Page 4 of Hellfire & Tinsel
Beau looked up.
Focused on an eye somewhere in the middle of the creature’s face.
And then gave them the widest, most welcoming smile he could arrange his face into.
“Hi,” he breathed, standing up and walking closer. He wasn’t alone. Finally, blissfully, he wasn’t alone. “I’m so happy to see you.”
2
Kassel
“And the final item on the agenda for today,” Oren read out from a dark green binder in front of him that matched his bowtie of the day. “Your vacation forms.”
Kassel stifled the roll of several of his eyes—hopefully all of them—at the words they’d been listening to for the past… however many centuries had gone by since Oren had invaded their lives.
The squishy little human’s type A personality had been unleashed upon them all with a blank check from their resident Prince of Darkness (and simps). A renowned new title moving throughout Hell’s Circles.
Sometimes it got a bit much.
Kassel wasn’t exactly a picky demon. He was more than fine to move with the flow of the bloody stream instead of botheringwith fighting against it. But he found himself wistful at times, longing for the days of limbs scattering the halls and memos written in blood on the walls. Nowadays there were designated cleaning teams on rotas, and always,always, more paperwork to fill out. Forms and binders of so many colors and varieties it made even Kassel’s eyes cross.
They tried their best, and honestly, the improvement to their internal organizationwasnoticeable, as much as it felt like its own round of specialized torture. Things began to get done on time. The hellhound pits were flourishing. Upstairs had never been so deliriously happy.
Which was why Kassel was sitting in yet another meeting for ‘upper management.’
Well, that and the fact that their boss, the literal ruler of Hell, was Oren’s boyfriend and was sitting next to him looking at him as if he’d lit the fires of Hell all by himself. None of them could say anything for fear of dismemberment and painful death. Even if they all had better things to do. Jobs to tend to. Sinners to torture.
Kassel in particular had a fresh batch of lustful, self-absorbed assholes to make feel like scum. He’d been looking forward to it. But this meeting was never-ending.
He raised his hand and inspected his claws, the bright blue polish chipping off of the claw on his thumb making him frown. He’d just had them done two days ago at their monthly spa day. Oren had even suggested the addition of purple glitter flakes to go on top to match his skin tone. Initially indifferent, Kassel was actually quietly pleased with how they caught the light of the fires around them.
The downside was that he had been getting even more admiring glances from the rest of the demon horde ever since.
Maybe his title of Mr. Hell was in the bag for another century.
Sigh.
He looked up from his claws as Oren continued to drone on and caught sight of Zorun across the large brimstone table staring into nothing. A certain pair of twins were curled up on his lap, sound asleep like kittens, intertwined onyx limbs and tails overlapping and creating a startling contrast to Zorun’s glowing white skin. It was hard to tell where one started and the other finished.
They’d only had a half hour battle at the start of the meeting, with Zorun placing them back in their seats one by one as they complained and whined and pawed at his four horns. Then Zorun had relocated them across the table, where they’d slipped underneath and crawled their way across five seconds later. This contest of wills had become the precursor to every meeting, and the time Zorun spent putting up a protest was growing shorter and shorter, which seemed par for the course with those three.
Kassel didn’t rightly knowwhyOren included Azoth and Tarik in the first place. Yes, they were ‘department heads’ as Oren put it, but their willingness to do anything they didn’t want to personally do was absolute zero and had been since their hatching. They spent more time derailing anything going on than listening. But Oren was determined that he could win them over.
Kassel didn’t bother to tell him otherwise.
A sudden splintering sound drew the room’s attention, breaking the monotony.
Jek flushed green in embarrassment, ink staining his hand and claws from where he had broken his pen in half.
“Sssorry,” Jek said, the S hissing from his forked tongue. He shifted his serpent body over and grabbed a new pen before moving back to his place to resume taking notes. In a language no one else could understand.
“One hundred,” Zorun mumbled under his breath.
Kassel shook his head with a small smirk, ignoring Jek’s angry reptilian stare and bared fangs.
Oren knocked a small wooden gavel against the table. “Attention please. We haven’t got too much left on the agenda.”
Which could mean they were going to be here for another decade.
