Dance with the Devil

by Megan Hart

  "Got you," he said. "C'mon. It's all right."

  Outside on the filthy sidewalk, she sidestepped a puddle of something horrific and shrugged off his grasp. But no, shit, the task had been to let a man seduce her, and one she found specifically in that hotel pub. It was the task the devil had set her, and she had to accomplish it or else pay the price. It didn't matter how many of the devil's duties she'd performed, what tiny atrocities she'd committed to help keep the world always on the verge of breaking. Each time was the only time that mattered.

  "Can I call you a cab?" Jake's hand, still warm, caressed the small of her back for a moment before he shifted to curl his fingers around her hip.

  "I can walk." She stood straight, not looking at him. "Thanks for the drinks."

  "I'll walk you."

  Kathleen looked at him. "You don't have to. I just live….

  He waited for her to finish, and something shifted in his expression when she didn't. "I'm not letting you walk by yourself, not in your condition. So I can call you a cab, or you can let me walk you, but there's no way I'm going to let you leave without making sure you get home safely."

  It had been a long time since there'd been anyone to care where or how she got home, but that, as the devil would've said, had been her choice. So this was her choice, too, here and now, to let him take her by the arm and walk with her. It wasn't much of a seduction, when you got right down to it, but she figured it would do.

  "Fine," Kathleen told Jake. "Come home with me."

  6

  She woke to the smell of coffee and toast with butter, and her stomach rumbled even though she hadn't been hungry in the mornings for as long as she could remember. She also hadn't woken this way, softly, her eyes easing open to the golden gleam of late afternoon sunshine. She stretched, joints crackling. Arms, legs, everything going wide like a starfish before she curled onto her side with the pillow tucked into her arms like a lover.

  She closed her eyes and pressed her face into the softness. She'd brought that stranger back here to her apartment, something she never did. She’d go to their place, or a hotel, but never home.

  She remembered serving him a few glasses of her finest bourbon, but then not much beyond that. Kathleen pressed her face deeper into the pillow, waiting to feel ashamed, but as with everything else the devil asked of her, last night's seduction seemed to have left her without much of an emotional response beyond numbness.

  She should've been sick, not from the whiskey she could remember drinking but from the drinks she could not recall. Also from whatever she'd done in that bed last night, because surely there'd been more than simply sleeping going on. Yet all she felt was well-rested and hungry.

  Kathleen grabbed her silk kimono. The devil had told her to buy it for herself in Tokyo. She'd never found out Lucifer's purpose for the task, but it didn't matter. She loved it. Belting it now over her nakedness, she went out to her kitchen without bothering to do more than brush her teeth and pull her tangled hair into a messy bun at the nape of her neck.

  "Morning." His name was Jake, she remembered that much.

  Silently, she sat at the island across from him. He smiled and filled a mug -- her favorite, the one with the Queen Bee design, how had he known? He added sugar and cream, just enough. He put the mug in front of her.

  Kathleen wrapped her fingers around the warmth. "I didn't expect you to be here this morning."

  Jake put a plate of buttered toast in front of her. Cinnamon toast. Also her favorite.

  Kathleen's throat closed. Nausea now twisted her stomach, but it had nothing to do with a hangover. She looked at him.

  "I'm not hungry."

  "You should eat something," he said.

  "I despise cinnamon toast," Kathleen lied through her clenched teeth. "It's disgusting."

  Jake's smile faltered for a moment before he shrugged and pulled the plate toward him. He picked up a slice of toast and crunched it, letting his tongue slide along his lower lip to catch the glistening butter and the crumbs. His eyes never left hers.

  Her stomach rumbled, and she put a hand over it. "Look, I'm sure last night was a grand old time, but you need to go."

  Jake finished chewing the toast and swallowed. Then nodded. "Sure, if you want me to."

  "Of course I want you to," she snapped. "What the fuck do you think this is?"

  "A really nice apartment." He looked around the kitchen, then back at her. Another of those damned smiles. "Breakfast."

  She cupped the mug again, though the porcelain burned against her palms. She swallowed, hard. "I don't bring people here."

  "I know you don't, Kathleen. You told me."

  Eyes narrowed, she looked at him. "You don't know anything about me other than what I like to drink and what I look like naked. So how about you just stop with all this morning after bullshit and just...go."

  "Yeah. Sure. Okay." At least she'd wiped the smile off his face. Jake shrugged and took his mug of coffee to the dishwasher, though he left the plate of toast behind. With his back still to her, he said, "I can find my own way out."

  She was already off the stool to follow him to the front door. She gestured, a flick of her fingers, toward the living room. For a moment, one breathless fearful moment, she was sure he wasn't going to go. That she had indeed made a mistake by taking a stranger home.

  He’s going to hurt you, Kathleen Murphy.

  The thought hit her like a nail hammered between her eyes, so hard she had to put out a hand to keep herself from stumbling back. A real and physical pain slivered in her chest, forcing her heart to skip a beat before it settled into pounding so hard she put a hand over it. Her fingers curled into the gap in the silk robe, finding her bare flesh beneath. Her nails dug, making pain. Kathleen blinked, focusing.

  At the door, Jake turned before opening it. "I slept on the couch. Just wanted you to know that. We didn't..."

  “What happened,” she said without thinking, cruelty by now a second, if hated, nature. “Whiskey dick?”

  In reply, Jake gave her a small, slow smile and a shrug. He stared at her steadily until she couldn’t stand it any longer and had to turn away. “Get out.”

  He opened the door. She lived in the penthouse. Her neighbors were on the other side of the elevator. Nobody would hear her if she screamed -- she knew that for a fact, because she'd screamed plenty in the apartment without anyone ever coming to her rescue and more tellingly, no complaints to management about the noise.

  This man will slaughter you.

  This, the devil's voice, a whisper in her ear so soft only she could hear it. Her eyes fluttered closed for a second as she fought the floor from coming up and smacking her in the face. She'd often wondered when what the devil asked of her would lead to her death. She'd imagined it at the end of a gun or knife or with an overdose of pills and booze, but now she knew without the shadow of a doubt it was going to come from this man's hands.

  He would touch her, and it would kill her. At least it would kill the parts of her that made it possible for her to live. And in that moment, she almost went to her knees in front of Jake, right there on the marble floor of her foyer, so that he could do it. So he could kill her, and she wouldn't have to worry about any of this any longer.

  Instead, Jake turned away. She didn't understand the sadness in his eyes any more than she'd been able to comprehend why last night he had looked at her as though she were important to him, but there was no time to figure it out because he stepped through her front door and closed it behind him.

  At the click of the lock, everything that had been keeping her upright dissolved. Kathleen buckled, reaching for a chair as she had earlier in the kitchen when her knees threatened to give way, but this time her fingers slipped and she went to her hands and knees with silk puddled all around her. Shaking, she let her forehead rest on the cold marble. Her mouth opened.

  It would've been better to puke right there than to make this noise, this long and low and keening sound of grief that ripped its w
ay up from her guts and tore out her throat. She clamped her lips shut on it, eyes closed, fingers curling on the smooth floor as she forced away every single shred of emotion.

  Nothing. She would feel nothing. She would be blank. Numb. She would get up from the floor and take a shower and order something to eat from the deli around the corner. She would open her manuscript and force out a few thousand words so she could send in the book her editor had been asking about for the past three months. She would get up off this floor.

  She would fucking get up and move and she would forget about him. He was nothing to her. She would never see him again.

  On the counter, she found the note he'd left. His name. A phone number.

  Try as she might, she could not bring herself to throw it away.

  7

  The Morningstar waited until Kathleen had finished typing the final words in her document before he appeared, looking over her shoulder. One long-fingered hand pointed at the screen. The other rested on her shoulder with a hiss of burning flesh that she could smell, though not feel.

  "Adverbs," the devil said mildly, "are my fault."

  She'd gone tense at his touch and lifted her fingers from the keyboard. Once he'd ordered her to erase her entire manuscript with only a few hundred words left for her to type. Requested, not ordered, Kathleen reminded herself, wary as ever that although Lucifer had always claimed he couldn't read her mind or weigh what was in her heart, he was called the Prince of Lies for a reason. There’d been many tasks he’d set to her that she’d done and could no longer remember, but that one had stayed with her forever.

  "Your editor is going to love this one. So will your readers. The world will exalt and adore you," whispered the devil into her ear with a brush of what felt like a forked tongue against her neck. "The money will roll in. You will lack for nothing."

  She lacked for everything, Kathleen thought, and could not stop herself from flashing to the sight of her daughter's face. Everything Kathleen had chosen in this life was meant, in the end, to protect Callie. Even if it meant losing her.

  "You should send it in. As is," the devil said and withdrew to flick his talons along the edge of her bookshelf, the one loaded with copies of all her own titles.

  Kathleen saved the document and swiveled in her chair. "Is that a request or a suggestion?"

  The devil today wore the face of an older gentlemen with graying dark hair and lines in the corners of his eyes. He wore a suit and tie and shiny black shoes. Not for the first time, Kathleen wondered who he'd been to visit before appearing in front of her. She'd never asked him how many minions he had, but the assumption of course was that they were legion.

  "Suggestion."

  "I never send in my work without revising first," she said.

  The devil grinned. "Isn't that the editor's job?"

  Kathleen laughed and got up from her desk. The devil looked toward her bar with a raised eyebrow, but she went instead into the kitchen to pour herself a glass of sparkling water. Her fridge was empty again, and she was hungry. She'd been working nonstop for the past sixteen hours, and her fingers hurt. So did her shoulders and neck.

  "You should celebrate," the devil said.

  "I am." She lifted the water and sipped. "Mmmm."

  "You owe me a seduction, Kathleen."

  She paused before answering to keep her voice steady. "I did what you wanted."

  "You didn't fuck him."

  "He," she said, "didn't fuck me."

  The devil smiled. "Tomato, tomahto."

  Kathleen didn't answer him. She finished her water and went upstairs to start the shower. She stripped quickly, tossing her clothes into the basket, and stepped beneath the spray. She let the water steam around her while she bent beneath the spray, going over the story in her head. It was a good one. They all were, but if she wrote shit it would probably still hit the bestseller lists, because that was what the devil had promised her would happen.

  She thought for sure he would be waiting for her when she got out, but he was gone.

  8

  Nothing fit.

  Callie had grown at least an inch since the last time Kathleen had seen her. The sleeves were all too short, the dresses more like tunic tops, the jeans floodwaters. Even the cute sneakers she'd brought pinched the girl's toes. She put them aside and hugged her daughter tight, tight, tight.

  "You're getting so big," she said into the soft fall of baby fine hair, shorter than it had been before. She let it drift through her fingers and held her daughter close, eyes shut, drinking in the feeling of her before the girl wriggled to get away.

  When Kathleen looked up, she saw Derek looking at her with that smug expression she hated so much but knew she deserved. She stood, a hand still resting on Callie's hair. She'd asked Derek to let her take Callie to the park, but he was balking.

  "It's chilly," he said now.

  "Wanna go to the park and swing on the swings," Callie said.

  "It's April, Derek. The sun's shining. I'll have her back in a few hours. The park, then dinner. Then home before bath time, I promise." Kathleen kept her gaze on him, her voice light. She'd done many things she wasn't proud of, but she'd always, always managed to keep her shit together in front of the kid. Even during the worst times, when she'd been sure the pair of them were going to tear each other apart just to see the other bleed, she'd always made sure to be civil in front of Callie.

  "Callie, go up to your room for a few minutes while I talk to your mother."

  With a baleful look, the girl did as she was told. Derek faced Kathleen with his arms folded across his chest. Kathleen could already taste the pleading building on her tongue. She didn't care. She wasn't too proud to beg him.

  "Please, Derek. I get so little time with her. And I know --" she held up her hands to stop him before he could say anything. "I know that's my fault. But I'm here now. I want to spend time with my daughter."

  He looked reluctant. For a moment there was softness in his eyes, nothing like love but maybe the memory of it. Then he sighed and waved a hand as though he were being generous and not kind of a dick. It rankled, as had everything about him when they'd spiraled toward the end, but Kathleen didn't let it show. She'd perfected the art of the bland and expressionless smile long ago.

  At the park, Callie swung relentlessly until Kathleen's arms were aching from pushing, but she didn't stop. The sound of her daughter's gleeful giggles every single time she soared high was worth the cost of an expensive massage. Only when the afternoon had worn into evening did she finally tell Callie they had to leave the park. Hand-in-hand, they walked along the sidewalk, pausing to peek over the edge of the bridge and toss some crumbled crackers to the ducks that swam, quacking furiously in their greed.

  "Mom," Callie said solemnly when they'd used up all the crackers.

  "Yes, baby."

  Callie took her mother's hand as they walked past the library toward the small coffee shop where Kathleen had spent so many hours typing away on her laptop while Callie was in preschool. There were other places to go for dinner, but she hadn't been back here in a long time, and besides, Callie loved the grilled cheese and tomato soup platter there.

  "I would like for you to live here all the time, like you used to." Callie blinked up at Kathleen through the fringe of her bangs.

  Kathleen brushed them off the girl's forehead. "Maybe one day you could come live with me."

  "’Cuz your job makes you live in New York?"

  "Yes," Kathleen said with a smile she did not feel. She could work anywhere. Live anywhere. Just not here in this small town with her acrimonious ex-husband who had made it his life's mission to be sure she had left with nothing and could come back to little more.

  "If I came to live with you," Callie said, "I wouldn't live with Daddy anymore."

  "No, baby. Mama and Daddy don't live together."

  Callie frowned but didn't continue the conversation as they pushed through the coffee shop's glass front door. The overhead bell jingle
d. Everyone looked at them.

  "Look who it is," said Jeanine from behind the counter. "Our own hometown celebrity!"

  Now everyone was really looking at her. Kathleen had never quite grown used to this random adulation, people knowing who she was when she'd never met them. She smiled, though, and waved a little before moving toward the front counter, where she was startled to see a picture of her, framed, along with the dedication page and front cover of her first book. She'd signed it, too, but had no recollection of doing so.

  Thanks to Jeanine and the gang at Mainstreet Coffee for the bottomless mug and blueberry scones. I couldn't have done this without a place to sit.

  Jeanine beamed. "See? We hung it up. We're so proud to have been the place where you got your start."

  Callie was looking at her with wide eyes, so Kathleen put a calming hand on the girl's shoulder. "Hey, Jeanine. It's good to see you."

  "Back in town long?" Jeanine glanced at Callie, and for a moment her lips thinned. No judgement reserved in this small town, not even for a local celebrity. "This must be Callie. My goodness, honey, how big you got."

  "They grow," Kathleen said. Lame. Her voice sounded raspy, and she cleared her throat. She put on a wide, bright smile. "How've you been?"

  There was small talk. She used to be better at it, Kathleen thought, back in the days when getting out to the coffee shop was something to look forward to. Her few hours a week all to herself, no laundry, no cooking or scrubbing the toilet, no ironing Derek's shirts. Breathing in for a second the familiar smells of good, rich coffee and tea and savory treats, she wanted to close her eyes and pretend she was back in those days, when she'd been certain she would never, ever sell a book.

  "On the house." Jeanine shook her head at Kathleen's protest. "Nope. My pleasure. I'll bring it out to you, if you want to go sit. Your favorite table's free."