Page 11 of The Devil She Knows
“Don’t tell me your sensibilities aresodelicate that you’re going to let one itty-bitty word frighten you away from seizing a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to have anything and everything you’ve ever wanted.”
“I’m discerning,” she argued. “There’s a difference. Excuse me if I have a few concerns about the existence of demons.”
“No,difficultis what you are.” Daphne’s tongue pressed against the inside of her cheek, her nostrils flaring delicately when she sighed. “Go on, ask whatever it is you’re clearly dying to.”
Jesus, okay. Where to start …? “Were you forged in the flames of Hell? Were you created from, I don’t know, fire and brimstone?”
“Biblical much?” Daphne snorted. “No, I wasn’tforged. I was born. Human. I became a demon later.”
“How?”
“A very lonely man in a white lab coat decided to experiment with sugar, spice, and everything nice but unfortunately a little something extra got tossed into the mix.” She rolled her eyes. “I am what I am, Sam. It’s a boring story. Ask me something else.”
The purse of her lips and hard set of her jaw told Sam that pushing would get her nowhere. Not on this. At the end ofthe day, Daphne was right: She was a demon, and as curious as Sam was about how someone became that way, it didn’t really matter. Not when she was standing here offering Sam a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, exactly what she wanted on the night when she needed it most.
“Okay, fine. You say you have all this power?” Sam swallowed thickly, heart hammering, guts braided in an intricate knot. Heaven help her, she could not believe she was actually about to say this … “Show me what you can do.”
Daphne deliberated, a calculating gleam in her eyes. “I suppose the proofisin the pudding.” She nodded once, a quick upward jerk of her chin. “All right. Wish for something.”
Easy. “I wish that Hannah—”
“Uh-uh,” she stopped her, finger wagging. “Notthat.”
“But you said—”
“Isaidthat for a nominal, nonmonetary fee, I’d offer you the opportunity to win your girlfriend back, and now you’re asking me to prove to you that I’m capable of making good on my word. I’m happy to do that. But what I’m not about to do is give the milk away for free. I wasn’t born yesterday; I’ve been doing this for over a millennium. Nice try, though. Wish for something else.”
Sam’s brain fritzed, blue-screening. “Did you just say amillennium? As in over a thousand years?”
“Two millennia, if we’re getting technical.” She studied her nails. “Which, again, is neither here nor there. Make a different wish.”
She faltered, brain blank, still coming online after learning that Daphne was literally ancient, that she had memoriesgoing back to a time Sam was only familiar with from history books and Starz series when Sam could barely remember what she ate for breakfast yesterday. “For what?”
“It’syourwish, silly. What do you want?”
Plenty of things. For one, she wanted out of this godforsaken elevator. Out of this suit, too. She reallydidwant to be promoted to executive pastry chef, if for no reason other than she’d earned it. She knew it, and Coco, pigheaded and vindictive as she was, could deny it until she turned blue, but deep down she knew it, too. The job wasSam’s.
The wish was on the tip of her tongue—
“And don’t go getting any bright ideas about wishing for anything you think might win you your ex back. I’m offering you a sample, Sam, not a damn sourdough starter.”
Sam’s stomach rumbled.
It was silly. Dumb, honestly. But after a day as hellish as this? All Sam wanted was to eat her weight in bread pudding.
“Antoine’s,” she said, decided. This whole day was bizarre; whynotask for something ridiculous? “Oldest operating family-owned restaurant in New Orleans. They have this bread pudding that’s to die for. They make it with Leidenheimer French bread and it’s chock-full of golden raisins and spice and they slather it with this thick hot buttered rum sauce.” Her mouth watered and her stomach rumbled, her appetite back with a sudden vengeance. “I want that.”
“I guess the proof reallyisin the pudding.” Daphne chuckled, amused by her own joke. “All right. One bread pudding from Antoine’s, coming right up. All you’ve got to say is, ‘I wish …’”
“Fine. I wish I had the pecan bread pudding from Antoine’s.” She paused. “Make that two servings.” Sue her, she was hungry. “With extra rum sauce.”
Like flint striking steel, sparks erupted from Daphne’s fingertips when she snapped them. “Done.”
Sam held her breath, waiting for a bowl full of bread pudding to land in her lap.
Nothing happened.
She looked around the elevator, still empty save for the two of them. “Well?”
