Page 148 of Demons Dig Donuts

“It is not happening,” Mr. Heiss warned, his own eyes growing brighter.

“I can see it in you. How it eats at you.” Misingno smiled. “Why not let it go? Hmm? Or… maybe… I can pull at this—” He touched Mr. Heiss’s chest. “Here we go. Ah, there is a little something sweet here. That’s new, isn’t it? The ache, the affection… Oh—” He grinned over at Indy. “I see now. I see it very clearly. So, why don’t we—”

Mr. Heiss grabbed Misingno’s wrist, strange slits appearing in his skin and opening to reveal glowing eyeballs as his body bulged against the seams of his suit. The eyes were luminous shades of purple and blue, flickering as if they were actively on fire and casting strange shadows all around them. “If you dare touch me again, not even your fucking king will be able to drag you back from the pits of the Celestial I am going to cast you into.”

“Is that a promise?” Misingno leered and bared his sharp teeth as he purred, “Hot.”

Indy had no idea what to do, but this was bad. A demon and a fae about to go at it on a beach could be the plot of some steamy romance smut, but it wasn’t great as a reality that might include being caught in the fray and ripped to bits or turned into flowers or whatever the hell else fae could do.

“And just how stupid do you think my pain is?” Indy asked hurriedly. “Like, so stupid you don’t want it at all? What about maybe even just a little? I’ll throw in that time a lizard man tried to pop an egg in me—”

Or maybe the pain of lying to this demon I maybe sort of like more than just a little bit.

As soon as the thought formed in Indy’s mind, Misingno’s head snapped toward Indy. It made an odd thwack noise, but maybe that was from being severed so recently. He smiled, cooing, “Now that is more like it. Tell me all about this little lie of yours—”

“Okay, hi! Hello!” Gammy waved her hands, trying to get Misingno’s attention. “You want pain, darling? Agony? Despair? I have something for you that no other being in existence can give you!” She paused. “Unless they’re also a ghost. But ha! I bet you don’t have this sort of memory just yet.”

“Fine, yes. I’m intrigued.” Misingno smirked as he stepped back from Mr. Heiss, swiveling over toward Gammy. “I like things. And I like things that are rare. Rare things.”

“Trust me, I have just what you want.”

Mr. Heiss huffed but appeared to be calming down, judging by the eyeballs vanishing away. Still, his body remained tense and tight, and the snap of his tail indicated that much more brewed beneath the surface. He seemed rattled in a way Indy hadn’t seen before, and Indy didn’t like it.

He didn’t like how quickly Misingno had zeroed right in on his thoughts either, but that was an issue for later. His chest cramped and he swallowed back a cough, knowing that later was likely going to come sooner than he would have liked.

One damn problem at a time.

Indy put his hand on Mr. Heiss’s arm and leaned in close, resting his head on Mr. Heiss’s shoulder. He didn’t know what to say in that moment, but he felt the need to reach out. Maybe he didn’t have the right words or whatever, but he could let Mr. Heiss know that he was there.

Mr. Heiss stiffened, but then he slowly wrapped his arm around Indy’s waist.

“Aw,” Nyp whispered. “You two are so—”

Mr. Heiss glared him into silence.

Nyp cringed.

“All right, lady. Spill.” Misingno towered over Gammy and grinned down at her. “What do you have for me?”

Gammy held out her hand. “My final thoughts as I died. The worry I felt that my spell wouldn’t work and I couldn’t return as a spirit. That I’d be lost in the nothingness of some other plane and unable to come back. I always joked about missing my television shows, but really it was so much more than that. It was the terror of thinking my own family would never mourn me, not in any real way, because they never truly knew me and treated me as if I was just some crazy ol’ kook. Every year of my fantastically long and crazy life would mean nothing because there was no one left to give a crap. I’d be forgotten, my legacy lost, and there would be exactly fuck all I could do about it.”

Indy inhaled sharply. “Gammy…”

Misingno hugged his arms around himself and rocked back and forth. “Oh, okay, that does sound very, very painful…” He glanced back at Mr. Heiss, whined quietly, and then lurched forward. “How about a tiny taste, hmm?”

Gammy held her hand higher. “Go on. Try not to choke on it.”

Misingno leaned in and breathed deeply, shuddering. “O-oh. Oh. Yes. That. I want that.” He bounced in place. “Okay, what did you want again? A dream? No, to know where a dream came from? Whatever. What dream? What? What is it?”

“Yes!” Gammy flicked her fingers and summoned the teacher’s dream. “This one.”

“Oh.” Misingno cocked his head as he watched the scene playing through the bubble in Gammy’s hand. He looked at it from multiple sides, sniffed it, and then licked the edge of the bubble. “Hmm.”

“What can you tell us?”

“It is a dream. It is one of mine.” Misingno took another lick. “Oh. Hmm. I traded it to someone… Yes. A demon.”

Mr. Heiss grimaced.