The Demon in the Pastry Shop

10: The Bitterest Flavor in a Sweet Tart

 His snakes didn't like it when he cracked his knuckles or the bones in his neck, but Silus needed to loosen up. He was going before the Collector today to ask for access to the Place Where Important Things Go. The last couple days, with Remis' help, he brought in two especially rare beings. One for protection and one for preservation.

Silus strode through the darkened hallway leading to the Collector's study. This mansion was built so that smaller beings could meet with him. After Silus entered the elevator, he stepped out onto the Collector's desk. The elevator rose into a little pendulum clock (it was little to the Collector; it was taller than Silus' first floor).

Next to this elevator-clock was a bell. A call bell. Except this one made Silus stretch on his tip-toes in order to slap the metal plate at the top and make it ring. He couldn't touch the curve of the bell for support, which made the task that much harder but Silus had done this before and he got a good noise out of it, though it made his snakes shriek with the blare. He stumbled back and stood ironing-board straight (and we know this was customary for him) waiting for the Collector.

The Collector made no thundering steps like other giants Silus heard of. In fact, the Collector was a little reptilian too. No feet or legs, instead the Collector boasted colossal snake's body supported a human torso. Silus often wondered why Life was so fascinated with putting human tops on animal bottoms but Life was said to be an artist and a sensitive, particular one at that. He supposed this explained it.

Among the vast labyrinth of light-colored wooden shelves stocked with dead creatures, spirits, demons, and the occasional human for posterity, the Collector kept some trinkets lying about. Some knives too. Some other specific tools that Silus could recognize as larger versions of ones he knew and some tools that he could not identify. The study was more of a workshop. The Collector did much of his preservation here.

The air filled with the scent of harsh lacquer and chemicals before the Collector slithered up to the desk where Silus waited. The sight of the giant made Silus queasy, but he was good at keeping that sort of thing under wraps.

The Collector wore glasses, like those for detailing jewelry or other miniscule work, and they protruded out of his eyes with purple colored lenses. Silus never saw him without the glasses and he didn't think he wanted to. The rest of the Collector's face was disturbing, with nostrils always flaring and sucking in so much breath, it felt as though the greedy giant wanted all of the air in a room to himself. His eyebrows were perfectly trimmed but his beard was not, patches of twig-looking stubble coloring along his jaw. The Collector's mouth never seemed to fit over his teeth right. Silus couldn't explain it and neither could Remis, though Lovell took the Collector's apperance in stride.

"What is it, Silus?" the Collector boomed (he may or may not have intended to boom with his voice, but being such a great entity speaking to a small one, it naturally occured).

"I've completed my recent assignments with expertise and in a timely manner and I thought it might be a good time to ask you for a favor," Silus said, deciding that short and to-the-point would make this matter seem simple and straightforward. That it would only take a second of the Collector's time.

The Collector laughed to himself as he twisted away from his work bench to grab a display of the Butterfly Sprite Silus caught recently. She looked back at him with the eyes of the dead as the Collector cleaned her wings.

"I don't trade back my specimens," the Collector told him evenly, "you better not be asking for me to free someone you brought in."

"No, not that," Silus replied swiftly. Such a request sounded too complicated and asking a great sacrifice of the Collector and that's not what Silus wanted in his mind right now, "I need entry to a pocket realm. I need your spectacles to travel there and back."

"You want me to lend you my spectacles?" The Collector grumbled, the beady tips of his specialty binoculars reflecting the lights above the desk. Slowly (that is how giants appeared to smaller beings), the Collector slurped in clumsy breaths with his ill-fitting mouth. The tip of his mighty tail snapped along the floor, against the cupboards. He hissed, "for so little as perfoming your tasks well?"

"You trust me, don't you, sir?" Silus defended, his snakes rioting from the noise of the colossal snake body before them, "I'd only be a few hours in the Place Where Important Things Go and then I'd return. You wouldn't have to worry about it. Just give me access to the spectacles and I'll be in and out. There'd be no trouble, I swear."

"Pocket realm portals are not easy to come by. They are no small matter, however small you are," the Collector declared, turning his head and training his eyes down at Silus on his desk top, "especially when you're going bring something back with you."

He thought Silus was trying to hide the fact he was going to take his heart away from the Place Where Important Things Go. That wasn't the case, but there was no correcting it now.

"It's a little thing that belongs to me already," Silus confessed, "if I thought it would effect anything, I would have told you to begin with."

"In the end, Silus, it's not enough," the Collector stressed, "I'd need you to do something for me if I'm going to agree to this."

"Alright," he sighed, "what is it?"

"Lovell told me you've discovered a mute Bell Spirit."

All the life sapped out of Silus' arms and legs. His jaw went slack. His snakes huddled against each other for comfort. He thought snake buns. He thought chocolates muffins and impeccable pie. Silus captured Kit in memory so vividly with fear, he might've materlized her right in front of the Collector.

His mouth was dry, but he scraped out, "what about her?"

"She's the only one of her kind. Rare. Very rare," he chuckled darkly to himself before turning to Silus again. He tapped his fingers on the table and made it rumble under Silus' feet. With a gross smile, he said, "I want her for my collection."

Silus was about to fall over. He stumbled back to the elevator and leaned against it, playing it off like he was contemplating the task. His heart fought against him. It fought against itself.

"If you bring her to me, then you can use my spectacles to travel to the Place Where Important Things Go."

"She's just a Bell Spirit though," he grasped at anything, "I think she's lying about not being able to talk, to be honest with you, sir. You should ask me to find something that's certainly rare and precious instead of wasting my time on someone so... pedestrian."

"She couldn't lie about such a thing. It's not in a Bell Spirit's nature," the Collector assured him.

"You should ask me to find someone else," Silus pleaded.

"Lovell and Remis will assist you, but I will still count it as your personal favor to me," the Collector said, moving on without accepting another word on the matter.

"Can you not be persuaded to ask me for a different target?" Silus exhaled shakily, but keeping his tone level enough that the Collector might not tell.

"I really want this mute Bell Spirit. So bring her to me or don't ask to visit the Place Where Important Things Go again."

Silus' world spun and tipped over and over. His hands shook so he clenched them by his sides. He turned around and opened the gate to the elevator.

As he stepped inside, he looked back at the Collector and said, "I understand."