The Demon in the Pastry Shop

3: A Heart-Shaped Muffin

She knew this was the notorious bodyguard for the Terrorling, Lovell. This was Silus of the Awakened Idols. He was beyond recognizable. It wasn't often that spirits like him showed their face in public. Kit held her breath when she watched him.

Her eyes spied his handgun the moment he walked in. Her golden aura trembled and so did her hands. When he approached the counter, Kit nearly fainted. That may have had something to do with the breath she was still holding in for fear of his magic.

"You're open, right?" he asked.

She nodded. Kit thought he was robbing the pastry shop. She thought he was going to take aim at her. She also thought asking if they were open wasn't the way to do either of those things.

His faded white eyes considered her and she considered him with her own brown ones, breath still frozen. Her lungs withered against it, but Kit heard rumors that this would protect her against him.

Silus didn't move and he didn't say anything, particularly not an order. Kit wasn't sure how to respond to his. Her supervisor hadn't given her rules for this interaction. After another uncomfortable and stiff, threatening minute of no-air, she raised a finger to him to excuse herself to get some paper.

When she scribbled out her note, hoping excellent, cheery service would save her life and the pastry shop, her head beat against itself. Kit could hold her tongue these days, but how long could she hold her breath?

She whirled around and rushed back to him, holding up her sign.

"Hi! What can I get for you today?"

Silus read the sign -she could barely see his irises sweeping across to do so. Then he straightened up, clearing his throat. He glanced at the display case before looking back at her, "I just want a..." his face fell and he stared at her again. The snakes on his head stuck out their little tongues at her.

He reached a tawny brown hand forward and plucked the paper out of her hand, setting it on the countertop. Kit was turning purple, no doubt. She wished he would order and leave.

"Holding your breath isn't going to save you from my magic. I know there's a rumor, but it's not true."

The air trickled out between Kit's lips, leaving her with parted lips and anxiety. She wished her husband were here to hold her as she died.

"I should've said that differently," Silus muttered, scratching the back of his neck.

Kit was frozen in front of him. Maybe she should run. She could get into the back of the store and climb out the back window.

"It's been a hard day. I'm not going to kill you. I just want a muffin," he sighed.

Kit ran away from him to the other end of the counter. Silus sighed again loudly and started contemplating reaching his arm around the top of the display case (Kit saw him testing his reach). She quickly rushed back to him with a stack of paper and a pen. She wrote a new message and handed the paper to him.

"Which one?"

He glanced down at the paper in his hands and then back to her. Silus raised his eyebrows at her for a second and then he kicked back into motion, "oh!" he realized, then shuffling over to the display case and pointing to a cinnamon muffin with crumb topping, "this one."

Kit nodded and grabbed the gloves. She slid open the back of the display and reached in for the cinnamon muffin. When she pulled it off of its spot, she was met directly by Silus' eyes on the other side of the glass. She inhaled sharply and snapped to her feet. Silus did much the same and now they stared at each other above the display case.

Swallowing down her frazzled energy, Kit whipped a napkin from its metal box and wrapped it around the muffin, offering it to Silus like it was too hot to touch. He took it with much the same nervousness. Kit slid the back of the display closed and stepped over to the register.

She began writing down his total on the paper as his shadow darkened her view. Kit only spared him a glance, her eyes catching his sidearm again and dropping to the paper.

"Do you make them?" he asked.

She pursed her lips and grabbed another sheet to write to him, "the muffins? Is there something wrong with that one?"

"Oh, no," Silus apologized, "I just wanted to know. I thought a muffin made by a Bell Spirit might taste... I don't know..." he shrugged and chuckled to himself, "... musical?"

The pen fell out of Kit's hand and she lifted her face to look at him. Her mouth fell open and her eyebrows drew together.

"I didn't meant to offend-"

Kit stopped him with a finger and picked up her pen again. She scribbled furiously until she could show him a paper that said, "you can tell that I'm a Bell Spirit?"

"Well, there's not many other beings that have that golden aura," he told her, taking a little bite of muffin. After he chewed, he added, "yours is pretty faded, but it's still visible."

The words sunk deep into Kit's being. People who didn't know she was a Bell Spirit already couldn't guess that's what she was and people who knew she was a Bell Spirit didn't believe she couldn't make noise anymore. Silus seemed to take these two facts in stride.

Kit finished the paper with his total, held it up to him, and then set it face-up on the counter as he fished the money out of his pocket.

"Thanks," Silus said, shoving the thickest gratuity Kit had ever seen in her life into the tip jar. The tip was several times greater than the price of the muffin. Was this blood money? Was she being implicated in some crime of his and he was paying her off in advance?

Silus turned away and headed for the door.

Kit slammed her hand on the counter until he spun around. His eyebrows went up, the tops of them hidden by the ends of his snakes. Kit started writing on her paper as he approached.

"Yeah?" he prompted.

She held up her sign, "I don't make the muffins."

"Oh."

She turned the paper around to the other side, "but I make them next week."

Silus started to smile, but smothered any trace of it besides a rebelious twitch at the corner of his mouth, "are you trying to make a repeat customer out of me? That's not going to be great for business."

Kit shrugged. She wasn't sure what she was trying to do but Silus was a lot different in person than he was in the stories and the gossip. She was only saying he could come back for a muffin later.

"This is about the tip?"

She snorted out of her nose, huffing out an airy laugh. Kit didn't know how to respond because she didn't understand why she was inviting a killer back to the pastry shop either, so she stepped back and gave him a curtsey.

"Okay," he agreed quietly, "I'll leave my gun at home next time."

And strangely, Kit believed him.