Sympathy for the devil

by Holly Lisle

  He sighed. "My knowledge of what the job entails is pretty limited—it isn't within my specialty, which is running things. I can tell you a little bit about it; you'd be working with our disease researchers. One small subdivision of Satco is heavily invested in cures for the major communicable diseases—and that area is a special interest of mine, so I try to find the best people for it. It's a pity you aren't a computer specialist, though. We don't have too much trouble finding qualified medical personnel, but, oh, man, we have top-level computer jobs going begging. We need system designers, hardware gurus, software geniuses . . ." He shook his head and chuckled. "But that doesn't apply to you, of course."

  "No. Sadly. I wasn't kidding when I said I hated computers." Dayne leaned back in the chair and closed her eyes, considering the job she might get. Communicable disease research—that sounded pretty terrific. That might take her away from dealing one-on-one with all the loss and suffering eating her alive in the ICU. She considered. Research—in her mind, that word conjured up pictures of white lab coats and long, empty, echoing halls, little beakers of colored liquids and Petri dishes full of things to be studied under a microscope. An ivory-tower atmosphere, people who walked slowly and talked softly, air kept cool and always smelling of antiseptic and chemicals.

  Realistically, the job of a research nurse was probably as messy and cluttered as that of a unit nurse—as full of memos and meetings and paperwork, yellow stick-up notes and petty frustrations and pain-in-the-neck doctors with God complexes.

  Maybe, though—maybe it would be further from the pain. Dayne desperately needed some distance.

  "Yeah," she said, opening her eyes. "Research sounds good. Let me see the job description."

  She went over it carefully—it entailed drawing blood, patient evaluation (which Satco euphemistically referred to as "client follow-up"), lots of record-keeping, drug administration and documentation, treatment application, physical therapy . . . a lot of the usual nursing things. Care plans, of course—she loathed care plans. Everyone required them, but as carried out, they were the most worthless pieces of paper in the chart. She'd waged a big battle to revamp care plans into a working document not too long ago, and gotten stomped for it. Administration liked their paper the way they liked it.

  Maybe Satco was better.

  She said, "Well, it's worth looking into, anyway."

  His smile got bigger. "Good. I'm so glad you feel that way." He started shoving papers across to her. "These are the important documents. Your records release . . . permission for background check . . . job history . . . contract . . . we'll start you at $24.50 an hour, and you'll get a raise at the end of six weeks if you work out, and evaluations every six months. The job has no limits—you can work your way to the very top if you're ambitious. And here's the application. This is the most vital document of all, because the people who evaluate me cannot have any reason to think I showed favoritism in hiring you."

  "Are you?" Dayne raised an eyebrow.

  He laughed. "Of course I am . . . but I also think you'll do extraordinarily well at the job. You're qualified. I did some preliminary checking just to make sure of that—I don't want to jeopardize my own career. From what I've heard so far—" he looked into her eyes and took one of her hands in both of his, "—hiring you will be the best thing I've ever done for my career."

  Dayne heard the slightest tremor in his voice as he said that—his intensity and his sincerity amazed her. How had she gotten so lucky, to meet someone like him? She dug through her purse and found a pen, and tried to fill out the first of the forms. . . .

  "This pen won't write," she muttered. She made circles on a piece of scrap paper and it worked just fine, but when she tried the forms again, nothing happened.

  He'd stood up and dug through his pockets—he came out with a thick, bright red fountain pen. "I forgot—Satco's legal papers are specially treated to withstand a lot of adverse conditions. It takes a special kind of ink to write on them."

  She took his pen and got to work. The application was long and tedious. When she finished it, she went through the disclosure form word by word before signing it. It was also long and tedious—and done in very small print. She went through three other sets of papers, reading each—it seemed to her that the wording got stuffier and more obtuse and the print smaller with every document she worked through. And when she got to the contract, she groaned. She flipped through the pages, counting them. "There are more than twenty pages in this thing—and I don't suppose you brought a magnifying glass with you, did you?"

  "No." He smiled wryly. "Home office likes to cover every eventuality in its contracts. If you don't feel like wading through that whole thing, I can go over the main points with you—and when you're actually on staff, you'll get an employee handbook that has exactly the same thing in it, but in readable print."

  Dayne had been through too many long days, and she was tired. She'd never in her life signed something without reading every word of it first—but those twenty-plus pages of micro-printed bureaucratese defeated her. "That sounds like a good idea. Just hit the high points. I'll go over the rest of it in the handbook."

  He nodded, took the contract back, and pointed to the first section. "Responsibilities—that was in your job description."

  "Skip it."

  He nodded. "Rights."

  "Skip them, too. Every company says the same old things in the same boring ways."

  "Okay. Grievance procedures."

  "That's included in the contract?" Dayne shook her head in disbelief.

  "Everything is included in the contract." Adam made a face. "Home office likes to make sure everything is in writing."

  "Do you like working for them?"

  "Of course I do."

  "Have you ever had any problems with them?"

  "Sure. You know of anyone who hasn't had any problems at work?"

  "No. But you're still with them. They must have resolved things pretty well. You ever work for anyone else?"

  He nodded and, oddly, his smile vanished. "Yeah. Ages ago. But I only had one other employer—and I'm with Satco now, which tells you everything important about that."

  Dayne said, "I've had a couple of those, too. Tell you what." She took the contract back from him. "I'm too tired to go through this right now, and I want to spend some time with you. I'll get the gist of things from the employee handbook." She sighed. "Where do I sign?"

  One of his eyebrows slid slowly up, then down again. He shrugged. "The last page. Sign it, date it, and write the time."

  Obviously he'd never signed a contract he hadn't read. Well, neither had she, but there was a first time for everything. She turned to the last page. It had a box for a notary seal, and a section of control numbers along the top. In the center was a long block of legalese that said she stated that she had read the contents of the contract and understood them, and agreed to them. Then came the line for her signature, and the place for the date and time—and a line for the signature of the "duly authorized representative of Satco."

  She pressed the heavy red fountain pen to the paper, and felt the sharp bite of pain in her thumb—and looked down at her own blood dripping onto the signature line of the contract.

  "Damn," she muttered. She grabbed a paper towel to wipe up the blood; the coating on the paper repelled ink. She hoped it would repel blood . . . but it didn't. Instead, it soaked it in, and capillary action drew it into a big, disgusting blot. "Damn, damn!" She sucked on her finger and stared at the mess.

  "Just write through it," Adam told her. "I won't care."

  But Dayne pulled the back sheet of the contract free, and muttered, "I would." She grabbed the sheet in both hands.

  Adam yelled, "Don't—"

  She ripped it in two.

  "—tear it!"

  The paper burst into flames and fell, burning, into Dayne's lap. She shrieked and jumped up; her chair fell over backward behind her. She patted at her stomach and thighs with her hands and ran for the sink�
�her blouse and jeans were smoking, though not burning. She sprayed water on herself with the sink hose, and with a hiss, the sparks burning in her clothes went out.

  She turned to find Adam stepping on the last blazing scraps of paper.

  He looked up at her and said, "Satco doesn't want its sensitive documents to end up in the shredder. The coating on the paper usually prevents that. Everybody in the company knows about it."

  Dayne nodded, mute.

  "I should have warned you beforehand . . . but it just never occurred to me that you might tear a sheet." He winced. "You're okay, aren't you?"

  "Fine," she said. "A little singed, I think, and a lot shook up. And I'm not sure I want to work for a company that uses exploding paper for its legal documents."

  "Oh, Dayne . . ." He looked at her woefully. "Please tell me you're joking. You wouldn't let a little thing like that stop you, would you?"

  Feeling shaky inside, she said, "I'm joking . . . I think."

  He looked at the stack of papers lying on the kitchen table. "I'll have to bring another contract around for you—in a day or so. The papers I have will allow me to start all the necessary background work." He stared off at nothing and murmured, "I'm forgetting something. I know I am." He snapped his fingers. "Right. You have to have bloodwork and a urine drug panel done before you can start to work. I'll have one of our lab guys draw it for you."

  Dayne nodded. She was still upset, and Adam was babbling on like nothing had happened. His behavior was wrong—right at that moment, he didn't seem like the Adam she thought she knew.

  Then he said, "But, hey—we'll worry about that another day. We both worked hard today. Let's relax and unwind."

  They went into the living room and settled onto the couch. Dayne found the remote and flipped channels until Adam said, "That looks good." He'd picked a TBS movie—an old one that Dayne didn't recognize.

  They settled back to watch it, and she rested her head on his shoulder. She felt him stiffen the tiniest bit, then relax again. Then, tentatively, he put an arm around her shoulder. He felt warm and strong, he smelled nice, and Dayne relished the feeling of being held; it had been so long since anyone had touched her. She sighed happily and closed her eyes.

  Adam began stroking her shoulder, and he rested his cheek on the top of her head. She could feel his warm breath blowing her hair. He felt wonderful . . . perfect. And he had the warmest hands. She smiled.

  "This is wonderful," she said.

  He was quiet for a long while, and when he spoke, he sounded surprised. "It is," he said.

  Two little words. She couldn't imagine how he managed to put such wonder and such uncertainty in them, or such delight. His hand slid up to stroke her hair, and he sighed.

  "So soft," he whispered. "And so beautiful. I never realized—" He stopped himself, and buried his face in her hair, and wrapped both arms around her . . . holding her.

  His touch was wonderful; Dayne thought she could stay right where she was forever. It seemed Adam thought the same. They sat there on the couch, ignoring the movie, and the one that followed it, not talking. Just touching.

  That was all. It was enough.

  Hours later, Dayne said, "I'm going to have to get to bed. I work first shift tomorrow."

  She looked up at him, waiting to see his reaction. He nodded. "May I see you again tomorrow?"

  "I'll be off work at seven if things go well, and home shortly after that."

  He nodded. "I'll call before I come over."

  They walked to the door holding hands. He looked down at her and smiled awkwardly. "Good night, Dayne."

  "Good night, Adam."

  He turned to leave, but she tightened her grip on his hand. He turned again, and the expression on his face was puzzled.

  "Could I have a good-night kiss?" She tried to ask casually, but the quaver at the end of her question said more than she'd hoped to.

  He nodded, though, and turned to her . . . and she saw that his upper lip trembled. She rested a hand on his chest, and felt his heart pounding as hard as if he'd run a marathon. He moved closer and bent down, and she went up on her toes to meet him. Their lips touched, uncertainly, gently.

  The kiss deepened, and Adam's arms wrapped around her and lifted her off the floor. Her legs went around his waist, her arms around his neck, her fingers twined through his hair.

  The kiss went on and on, until, gasping, they pulled apart. Dayne felt as if she and the world she'd been standing on had been turned upside down. The expression on Adam's face would have been at home on the face of a man who'd just seen a miracle.

  She brushed his hair off his forehead, admiring the little peak of a cowlick that curled to the right. She kissed his forehead lightly.

  "That was a good-night kiss?" he asked in awed tones.

  "I was impressed."

  He nodded and swallowed hard. "I have to go. I'll see you tomorrow." He gently but firmly put her on the ground, and backed out the door, edgy as a cat in a thunderstorm. Dayne watched, bemused, as he all but ran down the walk across the deserted yard and jumped into his car. The motor revved to life, he jerked and sputtered out into the street, missed his gear a couple of times, then finally found it and roared away—acting, Dayne thought, very much like a man who'd never before been kissed.

  She chuckled and closed the door. If that was a sample of what kissing him was going to be like, she could as easily say she'd never been kissed either.

  Chapter 35

  Lucifer was on the horn the instant Agonostis reached his car.

  "I have never seen such a colossal screw-up!" he howled. He didn't sound angry, though; instead, he sounded like he was gloating. "An imp could have done a better job of getting her signature on that contract. And you can't take her another one—she isn't going to sign it after she bleeds on it."

  "I've got a line on that. In the next couple of days, I'll have one of the techs draw her blood. I'll use that in the ink, and have her sign the same day. It can't miss."

  "It can miss. You're almost out of time." Agonostis heard cruel amusement in Lucifer's voice. "I'm going to hang you over the Pit yet." His chuckle twisted Agonostis' bowels into a knot.

  "I have time."

  Lucifer was no longer laughing. He said, "I don't think so. I don't think so at all. Two more days."

  Agonostis slammed on brakes, and the man who had been driving behind him—far too closely—swerved to miss him and went head-on into the rear end of someone else's parked car. Agonostis was too distressed to even enjoy that. "I have a month—of which I've used only four days."

  "I changed my mind," Lucifer said. "I've put someone else on the job—but . . . if you can bring Dayne Kuttner in by midnight Wednesday, I'll gift you with this other as a slave in Hell when I recall you—and perhaps on Earth before then, if it amuses me to do so. If you can't bring me Kuttner's soul . . . well, after I've ripped out your heart and fed it to the Pit beasts once every hour on the hour for a millennia or two, I might just make you her slave."

  "Her who? Dayne's?"

  "Jezerael's."

  Agonostis' blood felt like ice in his veins. His archenemy was once again placed to take away from him everything he'd earned. "You sent Jezerael to take this job from me, too?"

  "I thought she'd enjoy the opportunity. And it seemed a good idea to let her get familiar with the territory, since I have no doubt that she'll be taking your place day after tomorrow."

  "But you promised me a month!" Agonostis yelled again.

  "I lied," Lucifer said, and broke the connection.

  Agonostis was furious—and he felt no better when he pulled into the parking lot of what had, only days before, been the abandoned warehouse. Satco was looking good; after sandblasting, the brickwork of the building was attractive, and a whole horde of imps had been put to work landscaping. He could see bits of the work by the light of pale yellow spotlights scattered among the sculpted shrubs. A discreet, elegantly lettered sign over the top of the main doors—now done up in
black thermopane—read, SATCO, A TINY LITTLE DIVISION OF NETHER-LANDS INDUSTRIES.

  Inside, the receptionist, a leccubus emulating female mode for the night, greeted him with a polite nod of its lovely head and murmured, "Lord and Master." He nodded and looked around the reception area. He'd stepped into deep, plush pile carpet, jade green—that was new—and a deeper green-on-green textured wallpaper, also new. The (new) reception desk was teak, and the lighting was subdued, recessed and chrome. Several chrome-and-black-leather chairs sat around a marble cube coffee table covered with upscale magazines, and potted plants sat in the corners under their own little puddles of light . . . and the whole thing looked like it had cost a bundle.

  He thought of the money he'd signed for and winced. The prostitution business was pulling in big bucks, but if his underlings were going to spend money like that, he needed other sources of income right away.

  He walked past the receptionist as the phone rang, and stepped through the black glass doors into the main work area. He noticed the piped-in music for the first time; he tipped his head and listened. It was an all-tuba Muzak cover of Herman's Hermits "Henry the Eighth"—which only proved that, wherever Satco was buying its furnishings, it was still getting its music straight from Hell.

  He stalked past cubicles full of underlings working away on Hell's business, stepped into his office, and slammed the door behind him.

  In the semi-privacy of his office, he groaned. He dropped into his chair, kicked his shoes off, and closed his eyes. Dayne's kiss still tingled on his lips, still vibrated along every trembling nerve in his entirely too human body. Her kiss . . .

  It wasn't supposed to be this way, dammit. He wasn't supposed to feel anything for her—he wasn't supposed to feel anything. She was meat, nothing but meat.

  And yet, when he closed his eyes, he could feel the silk of her hair against his cheek, and smell the scent of her, sweet and musky. He could taste her lips as they roved over his, and he could feel the tight, compact weight of her body held against him, the firm heaviness of her breasts pressed against his chest, the hard muscles of her thighs tightening against his waist—