I could feel the connection between us, a thread stretching across the distance. For the first time in my very long existence, I had accidentally given away a piece of myself.
A sensible demon would have been alarmed. Would have followed the containment protocols. Would have beencalculating how to reclaim the power before complications arose.
Instead, I found myself smiling, imagining Charlie's reaction when she discovered lights flickering in response to her emotions, or objects moving when she gestured, or flames dancing to her unspoken commands.
Sinnamon padded over and sat at my feet, looking up at me with something that, on a hellhound, approximated smugness.
"Don't look at me like that," I muttered, absently scratching his head. "She's just a mortal. It doesn't mean anything."
Sinnamon made a sound suspiciously like a snort.
5
CHARLIE
The Monday morning drive to work should have been routine. Twelve minutes, same route, same podcast playing through my car speakers.
Instead, every traffic light I approached turned green. Every single one.
I gripped the steering wheel tighter, trying to ignore the fact that the radio had switched itself to a classic rock station playing "Sympathy for the Devil."
"Temporary," I muttered, manually changing the station back. "He said a few days. This is day three. It should be fading by now."
Except it wasn't fading.
The first day after the Malrik mishap, I'd managed to convince myself the flickering lights and phone glitches were just coincidence. Electronics malfunction all the time. Yesterday had been harder to dismiss when my coffee brewed itself and the thermostat kept adjusting to exactly my preferred temperature.But I'd applied logic and reason, told myself it was still manageable.
Today was making that impossible.
Jada looked up as I entered, her hair catching the morning light and her pointed ears twitching slightly. A sure sign she sensed something was off. "Good morning! I've put your Mariposa file on your desk and—" she stopped mid-sentence as the overhead lights brightened noticeably before dimming back to normal. "Did you do something different with your... ?"
"What do you mean?" I asked, aiming for casual.
She tilted her head, eyes narrowing. "You feel different. Not visually, more like..." she paused, searching for words. "Like you've been standing too close to a power line."
"Don't be ridiculous," I replied, hanging up my jacket. "I just... had a very busy weekend."
"Busy weekend," she repeated flatly, one elegant eyebrow arched in perfect skepticism.
As if on cue, the coffeemaker next to her desk gurgled ominously, producing a stream of foam that threatened to overflow before suddenly settling back to normal.
"Perfectly normal coffee behavior," I said quickly, though we both knew better.
"Charlie," Jada said carefully. "What exactly happened during the meeting with Malrik?"
I dropped into the nearest chair. "Nothing serious. A minor... energy transfer. Temporary. Completely temporary."
Jada's expression was a masterpiece of professional restraint barely containing cosmic horror. "Energy transfer," she repeated. "From Malrik. The Prince of Hell"
"He's not a prince," I corrected automatically. "He's just... a demon. And it was an accident. A demonstration gone wrong. He assured me it would wear off in a few days."
"And you believed him?" Jada asked, her voice rising slightly. "The demon whose entire brand is literally deception?"
"He was just as surprised as I was."
"And now you're like ... what? Possessed?"
"No, I don't know," I confessed, rubbing my temples. The temperature in the room rose a degree or two. "But it's fine. I'm fine. Everything is under control."
