Chapter 4 #2
Sam ignored her, choosing instead to dig inside the greasy bag.
Her fingers brushed against the cool plastic of a disposable spoon and a stack of napkins, and finally the to-go pint buried beneath, still warm.
She dumped it all out, napkins fluttering to the floor, and pried the lid off the pint cup, sweet steam spilling out and tickling her nose with the mouthwatering aroma of cinnamon and rich, hot butter.
Eagerly, she dug into the thick, custardy confection, lifting the spoon to her lips, not even caring that it had been obtained through supernatural means.
Flavor exploded on her tongue, perfect , exactly how she remembered.
“Not to pressure you, but now that I’ve proven I can make good on my guarantees, what do you say we look at the contract?”
A dollop of bread pudding slipped off Sam’s spoon. “Contract?”
This was the first she was hearing about a legally binding—
A cartoonish whistle filled the air, followed by a rush of wind that whipped her hair across her face as a projectile fell from the … ceiling? Sky? And hit the elevator floor with a loud thwack.
“Contract.” Daphne pointed to the pile of neatly stacked papers between them, which was easily a foot tall, the pages still warm when Sam brushed her fingers against them, hot off a printer.
“I know what you’re thinking. What a waste of paper.
Personally, I’d prefer we go digital, but demons are a bunch of technophobes.
So resistant to change. Yours truly the exception, of course.
I’m just glad we finally ditched the wax tablets and vellum.
Only took us a thousand years.” Daphne rolled her eyes.
“Come to think of it, that was roughly the same time we moved our filing system from Limbo to the fourth circle.” A small smile stole over her face, a pink flush painting her cheeks. “My idea.”
“Fourth circle?”
“Where the avaricious are punished,” she explained. “Originally, the punishment for greed was jousting with enormous weights as weapons in a pit guarded by Plutus, ancient Greek god of wealth, but now the spendthrifts and hoarders of the world face an eternity of filing.”
“That sounds awfully … tame.” Tedious, sure, but not worse than dueling it out in a pit.
“Tame?” Daphne scoffed. “Two words—paper cuts.”
Sam cringed, phantom pain curling her fingers into fists.
“Back to business!” Daphne nudged the stack of papers toward Sam with the toe of her shoe. “You’re welcome to read it, but it’s all standard boilerplate.”
Sam reached for the top sheet and read the first line.
“I, Samantha Marjorie Cooper, hereafter known as the damned—” She choked. “ Damned? ”
Daphne smiled innocently. “Would you prefer darned ? Does that sound better?”
“No.” She laughed, incredulous, riding the edge of hysterical. “No, it doesn’t.”
This was such a bad idea. All of it. And yet she looked at the bread pudding beside her, irrefutable proof that Daphne could deliver, and all she could think was, if Daphne could do that? There was hope yet. What if this was the fastest way to get Hannah back?
“Don’t get hung up on the language. Here.” Daphne flipped to the second page. “Paragraph two states that I, Daphne—”
“Hold on. Your name’s seriously Daphne ?”
She reared back, scowling. “Um, rude. What’s wrong with my name?”
“Nothing, I guess. I just thought demons had names like Balthazar or Asmodeus. Lucifer or Beelz—”
“ Don’t say that name.” Between one blink and the next, her eyes shifted, turning black.
“What? Lucifer?” she asked, genuinely confused. “Why, is it blasphemous or something? Like taking the Lord’s name in vain?”
“No,” Daphne bit out, uncharacteristically tense, black claws beginning to sprout from her fingers, the transformation as fascinating as it was gruesome. “Because hearing it vexes me.”
A laugh slipped out before she could stifle it, Daphne’s prim choice of words at odds with the beastly claws she now sported. “Well, if it vexes you.”
“Let’s get something straight,” Daphne snarled, lips curling back from sharpened teeth. “You want your girlfriend back? You do not talk to me about him .”
“All right! Jesus.” She held up both hands. “I got it, okay? Ixnay on the Uciferlay. You can put the teeth and claws away.”
What was he, her ex? There had to be history there if she got so butt-hurt over simply hearing his name.
Daphne dropped her gaze, glower softening as she plucked at a loose thread dangling from the raw hem of her skirt. “Like I said, I wasn’t always a demon. I had— have —a name.”
If she had a name, that meant she had parents who named her. A family, friends; though with an attitude like hers, the latter was questionable.
Not that Sam had any intention of voicing any more personal questions. She liked her head attached to her body, thank you very much.
Daphne cleared her throat. “Where were we? Oh, right. I, Daphne, a representative of Hell, classified as a not-for-profit corporation as defined in chapter 35, article 1, section 102, subparagraph 5 of the New York State Penal Code, will offer you six wishes to use as the damned—Sorry.” She smirked. “ Darned sees fit.”
“Six? Why not seven?”
“Why not five?” She shrugged. “I don’t know. The Pythagoreans thought six was the perfect number. That, and six just sounds right.”
As reluctant as Sam was to admit it, Daphne had a point. Six did sound right.
“Paragraph 2, clause 1 stipulates the limitations of the aforementioned wishes. Basically, you can’t use your wishes to ask for more wishes, and you can’t wish yourself free from the contract.”
“Do people actually try that? Wishing for more wishes?”
“You’d be surprised what people wish for.”
“All right, then. Surprise me.”
“No one’s ever wished for world peace, if you catch my drift. Humans are a selfish breed.”
“And demons aren’t?”
She smirked. “The rest of the paragraph is all legal jargon. Paragraph 3 outlines the manner in which you’ll pay—nonmonetarily, before you get your boring granny panties in a bunch—for the aforementioned wishes.”
Sam gritted her teeth, biting back a retort. Her underwear was not boring. It was practical.
Rather than risk her neck arguing a moot point, she skimmed the page, the black Helvetica text blurring against the stark-white printer paper. “What? Are you freaking kidding me? I have to give you my soul ?”
Now, that she had a problem with.
“Only upon the completion of your wishes, of course,” Daphne said, as if that made any difference. “You can find that outlined on”—she flipped through the stack of papers at a speed too fast to be human—“page 666, paragraph 69, executory consideration.”
Sam didn’t care what page it was on. “It’s—it’s my soul . I can’t give you my soul.”
Daphne had the nerve to look confused. “Why not?”
Sam gaped at her.
“Have you ever seen your soul? How often do you think about it? I mean, do you even know what it is?”
Of course Sam knew what it was. “It’s … it’s …” She gestured vaguely, emphatically , pointing at her chest, her head, her … She didn’t really know where to point. As far as she knew, souls weren’t tangible. “It’s the thing that makes me me .”
“No, dumbass.” Daphne laughed. “That’s your personality.”
Oh. Right. “Fine. It’s the thing that tells me the difference between right and wrong.”
“And that”—Daphne rose onto her knees—“would be your conscience.”
Sam huffed, ready for Daphne to just tell her what the hell it was, since clearly, Sam was batting a thousand on her own. “I’m not exactly a theologian, but I know it does something. Something important.”
Otherwise, there’d be no reason to have one. Otherwise, Daphne wouldn’t be treating it like a bargaining chip.
Daphne gathered her dress in her hands and, skirting the stack of papers between them, knee-walked her way across the elevator. “You want to know the truth? Souls don’t really do anything. I mean, name one thing your soul has done for you so far. You can’t!”
Sam held impossibly still, breath trapped in her chest as Daphne hiked her dress higher, tossing one leg over both of hers, straddling Sam’s thighs.
“Screw personal space, right?” Sam gasped out of necessity more than shock, though that was there, too. This close, the sharp, sweet vanilla scent that seemed to emanate from Daphne’s pores was intense, mouthwatering, and—against Sam’s better judgment, she inhaled deeply.
Addictive.
“Personal space is overrated,” Daphne agreed, plopping down in Sam’s lap, so close that even through their many layers, her dress, Sam’s coat, Sam’s pantsuit, Sam could feel the warmth of her, hotter than any human ran. “As overrated as your soul. It could be gone, and you wouldn’t even miss it.”
A strangled sound escaped Sam’s lips as Daphne’s hands slipped between the buttons of her coat, fingers dragging up the hem of her blouse until she found bare flesh and poked Sam hard. “A little like your appendix.”
Sam slapped at her wandering hands, earning a pouty lit tle huff. “If my soul’s so useless, how come you want it so badly?”
Daphne sat back, weight resting on Sam’s thighs, the arch of her brows making her look mildly impressed. “Truth is? I really couldn’t care less about your soul. It’s not me who wants it. Not really.”
“Who does?” Sam asked carefully, provoking Daphne’s ire the last thing she needed. “Want it, I mean.”
“Think of it like a chess match between good and evil,” she said, toying with the buttons running down the center of Sam’s coat.
“Souls, or souls like yours, the grand majority of them, are like pawns. Numerous and weak, not particularly valuable, but not entirely worthless, either. There’s power in numbers, after all. ”
Weak but not entirely worthless. Sam had been called worse. “If I’m a pawn, or if my soul is, what does that make you?”
“Just another piece in the game,” Daphne said, lips twisting to the side in a wry smile. “Even pawns can be promoted.”
Her insistence on speaking in riddles was making Sam’s head ache. “So, let me break this down. You’re offering me six wishes in exchange for my soul. Which isn’t worth much, but you still want it. But it’s not personal. You’re just an agent of evil.”
Daphne followed Sam’s gaze over to the laughably large contract.
“The rest is mostly legalese. You’re acknowledging that you’re an adult, of sound mind, and not currently under the influence of drugs or alcohol.
You’re not entering into this deal as a result of threats, coercion, or improper persuasion. ”
Sam’s eyes darted pointedly to her lap, making Daphne laugh.
“Are you feeling improperly persuaded, Sam?” Daphne purred, a wicked gleam in her eyes. She reached out, hot fingers skimming Sam’s jaw, sending a shiver skittering down her spine. “I’d be happy to persuade you properly. If you’d like.”
Sam turned her head, letting Daphne’s fingers fall, not about to let herself be deterred by a pretty face or the promise of—she swallowed hard—pleasure. “Do I need to remind you the reason I’m considering any of this in the first place?”
For a long minute, Daphne studied her, expression giving nothing away. Utterly, infuriatingly inscrutable. “You’re really gone on this girl, aren’t you?”
What gave it away? The ring box in Sam’s coat pocket? The attempted proposal? Or maybe, just maybe, that she was sitting in an elevator with a deranged demon on her lap, seriously considering risking her soul for the chance to be with, to be worthy of, Hannah?
Sam refused to dignify such a remarkably daft question with an answer. “What if I don’t make all six wishes? What happens then?”
“In the event you don’t cash in all your wishes, your soul remains yours and yours alone. Executory consideration, remember?”
If Sam played her cards right, all she’d need was one wish. One wish to set everything in her life to rights and keep her soul. Whatever it was worth.
As far as risks went, it was rather tame. She couldn’t see how the odds weren’t in her favor. “Where do I sign?”
Daphne’s brows rose. “Sign?”
She mimed scribbling her signature as best she could with a lapful of demon keeping her pinned in place. “You know, sign. Ink. Endorse. Where do I put my John Hancock so we can get this show on the road?”
And she could get her girlfriend back and wash her hands of this nightmare of a night.
“Keep your shirt on, sweetheart,” Daphne chided, tsking softly. Awfully hypocritical considering she was trembling, her eyes big and bright, flickering back-and-forth dizzyingly fast between blue and black like she couldn’t contain her excitement. “Are you taking the deal?”
“Six wishes, anything I want.” Sam sucked in a great big breath and nodded. “Yes, I—I’m saying yes. So, where do I sign?”
“No signing necessary.” Daphne placed her palms flat against the wall, boxing Sam in. “I seal my deals a little differently than other demons.”
“Oh joy,” she muttered, stomach sinking. Another surprise. “Let me guess, you want me to slice my palm open and make a blood pact? Drink from a chalice full of both our blood?”
“You are so dramatic.”
She had a half a mind to tell Daphne just how rich that was coming from her, except then Daphne was leaning in, the distance between their faces dwindling, dwindling, disappearing, her body a solid line of heat pressed against Sam’s curves. The retort died a swift death on her tongue.
“Nothing so grisly as any of that,” Daphne whispered, one hand dropping to cradle the side of Sam’s face, thumb stroking the hinge of her jaw. “I promise.”
Without warning, her mouth crashed against Sam’s in a kiss as brief as it was bruising, the pillowy plushness of Daphne’s lips a stark contrast to the searing heat she left behind, lingering like a brand when she drew back, a devilish smile on her face.
“It’s going to be a pleasure doing business with you, Samantha.”