Chapter 9
B ACK INSIDE THE not an elevator, not-not an elevator, Daphne was stretched across the pink chaise like a cat, an emery board in hand, filing her nails into sharp, stiletto-like points. She looked up only briefly, then returned to her filing. “Welcome back.”
“What the hell was that?” With the memory of Hannah’s screams rattling in her head, haunting her, Sam stormed over and snatched the nail file from Daphne’s hands, hurling it across the room with as much force as she could muster.
It hit the wall with a soft metallic plink before dropping soundlessly onto the carpet.
The outburst did nothing to quell her anger. “You promised. No jeopardy to life or—”
“I promised not to cause jeopardy to your life or limb,” Daphne said.
“I said nothing about anyone else’s. Which isn’t to say I meant for it to happen; I’ll be the first to admit that what befell Hannah was unfortunate, but really, it was a casualty of her own carelessness, Sam.
She shouldn’t have stormed off like that or gone poking around in places where she didn’t belong. ”
“You brought her to Hell . What did you expect to happen?” Sam’s heart dropped like a stone inside her stomach. “Wait. She’s not … she’s not still down there, is she?”
“Calm down. You used our safe word, thus ending your wish. Think of it as a factory reset. Right now, Hannah’s across town—” Daphne stopped, eyes widening a fraction. “She’s across town doing exactly what she would’ve been doing had you never met me.”
“ Met you. ” Sam huffed. “Bit of a misnomer, don’t you think?”
“I don’t follow. Explain.”
“See, I wouldn’t say I met you as much as I’d call it … became afflicted by. Burdened by, beset by, plagued by your presence, victimized by—”
“ Okay ,” Daphne said, sitting up. “I’m a blight, blah, blah, blah. You don’t like me, I get it, but—”
“ Don’t like? Now, that’s an understatement if I’ve ever heard one.”
“Yeah, yeah. You loathe me, and I’m real torn up about it, trust me.” Daphne boohooed. “But let’s get real for a second, sweetheart. You haven’t been victimized . You have agency. I’d even argue that you hold all the cards in our arrangement.”
“Do I? Really? Because from where I’m standing, it doesn’t matter what I do. You’re going to take artistic license and Pollock up my life as you see fit.”
Daphne tilted her head to the ceiling and let out a heavy sigh. “Sam, Sam, Sam, we’ve been over this before. If you don’t want to play the game, go home.” She pointed at the door. “No one’s stopping you, certainly not me. You can leave now, and never again shall I darken your door.”
“I don’t understand you,” Sam admitted. “I know that your plan is to mess with my wishes in hopes that I’ll have no choice but to make another—”
“Uh.” Daphne held up finger. “I’m starting to feel like a broken record here. We just went over how no one’s forcing you to make a wish.”
“No choice but to make another wish if I want to get Hannah back,” Sam amended. “Therefore I’ll use up all my wishes and you’ll get my soul. I know that’s your plan and you know that I know.”
Daphne nodded along. “What’s tripping you up?”
“If you wanted to sabotage me, you didn’t have to go to all the trouble of constructing a cooking competition and bringing me to Hell on some visitor’s pass.
Or making me a crime lord. You could’ve just …
I don’t know, made my life perfect and then given me some fatal illness where I only had weeks left to live.
Or … or hit me with a car. Something subtle, you know? ”
Daphne frowned. “I think you and I have very different definitions of the word subtle , Sam.”
“No.” None of this was coming out right.
“I mean, you could’ve manipulated my wishes in a way where I would have remained none the wiser.
I would’ve just thought, Of course, you’ve got incurable brain cancer and only a few days left to live.
That’s just the way the cookie crumbles, Sam.
And then I probably would have made a wish, so I didn’t, you know, die , and—you see where I’m going with this? ”
“One, I’m a little offended that you think I would have given you something as boring as brain cancer.
If I were going that route, I’d have given you something like rabies or Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, something with panache.
Something splashy to get the CDC and WHO involved.
Or I’d have given you something like … auto-brewery syndrome or, I don’t know, persistent sexual arousal syndrome, maybe.
” Daphne winked and Sam rolled her eyes.
“Second of all, you’re forgetting a key detail here.
I promised not to jeopardize your life or limb. ”
“Before,” Sam said. “I’m talking about my first wish. I didn’t know what you were up to, and you made me a thief anyway. You could’ve given me any of those horrifying-sounding diseases and you didn’t. Do you need something more creative to get your rocks off or something?”
“ Ooh ,” Daphne cooed softly. “You want to know how I get my rocks off?” She leaned back against the rounded arm of the chaise, arms stretched over her head, her back arching in a deep bow that accentuated the swell of her breasts.
“I’d be happy to show you.” She lowered a hand, fingers tracing her neckline suggestively.
“What do you say, Sam?” Her knees parted, her dress creeping up her thighs, revealing an expanse of smooth, pale skin.
“I’ll show you mine if you show me yours? ”
Sam averted her eyes, too aware, uncomfortably so, of her own heartbeat.
This woman, this demon, was a menace.
Worse, she knew it.
Even worse, she liked it.
“That’s not what I meant. I’m just saying, you sure went to great lengths to fuck with me when you could’ve, I don’t know … you could’ve made me straight!”
Wouldn’t that have been a kick in the pants? Wake up in a world where Hannah was in love with her and feel not even a flicker of attraction.
“Wow.” Daphne dropped her hand. “I’m evil, but I’m not that evil. That’s downright diabolical. Tell me, have you ever thought about pursuing a career in demonic degeneracy?”
Sam glared flatly at her. “No.”
“Hm, I suppose it really is more of a … calling.” Daphne shrugged. “To your point, which I’m gathering is, why did I get so inventive and why didn’t I try harder to keep you in the dark?”
Pretty much. “That about it sums it up.”
“I’ve been doing this for over a millennium.
Sure, I joke about artistic license, and it’s true to a degree, but you try doing this job for even a decade, a year, a month, one week .
It gets old. Joy might not be a crumb, Sam, but when you’ve lived as long as I have, doing what it is I do, sometimes it feels like it is.
You can’t blame me for getting my kicks where I can. ”
Actually, yes. Yes, she could. “So I’m, what, a casualty of your burnout ?”
Daphne frowned. “When you put it like that, I almost feel guilty.” She paused, shrugged, then smiled. “Okay, the feeling’s gone.”
Sam pressed the heels of her hands into her eyes hard enough that colorful orbs danced behind her lids.
“As for clueing you in, keeping you in the dark was never really my intention. Sure, I could’ve told you and you could’ve immediately walked out the door.
But in all my many, many years spent making hundreds upon hundreds of deals, not one person I’ve dealt with, even knowing all about my penchant for coloring outside the lines, has abstained from making all six of their wishes. ”
“Not one? Out of hundreds?”
“Just shy of a thousand.”
Sam felt faint. “And all of them knew the risks?”
“Every last one of them.” Daphne smiled, bemused.
“Come on, Sam, don’t look so surprised! I mean, look at you.
You’re so desperate to get Hannah back that, even knowing what you know, you still went back for seconds.
You didn’t let knowing stop you from trying your damnedest to win her back even though it meant wasting another of your six precious wishes. ”
“ Wasting? No, I—because I thought—because you told me that—” Sam clenched her jaw and took a deep breath in through her nose. “With the promise you made, I didn’t realize sabotage was still on the table.”
“Yes, you did. Be honest. You knew, but you thought you could outsmart me.” Daphne tutted. “And for the record, Sam? I don’t have to sabotage you. Not when you’re doing such a bang-up job of it yourself.”
Cold spread through her chest, icy fingers curling around her heart.
Daphne was right. Sam might not be solely to blame for her wish going tits up, but she had definitely sealed her fate.
“I knew I should’ve made those dumb cake pops,” she muttered. “I should’ve listened to my gut.”
But, no, Sam just had to impress Hannah. She’d flown too close to the sun and come crashing back down to Earth, burned. No, flambéed .
“Listened to your gut and what?” Daphne shut her eyes. “Oh, Sam. Don’t tell me you were thinking about fixing the competition. Losing on purpose? Really?”
Sam crossed her arms. “Yeah. So? Maybe I was.”
Daphne dropped her face into her hands with a groan. “ Sam. ”
“Big whoop. It’s not like you’re some stranger to manipulation. What is it? You can excuse lying and cheating and stealing but you draw the line at—what? Unsportsmanlike conduct?”
“No.” Daphne lifted her head, just enough to glare at Sam from under her lashes. “I take issue because—and full offense meant—the idea is moronic. You’re better than that, Sam.”
“Too good to throw a competition to get Hannah but not too good to make a deal with a demon?” Sam shook her head. “My win wasn’t a win at all, was it? But if I had lost, Hannah might’ve—”
“Hannah might’ve what, Sam? Do you seriously think Hannah would have wanted to date a loser?”