Page 9 of The Devil She Knows
Sam supposed she had implied that, hadn’t she? “Pretty demented, maybe.”
“Oh, Sam.” Daphne chuckled and for some reason the hair on Sam’s arms rose. “You havenoidea. Now, where was I?” She drummed her fingers against her chin. “Ah, right. For a nominal, nonmonetary fee, I’m offering you the opportunity not only to win Hannah back, but to give you anything and everything you’ve always dreamed of having.”
If something sounded too good to be true, it was.
“Is this one of those power-of-positive-thinking sorts of things? Where you tell me if I journal my thoughts and envision my perfect life every night before bed, where I’ll then sleep with a crystal under my pillow, I can manifest my dreams?” Sam shook her head. “Because thanks, but no thanks. I’m happy if it works for you, but I’m not interested.”
Wishing for something didn’t make dreams come true; otherwise, she’d be back at the restaurant, splitting a decadent chocolate soufflé with Hannah, and the engagement ring in her pocket would instead be resting on Hannah’s well-manicured finger.
“I’m not a snake oil salesman. I’m talking cataclysmic power here! You make a wish”—she snapped her fingers in front of Sam’s face—“and I make it happen.”
“What are you?” Sam laughed. “A genie?”
Daphne tossed her hair over her shoulder, shooting Sam a filthy look that could’ve stripped paint. “Do Ilooklike someone who’d be caught dead in harem pants?”
“Okay, I’ll bite. You expect me to believe you have the power to grant wishes, how?”
“Promise not to tell anyone?” Throwing the concept of personal space to the wayside, Daphne reached out and drew an invisible X right over Sam’s left breast. Her touch, even through Sam’s coat, made her shiver. Daphne’s lips curved in a sly smile. “Cross your heart and hope to die?”
Against her better judgment, she nodded, unable to find her voice.
“I’m a demon,” Daphne said. “Duh.”
“Ademon?” Of all the weird shit this woman had said so far, that took the cake. “Okay.”
She snickered softly, shaking her head. A demon. And Sam was the queen of England.
Daphne fell back on her haunches with a resignedsounding sigh. “You don’t believe me.”
“What I think is you’ve had one too many martinis.” She held out her thumb and pinky and mimed knocking back a drink.
“Sober as a judge.” Daphne held her arms aloft and, one at a time, brought each index finger to her face, booping her own nose in what Sam imagined was meant to be a display of dexterity but instead just looked silly. “Do I honestly seem drunk to you?”
Sam took a second to study her a little closer. She wasn’t slurring or staggering or slumped over. Her blue eyes weren’tbloodshot, and she didn’t reek of alcohol. And while she lacked tact, Sam had a sneaking suspicion that was all Daphne.
“If you could just suspend your disbelief and buy into this I’m-a-demon thing, it would spare us both a lot of headache.”
She was committed to the bit, that was for sure.
“All right. Let’s pretend for a second that I even believe demons exist.” Which she did not. “They sure don’t look likeyou.”
She looked like she’d stepped out of a 1950s Sears catalogue, not the depths of Hell.
Daphne’s lips pressed into a sour-looking slash. “Why do they always say that?” she grumbled under her breath. “I suppose you probably expect me to look something like this.”
Thunder cracked and a cloud of pastel-pink sugary-sweet-smelling smoke filled the elevator. A scream ripped its way up her throat as Sam searched blindly for something, anything she could hold on to, certain that the elevator was about to plummet, sending them to what she could only hope would be a quick, painless death.
“Would youstop? You’re going to give me a migraine with all that caterwauling.”
As much as Sam wanted to ask Daphne how she could be so glib when they were very clearly about to die, she couldn’t. Fear had rendered speaking all but impossible, only the tiniest whimper escaping.
She squinted, trying to see through the bubblegum-pink haze that tickled her nose and made her head feel funny, like a helium balloon. Through the strange, slowly dissipating smoke, she could just barely make out the shape of Daphne, now standing. At least, she thought it was—
A gasp left her lips and she scurried back, shoulders slamming painfully into the wall.
Oh, was she wrong, because that wasnotDaphne. What could only be described as thecreaturestanding across from her bore no resemblance to Daphne. Its skin was the color of freshly spilled blood, the color so unnatural, sowrong, it sent a shiver down her spine. Too afraid to look at its face, she let her gaze travel down the length of its lithe body. To call what it wore clothing would be generous. A length of ragged, sootcovered bandage covered its breasts, a scrap of the same fabric acting as a skirt fashioned around its hips. Its arms hung loosely at its sides, relaxed, skin a gradient of steadily darkening shades of red bleeding into sooty-black fingers tipped with lethal-looking claws.
Left with little choice but to bite the bullet, Sam dragged her eyes from those sharp, sharp claws and—pressed her fingertips against her lips in horror. “God.”
