The Devil in the Details E-Book

Nancey Cummings

• Herausgeber: Nancey Cummings
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024

Beschreibung

Forget serving revenge cold. Zelda wants red hot, molten lava justice. Her ex ruined her life and framed her for a robbery. Now he’s back in town, planning his next heist. To get vengeance, she’ll bargain with a charming, incredibly hot demon.
The demon’s price? Just a kiss.
This must be a trick, right? But what choice does she have?

The Devil in the Details first appeared in the Supra Velum anthology. This version has an additional scene and a new epilogue. Otherwise, the meat and potatoes of the story remains the same.

Leseprobe

The Devil in the Details

Copyright © 2022 by Nancey Cummings

Cover illustration by Courtney “Sugargun” James 2023.

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

Created with Vellum

ABOUT THE DEVIL IN THE DETAILS

Forget serving revenge cold. Zelda wants red hot, molten lava justice. Her ex ruined her life and framed her for a robbery. Now he’s back in town, planning his next heist. To get vengeance, she’ll bargain with a charming, incredibly hot demon.

The demon’s price? Just a kiss.

This must be a trick, right? But what choice does she have?

CHAPTER1

ZELDA

This was a terrible idea. Just the worst. Also, illegal. The only problem was, Zelda couldn’t think of a better plan. So her choice was to go with the terrible, highly illegal plan, or learn to live with Walker Rocheford getting away with ruining her life.

She couldn’t let it go. She tried but the need for justice burned inside her. It kept her up at night. Therapy was a nice idea but Zelda didn’t have therapy money, hence her situation with the choice between an illegal plan or learning to live with it.

Honestly, it wasn’t a choice at all. The terrible plan was her only option.

Zelda took a deep breath. Her hands shook as she took up the chalk. The circle she laid was lopsided, the line wavered, but there were no gaps. Did penmanship—chalkmanship?—matter when summoning a demon? Probably not. It was an unbroken circle. All the sources agreed that was the important part.

She placed her offering of salt and herbs in the center, lit a candle, and spoke. “I appeal to the Daimoni. I seek vengeance. Walker Rocheford must pay for his sins.”

Zelda waited, feeling foolish. What was she doing? The summoning ritual made no sense. This was the modern age. The Daimoni weren’t demons. They were aliens. Yes, they had a long history of contact with humanity before humanity had even been to Earth’s moon. How long a history? Nearly every language on Earth had a variation of their name: demon.

The Daimoni were shapeshifters, tricksters, and bargain makers. Most importantly, they liked humans, or at least liked toying with humans. Allegedly, they considered humans to be adorable little pets.

They traded wishes for a person’s soul, first-born child, or something equally precious. They couldn’t be trusted. They’d trick you into a contract, honor it to the letter but not the spirit, and screw you over. Everyone knew that. They were chaotic evil lawyers. Worse.

Bargains with the Daimoni had been outlawed for decades for good reason. Don’t make deals with a demon.

Yet here she was, sitting in her living room in a summoning circle, because she was desperate and too petty to let her anger go.

“This is ridiculous,” she muttered. “I’m ridiculous.”

Of course this wouldn’t work. Summoning an alien demon with a candle and items raided from her kitchen? The Daimoni were shapeshifters and possibly telepathic—how else did they find desperate people? They lurked in shadows, mingled with people while wearing false faces, and waited until they spotted a mark. They didn’t appear out of thin air.

Obviously.

The summoning ritual was nothing more than a test to identify the gullible. Well, good job, Zelda. She was as gullible as they come.

“It’s fine,” Zelda said, rising to her feet. “Walker Rocheford stole a priceless cultural treasure, ruined my reputation, and replaced me with another woman, and it’s fine. I don’t need your help. I’ll leave nasty reviews online. I’ll post bad photos of him. I’ve got one where he’s slightly less stunning than usual, so that’ll show him.”

She couldn’t prove that Walker had been behind the theft, but she knew it in her gut. Someone used her keycard and knew her passcode. No one else had access. Of course, Walker was with her when the actual robbery happened, but there had been something in his eyes when she received a visit from the police after the fact. Anticipation. He had known.

Rumors lingered after the investigation cleared her. The museum didn’t fire her for the break-in, but she was let go shortly after for bullshit reasons.

The end result being, she lost her job, her apartment, and her friends.

“He has to pay,” she said quietly.

A mist filled the room. Zelda panicked, fearing a leaking gas line or a contaminated atmosphere. Her apartment building wasn’t exactly up to code. She needed to find her cat and leave.

The overhead lights flickered, then went out. The candle provided the only illumination in the room. The flame wavered, then snuffed out. Darkness surrounded her.

“Zelda Kniffen, you called me here for petty revenge?” a deep voice asked.

She jumped back. “Who are you? How did you get in here?”

A chuckle made the hair on her arms stand on end. The menace was off the charts.

“I was invited,” he said.

“You’re a Daimoni.”

Her eyes adjusted to the dark. There was a large figure in the middle of her circle. Large was being polite. Massive better described the being.

There was a massive demon in her living room.

“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.