Page 20 of Hellfire & Tinsel
Beau looked over. “What’s going on?”
Kassel began to walk. “The bacon is this way, you said.”
“Kassel…”
The demon sighed and turned. “I simply visited upon her the demons that hid in her heart. They were already lurking there.”
“Remove them.”
Kassel crossed his arms, looking vaguely stubborn. “She upset you.”
“It’s fine, I told you,” Beau said.
He didn’t say he was used to it. It was easy to forgive though—it was better not to hold grudges.
Kassel clearly didn’t agree, lip curling and eyes burning. “It is not fine. She is lucky I did not do worse.”
It was a declaration and a half, and Beau tried not to read into it. He walked up to Kassel and tugged his sleeve gently instead. “Please remove it?”
Kassel looked like a grumpy cat as he stared down into his face, but the screaming stopped in the next moment.
“Thank you,” he said sweetly, a blush forming. “For removing it and… for caring.”
Kassel simply hummed.
Beau wasn’t sure if this was all because of the summoning. It was too confusing, and he wanted to live in the moment. Kassel still looked tense and ready to throw hands, so he figured he should take his mind off things.
“So… wanna go find some flesh?” he asked.
Kassel perked up a bit, though he tried to hide it. “Whose?”
Beau stared up at him for a moment. “Well… not human, I can tell you that much.”
Kassel slumped. “Pity.”
“We’ll find you some nice pork, huh?” Beau nudged his shoulder shyly. “Same source bacon comes from.”
“I did like bacon,” Kassel said grumpily.
Beau let out a small laugh.
“Pork it is.” He navigated them through the store until they picked up a mountain of pork and whatever else caught Kassel’s attention.
Which, other than the meat, turned out to be a bottle of mouthwash, a large can of cat food, dark wood stain he thought looked really delicious, and a bottle of bright blue nail polish.
Haul in the cart, they headed toward the registers, only for Beau to stop just before the queue for the self-checkout.He hadn’t really been thinking about budgeting when walking around, which was completely unlike him.
“What’s wrong?” Kassel asked.
Beau hesitated to say. He didn’t want to put back any of what Kassel had chosen for himself—it would hurt his heart too much. Maybe he could do without some of the other things in the cart. Who needed toilet paper after all? Or sugar? But he had wanted to make the cookies…
He began mentally totaling and detracting, startling when a wad of money was thrust in front of him.
He blinked at it in shock, then up at Kassel. “This is what others are using to proceed through the shrill grocery gates.”
“The grocery gates?”
“Of shrillness.” Kassel nodded, pointing to the alarm going off and a security guard checking someone’s bag, which had set off the detectors.
