Page 4 of The Signature Dish of the Underworld

Rae was about to tell Garth to forget the question, she was busy and he should leave, when Ibrik let out a low whistling howl in warning.

“Fine,” she muttered under her breath, turning and taking her friend off the element.

“Can I have a cup?”

“No.”

“I’ll tell you why I’m here if you’ll give me one.”

“I suspect you’ll tell me anyway.” Rae threw a shrewd look over her shoulder as she began to pour the coffee into a kylix.

It wasn’t that she disliked Garth. It was just … unfair. It was unfair that the mortals paid him libations without knowing what it meant. It was unfair that he grew more powerful simply because people believedin him. It was unfair that he won the competition every year, and the prize tokens from Hades, when he didn’t even need them. Not like she did.

“I need a favour.”

Now he was just messing with her.

“What could a good daemon like you possibly need from me, a cursed one?”

“I need you to work in my kitchens tonight.”

Rae almost dropped the kylix holding the molten hot Ibrik coffee. “Excuse me?”

She turned to face Garth as he leaned against one of the tables. His corded forearms bulged, but Rae’s eyes zeroed in on the fact that one of his wide hands had skewed the napkin just twenty or so degrees.

That was annoying.

“I need you to work in my kitchens tonight,” Garth repeated, a smile in his tone.

Rae roamed her eyes over him, eyes still narrowed, as she watched his body language for an explanation. Garth was not a young daemon. He’d been in Asphodel since Rae was a new deity almost a millennium ago, but that grin on his face and the way his dark eyes twinkled gave him a permanent youth. The muscles in his neck were thick, which translated to a wide torso, a dark sprinkling of coarse black hair on his chest that was just visible from the short chiton tied over one shoulder. But it was his skin beneath his chiton that gave away he was an agathodaemon.

Every inch of him from the head down was made of snake skin rather than human flesh. It almost looked like a tattoo, and as he leaned back on the table further, crossing one leg over the other, the scales shimmered.

“Why?” Rae asked.

“Because my sous chef is … unavailable.”

“Unavailable?”

Garth shrugged. “We had a disagreement.”

“What kind of disagreement?”

“He lost his head over something silly. It doesn’t matter.”

“That depends. Did he lose his head figuratively or literally?”

Garth grinned. “He had three. He could afford to lose one.”

Rae laughed. “And people think I’ll be the one to curse them if they don't like my food.”

Garth continued to smile at her, his scales glistening under the swinging bistro light. Rae looked up and scowled at the playful chandelier.

“Cut it out,” she told it.

The bulbs simply glowed brighter. Rae knew what it was getting at, the glow showering Garth in angel light.

“I know you’ve always wanted to work in a real kitchen. This would be your chance. Come play in mine.”

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