Page 37 of The Devil She Knows
“I promised not to put you in a position that would cause jeopardy to your life or limb or land you in prison.”
“Hellisa prison!”
“Oh, please.” Daphne rolled her eyes. “Again I say, you’rejustvisiting. And it’s not like I brought you down to the ninth circle. This is only the third circle. Where the gluttonous grovel in mud as punishment for surrendering to their voracious appetites. Normally, Cerberus, the three-headed dog, also guards the gluttons, viciously flaying them with his razor-sharp claws, rending the flesh from their bones, but I offered him a different job today.” She looked out into the pitfull of the damned and smiled. “I figured, where better to stage a cooking competition than the very place where those who overconsumed in life face an eternity of being consumed?”
Sam gripped the edge of the stove, knuckles turning white. She wasn’t going to think about the flesh being rent from her bones. “You could’ve made it so that Hannah knew me.”
“You don’t see me telling you how to do your job, do you?” Daphne pointed at the stack of dishes beside the stove. “You should probably start plating.”
She shot Daphne a sour look and reached for the plates.
“Besides, from where I was standing, you two hit it off. Hannah sure seemed to want to get up close and personal with your—” She paused dramatically and wiggled her brows, eyes dropping luridly to Sam’s chest. “Paris-Brest.”
Sam rolled her eyes.
Thatshe wasn’t concerned about; the physical part of her relationship with Hannah had never been a problem. Of course, as with any new relationship, there’d been a learning curve at first, but once she had figured out what Hannah liked best? They were off to the races, sex the one aspect of their relationship that Hannah had never complained about.
“I don’t care if she wants my Paris-Brestormy puits d’amour,” Sam said, slicing the bread pudding into four neat squares. “Iwanther to want tobewith me.”
“Maybe that’s what you should have wished for, then, Sam.”
“But I don’t want to have to wish for it!” Sam set down theknife so she wouldn’t cut herself. “I want her to want me. I want her toloveme. I want it to bereal.”
Incredulity flickered in Daphne’s blue eyes. Frustration rose inside Sam, tightening her chest, turning her next breath into a harsh sigh.
“I know maybe it’s novel to a demon like you, but not all of us are willing to lie and cheat and—and steal to get what we want,” she said, plating the bread pudding and topping it with the brandy-buttered pears with a little more violence than was strictly necessary. “Some of us have morals and ethics, and I know that’s rich coming from someone who made a deal with a demon and all, but there are some lines I’m not willing to cross, and taking Hannah’s free will away from her is one of them.”
Sam would do anything for love, but she wouldn’t do that.
Daphne’s mouth twisted grimly. “You have a real knack for putting words in my mouth.” She handed Sam the book of matches from off the counter, then stepped back. “I meant what I said before. Some people can’t see what’s right in front of them. Other people don’twantto see what’s right in front of them. But, Sam? The price of knowledge might be steep, but the cost of ignorance will always be greater.”
Daphne could say whatever she wanted. She could issue as many cryptic warnings as she liked. Sam’s mind was set. No amount of cajoling or coercing would convince her to morally bankrupt herself.
A loud ticking filled the air.
“Sixty seconds,” Daphne called out.
Sam struck a match and dropped it inside the saucepan. Blue flames rose from the burning whisky, and Sam had tomove fast, pouring the alcohol over the dessert before it flamed out. She finished just in the nick of time, the buzzer blaring loudly.
“Chefs, please put down your utensils,” Daphne said, and Sam took a careful step back, eyes sweeping over the three plates in front of her. Maybe not her best, but not bad for something she’d whipped up in under half an hour. “If you’ll both please grab your desserts and join me at the judges’ table.”
A plate in each hand and the third cradled carefully against her forearm, Sam followed Daphne, making it halfway across the arena before her footsteps faltered and she stopped dead in her tracks, frozen with her heart in her throat.
A beast of a dog easily as tall as an African elephant, with three heads and six menacing red eyes, stood behind the judges’ table. Its fur was the blackest black she had ever seen, so dark it seemed to eat up the light, more void than animal. Drool dripped from its meaty jowls down onto the table, and it shifted impatiently on its feet, razor-sharp claws dragging against the ground, leaving gouges the length of her arm in the stone.
Sam turned, expecting to see a look of horror splashed across Hannah’s face to match the distress she was feeling, but with her shoulders back and her chin up, a demure smile playing at the edges of her lips, Hannah looked utterly unperturbed. Calm, cool, collected, and ready to face judgment.
“Chefs, you may set your dishes down.”
Hannah stepped forward, carefully placing a plate before each of the dog’s three heads, and Sam wondered what it wasshewas seeing, because as Sam approached and set her own plates down, she couldn’t help the whimper that escaped when the monster curled its lips back, revealing three mouths full of fangs.
Daphne had promised no loss of life or limb; there’d be no rending of her flesh today, she reassured herself.
“Chef Liu, would you care to tell the judges what you’ve prepared for them?”
“Of course.” Hannah clasped her hands in front of her and smiled. “Judges, today I’ve prepared for you a chocolate digestive made with the repurposed secret ingredient along with a torched hazelnut rocher pâte de guimauve.”
Sam tore her eyes away from the mouth of the dog’s head nearest her and looked down at Hannah’s plate. A chocolate cookie-cracker had been placed at a jaunty angle beside a white-and-brown dollop of what she assumed to be the pâte de guimauve, its exterior bubbled, toasted. Atop it all was a dusting of edible gold. The presentation was beautiful, a little work of art, too pretty to be eaten, not that that stopped the three-headed dog-judge from bending over and wolfing it down.
