The Devil’s Keepsake by Somme Sketcher
Poppy
The car comes to a stop outside Le Papillon. We’re in the rich part of town, where wine menus don’t have prices and chic boutiques are manned by burly bouncers with earpieces.
Trying to control my breathing, I scan the sidewalk. A well-dressed couple passes by, unsteady on their feet after a boozy dinner. A woman tottering across the pedestrian crossing in a skirt too short and heels too high.
“I’ll scream,” I say, digging my stilettos into the car carpet. “The second you open that door, I’ll scream like hell. There are people around, they’ll see something’s wrong.”
The driver glances at me in his rearview mirror. “I wouldn’t.”
There’s something about the venom behind his voice that makes me instantly decide I won’t.
With the laziest sigh in the world, he gets out of the driver’s seat and opens the passenger door for me. He offers me his hand. I don’t take it.
“After you,” he says, opening his arms wide enough to block the left side of the sidewalk. When I turn to my right, another man appears in a sharp suit and does the same.
The only way is forward, into the Devil’s lair.
Le Papillon.The type of restaurant that no student, even one that goes to Stanford, can afford to eat at unless their very rich parents are visiting. It has like a million dollar signs on Trip Advisor, and there’s not even a name above the door. Just a large shop window set in a steel frame with a stern-looking man out front. I have a feeling he’s not employed by the restaurant.
With a curt nod, he opens the door for me. I turn, one last time, to scan the sidewalk. The driver meets my eye, and with a short shake of his head, again mouths “I wouldn’t.”
I’m beginning to think that he’s not only a driver after all.
I step over the threshold and blink to adjust my eyes to the dim lighting from the dozen gas lamps lining the brick walls. Their amber glow washes over the small room. I can imagine loved-up couples holding hands over the small, circular tables, and the businessmen making dodgy deals in the corners of the tufted velvet booths. But tonight, there’s nobody but the Devil and me.
Despite him sitting in the shadows right at the back of the room, he’s unmissable. His imposing figure is like a black hole, sucking me in. My heavy legs take me closer to his table. I see a glint of something expensive on his wrist and hear the rattle of ice cubes as he brings a drink to his lips.
It is only when he stands does he step into the light.
Those eyes. Those wolf-like eyes haunted my dreams from nine to eighteen. They catch the amber glow and come alive, like two flickering flames.
The shock of it all snatches the air from my lungs and I stumble backward. But he’s quick, snaking an arm around my waist to steady me.
“Miss Murphy,” he drawls, all velvet and nails. I can’t escape him even when I close my eyes; the bulging muscle in his forearm is hard and cold against my back, and his oaky cologne and whiskey breath creeps up my nostrils, bringing me right back to that cold church in Boston. I suck in a lungful of air. His scent burns the back of my throat but I need the oxygen.
The scrape of a chair. “Sit,” he says, in a way that is anything but a suggestion.
My legs are like jelly and I have no choice but to sink into the seat. Silently, he slips a napkin from its glitzy holder and drapes it over my bare thighs. A shiver ripples down my spine. I feel a mix of horror and something else I can’t quite place.
As he takes the seat opposite me, a curtain twitches in my peripheral vision, its silk fabric giving way to a blonde waitress. She strides over, eyes lowered to the silver platter she’s holding in one hand. A huge chocolate cake with one, comically small candle flickering in the center of it.
She sets it down in front of me, before meeting my gaze. In an instant, I know there’s no use screaming at her for help, to beg her to call the police. The sheer terror clouding her eyes tells me she’s as unwilling in this situation as I am.
“Happy birthday,” the Devil says, bringing his glass to his smirking lips. He runs a greedy eye over my body. “You certainly dressed for the occasion.”
I stare at the candle in disbelief, watching the wax drip down the side and pool onto the glossy chocolate surface. None of this feels real.
“Do I frighten you, Miss Murphy?” The Devil’s treacle-thick voice brings me back into the restaurant. When I force myself to look up, he’s pouring me a glass of blood-red wine.
There’s a manic excitement swirling in those amber eyes. It feels like he’s practically salivating at the idea of hearing me say yes. Like it’d be more delicious than this enormous chocolate cake that separates us.
I’ve been here before. Face-to-face with the Devil, feeling sick with fear. But I’ve worked too hard to escape him.
Despite the tremor running through my bones on a continuous loop, I make up my mind right here and now.
I. Will. Not.
I refuse to give the Devil what I know he wants. My fear.
You’re not a coward like your father, remember?
“I’m not scared, I’m surprised.” He raises a thick eyebrow, waiting for me to continue. “I assumed a man like you could at least count.” With a shaking hand, I plunge a fork into the cake and then scoop the bite into my mouth. It sticks to my dry throat, threatening to clog my airway. Even with the fear that the wine could be drugged, I have no choice but to swig from it to stop myself from dying in front of the Devil. Because death by chocolate is not the way I’m going down. “You said you’d come for me on my eighteenth birthday. Math clearly isn’t your strong point.”
The fire that flashes across his eyes gives me a hit of both satisfaction and terror. It’s quickly replaced with an amused smirk.
“I assure you I can count, Miss Murphy. But you were expecting me on your eighteenth birthday. I’m a man that enjoys the element of surprise.” He glances over his shoulder. “Another.”
Like a dog responding to its owner, the waitress rips back the curtain and brings another glass of whatever he’s drinking to the table.
A buzzing sound interrupts the silence. We both stare at the source. My YSL clutch on the side of the table. Sam. He’ll be worried about me, wondering where I am. This is it. This is my lifeline.
My body reacts before my brain does and I lunge for my purse, ripping back the gold zipper.
“It’s adorable that you’re even contemplating answering that, Miss Murphy,” he drawls, taking a lazy sip of his drink.
I tear my eyes away from his hard gaze and glance at the screen. Sam’s name is like a beacon of light, the sliver of hope in the darkness of hell. My finger hovers over the answer button. If I can just say enough to let him know I’m in danger, he’ll figure out the rest. If I just answer and scream the name of the restaurant down the line, he’ll come and save me. Call the police. I glance up at the Devil and my heart sinks.
He’s huge. His beastly frame pushes against the expensive fabric of his suit, unable to hide the bulging biceps and broad shoulders. Sam, with his slender, runner’s body is no match against this man. With or without the Stanford police force behind him.
“Pass me the phone,” he says. The words slide from his mouth like ice, so calm that I shudder. There’s that hypnotic gaze again. The one that pinned me to the pew at the fake funeral all those years ago. I might have grown up, filled out, and became a strong, independent woman, but it still has the exact same effect on me.
Unable to move, I have no fight in me when he slips my clutch out of my grip and tugs my cell out. He glances at the screen, sneers, and drops my phone into his glass.
The brown liquid sloshes onto the white table cloth and I stare in disbelief as my cell snaps, crackles, and pops like a bowl of cereal before the screen goes black.
“Another,” the Devil says over his shoulder. The waitress arrives with a new glass and leaves with my only lifeline.
“You can’t do that,” I choke, “that’s mine.” I know how pathetic I sound.
The Devil laughs. Finally, he has a reaction out of me. He leans across the table, closing the gap between us. “Look at me, Miss Murphy,” he demands. My breath hitches in my chest as I force myself to meet his gaze. “You have a lot to learn, but we’ll start with the very basics. Nothing belongs to you now, because you belong to me.”
I can’t breathe. It’s happening. It’s really happening. My never-ending nightmare has finally caught up with me.
I shake my head. “I don’t live in your world anymore,” I say with as much confidence as I can muster, but fear has its grip around my vocal cords. “You can’t just take me. That’s not how the real world works. There are people who will look for me. My friends. My boyfriend. It’ll only be a couple of days until my school realizes that I’m not showing up for classes. You really want all that heat on you?” As the words come tumbling from my trembling lips, I’m beginning to believe my own desperate spiel.
The little flicker of hope is dashed the second the Devil opens his mouth. “You don’t think I can take you?” He snarls. “I’ll show you how easily I can take you, Miss Murphy.”
When he leans forward this time, I can’t help but flinch. Despite my attempted bravado, it’s instinctive. “Please,” I find myself saying, “let me go.”
The Devil sits back, draping his arm over the back of his chair. Cocking his head to the side, he studies me for a few heavy seconds. “I’m a fair man. Tell me one good reason why I shouldn’t take you, and if you convince me, I’ll let you go.”
My eyes narrow, looking for any trace of humor on his face. There’s nothing but hard lines and darkness. “Seriously?”
He nods.
I swallow the lump in my throat and scan the restaurant as if the right answer is hidden between the plush velvet cushions or twinkling tealights.
“I’m not my father,” I eventually say. “You have beef with him, not me.”
The Devil stares into my soul over the rim of his glass, before slamming it to the table with a force that makes me jump.
The emerald ring catches the light as he gestures above my head.
“Go.”
The hope comes back. It rises in my chest like bile. “Really?” I all but whisper.
He nods. “You can go, Miss Murphy.”
I don’t spend another second looking into the eyes of the Devil. I scrape my chair back, scrambling away from the monster and his chocolate cake, and stumble towards the door, unsteady on my heels.
I tug at the handle.
Locked.
I rap on the glass to catch the attention of the guard standing outside. He twists his head enough to flash me a pitiful smile, before turning his attention back to the street. “Let me out,” I all but squeak, slamming my hand against the door. The thing that stands between me and freedom.
The noise that floats across the restaurant is demonic. Low, gruff, yet eerily melodic. I turn, horrified, and meet the amber gaze of the Devil. His face is split in two by a psychotic smile.
The waitress appears from behind the curtain with another platter, stooping low enough so that he can pick something off of it. It glints in the low lighting, just enough for me to make out the sharp tip of a needle.
A scream rips from my chest, my own demon trying to escape my body. I slip a pump off my foot and slam the heel into the glass, desperate to escape. When I turn around again, he’s holding the needle up to the light, one eye closed. He flicks the barrel, once, twice, then squeezes the plunger a fraction, enough for a spurt of liquid to come out.
“Please,” I wail, hammering on the door. More men have appeared outside of the restaurant now and are standing shoulder to shoulder, their backs to the door. Blocking my view of the street. Blocking the street’s view of me.
When I turn back around, the Devil is on his feet. Striding, gliding across the restaurant. In three strides he’s on top of me. It’s scary, how easily he flips me around to face the glass, pushing my breasts against the cold surface. How easy he pins down my flailing arms and pulls back my head to reveal my neck.
His hand smells like cigars and leather as he clamps it over my mouth.
The cold tip of a needle against my neck. The hot rush of breath and beard against my ear.
“Welcome to hell,” comes the throaty voice. “I told you you’d be joining me here.”