Page 41 of The Devil She Knows
“Met you.” Sam huffed. “Bit of a misnomer, don’t you think?”
“I don’t follow. Explain.”
“See, I wouldn’t say Imetyou 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’mrealtorn up about it, trust me.” Daphne boohooed. “But let’s get real for a second, sweetheart. You haven’t beenvictimized. 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 thedoor. “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. Wejustwent 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 wordsubtle, 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 notthatevil. 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, oneweek. 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 yourburnout?”
