3. 3

3

Kassel

“ Y ou just left ?”

Kassel stared at Oren with all the eyes he could manage to focus on him. Something was still itching under his skin and he couldn’t tell what it was. Probably just the aftereffects of being topside again.

It had taken Oren exactly ten minutes to hear Kassel was back in Hell before he’d tracked him down to his room like the hellhound tight on his heels. Kassel had just been about to take his boots off and oil down his horns when Oren and Beast had burst into the room.

They’d been going in circles for what felt like a century ever since.

“He released me,” he repeated for the millionth time.

“Again, he can’t just release you. He just tried because you were rude to him, dismissive, and uninterested, so he said you could leave. Your demonic ass took it as a summoning request from him and came here.” Oren flapped his hand around before settling it on his hip like a disappointed elder. Kassel did not feel like sitting there and being scolded by a pint-sized human being. “You’re not actually released.”

“He summoned me. I asked if there was anything he wanted me to do. I offered the usual summons requests. He said no. So he released me,” he said simply.

“My book doesn’t work like that,” Oren said, leaning against the wall of Kassel’s room stubbornly. “Only those who truly need a summoning can invoke you. And you can’t be released until you actually do what they need.”

Kassel narrowed all of his eyes at the mention of the book. “About that. The book…”

“What about it?” Oren asked. “We talked about the book in a meeting 237 years ago, at noon. Don’t you remember me asking for permission to include your personal details in it? You signed the release form! I can get you the meeting notes.”

Kassel admittedly did not look at every single thing Oren got them to sign on a daily basis. Signing in general was a strange and human concept Kassel didn’t understand. Where was the torture for eternity for breaking the binds of a contract? Where were the rules written in blood? Why was he being punished by filling in five thousand sheets of paper for the betterment of the ‘workplace’?

Kassel had also developed the unique ability to sleep with some of his eyes open.

So maybe he had missed something along the way.

“He didn’t really need a summons,” he said instead, sticking to the material point.

He got up and moved to escape his own room, hoping Oren would drop it. Maybe he could throw himself into the pit until Oren found something else to occupy him. That would be more pleasant than this. Or he could hide behind his drove of adoring fans. They had to be useful for something.

“And that is where you’re wrong, Kassel.” Oren followed close on his heels, yammering on. “Big G put a protective layer on that book. It can only be found and used by those who truly need it. It’s not a toy, or a revenge tool. It’s a resource for those like me.”

“Annoying?” Kassel asked without a lick of sarcasm, only genuine interest.

Oren stuck his tongue out at him. “Everyone in Hell thinks you’re the best demon ever. So handsome, Mr. Hell. So hardworking, Mr. Employee of the Month. But you’re just as big of a pain in the behind as everyone else!”

“You gave me employee of the month,” Kassel said, confused.

It had been a complete surprise to walk down the hallways on the way to the torture rooms and see his own eyes staring back at him from the middle of a crooked frame. An hour later it had been defaced with a twirling mustache and a big L on his forehead. The doubled snickering drifting down the hallways gave the culprits away immediately.

Oren waved his reasonings away like he was swatting flies. “The point is, the book was intended to help. I didn’t want any human to experience life like I did. If Beau found the book and managed to summon you with it, that means he needed you. So your summoning order stands.”

Kassel sighed and ran a hand over one of his dry horns. They really needed oiling, and Oren was going to chase him all over Hell until he gave in. He had this thing about being ‘fair’ and ‘nice,’ and the amount of pull he had not only with Luc, but with the Upstairs too was truly shocking to them all.

“Fine,” Kassel said eventually, pausing his escape and looking down at Oren’s triumphant face. He crossed his arms. “What do you want me to do?”

“You’ll go back, of course,” Oren chirruped, glasses bouncing on his nose. “We’ll find a really cute gift for Beau and you’ll bring it to him and try your best to figure out what it is about him that made finding the book possible.”

“You want me to go back…” Kassel repeated slowly.

“I don’t want you to do anything! You’re bound by the summoning.”

“You want me to take the human a gift though.”

“I’m sure we can find something around here that he’d like,” Oren said, not understanding his confusion and grabbing his arm to tug him along. “Did you manage to get any information about him from his home? What did it look like? What was he wearing? What was he doing?”

Kassel felt his head spin. He hadn’t thought he would have to pay attention to the human’s house. Or clothes. Or… anything else for that matter. He’d been summoned , presumably, to do demon things and then go back to Hell. Demons, historically, weren’t in the habit of cataloging the clothing or home decor choices of their summoners.

“He had a lot of lights,” he said, trying to recall at least something. “A tree. With… things.”

“It’s the holiday season, Kassel! Every human who celebrates will have decorations.”

Why did he feel like he was being censured all of a sudden? “I just repeated what I saw.” Kassel’s tail swished behind him in agitation.

“Ugh, fine. His outfit then,” Oren said, leading them through a fiery archway and along a path of bones that crunched under Kassel’s feet.

“He was dressed… not like you.”

“And what is that supposed to mean?” Oren asked in exasperation. “Specifics are key here, Kassel. I know you like to speak like you swallowed the Sahara Desert, but I need more enthusiasm. You can do it! I believe in you!”

“No colors,” he said, not adjusting his tone at all. “He wore mostly dark things. Except his socks. They were bright like the tree. He also had knitting things.”

“Well we don’t have any knitting things here, so that’s out. Dark clothes, and he got my book which also looks pretty dark, hmm… But he likes the holidays, you said?” Oren hummed before stopping them short of any destination with a tiny hand on Kassel’s bare chest. “It’s a long shot, but I might have something appropriate. I’ll be right back with it. You get ready to go back up.”

“You just dragged me all the way over here.”

Oren twirled away without a backward glance or another word, a bright spot of Technicolor soon swallowed up by the darkness.

Kassel stared after him in consternation.

Apparently, he was going topside again.

He sighed and trudged back to his room to change clothes and fix his hair a little bit. He had to dodge a roving band of fan-demons that had heart-shaped pickets with his face on by ducking into a shadowy alcove, but eventually he made it. He did a quick rubdown of his horns, careful of the sensitive tips—no time for anything more substantial.

Not even twenty minutes later, Oren waltzed back in, a small black box in his hands and a wide smile on his face.

“Here.” He handed Kassel the box. “We don’t have any pretty wrapping paper, but I think he’ll like it.”

Kassel took the box and paused for a second, causing Oren to shoo at him with his hands.

“Well go on then,” he said impatiently. “We don’t have forever.”

“We actually do.”

Oren scowled. “Beau doesn’t. You know Hell and Heaven time doesn’t run perpendicular to Earth. One second wasted here could be a month or a year there. A century here could be a blink there. It’s all wibbly wobbly, as the great Doctor would say.”

“Who?”

“Exactly.”

Kassel was so confused.

“What are you still doing here?” Oren demanded.

Kassel sighed.

Heading topside of your own free will was very different from being summoned. For one, you had to be sent up by someone with the authority to do so. Usually that was Luc, Zorun, Big G, or one of his archangels. And now, apparently, Oren had the power.

Because of course he did.

Kassel closed all of his eyes and focused on visualizing his destination. Beau’s living room. Every detail he could remember from it. The tree. The blankets. The small, sagging couch.

Then he recalled Beau. Wrapped in his blanket and looking up at him with his large blue eyes. Despite the annoyance of being summoned, Kassel found he didn’t harbor any negativity toward the human. And while he usually liked human tears, he realized he didn’t like them on Beau. For whatever reason, they seemed out of place on him, and it would be best if they were gone so Kassel didn’t have to think about them.

It was as if that specific thought gave him the final pull.

The world around him went hazy and tilted, and before he knew it, he was being whisked away from his room and into the now-familiar living room.

Kassel waited for his vision to clear before turning himself around, watching his horns around the light fixture to avoid smashing it. The room was empty and dark. The tree was still there, but the lights on it were off. He focused one eye out the small window and found the other houses were still decorated and twinkling.

Beau’s was the only one with lights off.

That seemed odd, considering how it had been when he arrived.

He scanned the darkness easily, lights not actually mattering—honestly, the artificial kind irritated him more than anything.

The human was nowhere to be found.

Kassel spread out his eyes to cover every corner of the house, peeking through walls and underneath furniture that was entirely too breakable. His steps were almost silent in the quiet of the night.

The house was small. In comparison to where Kassel lived, the world itself was small, but Beau’s house seemed minuscule even by human home standards. There was only the living room Kassel was standing in, the kitchen right next to it, and a tiny hallway just off it that Kassel wasn’t positive he could even squeeze down.

He sucked it in and went sideways, skirting along the edges until he reached a single doorway that he pushed open. It revealed a bedroom/bathroom combination, and it was there one of Kassel’s eyes spotted the little human.

At least he assumed it was the human. There was a lump on the bed, buried beneath a mountain of blankets. Kassel focused for a second and noticed it moving gently up and down with every breath Beau took.

Nodding to himself, Kassel made his way toward the bed. The sooner he got things over with, the sooner he could go back to Hell and his duties.

Only… how did you wake a human up? They were prone to scaring easily, and Kassel had no experience placating one. Oren was Luc’s, and Kassel just did enough to get by without incident.

Demons were much simpler and less sensitive. Usually, leaving them stewing in hatred and anger worked to relieve stress or upset. Or torturing sinners. Or, in the case of the twins, you threw them into whatever pit you found first and by the time they’d crawled back out, they’d usually mellowed.

Shuffling on his feet in indecision, he did the first thing that came to mind. He cleared his throat very loudly.

The lump on the bed stirred a little bit, revealing a peek of Beau’s sleep-slack face, but settled back down right away.

Kassel added a cough this time. Covered his mouth with his hand and everything like he’d seen Oren do to call attention to the room.

It didn’t help. Beau seemed to be sound asleep still, unaware that there was a demon looming over his bed.

Kassel really didn’t have the time for this.

He took the final few steps toward the bed then reached out with his tail, prodding the lump firmly a few times until he heard the breathing pattern change.

Two pale hands popped out from beneath the blankets, and the next thing Kassel knew, there was an avalanche of plaid being tossed directly into his face.

“GET OUT OF MY HOUSE!” Beau’s voice sounded distressed and rough from sleep, panicked and near hysterical. “There’s nothing to steal here. Leave now or I’ll call the police!”

“Steal?” Kassel asked in exasperation, batting his hands and tail against the blankets until he finally peeled them away from where they were hooked on a horn. He threw them to the ground with a thump . The box with Oren’s gift clattered to the floor with them, slipping from his grip during his fight with the thick fabric.

When he looked up, he found Beau crouching in the middle of his bed, a small lamp in his hand extended toward Kassel like a weapon.

“Kassel?” Beau asked in shock after a moment, squinting to adjust to the darkness and running his eyes over him from boots to horn-tip.

Kassel coughed up a few stray tassels from one of the blankets before crossing his arms, decidedly unimpressed so far. “Hello, Beau.”

“What are you doing here?” Beau gasped, letting go of the lamp as if seeing a demon standing next to your bed was a much safer option than a measly human thief.

“Oren sends a gift,” Kassel said, bending down to pick the box up off the floor before handing it to Beau.

“Oren?” Beau frowned, observing first the gift and then Kassel again for answers. His eyes widened. “The author of my book?”

“The same one,” Kassel said, watching Beau place the box on his lap and his hands over the top of it, not opening it, but cradling it like it was precious.

“You came back to deliver a present?” Beau mumbled.

“Among other things.”

“What things?”

“It was brought to my attention that I was sent back without fulfilling my summoning,” Kassel said. “So, I’ve returned.”

“I released you,” Beau said, fumbling for the lamp on the bed and flicking it back on. He held it up, casting strange shadows around the room and over one half of his face.

It fully illuminated the round shininess of his eyes and glinted on his eyelashes as he stared. It also highlighted the distinct, puffy redness of the skin around them that hadn’t been there previously.

Kassel recognized it. He’d made enough souls whimper, after all.

Beau had been crying.

It still made him uncomfortable. He needed to figure out why.

“Not how summonings work,” Kassel said as he contemplated the conundrum. “Not when you use that book.”

“I don’t understand.” Beau tilted his head to the side.

“Neither do I,” Kassel admitted. “That’s just what I was told. Upper management.”

“Are you telling me it’s above your pay grade?”

“The person who made it controls the devil.”

“God?” he guessed.

“More powerful.”

“Oh wow. Um… so… how does it work then? The summoning,” Beau murmured, picking at the corner of the box in his lap. “All it said in the book was the rules for how to do it and that you couldn’t do it again for another century after the first. I don’t want to keep you trapped here.”

There was that voice again, laced with so much pain Kassel could taste it. Did it taste as good as the pain and the agony of those he tortured? No. It wasn’t sweet or filling, leaving him wholly unsatisfied.

“There is a simple solution,” Kassel said.

“There is?”

“The book allowed you to summon me because you had a true reason for it.”

“Oh.” Beau looked away and bit his lip.

“So if you tell me what you wanted, I can make sure it’s done and then I’ll be free to go,” Kassel said.

Beau fell silent, the lamp revealing how his skin bled red in embarrassment. He shuffled over and finally replaced the lamp in its spot on the side table. Kassel watched the gentle tremble of his fingers.

“I don’t think it will be that simple,” Beau said with his back turned.

“Why not?”

“Because I’m not sure how to fix the reason I summoned you.” Beau peeked over his shoulder. “I’ve spent my whole life trying and it hasn’t ever worked.”

Kassel stiffened, all his eyes fixed on Beau. “What was the reason?”

Beau looked down, shoulders drawn up to his ears. “I didn’t want to be lonely anymore,” he whispered.