention the hunt.”
Luc sighed. “I know. Hopefully it’ll be resolved soon and won’t interfere with all that. I’ll try and take most of the brunt of looking after Oren myself.”
Maybe he could just sit in his lap all day. That wouldn’t be so bad.
“Um… I have a suggestion for what to do with me.” Oren raised his hand in some weird human culture thing that seemed to indicate he wanted permission.
“What is it?” Luc asked.
“I’m really good at organizing.”
“Organ… izing?” Tarik repeated, mouth moving weirdly around the word. “Is that some cool new torture with human insides? How comes he gets to do it and I don’t?!”
“How comes Tarik gets to do it and I don’t?!” Azoth chimed in, stamping his bare foot.
“No, no, that’s not…” Oren paused, and the whole room stared at him.
“Well, I mean, you could organize someone’s organs, I guess,” Oren said thoughtfully before shaking his head. “But that’s not the point. Organizing is, like, admin stuff. Filing and color coding.”
Zorun shivered. “Are you sure that’s not torture?”
“It’s fun!” Oren said brightly. “And I could maybe help with all those other things if you’re short-staffed… I’m not so clued up on hunting, but eggs and culling things doesn’t sound so hard.”
Azoth snickered, and Tarik joined in. Zorun was smirking himself as he said, “I don’t think you have the right, uh, equipment for egg laying.”
“And culling?” Oren asked.
“I want to cull with the innocent!” Tarik said, clapping gleefully.
“Yes, let’s get the innocent to cull the demon horde!” Azoth chorused.
“Oh… Maybe not then,” Oren said faintly, seemingly realizing he might have signed up for more than he bargained. He quickly rallied. “But if you need a schedule for that or something? I can do that!”
Luc shook his head at Oren, completely baffled. “We’ll talk about it later. For now, let’s get back on topic. I need someone to head topside and grab some of Oren’s things since we don’t know how long this will take. Zorun, you have the most experience.”
“With retrieving the personal effects of a wrongly condemned human? Oh sure, absolutely. Done it a million times over the centuries,” Zorun said dryly.
