Page 16 of Hellfire & Bowties
“Have flesh in teeth?” it suddenly asked him, its words slurred and barely discernible.
“Umm… no, you’re good,” Oren said, eyeing the rows on rows of serrated fangs and thinking immediately of a shark. “Maybe flossing would be better than human bones?”
“Floss?” it asked, tilting its massive head.
“Like… string, that’s thin enough to slip between and… you know,” Oren said, finishing with a hand motion.
“Barbed wire will work?” it asked, watching the sawing and clearly getting the wrong idea.
“No, no, no, you can’t use that!”
“But I like,” it said, its eyes glowing brighter, which Oren took to mean it was scowling at him.
“Won’t it hurt?” he asked, concerned.
“Hurt?” It sounded offended now, stomping away in a huff. “Barbed wire floss. I use.”
“Sorry!” Oren called after it, wincing.
“Don’t mind him, Pinkie,” a sinister voice drawled at his ear.
He snapped his head to the right to find himself staring straight into laughing red eyes above small, sharp teeth.
“Yeah, Pinkie. He’s known to be a grump,” said a similar but raspier voice from the other side, and Oren turned to see the exact same eyes and dangerous smile on his left.
Mirrors.
From the velvet skin as black as coal to the long hair as white as snow falling messily around red horns that pointed straight up. Smaller protrusions of horns were scattered over their bodies, roadmaps over their skin highlighting the fact that they really were only wearing some jewelry and a single scrap of clothing. Small gold loincloths that had some sort of rune design on them dipped in the middle and split up the sides, leaving their hipbones bare except for a few ornate chains.
They were pretty… in a totally fucked-up, I-will-eat-your-soul-and-bathe-in-your-blood way. Not as huge and intimidating as most of the demons around them in either height or build, but they exuded danger of their own variety. Something slithering and quiet.
There were so many demons in the meeting that it was hard to place everyone. Looking at them all was sensory overload. But now Oren didn’t think he could forget this pair.
“Um… hello.” He looked back and forth between them. “Nice to meet you. My name is Oren.”
“Hmm, I can’t see anything,” the one on the left said, pawing at his clothing and then his glasses.
The other ran pointed nails through his hair, picking at the strands. “No. I can’t see what he sees. Just very pink…”
“…and cheerful,” the first demon said, sounding grossed out.
“Anything I can help you with?” Oren asked, not knowing what to do about those four hands, and were those tails joining in?
“AZOTH! TARIK!” Luc boomed, and the room shook, debris falling down around them.
The twins scattered in an instant, twining their tails together and scurrying from the room. Luc stomped over in their wake, his eyes like blazing pools.
“They weren’t hurting me.” Oren tilted his head. “I don’t know what they were doing, honestly.”
“Those two are troublemakers.” Luc scowled. “Whatever it was, they probably had an agenda.”
“I think they’re nice,” Oren said with a sure nod.
“Why am I not surprised,” Luc muttered under his breath.
“They gave me a nickname already,” he said happily. He’d never had a nickname in his life. He didn’t know what it meant, of course, but he wasn’t going to let that spoil his mood.
Luc raised a brow. “What nickname?”
