Chapter 2
R/NOSTUPIDQUESTIONS
can I charge my iphone in the microwave? the charging cable isn’t working.
“MacLeod!”
Effie jerked, pressing post prematurely as Harbinger, head of the Office of Technology and Infernal Innovation, came barreling around the corner, stopping in front of her desk to glower at her from behind a pair of oversized aviator glasses that were already dated when he was human.
“Yeah?” Effie frowned up at him. “Can I help you?”
“Don’t say yeah,” he berated her. “It’s Yes, Mr. Harbinger? How may I help you, Mr. Harbinger?”
“Yes, Mr. Harbinger?” she intoned. “How may I help you, Mr. Harbinger?”
His sneer grew more pronounced, his thin lips drawing back from his sharp little coffee-stained teeth. “Just because you know someone in a position of power doesn’t mean I have to put up with your impertinence.”
While it was true that Belphegor oversaw the Office of Technology and Infernal Innovation, she’d be just as impertinent if he didn’t. They hadn’t been dating when she’d first been assigned to the department and Harbinger knew that.
“If you have a problem with my attitude, you could always recommend I be moved to a different department.” She looked pointedly around the room. “One with fewer fluorescent lights and some windows, maybe?”
“Nice try.” Harbinger tucked a thumb under his maroon suspenders. “For better or for worse, you’ll be here for as long as the Dark Lord desires, and nothing you or I say is going to change that. And trust me, I’ve said plenty.”
Harbinger was one of those demons, a real Renfield type. An ingratiating ass-kiss with a bloated sense of self-importance. Perfect for middle management and not much else.
Effie propped her chin on her hand and smiled sunnily at him. “I guess we’re both just cogs in the machine, aren’t we?”
His jaw clenched, and he tossed a manila file down on her desk beside the ancient keyboard she was forced to use, her many requests for a replacement having gone unanswered.
Half the keys stuck, and the other half she had to smash extra hard.
“Let’s discuss your TPS reports from last month, mm-kay? ”
“There’s nothing I’d rather do less, but sure, let’s.”
Harbinger flipped the folder open with a flourish, gesturing for Effie to take a look-see.
She skimmed the first page and shrugged. It looked perfectly fine to her. “What? Did I forget the cover sheet again?”
“No. You filled them out in Gaelic.”
“And?”
“I don’t speak Gaelic,” Harbinger gritted out between clenched teeth.
“Well.” Effie leaned back and clasped her hands together in her lap. “That sounds like a you problem to me, Mr. Harbinger.”
“Fill them out again, MacLeod.” He stabbed his finger menacingly at her, his unpolished claws gleaming dully under the flickering fluorescents. “And fill them out right this time, you ken?”
With that odd jab delivered, Harbinger turned on his loafer and stalked down the hall, slamming the door to his office shut behind him before Effie could even ask what right meant.
She very much did not ken. In English, she imagined, but who knew?
Maybe he wanted it done in Latin. Now, there was a thought. Maybe she’d fill them out in pig Latin.
“You really shouldn’t goad him, you know.”
Effie lifted her head. In the cubicle across from hers, Siphesihle removed her headset and rested it carefully on her desk.
While Effie frittered away her time trolling morons and rage-baiting anyone and everyone who would fall for it, her coworker spent her days making fraudulent phone calls, tricking humans into revealing Social Security numbers, passwords, credit card numbers, anything that could be used to drain their bank account or steal their identity.
You take someone’s money, you make them angry, afraid, desperate, and, simply speaking, desperate people were statistically more likely to sell their souls in exchange for wealth, status, or power than anyone else.
“I’m not afraid of Harbinger.” Effie scoffed, the idea laughable.
She shut the file he had left behind and added it to the growing stack on the corner of her desk.
“For that matter, I’m not afraid of any man who wears suspenders with a belt.
If he’s that terrified of his pants falling down, what threat could he possibly pose to me? ”
“I didn’t say you were afraid of him.” Siphesihle rolled her eyes and propped her elbows on the edge of her desk.
“You shouldn’t goad him because it’s tacky to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent.
” Her glossed lips twisted in a smirk when Effie laughed, startled.
“But forget about Halfwit Harbinger. I heard congratulations are in order. Taking Hell’s most eligible bachelor off the marriage market? ” Siphesihle clapped. “Bravo, Effie.”
She smiled wryly. “News sure travels fast.”
“We mere cogs in the machine must entertain ourselves somehow,” Siphesihle said loftily. “Ooh, I wonder what that’s about.”
Effie followed Siphesihle’s eager, wide-eyed gaze to the scroll whizzing through the open office door and frowned at the jet-black ribbon tied around it.
Seldom did the Office of Technology and Infernal Innovation receive interdepartmental memos; the number of official summonses they received were even fewer and farther between.
Whoever the recipient was, she didn’t envy them, not in the slightest.
The scroll stopped in front of Siphesihle’s desk, and her face fell dramatically. Like a weather vane in a hurricane, the scroll began to spin wildly. Abruptly it stopped, pointing directly at Effie.
“Fuck me,” she muttered, her stomach sinking as the scroll drifted open, the ribbon already unfurling.
She had next to no time to consider what she could have possibly done to warrant an official summons before the scroll unrolled, revealing several short paragraphs written in bloodred ink. Before she could begin to read it, a plummy voice emerged from the scroll.
Dear Eithrig MacLeod,
Let it be known that at 5:23 a.m., Infernal Standard Time, a verbal betrothal contract between Eithrig MacLeod and Belphegor was registered with the Office of Infernal Internal Affairs.
This agreement was automatically flagged.
Given the sensitive nature of this issue, we regret to inform you that your presence is required immediately. You may consider this a formal summons.
Yours infernally,
Jacqueline de Vitry, Secretary
Department of Records
Office of Infernal Internal Affairs
No sooner had the scroll finished speaking than it burst into flames, falling to the floor in a neat pile of smoking ash.
The floating ribbon wriggled and writhed, rising like a cobra from a snake charmer’s basket.
Even knowing what was about to happen next, Effie was unprepared when the ribbon struck, wrapping itself around her right wrist and sinking into her skin with a searing sizzle.
The acrid smell of ash and burnt flesh turned her stomach as much as the pain.
Siphesihle gaped at her. “What in Satan’s name was that about?”
Effie touched the tips of her fingers to the glowing burn on her wrist and hissed through her teeth at the sting. “You didn’t hear what it said?”
“It just sounded like a bunch of static noise to me. Crunchy, you know? Some sort of privacy safeguard, I bet.” Siphesihle reached for a nearby file, nose wrinkling as she fanned the air in front of her face.
“Can you do something about that? The stench is going to put me off meat for the next month.”
Effie grimaced sharply. Neither the burn nor the pain it brought was abating; if anything, it was growing worse, with tiny blisters cropping up along its waxy-looking border. Something awful in her gut told her it was only going to get worse until the summons was answered.
Mindful of the burn, Effie shoved away from her desk and stood, her injured wrist cradled protectively against her chest. “If Harbinger asks—”
“I’ll handle it.” Siphesihle shooed Effie toward the door, pinching her nose. “Please, just go.”
The Office of Infernal Internal Affairs was located deep in the bowels of the capitol building, several dozen floors beneath the Office of Technology and Infernal Innovation.
Effie had never had cause to go down there until today, and if she had any say in the matter, she’d never be back.
The air was stale and much too dry, and she wished she’d had the forethought to bring a jacket, because it was freezing this close to Cocytus, the large frozen lake located in the deepest circle of Hell.
The receptionist slid the window open and leaned over the counter that separated her from the waiting room. “Giffard Cadogan? Mammon’s ready for you.”
A wizened demon with a stooped back stood, his impressively long beard grazing the floor. He hobbled over to the door and slipped inside the office, easing the door shut behind him.
Effie’s right knee jiggled restlessly as she watched the clock on the wall.
Either time moved differently down here, more slowly, or the pain had distorted her perception of it.
Her wound was officially festering, the blisters now oozing a disgusting yellow pus that dripped down her forearm and off her elbow, forming a revolting puddle on her leather pants.
“Oooh, got yourself an official summons, eh?” The demon manspreading in the next chair leered at her over his 1952 edition of Golf Digest. “What’d you do to earn one of those?”
“Absolutely none of your business.” Effie crossed her arms, wincing when the move jostled her injury. “Piss off.”
The demon harrumphed and went back to reading his magazine.
“Eithrig MacLeod?”
Effie jerked and jumped to her feet. “That’s me.”
A petite demon dressed in head-to-toe navy stood in the doorway of the waiting room, a clipboard in hand. She slid her thick horn-rimmed glasses up the bridge of her nose and gave Effie a curt nod. “Titivillus will see you now.”
Effie hurried after her, slipping through the door and to the left, down a never-ending hall, doors on either side.
The lights here were dim, the sconces on the wall lit by hellfire, their eerie glow casting flickering shadows on the limestone ceiling.
Carved into the walls were lines upon lines of ancient glyphs, Elder Futhark and cuneiform, Phoenician and Egyptian, and languages Effie couldn’t name, let alone understand.
“Have you thought about, I don’t know, upgrading to paper down here? E-files, maybe?”
“The Department of Records has been charged with the task of preserving and documenting our infernal historical records. It is a responsibility of the utmost importance and not one we take lightly, Ms. MacLeod. As our history predates the use of paper, our catalog reflects that. Rest assured that we have everything from clay tablets to papyrus to, yes, a robust electronic library.” She came to an abrupt stop in front of a faintly glowing blue door with the phrase COLLIGITE FRAGMENTA inscribed above it and knocked on the frame before gesturing for Effie to enter. “Eithrig MacLeod is here to see you.”
If the faint glow weren’t enough of a clue that the doorway was enchanted, the low-level electric current that passed through her as soon as she stepped one foot over the threshold certainly was.
Her arm throbbed once, twice, a pulse running from her elbow down to her fingertips.
The edges of the burn began to recede, fading until it was as if it had never existed, her skin smooth and unblemished. Mercifully, the pain vanished, too.
“Thank you, Jacqueline. Have a seat, Ms. MacLeod.”
She looked up from her wrist and froze, mouth ajar.
Over the course of her five hundred years, she had seen a great many things: beautiful things, horrifying things, creatures of all kinds.
Demons all looked quite similar under the glamour of human skin they wore—variances existed in horn shape and tail length, but most had skin that was a gradient of steadily darkening shades of red that bled into soot-dark fingers, claws made for rending, and eyes the color of pitch.
There were exceptions, of course, with some demons feathered, others furred, but the demon seated behind the desk looked unlike any Effie had seen before.
His skin was the color of aged parchment and covered in hieratic script, tattoos that shifted and swirled beneath his skin.
An occasional splotch of ink would appear, like a droplet spilled from a quill, before it, too, would shift and fade, replaced with fresh black text.
He gestured to the two chairs across from him, ink dripping off his clawed fingertips, disappearing before it could hit the blotter on his desk. Titivillus, Head of the Department of Records, his nameplate read. “Please. There’s no time to waste.”
Effie lowered herself into the nearest chair, its stiff leather upholstery forcing her to sit up straight. She glanced at the empty chair next to her. “We’re still waiting for Belphegor?”
Titivillus shook his head, and she frowned. “This is…oh, how should I put it? A delicate matter, Ms. MacLeod. I thought it would be…imprudent to involve outside parties at this time, and I’m sure you’ll come to agree with me.”
She didn’t follow. “But the summons said this had to do with our engagement.”
“And it does. When you accepted Belphegor’s proposal at”—he leaned forward and shuffled the papers around on his desk until he found the one he was searching for—“twenty-three minutes past five this morning, you entered into a verbal betrothal contract, which, like all contracts involving Hell’s denizens, was automatically filed with the contracts division of the Department of Records, where it was flagged and your file searched thoroughly, upon which it was discovered you’re bound by a preexisting agreement. ”
Bound by a— “What sort of preexisting agreement?”
“As it turns out,” Titivillus said, sitting back in his chair and fixing her with a stony stare. “You, Eithrig MacLeod, are already married.”