Page 12 of The Devil She Knows
Daphne arched a brow. “I’m a demon, not a short-order cook. Hold your horses.”
Five minutes became ten, spunky Muzak emanating from the elevator’s suddenly functioning speakers. After an indeterminate amount of time that left Sam wondering whether she’d somehow landed herself in Purgatory, the elevator doors opened, metal grinding shrilly against metal, hot sparks flying in every direction. She drew her scarf up over her face and peered cautiously through her splayed fingers.
A guy sporting a backward baseball cap poked his head between the doors, staring down at them from half a floor above, eyes flitting curiously around the confined space they were trapped in. “Uh, I’ve got a special delivery for a Daphne?”
She stood, dusting off her skirt primly. “That would be me. Thank you very much.” She reached into the bodice of her dress and withdrew a crisply folded fifty-dollar bill that she promptly handed over.
The courier passed her a grease-stained paper bag. “Enjoy.”
He left, whistling a jaunty tune as he turned the corner inthe direction of the service elevator, as if this were normal, delivering food to two women trapped in a defunct elevator. All in a day’s work.
The doors groaned, sliding shut.
“Shouldn’t we have tried to …” Sam trailed off with a sinking realization. She’d been played like a fiddle. “We’re not really trapped in here, are we?”
Daphne seesawed her head from side to side. “Technically—”
“Screw technically,” she said. “Did you or did you not cause the elevator to malfunction?”
“You say malfunction, I say temporarily out of order.” Daphne smirked. “Don’t sound so scandalized. So what if I engineered the perfect scenario to get you alone? I’m evil, remember?”
“You’re a pain in my ass, is what you are,” Sam muttered.
“If it makes you feel better, we aren’t eveninthe elevator. Not anymore. Technically we aren’t even in your building. Think of this as our own personal little liminal space, a cozy little pocket between space and time just for us.”
“An elevatorisa liminal space.” She held out a hand for the bag Daphne was holding. “Gimme.”
Daphne swung the paper bag in front of her face tauntingly. “Say please.”
“Go to hell,” Sam snapped, snatching the bag.
Daphne laughed. “Been there, done that, but it’s so balmy this time of year, you know?”
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, napkinsfluttering 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.Soresistant to change. Yours truly the exception, of course. I’m just glad wefinallyditched 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.”
