Hellfire & Bowties Quotes

“Um, boss?” Luc looked over his shoulder.
“Hm?”
He followed the tilt of Zorun’s four horns to the middle of the lobby, where a tiny figure stood all alone, looking at everything and everyone with bewilderment.
[...]
Luc walked over slowly, a frown on his face as he stared down at the young man.
“Why are you still standing there?”
[...]
“Name?” Luc asked, trying to get something out of the man. The human shook himself out of his stupor and held out his hand to Luc. “Oren.” “Okay, Oren, hi. I’m Luc,” he said, indulging in the silly little human display of politeness and reaching out a clawed hand to engulf Oren’s with it. His skin was warm to the touch, his palm tiny and fragile in Luc’s hold. “Why aren’t you with your group?” Oren kept the grip on Luc’s hand firm, looking around at the clusters of people huddled together, waiting to be led to their rooms. “I… I don’t have one?” He looked up at Luc, clearly confused. “I don’t think I missed any of them. Adulterers, thieves, traitors…” He ticked off the groups, looking at each one as he did, his memory clearly impeccable. He got to the final group then looked up again. “I’m not any of those things.” Luc boomed with laughter, letting go of his hand and finally breaking the contact between them. “Ah,” he said. “We haven’t had one of you in a while. Everyone, we have an innocent soul on our hands!” His words halted the slow shuffle of people and prompted a cacophony of laughter and slurs thrown Oren’s way as his demons mocked his delusion of being an innocent in Hell. “Thank you for the laugh. You can shack up with the liars,” Luc said, grabbing a yellow sticky note and pressing it to Oren’s chest. [...]”
― A.M. Rose, Hellfire & Bowties

“Welcome to Hell!” His voice boomed, the deep bass tone making the ground beneath their feet rumble and shake. Luc knew they could feel it in their bones. “You all know why you’re here, so we won’t waste a lot of time explaining. You’ve been very, very naughty in your lives, and now you get to spend the rest of eternity here. With me.”
He watched them take in his words, horror painted on their faces, screams echoing around the room as they shuffled farther away from him, the ones at the front clearly wishing they could just sink into the ground and disappear. “No need to be shy. I’m not gonna hurt you,” Luc cooed. He gave them a few precious moments to relax a tiny bit before grinning. “I have people for that.” He turned to Zorun to see if he liked the joke but got nothing but an eye roll from his second-in-command. Rude. “Okay, we need to be fast and organized.” Luc dropped the act, waving the clipboard and his colorful sticky notes in the air. “You’ll be divided by sin and sent with your group leader to the appropriate level. Your pain tolerance assessment starts in half an hour. You’ll be tested for various forms of torture, and then the most suitable one will be chosen for you. If you disagree with your torture method, you can fill out a form and appeal within two weeks. You will be reassessed if need be.”
― A.M. Rose, Hellfire & Bowties

“The insane craving he’d felt for Luc all day drained away, and all he felt was safe. Protected by the devil himself. He drifted off feeling a hand petting his hair.”
― A.M. Rose, Hellfire & Bowties