Page 57 of Hellfire & Tinsel
“I don’t have a heart.”
“You do now.”
Kassel felt like a hole had been punched through him exactly in the space a human heart would go. “Beau… is mine?”
Oren nodded, giving him a sad smile as he clicked one last time.
“And this…” The bubble read ‘you crave physical intimacy.’ “I watched you for centuries and never got the impression that you wanted to be around anyone. Like something was missing. I think I get it now.”
“Get what?” Kassel asked, surprised his mouth could still move, that he hadn’t gone completely mute.
“You needed something deeper,” Oren said. “A real emotional bond before you started wanting someone for real.”
Kassel blinked into the middle distance.
It was true that he had never explored a relationship of any kind like he had with Beau. Other demons were transitory, passing by him without making a dent. They wanted nothing deep from him. Everything was on the surface, hardly disturbing Kassel’s existence.
Was Beau’s emotion and tender soul what he had been missing all along? What he had been silently waiting for and seeking without knowing it?
Someone to connect to.
A sudden, obnoxious foghorn filled the air, startling Oren into jolting and disconnecting the PowerPoint. Not that it mattered anymore. Kassel was thoroughly, painfully informed.
The foghorn continued to blast, loud and brassy.
“What alarm is that?” Oren asked.
The sound was vaguely familiar, like a blast of déjà vu from another lifetime, but Kassel couldn’t place the niggling piece of information and didn’t have the mental capacity at that moment to even try. “I don’t know.”
Orenhmphedand headed for the door. He caught none other than Jek slithering down the hall. “Jek, what’s happening?”
“Sssomeone essscaped Hell.”
“What?!”
“The Hellgate wasss found unlocked. No one knowsss how long it wasss left open or who managed to get out. Luc isss—”
The entirety of Hell suddenly shook in its boots, the torches snuffed out by a blast of wind as a roar of biblical proportions rang through the halls.
“Someone’s a grumpy bunny. I better go calm him down,” Oren said with a sigh.
Kassel got up, unable to sit still anymore. He felt like he was crawling out of his skin. “I’m heading back to my room.”
“That’s good. You need time to process,” Oren patted him on the arm, staring at him earnestly. “We can finish this conversation tomorrow.”
What use were more words? They wouldn’t change anything.
Kassel simply left the room, traversing the dark, empty hallways back to his bedroom.
He pushed the door open and stepped in, feeling beyond weary, and what was that word Oren had used? Heartsick? Like he had told Oren, he didn’t own a heart, but he couldn’t think of a better way to describe this hopeless, enervating feeling.
He noticed another gift had been left for him while he was at work—a huge box half Kassel’s size, wrapped up in printed green wrapping with a bright red bow. It reminded him of Beau’s house and he felt another lance of pain cut him open.
Why would people have emotions they acknowledged when they hurt like this?
He bypassed the box and walked numbly to the window, staring out into the abyss and feeling his eyes prickle in a strange way. He blinked them, one after the other, but the hot, stinging feeling persisted until liquid began to leak down his face.
He touched it and pulled his hand back. Something thick and black was staining his fingers.
