Page 2 of The Devil in the Details

“I am called Malgraxon.”

The figure clapped his hands. The lights returned.

Zelda blinked in the sudden light.

In the center of her poorly drawn summoning circle stood a demon wearing an old-fashioned suit. His face was nothing but a shifting, inky black haze. He had no eyes, no mouth, and no body. He was just a black fog wearing a suit.

“Nice suit. Did you rob someone’s attic?” She slapped a hand over her mouth, mortified at the sarcastic question. Sometimes her mouth started running before her brain came online. Okay, not just sometimes. Often. It was a problem.

He tugged on the cuffs, nonplussed. “A museum actually. Oh, don’t look surprised. They weren’t using it.”

“A museum,” she said, not impressed. Was he messing with her?A museum.

“Relax. The university’s theater department is practically a museum. All those lovely costumes, moldering away in storage. I saw this on stage fifty years ago and knew this was made for me. Fits like a glove.” He turned, displaying his backside. “Don’t give me that look. They had a spare.”

Zelda collapsed in a lounge chair. She summoned a sassy demon. Awesome. “You’re a cloud. Why do you need to wear clothes?”

“Ah, the eternal question. Social expectations, mostly. People tend to shout and scream when you stroll around in nothing but a fog,” Malgraxon said. Zelda had no way to know this for sure, but he was smirking. It wasn’t a fun, light-hearted smirk—it was a smug smirk.

She didn’t like it or his haughty attitude. She didn’t like him. That did not change the fact that she needed him.

“Would it help if I looked like this?” he asked. The fog swirled and condensed, the black draining away and color fading in.

A square-jawed man with honey brown hair and blue eyes stood before her. Walker.

“Zelda, honey?—”

“No. Absolutely not,” Zelda said, springing to her feet. She didn’t need the demon that badly. She’d find another way. “You can go.”

Walker—Malgraxon—tilted his head. His eyes were black swirls, void of light. “You wanted a contract. I heard you, Zelda Kniffen. You have a grievance. You want justice. I can give you justice.”

“I changed my mind.”

“This man stole from you. He took your reputation. Your love.” He said the last word like it was a foreign concept.

“Walker didn’t steal my love, but he abused it. Betrayed me,” she said, her voice giving a little wobble.

Malgraxon flashed a smile that was not Walker’s. The teeth were all wrong and… pointy. Way too pointy.

Shit. He had her, and he knew it. She’d agree to anything because of that wobble in her voice.

Fucking Walker.

“I can gut him and knit you a sweater of his innards,” the demon suggested.

“God no! Do not do that.”

“It is no trouble. The trick is to soak them in a saltwater bath?—”

“No! Stop… stop talking about entrails.” Then, because it couldn’t hurt, “Please.”

Malgraxon folded his arms over his chest. “Well, I feel that you are missing an opportunity to send a powerful message. Why, if not bloody vengeance, have you summoned me?”

Why indeed.

“I want vengeance, just not the blood. I want to expose him for the weasel he is. I want everyone to know.”

Malgraxon gave a dramatic yawn. “Boring.”

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