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"So what is it you're after today?" the imp locked in Alastor's summoning circle asked, with the same tone as a store clerk asking a customer if he could help him find anything.
Some imps Alastor had worked with were absolute little hellions, unwilling to cooperate, bargain, or make deals; but some treated a summoning with the professionalism of a banking job. This one even had a clipboard. It would make Alastor's life easier; but he had to admit, the professionals were much less fun.
The imp, sitting neatly on a kitchen chair Alastor had provided in the summoning circle, went on: "Money? Power? A pitiful facsimile of romantic love in the form of shallow lust...?"
Alastor sat slouched on his mother's living room couch with one ankle hooked over his knee and his hands laced behind his head. "Revenge."
"Very wrathful," the imp said, nodding as he took a note on his clipboard, with the same tone as a waiter approving of a rich diner's wine selection. "Tell me about this enemy of yours."
"Oh, she's not my enemy," Alastor said. "She's my mother's. Mrs. Myrtle Broussard. She and my mother got into a petty property dispute over a couple of fig trees, and in retaliation Mrs. Broussard has been spreading the most vile rumors about my mother you could imagine."
The imp raised his eyebrows but didn't comment as he took notes, except to glance up and ask, "So, whose fig trees are they?"
Alastor sat up straighter, unlacing his hands. "They're my mother's and anyone who says otherwise is either an idiot or a liar."
"Got it!" The imp made another note. "Before we get into the nitty-gritty, let's talk payment. Souls are standard currency, of course, but we also take return favors, certain sins..."
"Human sacrifice."
The imp almost dropped his clipboard. "Fuckin' hell," he muttered, before raising his voice again. "You aren't playing around with this Broussard broad, are you?"
Alastor settled back into a comfortable slouch. "I could do with a hunting trip soon, anyway," he said. "I don't go for all that daggers-and-altars ritual nonsense, but it's all legal and by the books as long as I prepare the bullets ahead of time and keep the intent to sacrifice in mind when I take the shot, right?"
"Uh... yeah. Yes. Yes, sir, that will do fine." The imp was scribbling furiously again. "I'd warn you that failing to complete your end of a bargain like that incurs a debt that'll be paid by your soul when you die, but you sound like you've done this before, haven't you?"
"A few times."
"No outstanding debts? I'll have to check downstairs before agreeing to any deal, but if you haven't finished any prior bargains, I'm not going to be allowed to lay claim to your soul as collateral if someone else already has a hold on it."
"No outstanding debts. In fact, I can offer advanced payment," Alastor said. "See, I don't agree to a bargain like this unless I've got a couple recent sacrifices in my pocket I haven't offered to anybody yet. Seems like bad business—what happens if, say, I get hit by a bus before I can go hunting again?"
"Advance payment," the imp said, eyes wide and voice tinged with wonder.
"You can process that, can't you? No one I've bargained with in the past had an issue accepting prepayment."
"No! That's... that is completely fine. It's just—it's pretty advanced bargaining for a mortal." The imp was looking at Alastor with something close to wonder now. "Usually professionals like you deal with princes."
"My request doesn't need a prince's assistance."
"If you're sure. For a human sacrifice, you can fund a pretty big job," the imp said.
"I'm quite sure."
"All right. Wow! Human sacrifice, prepaid. I'll still have to check downstairs to make sure you're good for it—standard policy—but that should take care of payment."
"And when you do, could you check my current balance?" Alastor asked. "I should have seven unspent sacrifices, but number six never hit the news. I'm not sure if he walked off his head shot or if they just never found his body."
"Not a problem," the imp said. "So. Tell me what you want done with Broussard."
Alastor told him.
The imp stared at him. "Seriously?" he asked. "For a human sacrifice? Are you serious?"
Alastor simply grinned.
###
"And that's this morning's news," Alastor concluded, setting aside the page with brief news briefs. "As always, for the full details and more riveting news of the world, pick up a copy of our sponsors' paper, the New Orleans Star. Now—" Biting back the urge to laugh, Alastor unfolded a piece of paper. "It's time for one of my favorite sporadic segments: recipes! Get your pens and papers, especially if you're a fan of French cuisine, because this is one you don't want to miss. Of course, as always, I'll read it twice—because by the end of the first round, you might be salivating too hard to take notes, ha!"
Alastor carefully smoothed out the folded paper on his desk far enough from the microphone that it wouldn't pick up the crackling. "This is another one that comes to us from a fellow food lover's letter—but, like always, dear listeners, I have personally tried and taste-tested this recipe to check it for quality and for poison. Now, without further ado, I'm thrilled to present the delicious Mrs. B's boeuf bourguignon—that's beef burgundy for you English speakers..."
Adding in his own suggestions from his test-run with the recipe the day before, Alastor carefully read out the imp's handwritten copy of Mrs. Broussard's jealously-guarded family recipe.
###
As Alastor headed home after work, he wasn't surprised to see Mrs. Broussard standing in front of her house, visibly agitated, only to hurry toward him the moment she spotted him. "Alastor!"
"Mrs. Broussard! Good morning!" Alastor said, all smiles and good cheer. "Why, I feel like it's been a month of Sundays since I've caught up with you. I suppose with my strange work hours—"
"What's the meaning of this?" Mrs. Broussard asked, fuming.
"Sorry?" Alastor asked, feigning confusion. He even glanced over at the fig trees near the dividing line of their properties (but clearly and indisputably on his mother's side, he thought), as though he suspected the troublesome trees might the source of this newest outrage.
"Spreading that recipe from here to Lafayette!"
Alastor perked up. "Oh, did you hear we got approved as a clear channel station recently! We're reaching a lot farther than Lafayette now! From Texas to Alabama, I'm told."
"Oh!"
"We've even gotten mail from listeners in the Florida panhandle."
"Oh!"
"Now, what is this about the recipe?" Alastor asked. "Did you miss a couple of steps? I could give you a copy—"
"I don't need a copy," she snapped. "It's my recipe!"
Alastor leaned back, eyes wide in faux surprise. "Is it?"
"And I want to know how you got it!"
"It was sent into the station's post office box for listener mail," Alastor said. "I took it home with a couple of others to try out and brought it back today to read on air. I must say, Mrs. Broussard, of all the recipes I've taken home to test, your beef burgundy is the most delicious—"
"I know! I know it is!" She pointed an accusatory finger at his face. "You were in on it! You recognized my beef burgundy as soon as you tasted it, didn't you! And you read it anyway!"
Alastor put a hand on his chest, the picture of innocence. "Now, how would I have recognized it? You haven't invited my mother or I over to any of your dinner parties in years."
Mrs. Broussard's frown deepened as she realized Alastor was right. "Well," she said. "Well who sent it, then?"
"Haven't the foggiest. They didn't sign the recipe. I assumed it must have come from the Mrs. B in the recipe's name."
"It most certainly didn't. I want to see the letter!"
Alastor reached in his pocket for the folded-up note and the envelope he'd asked the imp to make out to the station's PO box. "Of course—"
She snatched it out of Alastor's hand, eyed the envelope without a return address suspiciously, and then studied the recipe itself. Alastor's jaggedly-written notes on how he would modify the recipe were written next to the imp's far bubblier handwriting, to save Mrs. Broussard the trouble of asking for a sample of Alastor's handwriting to compare to the letter.
"This was copied straight out of my recipe book," she muttered, her hands nearly trembling with rage. She shot a dark look at Alastor. "Tell your station to issue a retraction!"
"I'm—sorry?"
"Of the recipe! Retract it!"
Alastor stared at her. "I—The recipe's already been broadcast. We can hardly go to the house of every listener and tear up their copies."
"Then say the public can't use it! Say—say that it'll make them sick!"
"Mrs. Broussard, really," Alastor said chidingly. "I'm truly sorry your recipe somehow got into our hands, but I have a responsibility to my audience. I can't lie to my listeners—"
Mrs. Broussard made a noise of frustration, flung her hands in the air, turned around, and stomped back to her house, the stolen recipe clutched in her hand.
Alastor watched with a satisfied smirk until she'd slammed her front door.
###
"Myrtle Broussard has been making quite a lot of noise recently," Alastor's mother said.
Alastor glanced up from chopping vegetables toward his mother at the stove. "Oh?" He'd been quietly waiting for further news for several days. "She's not giving you trouble again, is she?"
His mother was fighting down a smile. "Just about everybody but me," she said. "Apparently she's been accusing everyone who's been to her house in the last three years of sneaking into her kitchen. She's been alienating quite a few friends. She's even had a falling out with Mrs. Kincaid."
"No!"
"And Mathieu—Georgine's husband, you've met him—told Mrs. Broussard that Georgine would never have stolen the recipe because she's said she doesn't even like Mrs. Broussard's beef burgundy."
"She didn't." With relish, Alastor chopped his vegetables faster
He could feel his mother's silent gaze on him. When she didn't speak for several seconds, Alastor lowered the knife and sweetly said, "Yes, Ma?"
"What did you do." She was giving him a sideways glance, the corner of her mouth quirked up.
"Oh, well," Alastor shrugged with exaggerated casualness. "Might have mixed a few things and lit a candle to her health and fortune."
"Mm-hmm."
"Might have mentioned her a few times to the family."
"Mm-hmm." Alastor's mother was fighting back a smile.
And everything Alastor said was true. But as far as his mother was aware, Alastor worked his magic with little more than herbs, oils, and candles, and he was only talking to their ancestors—just like half the rest of the neighborhood did. Just like his own mother did, although not to quite as active an extent as Alastor. She didn't need to know his ingredient list had expanded to include human souls and his talks had expanded to include demons.
In fact, Alastor has gotten the impression that most of the ancestors he tried to talk to had cooled on doing him favors since he'd picked up murder as a hobby. Fine. Didn't matter to him. He preferred working with demons, anyway. They were easier to work with. Very direct, very transaction-oriented. Very impersonal.
"You always have had a gift," his mother said, shaking her head. "But be careful with it. I don't want you messing with the lives of people who don't deserve it."
Alastor was careful with it. He never started a bargain unless he was sure he already had payment in hand; he rolled up the rug in the living room to draw the circles for his evocations so that if somebody unexpectedly came by he could immediately unroll the rug and hide it; he always swept up the chalk lines long before his mother got home; and he never did anything that could be traced back to him without first finding and interrogating the demon he'd contracted with. "Does Mrs. Broussard not deserve having a little something made to her health and fortune?"
His mother gave him a long, tight-lipped look. Finally, she said, "Well, if that woman doesn't have the common sense to keep her hands off of figs that aren't hers..."
Triumphantly, Alastor turned back to his vegetables. "Speaking of which," he said, "the next time they're ripe, I think fig jam would be delicious with beef burgundy."