Startup Hell

Morgan Blackwater grew up in the shadow of a legend. Her mother is a Shadow Council wizard — the sort who saves the world on a Tuesday and slays a demon on the way home. Morgan, by contrast, has magic dyslexia, a marked disinclination to kick anything's ass, and a job in junior sales at a tech startup that has not yet decided what it sells. She has made her peace with the mundane world. She would just like to hit her number.

Then she stays late, and finds her boss dead at his desk: killed by the strain of summoning a demon so he could trade his soul for his quarterly target. The demon in question, Lucareoth — Luke, since nobody at the company can pronounce it — is now stranded in the mortal world until he can persuade someone to sell him a soul. Morgan tries to smuggle him out of the building and walks straight into her mother, who has come to find out who has been summoning demons in her jurisdiction.

Protecting Luke drops Morgan through into the Infernal Plane, where she discovers that hell is not a lake of fire but an org chart: pipelines, performance reviews, and quotas all the way down. She is permitted to leave on the understanding that she will come back with a human soul. Her coworkers are deeply annoying, but she is not prepared to sell them. The company's tech-bro CEO is a more interesting proposition.

Startup Hell is a contemporary fantasy and corporate satire from Caitlin Rozakis, and a standalone in the Everyday Enchantments setting — the same world as The Grimoire Grammar School Parent Teacher Association, where venture capitalists are literal bloodsuckers and angel investors are literal angels. The two books share a world and a few easter eggs; neither requires the other.