The Demon in the Pastry Shop

6: Confection Affection

The pastry shop was crowded. Silus felt stupid staking the place out from across the street but he needed to make sure the Bell Spirit was manning the counter. She was the only server who wouldn't panic if he stopped by again. But all those spirits inside would and he wasn't going to make her morning like that.

Truth be told, he was up all night for a job. He pulled in three rare creatures for the Collector -at his personal request. Silus was waiting for the perfect moment to ask him for his spectacles. Much like he was waiting for this muffin he promised himself in exchange for keeping his eyes open.

The golden aura, thin and weak, winked at him from the corner of the window. Relief flooded Silus. She would be there when he came in then.

He still wanted to wait for the crowd to clear. At least down to three customers. As a courtesy. Silus was as determined for this muffin as he was for the first, so he nestled himself down into the seat of his automobile and prepared for a stakeout.

As he waited with jittery hands and heavy eyes (and snakes), his mind turned to the Bell Spirit. The simplicity in her beauty and the way she carried herself. Her mundane life as a shop worker and part-time baker. How separate that kind of existence seemed from his. He killed two people last night. He was an Awakened Idol, the vision of Myus. His existence was like that of a demon. The In-Between had a pecking order and a food chain. Silus was in the tier of predators. He was expected to kill and it was accepted within society that he should do that.

He never really knew if his first heart would've taken to working for the Collector. For bodyguarding for Lovell. For killing, not out of necessity but for the pleasure of the Collector. His second heart embraced it for the privileges it gave him, but Silus always thought his heart welcomed killing a little too quickly. It worried him.

The Bell Spirit wouldn't know anything about that. Maybe she knew something of killing, but not from the killer's side. No, Silus couldn't find something so glittering and black in her when they met.

The crowd thinned to two spirits. Silus strode across the street without looking. A car skidded to the side trying not to hit him. The driver went to yell out her window and fell silent when she saw him.

His snakes writhed with anxiety. He didn't want to barge into the pastry shop in a cloud of his own terror-inducing reputation. The poor Bell Spirit deserved better than to be terrified when she served him a muffin. Silus halted before the door. The two customers left were turned around and couldn't see him, but he would scare them away if they looked back. He idled on the sidewalk.

The Bell Spirit glanced up from the register and out the window, just long enough to see him. She went still again and Silus hoped she wasn't trying to hold her breath again, but then she pointed at him and then jutted her thumb over her shoulder. She smiled at the customer in front of her and even brighter as two more came in. When she saw that Silus hadn't moved at all, she nudged her head toward the back of the shop and gave him a lighthearted eye roll.

Silus passed the door to the pastry shop and followed the sidewalk and her gestures around the corner of the shop. He wasn't sure what he would find there until he spied a narrow alleyway cutting through the dirty, white stones of the shop. With hesitant feet, he stepped into this alley and roamed toward a door that looked like where the pastry shop got its deliveries.

Silus clasped his hands behind his back. Should the Bell Spirit suddenly appear from this door as he was lead to believe, he wanted her to see that he was unarmed this time.

After a couple of minutes, the door swung open and the Bell Spirit leaned on the door frame. She thrust her hand out toward him, a piece of paper dangling from her flour speckeled hand. Silus' eyebrows lifted and he took the note from her.