While Jo had survived love confessions steeped in tea, espresso that summoned spirits, and a mop that briefly became sentient once or twice, but her biggest problem wore a lanyard, carried a clipboard, and responded to crises with the dead eyed confidence of someone who’d read one employee handbook and decided that was enough.

“Jeff,” she called, “the espresso machine is foaming in Morse code again.”

Jeff looked up from his clipboard, where a diagram labeled Runes Per Incident, Q4 had begun to smolder. “That’s a Baristopheles issue,” he replied, adjusting his tie which was purely cosmetic and didn’t match any outfit known to mortal fashion. “I only handle ritual intake and post summon paperwork.”

Jo stared at him. “Aren’t you a demonic intern?”

He nodded proudly. “And I’m union.” He paused. ” “Probably. I think. Still waiting on a reply from HR. Which may or may not be a basilisk.” He took a sip of his eldritch chai. “Just try unplugging it and plugging it back in.”

“It’s possessed,” Matteo muttered. “Again.”

Jeff frowned. “Then definitely don’t plug it back in. That voids your warranty.”

Before anyone could ask what warranty, the café door slammed open and a customer charged in with glowing eyes and a voice that echoed with a thousand tormented screams. “I DEMAND A DOUBLE SHOT OF DOOM!”

Jeff groaned. “Ugh. Another apocalypse trigger? This is the third one this week.”

“There were two others?” Jo asked.

“One involved a haunted muffin tray,” Clorvex answered. “The second was a cursed punch card that summoned a minor calamity with every tenth coffee.”

Matteo passed the screaming customer a decaf with holy water foam and they exploded into gratitude and harmless glitter.

Jeff scribbled in his notebook. “That’s what we in the underworld would call a category four latte meltdown. Technically counts as an attempted armageddon.”

“Technically?” Mira asked, stirring her calming brew.

“The apocalypse hotline’s been overloaded since the Froth went rogue last year,” he explained. “Now everything gets rerouted to customer service.”

Jo raised an eyebrow. “And you’re customer service?”

Jeff puffed up. “Temporary customer service. I’m a floater. My actual internship is in the Demonic Logistics and Cross-Plane Misrouting Division.”

“Ah,” Clorvex replied with a nod of his horns. “It all makes sense now. You’re an unpaid minion.”

Jeff stared into his mug. “They call it exposure to eldritch networking opportunities.” He added after a long pause, “Anyway, until the blood orange ink loop clears, your café is the active nexus for misrouted rituals. So, please keep your summoning to under four demons a day, avoid abyssal ingredients, and for the love of Management, do not attempt a group chant without proper circle spacing.”

Mira raised a hand. “What if the chant is part of our morning affirmations?”

Jeff sighed. “Then I guess your oat milk may scream in Latin again. Proceed at your own risk.”

Sighing, Mira held up a stack of enchanted order slips and asked, “Is there a reason every tea ticket now prints with eldritch symbols and a warning label that says ‘Not Fit for Human Sipping.’”

“That’s the auto sync glitch with the Underworld’s printer queue,” Jeff answered. “We tried upgrading to a new pentagram router, but the blood orange ink keeps congealing.”

“Because it’s fruit juice!” Mira shouted.

“It’s brand compliant,” Jeff said with a shrug.

Meanwhile, Clorvex had trapped himself in a loop, by attempting to file a maintenance request using the new demon-infused helpdesk portal. Every time he clicked submit, the form screamed and reset. “I’m stuck in a recursive error chant!” he cried. “The dropdown menu just says suffer.”

Baristopheles popped out of the espresso machine steam, still wearing his ceremonial apron and a crown made of recycled coffee filters. “This,” he said solemnly, “is what happens when you let admin interns touch the void interface.”

Jo was about to declare a full-system reboot with her mop when the Queen of the Hollow Moon appeared in a swirl of dark glitter and annoyance. “Your voicemail system summoned me eight times this morning. It told me to press six for chaos and nine for despair, then hung up.”

“Ah yes,” Jeff said, clicking his pen. “We’re still migrating the café’s communication grid to Underrealm standards. Pressing nine for eternal torment is a required feature.”

The Queen narrowed her eyes. “And what happens when I press zero?”

Jeff went very still. “We don’t,” he paused and then continued, “We don’t talk about zero.”

As the sun set over Cedar Grove, the café flickered with infernal interference, the espresso machine spelled out “H̷E̷L̷L̷O̷” in crema, and Jeff filed yet another infernal misrouting ticket titled Human Café Accepting Demonic Overflow Again.

Jo just sipped her flat white and muttered, “I miss the days when the worst thing in this place was the cursed whipped cream.”