The Demon in the Pastry Shop

25: Caught in the Light

 She shook her head, though she knew refusing was a bad choice.

"Don't be shy," Lolona urged her, "I just want to hear you sing. I have to know what you sound like before I let you into my Land of Captivators."

Kit shook her head again. She wracked her brain for a better way to say I can't, but came up with nothing. She bent toward the ground where her notepad lay.

"Don't move!" Lolona screamed, her benevolent aura peeling away to something monstrous underneath.

Kit stood back up with a startled breath. She raised her hands up in surrender. This wasn't what she imagined at all. The Hollow Realm didn't tell her anything about this.

"All you have to do is hum a little tune. You're a Bell Spirit, aren't you? It should be the easiest thing you ever do." Her words were encouraging but her voice was threatening.

Kit tapped her hand on her throat and shook her head harder.

"If that is the case... then I will have to make it so you can sing," Lolona growled. She rose from her seat and stuck her hands out into the air before her.

Kit fell back with eyes wide. She grabbed her notepad, getting ready to tear off the stage but before she could take even one step, the lights went out.

Two strong arms clamped around her body and pulled her off the stage. Kit would've screamed but when she opened her mouth, nothing came out (not that it was a surprise).

"I know I don't have to tell you to shut up," came Silus' hiss in her ear.

Out of the frying pan into the fire. Or would Silus set her free? She could never tell with him. She never knew if he would save her or seal her fate.

He let go of her waist and switched his grip to her arm, hauling her down the stairs of the backstage area. The light flashed back on and Lolona gasped at Kit's disappearance.

"Not to fret, Ms. Lolona!" Slightly Taller called out from behind the door, throwing it open and they and Slightly Shorter burst through with someone in hand.

Silus grabbed Kit from behind again, this time pulling her back against him as he flattened himself along the wall. One arm around her stomach and his other hand covering her mouth. Which was notably unnecessary. She felt like a taxidermy animal on display as the Blackbird Spirits rushed past, but she realized as they blew right by that Silus must be doing something to hide them.

As soon as the Blackbirds threw the next auditioner up on stage, Silus dropped his hand from her mouth.

"Habit," he confessed in a breath, then clutched her arm again and headed for the door, "let's get out of here."

"What's your name then?" Lolona groaned behind them. It sounded like the Blackbird Spirits went to the other end of the stage.

"Jude."

Kit stuck her heels into the floor. Silus even jerked from her sudden stop. He glared back at her. With warm, pleading eyes, she pointed at the stage. To Jude, illuminated on the stage.

"Ah, you look like a muse," Lolona realized.

Jude coughed uncomfortably and said, "I am."

"Then, take this fiddle. Play for me."

A terse silence. Kit whirled back as much as Silus would let her. When she saw straight up onto the stage and where Jude stood at the microphone, a fiddle and bow in his hand. His string hand was bandaged. He could barely cup his fingers around the neck of the instrument. It must have been where he was shot.

A chill cut through her.

Jude couldn't play.

He couldn't play and she couldn't sing. Something was going to happen to him.

Kit pulled at Silus and tried to drag him back to the stage with her whole body weight. It was dim in the wings of the stage, but she painted it all in her expression. Do something.

"I told him to stay out of the way. Not my fault he got caught," Silus snapped under his exhale, "now let's go. This isn't a choice."

Kit shook her head and turned away from Silus, trying to walk away from him and up the stairs. She wouldn't let anything happen to Jude. Not again. She couldn't. Even if she had to do something herself, without Silus' help.

"Don't do that," Silus growled.

Kit glared at him and with her heart scratching at her chest in shallow, frantic beats, she leaned down and bit his hand until he let go. Silus' snakes hissed and rattled and he grunted, clutching his arm into his chest. Kit spun around and ran toward the stage.

Lolona was already screaming, "play!"

Her feet nearly crossed the line between the dark of backstage and the light of the stage when her body seized up. Every inch of her body seemed to stick to itself as though she were wrapped tightly in a web over and over until she couldn't move.

Silus dashed up the stairs out in front of her and darted across the stage. He strode up to Jude, snatched the fiddle and broke it over his knee. Lolona shrieked in indignation as Silus grabbed the microphone and leaned into it.

"I'm here to assassinate you, Ms. Lolona."