Tom let out a frustrated sigh as the case file was almost thrown across the table at him. The Director was furious, but not at him this time. Silently, Tom thanked what little good luck he had that he had an assignment to take his mind off his own anger.
Tom was mad about Ceria, and what she'd said to him almost a month ago. It bothered him to no end that she liked nothing more than to seduce him, and then tease him into being a reckless idiot and saying things that she could twist and mold into whatever she wanted. It was so frustrating to even think about her, let alone try to figure out why she kept bothering him.
At first, he thought it was actual attraction, from that one look she'd given him behind her smirk in his bathroom. He thought he had seen something like desperation, or hope. But after that, they'd met once, and she had just gotten under his skin with every little thing she could think of, and then left without having actually accomplished anything but pissing him off. She was just fucking with him to amuse herself.
The Director, though for a different reason, was angry with Ceria as well.
"...this ridiculous folly. She's risking everything we have with Hell right now, which I can't say is more than a very slight peace," the Director snapped to nobody in particular. Everyone in the room, including Tom, was silent. The room was packed full of the higher-ups in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Divisions, and Tom.
"Sir, we could call in help from our contacts in Hell. If the situation is really-"
"I'm not wasting what little favor we have with our friends down there. That's what the Ruskies did, and look what's happened in Moscow. Three murders by demons in the metro and nobody can do a damned thing, and they know it down there. They fucking know it. Like hell I'm having that happen here. Not when I have other options."
The room was so silent that a cough would have sounded like the Tsar Bomba. Nobody wanted to tell the Director otherwise when he swore. He was calm, collective, and he had chosen his words carefully. There wasn't a single soul that was going to tell him that he was wrong, not if they wanted to leave the room alive.
After a long, tense silence, the Director sat back down and turned his hard eyes on Tom, who couldn't do anything but look back and wait for him to say something.
"You, she's after you now. I don't know what she's trying to do to you, but..." he looked around the room slowly. "Get out."
The roomed emptied quickly, leaving only Tom and the Director sitting across from each other.
"Sir-"
"Let me give you a word of advice, something that you should never forget. She won't let you go, not until you're as broken as the last one that fought her. I don't know what you did to get her so interested in you, but if she's coming back to get you away from us, then you've done something you shouldn't have. Now you'd better call us the next time she even glances at you outside of this facility. Do we understand each other?"
Tom nodded. "Yes sir."
"You're dismissed. You have your assignment; see to it."
"I will sir," replied the agent, and he quickly made his way out of the conference room and down the hall without stopping to explain himself to the sly onlookers that had been waiting outside the door.
------------
Tom was rather surprised to go to someone else's house for a change, instead of having the demon come to his. It wasn't what he was used to, but a two hour drive into the heart of Mississippi had piqued his interest, if just a little. He checked the address on the papers in the manilla folder before he shifted his car into park and opened the door.
Well, it didn't look very out of the ordinary, just sort of...unremarkable. For a demon's house, he had expected something a little more. But, looks were almost always deceiving. He shook his head and walked up to the door, feeling the wooden porch sag a little under his feet. Before he could knock, the door opened and before him stood a redheaded woman with a smile on her face.
"Can I help you?" she asked, putting a hand on her hip and leaning on the door frame.
"Are you Gabriella Klein?"
Her smile widened. "I'm surprised you got my name right," she said, stepping back from the doorway to let him in. Tom stepped inside and closed the door behind him. Gabriella was already on her way to the other room by the time he turned around. He looked around for a moment before following her.
The front door opened up straight into the living room, where two couches sat in an 'L' shape in front of a large flatscreen television. Four stuffed deer heads, each with over twenty points, hung on the wall behind the TV. It smelled like pine needles and fresh lumber.
"You coming or not?" Gabriella asked from the kitchen. Tom hurried into the next room and found her looking through the refrigerator. She pulled out a large pitcher of lemonade and set it on the table in the center of the kitchen. She pointed to the cabinet above the sink. "Get two glasses and some plates for me. I've got some key-lime pie in here somewhere."
Tom did as she asked, and had two plates and glasses on the table when she turned around with the pie in her hands. However, the pie was green instead of yellow. She furrowed her brow and then dipped her finger into the pie. She licked her finger and then nodded.
"You make green key-lime pies?" Tom asked absentmindedly as she moved around him and got silverware. She gave him a confused look.
"You never had a green key-lime pie before?"
Tom shook his head. "No, I don't think I have."
"Now don't tell me you're afraid to try it. I can feel it that you ain't lookin' at it like it's somethin' you wanna eat," she said, cutting two pieces of the pie and giving him one on a plate. He took a fork and waited for her to cut her own piece.
"I read in your case file that you're not looking for sex. What is it that you want instead?" Tom was really confused as to why he'd been sent out all this way to see someone who wasn't at all frustrated, had no sexual needs to be filled, and seemed perfectly content to be left alone.
She gave him a look like he was stupid. "Did they not put down that I was a five in frustration and a cat two? God bless 'em, damn kids up there. Well, you can still take care of me, right? I ain't hard to please, just a little frustrated is all."
