Читать онлайн книгу «Straight To Heaven» автора Michelle Scott

Straight To Heaven
Michelle Scott
Mother, teacher, wanton she-demonWelcome to my life. I’m Lilith Straight, Hell’s newest employee. Although I’m getting pretty good at letting the succubus inside me take over, life in Hell is never easy. Miss Spry is up to her old tricks. She promised to let me save my daughter from my fate, but only if I can tempt my next client.That’s how I end up horns-to-halo with a guardian angel determined to rescue my next victim. To make matters worse, William Benedict, the hottest demon in Hell, is trying to undermine my mission with some temptations of his own…Nothing is ever what you expect in Hell, but really I should have known that already!Praise for Michelle Scott'I would definitely recommend Straight to Hell to anyone who’s looking for a relatively quick read – something fast paced, something funny with a bit of a twist and some paranormal elements.' - Books, Biscuits and Tea on Straight to Hell'There were so many twists in the plot that I didn't see coming, that the novel definitely kept me on my toes, and it kept moving at such a pace that there wasn't a single point in the book where I was bored in the slightest.' - Pen to Paper on Straight to Hell'one of those books that you want to spend some time thinking about after you are done reading, you want to think about what you would have done in Lilith's shoes, and let me tell you she has so seriously difficult to walk in. This is one of those books where you want to get together with a couple of your girlfriends afterward and talk about the book at length.' - Urban Fantasy Reviews on Straight to Hell'loved the humor in this book and actually caught myself laughing out loud a few times while getting strange looks from my family.' - Shut Up & Read on Straight to Heaven



Mother, teacher, wanton she-demon
That was who I was now, Lilith Straight, Hell’s newest employee. I’m getting pretty good at it though, letting the succubus inside me take over and Miss Spry had nearly agreed to let me save my daughter from this fate. Everything was going pretty well, even if I was causing trouble everywhere I went.
That is until I end up horns-to-halo with a guardian angel determined to rescue my next victim. To make matters worse, William Benedict, the hottest demon in Hell, is trying to undermine my mission with some temptations of his own…
Nothing is ever what you expect in Hell, but really I should have known that already!
Also by Michelle Scott (#u543c7507-af2a-5b7e-891f-1da486a5255a)
Straight to Hell
Straight to Heaven
Michelle Scott


Copyright (#ulink_61142ea9-4eb9-5b66-bb0f-b5549986d32e)
HQ
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd.
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
First published in Great Britain by HQ in 2014
Copyright © Michelle Scott 2014
Michelle Scott asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
E-book Edition © June 2014 ISBN: 9781472097125
Version date: 2018-10-30
MICHELLE SCOTT
has been a fiction junkie all of her life. Although she’ll read everything from literature to mystery to modern classics, she has a special penchant for urban fantasy. She is also a huge nerd and an unapologetic Doctor Who fan, preferring Tom Baker above all others.
In college, Michelle earned her BA in psychology and met the guy of her dreams. Thirty years later, she has never once used her psychology degree, but is still married to Mr. Right which proves that a good college education is worth every penny.
Currently, she is a straight-laced community college English teacher by day, while at night, she stalks supernatural beings in her hometown of Detroit. Michelle lives with her husband and three children, all of whom are addicted to Doctor Who (and urban fantasy) as much as she.
To my wonderful family with love.
Contents
Cover (#u0f8d9e0b-0126-5b50-8566-a6209b48ddf4)
Blurb (#u5dab47b3-675a-5787-95e4-aeba3c03f5a8)
Book List
Title Page (#u3c65993b-5fac-5b3a-abcf-2487eca5ef29)
Copyright (#uef12d36e-908b-50d3-9695-55e4064f198e)
Author Bio (#u3561ed4c-c5ff-5068-9503-284080f9ff08)
Dedication (#u349bbe1a-4949-59a1-8e1d-56a2df336764)
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Extract (#litres_trial_promo)
Endpages (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter One (#u543c7507-af2a-5b7e-891f-1da486a5255a)
Worried, I glanced at my watch again. I’d been waiting for twenty minutes under the broiling July sun, and still there was no sign of my client. Ordinarily, my assignments were perfectly timed because being a temptress meant that I had to reach my victim when he was most vulnerable to temptation. The tipping point, as it were. But this morning, something was off.
Where was he?! The post office parking lot held a few cars, and several people had gone in and out of the building, but my inner demon told me that none of these were my victim. Had I gotten the time wrong? Maybe I’d missed the entire event! I started nibbling my cuticle before deciding it wasn’t worth ruining a sixty-dollar manicure.
As more time ticked by, my anxiety increased. In the past six months, I had gone from a bungling failure to a highly effective succubus. In fact, I’d had thirty-five successful temptations in a row, an accomplishment that even Miss Spry, my demon overlord, had applauded. It wasn’t that I was on board with the whole tempting people to do wrong thing. No, I’d finally come to understand that it made my life much simpler to follow my destiny, rather than fight it. Rebellion only ended in heartache.
Plus, I didn’t want to wreck my winning streak.
I looked at my watch again and muttered a curse. Even though it was only nine-thirty in the morning, the humidity was so high that I’d perspired through my silk tank top. I wore my auburn hair up in a sloppy bun, but a few loose strands were glued to my sweaty neck. Heat from the sidewalk burned through the thin soles of my sandals.
Michigan, in summer, bears an uncanny resemblance to Hell.
Not only was it hot out under the blistering sun, this was also not the best part of town. It was a local job for once, but one on the wrong side of the tracks. The post office itself was okay, a fairly modern structure untagged by graffiti, but across the street was a seedy strip mall with a liquor store, a boarded-up nail salon, and a check-cashing place. All of the businesses had bars over the windows and inch-thick bullet-proof glass between the customers and the owners.
During my wait, I’d watched two men piss in the dying bushes, had six or so vagrants hit me up for spare change, and witnessed what had to be a drug deal. When three teenagers in jeans so baggy that the crotches hung below their knees swaggered by, I realized how vulnerable I was. Unfortunately, the closest otherworld doorway was across the street, which was too far to run if things got dangerous. True, my demon could get scary when I was angry, but I wasn’t Super Woman. I couldn’t do anything like stop bullets with my bare hands, or fly, or shoot lasers from my eyes. If those teens ganged up on me, or if someone pulled a gun, I’d be in trouble. Despite the demon living inside of me, I was human, and I could get injured. Even die. And if I did die, my sweet daughter – the one who slept with a stuffed dog named Crumbles and still believed in Santa Claus – would automatically go into the family succubus business.
Screw the manicure, I thought, and began nibbling my cuticle.
Ten more minutes went by. Maybe this was Miss Spry’s mistake, I thought. Or perhaps the client had a change of heart en route and had decided not to show up. I wondered if either of these things would count against me.
After another few minutes, I decided it was useless. The man wasn’t coming. But as I walked away, I noticed that my client had arrived after all. In fact, when he got out of his pickup, I realized that he’d been there the entire time. He simply had been sitting in the cab of his truck, waiting. Good! I rubbed my hands together, ready to add another mark to my tally of successful temptations.
From the looks of things, my victim wasn’t from this part of the city. In fact, I didn’t think he was from anywhere nearby. The plastic frame surrounding his license plate read “Orland Chevrolet”, Orland being a small town about thirty miles north. The truck even had a rebel flag sticker in the rear window, something no urban Detroiter would have ever displayed. Finally, there were about a dozen bales of straw in the bed of his pickup. It was like he’d made an epic wrong turn and ended up in southeast Detroit instead of the farm where he belonged.
I mulled over this information, letting my inner demon make of it what she would. My succubus was kind of like computer software that ran in the background until it was needed. Then she came to the forefront, ready to give advice and lend a hand. In her opinion, it made perfect sense that my client had driven far from home to commit his debauchery. After all, most people don’t like to sin where they live. Yet, we both agreed that the post office was a strange place to pick. Especially since there were three different nudie bars within half a mile. If he was going to be naughty, you would have thought that strippers would beat out USPS workers. But to each his own. It wasn’t my job to judge, just to tempt.
When my client left the truck and walked into the post office, I quickly followed him into the blessed cool of the air-conditioned building. The man wore a Detroit Tigers baseball cap pulled low over his forehead and a clean, white T-shirt. He looked to be in his early thirties, close to my age. Beneath the brim of his cap were a pair of flinty, gray eyes, and his chin was covered in stubble. In one hand, he clutched a box about the size of a ream of paper. He looked nervous enough to jump out of his own skin, but he grudgingly held the door open for an elderly woman who was using a walker.
My assignment was to convince my client to mail his package. It sounded innocent, but I wasn’t fooled. If this was Miss Spry’s business, then there was nothing innocent about it. Although I couldn’t understand why an act as simple as encouraging one man to buy a lacy camisole, or talking another into signing a political petition, should make any difference to the Devil, it always did.
My client dithered by the Ship-It-Yourself machine. There was something in that package making him nervous. Although I tried not to wonder what was inside the brown cardboard box, I couldn’t help but be curious. Did it hold explosives? Contraband drugs? Kiddie porn? True, I’d resigned myself to being a succubus, but that didn’t spare me from feeling twinges of guilt whenever I worked a job. Miss Spry always insisted that I know as little as possible about my jobs, and now I understood why. My work was easier if I could plead ignorance to my conscience.
Instead of dwelling on what might be in my client’s box, I planned my strategy for tempting him. My succubus advised me to use the direct approach, so I smiled playfully as I walked up to him. I put my hand on the Ship-It-Yourself machine like I was a store employee trying to make a sale. “This is really easy to use. You put your package there and follow the directions on the computer screen.”
He muttered “thanks” but didn’t make a move to do it.
“Would you like me to help you?”
His eyebrows shot up. “No. I got it.”
Okay, he was going to be difficult. Unfortunately, this job wasn’t about sticking a few stamps on a box and sending it off. If it had been, I would have grabbed the thing out of his hands and done it myself. No, this was about making my victim want to mail the package. That was much, much harder.
My devilish instincts told me that if I didn’t get to this guy within the next few seconds, he’d leave the post office altogether. It was time to quit fooling around and go into full glamour mode. I let my inner demon take over, radiating that irresistible charm that we succubi are famous for.
I gave him a killer smile. “If this is an urgent package, you could opt for the ‘overnight’ delivery. It costs a little more, but it’s worth it.” Okay, maybe that wasn’t the sexiest thing for me to say, but in the mouth of my demon, those words were like an invitation to an orgy of supermodels. Trust me. Once I was almost seduced by an incubus, and I know how it is.
My client’s steely eyes softened, but he still clutched his package against his stomach. “Okay, thanks. It isn’t urgent, though.”
“Is it a present for someone special?” I gave a throaty laugh, moved in a little closer, and risked touching his wrist. The ordinary, human me could have never gotten away with something like this, but I was no longer human. I was a seductress. “Or maybe it has some important information? Overdue taxes? License plate renewals?”
The man still looked ready to flee. If I didn’t find a way past his moral barricades, I’d lose him. Then he shifted the package he held, and I realized that the box had no return address. No wonder he’d driven so far from home to mail it. He wanted to remain anonymous.
My inner demon crowed. Finally, a foothold! “This machine takes cash,” I told him. “If you don’t use a credit card to pay for delivery, no one will ever know it was you.” I pressed a finger to my lips and winked conspiratorially.
Instead of agreeing, he backed away from me. Although it was quite chilly in the post office lobby, sweat dampened his T-shirt. Even the brim of his baseball cap had darkened. “Never mind,” he said. “I’ll mail this later.”
Damn! The guy looked tough, but he had the moral conviction of a Puritan. Seeing that he was about three steps from the door, I had to act fast. I wasn’t about to break my winning streak because I couldn’t seduce some hayseed.
Desperate, I took another stab. “Look at it this way. The payoff for mailing it will be so worth it. Am I right?” At this, he slowly nodded. I didn’t have him yet, but I was close. “Just think of the reward.” I was speaking as softly as a lover. “All you have to do is mail that package to make it happen.”
I held my breath, hoping I’d finally struck him in the right place. To my delight, he returned to the machine, set the box on the scanner and began using the keypad to enter the shipping information.
Before he could finish the transaction, however, the elderly lady with the walker bumbled back into the lobby. “Young man! Young man! I think you left your headlights on.”
The sound of her voice broke my spell. My client blinked, and I watched all my hard work fall to pieces. Damn it! As I fumed, the old woman smiled sweetly at me, flashing the most brilliantly blue eyes I’d ever seen.
My client hurried out of the post office, and I followed him to his truck. The angle of the sun made the headlights look like they’d been left on, but on closer inspection, it was clear they weren’t. “I guess she was wrong,” I said. “Your lights aren’t on.”
Ignoring me, he unlocked the driver’s side door. Frantically, I ran around to the passenger’s side. If I could get inside the truck and keep talking to him, this might still work. I yanked on the door’s handle, but it was locked. My client started the engine.
“Wait!” I pounded on the window. “Hold on!” I cast about for a reason that would make him stay. “Can you give me a ride to the bus stop?” I asked. “My car’s in the shop, and – ”
His expression was a mixture of fear and disgust. Apparently, I’d gone from a seductress to a crazy, desperate woman. Which, of course, I was. When he pulled the truck out of the parking space, I leapt backwards to keep my foot from being run over. Then, before I could catch up to him, his pickup squealed out of the parking lot.
Damn.
Once I stepped into the otherworld, the strip mall and post office disappeared. Instead, I faced a labyrinth of hallways with doors that led to every conceivable place in the human world. To my surprise, William Benedict, my incubus counterpart, was waiting for me. I hadn’t seen him in weeks, which was perfectly fine by me. He was an arrogant, insufferable cad whose every word was a lie and who had nearly tricked me into giving up my daughter.
Unfortunately, he was also a highly seductive, incredibly charming, and impossibly gorgeous man. He embodied every fantasy I’d ever had. He was well-muscled with a chiseled chin and jaw, yet his pouty lips and dark, slightly-bewildered eyes appealed to my softer side. He managed to be both a bad boy and a sexy nerd. Superman and Clark Kent. Although these contradictions were impossible for a human, William’s demon pulled them off. If I didn’t watch myself closely, I’d be at his mercy.
William had been leaning against the wall, and he stood up straight when he saw me. “That didn’t go well, did it?”
So he’d witnessed my epic failure. Terrific. He’d never let me live it down. “Things were going fine until that old lady got in the way,” I said. Curse that interfering woman! It would take another six months to rebuild my record. I resumed nibbling my cuticle.
“An old lady? Is that what you saw?” William laughed. “That, my dear Lilith, was a guardian angel.”
Guardian angel?! I replayed the events in my mind, suddenly realizing how easily the old lady with the walker had thwarted my attempts to seduce my client. Her timing had been perfect, and those piercing blue eyes had been supernatural. “No one warned me about angels!”
“They can be a nuisance, especially if they’re assigned to your client. They may work for Heaven, but they know as many dirty tricks as we do.”
“So they’ve given you trouble before, too?” I asked hopefully.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” he said. “I’ve never once let an angel stop me from tempting a client.”
I should have guessed. William had a perfect record of seductions; something he loved to brag about. “How did you manage it?” I asked him.
He gave me a knowing smile. “It’s the easiest thing in the world. I seduced them.”
I rolled my eyes. This whopper was over the top even for him. Seduce an angel? Yeah, right.
William followed me as I started towards my house. Hell’s hallways were painted institutional gray and laid with industrial carpeting. Fluorescent lights flickered overhead. There were doors and cross hallways everywhere I looked. The sheer scope of the place terrified me, but my demon assured me she could get me safely home before my daughter and niece returned from arts and crafts camp. Sure enough, within a minute, I reached the doorway that led to my bedroom. I went through it, and William followed uninvited.
“Do you think Miss Spry will be angry?” I asked. My cuticle was bloody, but I couldn’t stop tearing at it. “I mean, I did my best to finish the job, and I’ve been doing really well lately. I haven’t lost a single client since January.” Now that I was home, the full weight of my failure hit me, and I started to panic. Miss Spry was not a patient or understanding demon. One disastrous temptation might make her steal my daughter again. Suddenly, the walls to my bedroom closed in on me, and there wasn’t enough air to breathe. My vision grayed at the edges.
Seeing my distress, William put his hands on my shoulders. “Relax, Lilith,” he said. When I continued to shake, he took me in his arms. “Deep breaths,” he murmured. “Slow and deep.”
I buried my face in his chest. “But what if she takes Grace back to Hell?” I said.
“Listen. Helen was trying to make a point: that you belong to her in body and soul. She wanted you completely terrified, so that you’d never consider defying her again.” He held me a little tighter. “I think she got the message across, don’t you?”
Boy, had she ever.
“Don’t worry, Lil. Now that Helen knows you’ll always do what she says, she’ll be more understanding. Everyone makes mistakes. Besides, a grown woman is more useful to her than a child.”
William continued to murmur assurances while I clung to him. He rarely showed his human side, and it was good to see it now. It made being in his arms feel so right. So natural. His true, human self was the part of him I liked best. Unfortunately, it was also the part of him that he liked least, and he hid it whenever he could.
I gave in to temptation a little longer before reluctantly pulling out of his embrace. Then, still feeling wobbly, I sat on the edge of my bed. “What mistakes have you made?”
He tilted his head and cocked an eyebrow.
“You just said, everyone makes mistakes. What about you? Any epic fails?”
He laughed and shook his head. “No.”
“Not one?” I asked.
“Not one.” His impish smile had returned. Just like that, his demon was back in the driver’s seat. It figured. “I have a perfect track record, remember?”
“You’ve mentioned it once or twice,” I said sourly.
William sat next to me on the bed, and when I didn’t move he bounced up and down a little to get my attention. “Neutral walls, no-nonsense bedding, not even a romantic fireplace or a TV with dirty movies. This is the un-sexiest bedroom I’ve ever encountered.” He winked. “It’s like all you do in here is sleep.”
I wasn’t sure if he was trying to tease me out of my depression or seduce me. With William, it was never easy to tell. “Sleeping is all I do in here,” I said.
“Then let’s fix that.” He took my hand and began kissing the tip of each finger. “I promise that I can make you forget your troubles.”
I drew my hand away from his. Too late, I realized that I should have entered through the kitchen. “Is that why you were spying on me at the post office?” I asked.
“Maybe.” He reached for me again. “You know that I want you, Lilith. Very, very much.” His dark eyes held a wanton invitation.
It was hard to resist William’s supernatural allure, especially when he had been so kind and understanding only a few minutes before. For all his arrogance and selfishness, I knew that there was good buried inside his heart, no matter how deep it was or how hard he tried to hide it. Plus, the thought of using sex to make my pain go away had its appeal. Feeling anything, even lust, would be better than the guilt and anxiety that constantly threatened to break through my defenses. Right now, I wanted to put my arms around William’s waist and rub my cheek against the stubble on his chin. I wanted to feel his hands slip under my shirt and beneath my bra.
At the same time, I also wanted a real relationship, something he insisted that we would never have. I moved farther down the bed. “You promise to make me forget my problems, but will you also promise to stay with me once the passion’s over?”
His expression clouded over. “You know better than that. Pleasure, Lil. Pure pleasure. That’s what I can offer you.”
As good as that sounded, it wasn’t enough. “I’m sorry,” I said, “but no.”
At that moment, I heard the front door open and my daughter and niece come inside. “Mom,” Grace yelled. “Mom!? Are you here?”
I stood up. “I think you’d better leave.”
William looked sulky, but he stood up as well. He cupped my chin in his hand. “I’m not giving up on the idea of you and me and that bed. Someday, Lil, you’ll appreciate what I have to offer.”
Unless that someday included a genuine commitment, I wasn’t about to let it happen. And since demons weren’t allowed to love, it wasn’t likely that either of us would get what we wanted.
Chapter Two (#u543c7507-af2a-5b7e-891f-1da486a5255a)
That afternoon, I lounged poolside while my neighbor, Vickie Ballard, filled me in on the neighborhood gossip. Grace and Ari, my niece, swam in the pool, doing their best to avoid Vickie’s three jet-fueled monsters who were splashing and screaming and generally raising hell.
Vickie had just been telling me about how Debbie Crenshaw from down the street was back in rehab, and how Casey Scarsdale from next door had another new boyfriend, and that Sue Bristol had caught her husband doing a live web chat while he was dressed in her lacy bra and panties.
I’d always been the queen bee of the neighborhood, but while it felt good to hold court with the neighbors again, I was hardly listening to Vickie. Vickie’s gossip was like an overly sweet dessert: tasty at first, but sickening after you’ve had your fill.
Annoyed that I wasn’t lapping up her precious tidbits of scandal and asking for more, Vickie went silent. She looked over the top of her sunglasses, her eyes traveling from the kidney-shaped pool, to the bricked patio and the extravagant landscaping, and then finally resting on the outdoor furniture that Pottery Barn had delivered the previous week. I could almost feel the vibrations from her buzzing brain as she tried to calculate the total cost.
“Looks like you’re doing pretty well for yourself, Lilith,” Vickie finally said. “You must have taken Ted to the cleaners in the divorce.”
Obviously, I couldn’t confess that I was working for the Devil. So, instead of telling every bit of the truth, I went for the abridged version. “My insurance company finally came through for me, and the payoff was very generous.” But only because Helen Spry had pulled a few strings on my behalf.
“Really,” Vickie said, impressed. “I wish I had your insurance policy.”
Yeah right, I thought. You couldn’t afford the premiums. She wouldn’t survive a day as a succubus. But I had to admit that although the job was awful, the benefits were terrific. The rebuilt house and the new pool were only part of the package. I also received a mysterious – and extremely generous – weekly deposit into my bank account. This was another reason why I had given in and embraced my role as a succubus. Being poor sucked. I was tired of worrying over every penny, having to return groceries because I didn’t have the money to pay for them, and avoiding phone calls from collection agencies. William had been right; I needed to get over my guilty conscience. Besides, I only tempted people to sin. Ultimately, the choice to do wrong was theirs.
Vickie smiled, but she was still in viper mode. “So what they say about karma must be true. Do something good, and good will come back to you.” She nodded at Ariel who was climbing out of the pool. My niece wore a Marilyn Manson T-shirt over her swimsuit and had used a black Sharpie to give herself an enormous skull-and-crossbones tattoo on her left cheek. “You took in that little juvenile delinquent, and the universe has gifted you with a lovely new house.” Karma might have been smiling on me, but Vickie wasn’t. “Let’s just hope she doesn’t burn this one down, too.”
I wanted to smack her with a really good comeback, but before I could, I felt a shiver in the air which meant someone from the otherworld was about to pay me a visit. This time, it wasn’t William but Patrick Clerk, Miss Spry’s assistant, who walked from the house and out onto the patio.
“Bon jour, Mr. Clerk!” Grace waved from the top of the water slide. This was another part of my new life: integrating my mundane existence with my supernatural one. No more sneaking around for me. Well, almost no sneaking around. Of course, no one knew the real reason why Mr. Clerk visited me, but hiding my otherworldly guests was too stressful. Grace and Ariel knew who Mr. Clerk was, they just didn’t know what I did for him.
“C’est la vie?” Grace asked. Now that I’d become rich again, I’d bought Grace the French horn that she’d so wanted. Since learning to play it, she had become fascinated with all things French. She ate brie, referred to every kind of bread as a baguette, and even wore a beret, despite the fact that Ariel made fun of her for it.
Mr. Clerk returned Grace’s question with a nod. “Trés bien.” Mr. Clerk, thin, gray-haired, and fussy, was dressed, as always, in white. White linen pants, perfectly creased, and a white T-shirt with a pair of dark glasses hanging from the neckline. He glowered at Ariel when she splashed him. “Lilith, we need to speak.”
“Who’s this?” Vickie asked.
“My, uh, insurance agent,” I said.
Mr. Clerk’s eyebrows shot up.
“Really?” Vickie lowered her sunglasses. “I didn’t know that insurance agents made house calls. Maybe I should change companies. What kind of policies do you offer?”
Mr. Clerk looked from Vickie to me and back again. There was a trace of panic in his eyes. I abruptly got out of my chair. “I’m sorry, Vickie, but I’ve got to go. Maybe you and your boys could stop by later in the week.”
Vickie took the hint, but she obviously wasn’t happy about it. She reluctantly got up and hollered at her boys to get out of the pool. “Thanks for the swim, Lil. We’ll be back.”
To my ears, that sounded like a threat.
After Vickie left, Mr. Clerk sighed as if he’d narrowly missed being run over by a truck. I told the girls to be careful in the pool and led my otherworldly guest into the house so we could talk. The French doors were hardly closed behind us before he fixed me with a steely look and said, “Miss Spry is very disappointed in you.”
Other than handing out my assignments, Mr. Clerk only visited for two reasons: to watch Real Housewives or to scold me. From the look on his face, it was clear that he wasn’t there to gossip about our favorite reality stars.
The kitchen was dim and so overly air-conditioned that I pulled my sarong up around my bare shoulders. Mr. Clerk appreciatively eyed my bathing suit, a pale-blue two-piece that showed off a large amount of skin. Believe me, this wasn’t because of how I filled it out. No, he was more interested in the fact that it was Versace. The man loved designer labels as much as I did.
He settled himself on a bar stool next to the counter. “Tell me everything that happened this morning.”
I took a cold Perrier from the fridge and offered it to him. When he declined, I poured some into a glass for myself, adding ice and a lime wedge. If I’d kept alcohol in the house, which I didn’t because of Ariel’s tendency to sneak it, I would have thrown in some gin. I was pretty sure it was going to be that kind of day.
“Well, I met the client, just like you said, and I tried to get him to mail his package.”
“And?” It was clear from his expression that he already knew how the story turned out, but was going to make me tell him anyway. Sadistic bastard.
“He wouldn’t mail it.” At Mr. Clerk’s frown, my heart began to race. “I swear, I tried as hard as I could! But he was so resistant! And then this guardian angel showed up.”
His eyes widened. “An angel? Are you sure?” When I nodded, he said, “You must tell Helen about this. Immediately.”
Although I was willingly doing the Devil’s dirty work, it didn’t mean that I wanted to visit my evil overlord. “Can’t you do it?”
“No. A guardian angel is nothing to fool around with, and if there’s one lurking about, it’s best if Helen hears it from you. She can help you get past them.”
“But William said they were easy to seduce,” I argued. “He said he’d done it before, and it was the easiest thing in the world.”
The tips of Mr. Clerk’s ears reddened, and he shifted uncomfortably on the bar stool. “William certainly has a sense of humor.”
“What do you think? Would seducing an angel be a good strategy?”
“How would I know?” he asked, sounding insulted. “That’s for Helen to decide.”
“Fine. But I’ll need someone to watch the girls while I’m gone.” I lifted my eyebrows suggestively.
He hopped off the bar stool and held up his hands. “Oh, no. I simply refuse!”
“Are you sure?” I asked. “William stopped by earlier. Maybe he’ll turn up again.”
That got his attention. “You saw William today?” The question was asked very casually, but I knew better. Mr. Clerk had a major crush on William and was jealous of any time the two of us spent together. “Do you really think he’ll come by?” Already, Mr. Clerk had resettled himself on the bar stool and was pinching the knife-edged creases in his slacks.
“Maybe.”
“Fine. But be back in ten minutes.”
If I hurried, I could be back in five.
With its oriental carpet, potted palms and fringed lamps, Miss Spry’s study was elegant and cozy. I wasn’t fooled, though. These props were only put there to prevent anyone from seeing the real Hell that lay underneath.
Miss Spry sat behind her desk, writing in a leather-bound ledger, but the moment I walked in, she put down her fountain pen. “Lilith! Such a pleasant surprise.” She used to growl every time I came through her office door, but now that I stopped defying her and obeyed her every whim, she acted like my best friend. It was less stressful to stand before a smiling woman rather than a hot-eyed demon, but the thought of making Miss Spry happy always made me unhappy.
I’d thrown a pair of capris and a T-shirt over my bikini, but was still woefully under dressed compared to my demon overlord who wore a smart coral twinset and pencil skirt. Her heavy, red lipstick and dark eyebrow pencil reminded me of old-fashioned actresses. So did her permed hair which she wore swept away from her forehead, Joan Crawford style.
“I know that I made a mistake today. I swear I tried to make that man mail that package.” I tugged nervously on my watch. “I wanted to tempt him. I really did.”
“I know you did, dear.” Her voice was syrup laced with strychnine, and though she smiled, her eyes were flinty. “However, you did fail the assignment.”
“But there was this guardian angel, see, and…”
Her hands clenched into fists. “Did you say guardian angel?” When I nodded, she turned her face upward and shouted, “Cheater!” She hurried from behind her desk and took me by the arm. “Listen, Lilith. This client is very, very important. So important, in fact, that I can’t let him go untempted. Therefore, I will suspend all of your assignments until you’ve seduced him. Don’t let me down!”
“I won’t,” I promised. “And I won’t let that holy pain in the ass ruin another assignment.”
She beamed. “That’s music to my ears! The old Lilith would have never said such a thing.”
That’s because the old Lilith hadn’t realized how powerful or cruel demons were, or what lengths they’d go to get what they wanted. The perks of being an obedient little succubus far outweighed the punishment for rebellion. If only the inner voice of my conscience would understand and let me off the hook.
“If you have Mr. Clerk set up another appointment, I’ll get to work,” I told her.
Her smile deepened. “I love your new enthusiasm. Keep this up, and you’ll be as good a seductress as any of your ancestors.”
The inner voice turned into an inner squirm as my conscience objected. Shut up, I told it, and thought about my beautiful new house.
“We can set up another appointment, but tempting the victim won’t be easy. Not only because of the guardian angel, but because once a human resists temptation, it becomes easier to do so a second time. Still, I’ll make Patrick set up another appointment.” She rang a little silver bell on her desk, and Mr. Clerk appeared.
“You left the girls alone?!” I cried.
“They’re fine,” he answered with a sniff. “They’re watching a movie and eating cookies.”
“Patrick, set up another appointment with Lilith’s client,” Miss Spry said.
He looked annoyed. “Do you really think finding those opportunities is easy?”
Helen didn’t reply, and I shrugged. All I knew was that Mr. Clerk showed up with instructions, and I carried them out. I had no idea how the system worked. Nor did I care.
“It’s an intricate process, Helen, involving complex algorithms. Each time I set up a meeting, I must spend hours researching the target, making calculations, and setting trajectories. It’s not easy.”
Helen backed him off with a hot-eyed glare, giving me an opportunity to play good cop. Even demons have their vulnerable spots, and for Mr. Clerk, it was flattery. “Your job sounds terribly complicated. You’re amazing!”
Miss Spry’s eyes glittered in amusement, but Mr. Clerk flushed with pleasure. “It’s a gift. I can’t take credit for it.” Despite his protests, he reveled in my praise the same way my cat, Drinking Tea, reveled in a good chin scratch.
“So you can get Lilith a second chance?”
Mr. Clerk sighed, nodded, and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Yes, I’ll set up another assignment.”
“Good.” I wouldn’t fail again. I didn’t care if I had to personally drag my client to Hell, that man would do what Miss Spry demanded.
That evening, Dr. Ted Dempsey, my cheating ex-husband, stopped by to pick up Grace for the weekend. When he walked in through the back door, he completely ignored his niece who was sitting at the kitchen table. Technically, Ari was his blood relation, not mine, but you’d never know it from the way he treated her.
Ted went over to Grace who squealed and hugged him. Then he gave me a top-to-bottom once over. “Hello, Lilith. You’re looking well.”
His bland compliment was meant to hurt me, and it did. Because I didn’t just look ‘well’, I looked fantastic. I was wearing little white shorts that showed off my tan and a tight T-shirt that displayed plenty of cleavage. On the days Ted came over, I always took special pains to remind him of what he’d lost when he decided to cheat on me.
“Why don’t you run and get your bag, Grace,” I said. “I need to talk to your father.” I raised my eyebrows at Ariel, and she dragged herself out of her chair, huffing in exasperation. I knew that she wanted to see me yell at Ted, but I’d made it a policy to stop fighting in front of the kids after I realized how much it upset Grace.
With the girls out of the room, I readied myself to launch a verbal attack, but Ted beat me to the punch. “Your pool smells like it’s overly chlorinated.” My ex-husband thought he was an expert on everything from swimming pools to vegan cuisine, and wasn’t shy about sharing his opinions. “I don’t want my daughter swimming in it.”
It was a cunning first strike because it forced me to defend myself. I crossed my arms over my chest. “The pool is fine, Ted. I have a service that checks it twice a week.”
He smiled triumphantly. “And where are you getting the money to pay for a pool service?”
Damn! I’d fallen right into his trap. After the fire had destroyed my house, I’d begged Ted to increase his child support payments. Although money was no longer an issue for me, my ex-husband had no idea why. Obviously, he didn’t know that I was a succubus.
No, he thought I was a harpy.
“I refinanced the house,” I said. When Ted mulled this over, I launched my counterattack. “How come I’m getting overdue notices from the credit card company about your bills?” I picked up the invoice that had been lying on the counter and shook it at him. “They’re threatening to send me to a collection agency.” Although I’d tried several times to cancel the card, it was in both our names and I couldn’t get rid of it without Ted’s consent. Plus, my address was the one on record, and I was being saddled with the debt.
He looked offended. “That’s our old joint account, Lilith. I haven’t used it since the divorce.”
“Like hell you haven’t.” I read off one of the charges. “Look at this – eleven-thousand dollars for a place called ‘Exotic Locales’? What was that for?”
Ted’s face reddened and he looked away. “I must have used that old credit card by mistake. Give me the bill, and I’ll pay it.”
“Exotic Locales, Ted?” I asked, goading him. “What is that? A strip club?”
He didn’t even flinch. “No. It’s personal.” He held out his hand for the bill. “I said I’d pay it, so end of discussion.”
Whatever he was trying to cover up had to be juicy, so I took a stab in the dark: “You’re dating a stripper, aren’t you?”
“What? No! Lilith, what is wrong with you?” The vein above his eyebrows began to pulse.
“What’s wrong with you?” I asked. “What are you hiding from me?”
My demon could have helped with this, of course. All I had to do was start her up and put her to work. Within minutes, Ted would be putty in my hands and willingly tell me his secrets. It had worked before. But right then, I was too angry to bat my eyelashes and act coy. I wanted to boot Ted in the butt with a steel-toed shoe, not caress him with kid gloves.
I must have looked scary because when Grace walked in carrying her pink duffle bag, Ted grabbed her and kept his hands on her shoulders, using her as a human shield. “Ready to go, kid?” he asked desperately.
Reluctantly, I told my demon to back off. There was something going on with my ex. I could smell it on him like another woman’s perfume. With Grace in the room, however, I’d never find out what it was.
Ted was halfway out the door. “Okay. I’ll have her back on Sunday night.” Then, just before leaving, he stopped in the doorway. His lips quirked like he was about to throw up. “Grace, I have a really big surprise for you. I’m taking you to France for the month of July.”
Grace’s eyes lit up. There was no place in the world she wanted to visit more than France. But as her eyes were glowing with anticipation, mine were glowing with rage. France?! My ex-husband thought he was taking my baby to Europe? So ‘Exotic Locales’ had been a travel agency.
As Grace hugged him tightly, Ted looked over her shoulder with an expression of triumph. I clenched my fists, seething. It was bad enough that he was entitled to an entire month with her during the summer, but to drag her out of the country? And what a cowardly trick to deliver the news in front of me knowing that I wouldn’t yell at him. Not only that, he had the entire weekend to pump her up about the trip. She’d come back to me on Sunday night with a head full of pictures of Paris and the Eiffel Tower, and I’d end up looking like the bad guy when I told her that she couldn’t go.
It was the final stroke in our dueling match. A painful thrust delivered with such mastery and cunning that I could only stand and gape.
Ariel had sidled back into the room, and before Ted whisked Grace away, she said, “Guess what, Ari? I’m going to France with my dad!”
Usually, Ari was an expert at hiding her feelings, but right then I could read her like a book. She was thinking that her Uncle Ted completely ignored her, she’d never met her biological father, and her own mother wouldn’t take her to Burger King much less France.
Ariel’s eyes narrowed. “France is disgusting, you know. They only eat frogs and snails there.” But, by that time, Grace had already left the house.
Ariel looked up at me, her eyes flat as the backside of a mirror. She was hardening herself so that she wouldn’t dissolve into tears. I didn’t need my demon to tell me this, either, since it was exactly how I felt myself.
Chapter Three (#u543c7507-af2a-5b7e-891f-1da486a5255a)
To boost our spirits, I told Ariel she could pick out whatever she wanted for dinner. Ordinarily, I did all the cooking, making everything from scratch using nothing but fresh, organic produce and whole grains. I was a wonderful cook, and could teach Martha Stewart a thing or two. That night, however, I was too disheartened to fire up the grill let alone bully Ariel into eating the salad niçoise that I had been planning to make.
“I know what I want,” Ariel said, “but we have to go to the grocery store to get it.”
“How about pizza?” I asked. I didn’t care much for it, but my succubus had an addiction to meat-lovers’ pizza with extra bacon.
Ariel folded her arms over her chest. “I want to go to the grocery store. You promised.”
I groaned inwardly. I hated being out in public with Ariel when she was in a bad mood. Even when she’s in a good mood, she draws uneasy looks. It’s the severely-cut, dyed-black hair, the ghoulish makeup, and the heavy silver necklaces. Not to mention the expression that says, “I’d kill you, but you’re not worth the trouble.” These things scare people. Tommy Lefevre, my stepsister’s ex-boyfriend, once said that my niece’s appearance was a reflection of how broken she was on the inside. While I valued Tommy’s opinion above that of anyone else, there were still times when I wanted to wear a T-shirt that read: I swear this is not my kid.
“I think the Chinese place down the road delivers,” I said.
“You promised. And a promise is a promise.” Ariel fetched my purse from the kitchen table and offered it to me. “Besides, it’s not like I’m asking to go to France or anything.”
She was right. She deserved something, even if it was only a trip to the grocery store. “Okay,” I said, taking my purse, “but I get to pick out my own dinner. Deal?”
She smiled slightly. “Deal.”
When we got to the store, Ariel moved like a guided missile while I lagged behind with the shopping cart. I was disgusted, but not surprised, by what she chose: a blue box of mac ‘n’ cheese, Banquet frozen chicken, two liters of Mountain Dew, and a package of Oreos. On the other hand, my succubus’s mouth was watering. Especially over the Mountain Dew and Oreos. I wondered which of my predecessors had gotten her addicted to those wretched foods.
People were staring at us just as I feared they would. The skull-and-crossbones Ari had drawn on her face didn’t help. Neither did the way she loudly cracked her knuckles whenever we got close to someone. I was about to tell her to knock it off when I realized that we were being followed.
Lagging about a dozen steps behind us was a thin boy about Ari’s age with colorless hair, and skin so pale it nearly glowed. His unblinking eyes were startlingly blue, and his gaze was fixed on Ariel. Something about him seemed vaguely familiar; although, I was certain I’d never seen him before.
“You have an admirer,” I said.
“Where?!” Ari whirled around, ready to strike. When she saw the boy, she relaxed. “Oh, him.”
“You know that kid?” I’d never seen Ari make a friend much less a boyfriend. “Does he go to your school?”
She shrugged. “I don’t think so. I just see him around sometimes.” She picked a jar of sweet pickles from the shelf and put it into the cart. “I want these, too.”
Her nonchalance stunned me. I’d expected her to wave her arms and shout to chase the boy away. I felt a glimmer of hope. Maybe my niece wasn’t a sociopath after all. “So he’s a friend of yours?”
“Don’t get carried away,” she muttered.
I wanted to keep pestering her with questions, but as we rounded a corner, my cart collided with another shopper’s. Both of us opened our mouths to begin swearing, but then we recognized each other. It was Casey Scarsdale. The very same Casey that Vickie had been gossiping about a few hours before. The one with the new boy toy.
I smiled through gritted teeth as we air kissed. Yes, I know how stupid that is, but it was Casey’s habit, not mine.
“Lilith! And this must be your niece. Andrea, right? The one who started the fire?”
Ariel glared at her and turned towards the magazines.
“Such an angry child,” Casey stage-whispered. “She’s so lucky to have an aunt like you. Speaking of which…you’re back in the neighborhood? I had no idea your house was livable again!”
Yeah, right. More than once, I’d spied Ms. I-Had-No-Idea-Your-House-Was-Livable at her window with a phone in one hand and a pair of binoculars in the other. Casey is the kind of person who thinks ‘neighborhood watch’ is an Olympic sport.
My smile tightened even more. “You didn’t see the builders working? Or the moving vans? Or notice Grace riding her bike down the sidewalk?”
She laughed and tucked a peroxided lock of hair behind her ear. “You know I don’t have time to keep track of every little detail. But look at you. You’re amazing!” She took me in, top to bottom, missing nothing. “I bet Ted’s so jealous. The silly boy should have never divorced you.”
I wanted to strangle her with her own diamond pendant. “I divorced him remember?”
“That’s not what he says.” Then she lightly tapped my arm. “Just kidding, of course. How is the ex, by the way? Mooning over you, I hope.” She increased the wattage on her smile. “And what about you? Any new boyfriends?”
I was about to answer when Ariel shrieked, “Hey! Watch out!” Then she toppled headlong into a large display of carefully-stacked cereal boxes, sending it crashing to the ground. The boxes skidded across the center aisle of the store, causing an instant shopping cart pile-up.
The boy who’d been following Ariel ran past me, his wake kicking up an otherworldly tingle. It was another angel! No wonder he’d seemed familiar.
The manager charged over, his hands fisted at his sides. He had hated Ariel ever since he’d caught her hiding packages of steak behind the canisters of coffee. I’d offered to pay for the damage, but it hadn’t cooled his temper.
Ari picked herself up from a pile of crushed cereal boxes. “It was an accident. I was pushed.” She glared at the manager, but at the same time, I detected an undercurrent of fear. It was a look that I recognized. It meant that my niece had been doing something wrong and was worried she’d be caught.
I scanned the accident site for clues, and sure enough, I spotted nearly a half-a-dozen things that didn’t belong in that aisle. A can of spray cheese, three candy bars, a bag of marshmallows, and a box of fruit snacks.
I cursed myself for not watching my niece more carefully. That’s because Ariel was a really good thief. The girl could steal the underwear off a sales clerk. Don’t believe me? Well, consider the lacy bra I found one afternoon after we’d been school shopping at the mall. Victoria’s Secret, size 32B, lavender. Definitely not mine and definitely used.
The manager was smart. It was only a matter of time before he also realized that Ariel had been shoplifting. If I wanted to rescue my niece, I had to put my succubus to work. Quickly.
I walked over to him, pulverizing bits of cereal under the heels of my sandals. “I am so sorry,” I said.
He thrust his jaw out. “You’ll have to pay for this, and I don’t want the two of you back in my store, either.”
My succubus was in overdrive, working out the best way to win this man over. He was young, only a few years out of college, and his look said junior executive wannabe. He wore khaki pants, a white short-sleeved shirt that had been carefully pressed, and a striped tie complete with a University of Michigan tie pin. His hair had been clipped so short that it was practically army regulation.
My demon self spoke up before I had a chance. “Go Wolverines!” I pointed to the tie pin.
He was too angry to be taken in by such a simple ruse. My demon had to do better than that. Luckily for me, she had more tricks up her sleeve. “When you were in college, I’ll bet your professors never told you that running a business would be this hard.”
His jaw tightened. “No,” he admitted.
I helped him pick up the cereal boxes. “Those professors are so lame. They’d never survive in the real business world. Am I right?”
He nodded. “Completely.”
I moved in closer and brushed against his shoulder. The glamour in my touch made him relax. “I’ll bet that you’ve learned more in your first year on the job than they taught you in four years of college.”
He placed several boxes back on the display. “Definitely.”
“And those classmates of yours? The ones who graduated and went to Wall Street to work in finance?”
His eyes hardened. Finally, I’d struck gold. “Losers,” he said bitterly. “A bunch of a-holes who used their parents’ money to go to college, then got jobs in investment firms because their daddies worked there.”
“They can laugh at you all they want, but what do they know about a real day’s work?” I asked.
“Nothing!” The manager was furious now, but no longer at me and Ariel. “They don’t have to worry about student loans or finding a real job.” His fists clenched.
“You’re better than they are,” I assured him.
“Damn right!” he agreed.
I would have continued, but Ariel’s wide-eyed stare stopped me. So instead, I patted the manager’s shoulder. “Sorry,” I said again.
He glared at the wreckage, no doubt seeing the faces of his fellow college graduates. “No problem.” He kicked at a box of cereal, sending it skidding across the floor. “No problem at all.”
As we wheeled our cart away, I realized that Casey had disappeared like smoke, bless her evil little heart.
“How’d you do that?” Ari asked.
I played innocent. “What?”
“Get the manager to stop being mad at us. He was ready to throw us out.”
“Yes, he was,” I said, “and for good reason, considering what you did.”
“Like I said, it was an accident,” she protested.
“I don’t mean the cereal display,” I said. “I’m talking about the fruit rollups and the candy bars. Or were those accidents, too?”
She looked away.
We wheeled the cart into a checkout line. “You’re lucky he didn’t catch you,” I told her, “but since I did, you are in so much trouble.”
Ari glared at the floor as if her own fate was spelled out there.
When we got back home, I was ready to dish out my punishment, but Ariel sprinted to her room the moment I opened the front door.
I set the groceries in the kitchen, went upstairs, and knocked. “Ariel?” When she didn’t answer, I tried to open the door, but she’d jammed it shut. I pounded harder. “Ari! Open up right now.”
It was times like this that I missed Tommy the most. Now that he was overseas on his spiritual pilgrimage, I realized how much I’d relied on his advice. He was endlessly patient, and always serene. The night before he left, Ariel had grown desperate to keep him home. She’d hidden my car keys and his passport so well that, even after hours of searching, we couldn’t find them. I was ready to strangle her, but Tommy had taken Ariel outside and calmly talked with her. When they’d come back inside nearly half an hour later, one of the large, metal gauges was missing from Tommy’s earlobe, and Ariel was wearing it around her thumb. “It’s my promise to her that I won’t be gone forever,” he told me when I asked about it. I hadn’t thought that the trick would work, but to my amazement, Ariel quietly fetched the missing keys and passport from the inside of the toilet tank lid where she’d secured them with duct tape.
Now that Tommy was gone, however, I was on my own. And with no otherworld doorways in Ariel’s room, I couldn’t sneak in that way, either. After counting to ten, I said, “Fine. Stay up here if you want to, but you can’t escape your punishment. Sooner or later, you’ll have to come out, and when you do, I’ll be waiting.”
The door opened. Ari glowered up at me. “Is that a threat?”
“It’s a promise.”
“But I didn’t do anything!”
“You stole half the store,” I argued. Which was a stupid thing to do. Arguing, I mean. Since, like Ted, Ariel knew how to fight.
Immediately, she turned the accusations back on me. “It’s not like you ever give me anything.”
“I do give you things,” I argued. “Swimming lessons, a cell phone – ”
“Yeah, but Grace gets whatever she wants because she’s your daughter, and you love her. Not like me.” She dropped her head.
“That’s not true!” Her arrow struck right where she knew it would, piercing my heart. I had tried and tried to make Ariel understand that I loved her, but no matter what I did, she refused to believe it.
“I wish Tommy was here,” she said miserably. “At least he loved me. But then you chased him off, and I’ll probably never see him again.”
I wanted to argue that she was wrong and that I hadn’t chased him off, but unfortunately, she was right. “Well,” I said. I picked up a dirty T-shirt from the floor. “Well.” Now, I was the one who felt like a heel. How had that happened?
The doorbell rang. Before I could stop her, Ariel dashed down the stairs to answer it. Thinking it was Vickie or Casey or some other neighbor, I took my time gathering more dirty laundry and composing myself into the happy, suburban housewife I was supposed to be. Halfway down the stairs, I paused, listening to the conversation. It wasn’t a neighbor that Ariel was talking to.
It was her mother.
I dropped everything I’d been carrying and hurried to the door, wanting to cut Tanya off before she made it inside my house. Ariel was a good thief, but Tanya was a professional. I’d lose everything from the espresso machine to the plasma TV if I didn’t hurry.
Luckily for me, Tanya was still on the porch, but to my surprise, she looked better than the last time I’d seen her. She’d put on a little weight. Her hair was freshly washed and neatly combed. Although her T-shirt was old and the decal was starting to flake away, it too was clean. Her teeth were still that bottom-of-the-ashtray brown from her meth use, but her eyes were clear, and she no longer jittered. In fact, she was very calm.
“Hey, Lilith.” She grinned like a whipped dog begging for a treat. “How are you?”
Ariel had her face buried in her mother’s stomach and was clutching her around the middle.
“Hi, Tanya.” Ari’s mom might have looked good, but I was still wary. The only time she ever came to see her family was when she wanted something.
She peeked around me to look inside. “Your house looks really nice.”
I shut the door behind me to block her view. “What’s going on?” I asked.
“I’m clean.” She grinned again, but with a little more pride this time. “Five weeks.”
Ariel lifted her head and smiled. “Mom, that’s awesome! Isn’t that awesome, Aunt Lilith?”
“Yes. Terrific. Good for you,” I said, trying to sound like I meant it. Who knew? Maybe the impossible really had happened, and Miss Spry’s realm had frozen over after all.
That tiny ray of hope was extinguished in a heartbeat, however, when Tanya said, “I stopped by so I could ask you something.”
My stomach clenched.
“I’m living in a new place now…”
Ari’s head popped up again. “A real place? Like a house?”
“An apartment. A real nice apartment with a pool.” Tanya licked her lips. “You’d really like it, kiddo.”
“Cool! I’ll get my stuff.” Instantly, Ari was in the house and pounding up the stairs.
Tanya blinked and looked at me as if I had the answer to whatever question she wanted to ask. All I could do was shrug. Ariel was a worldly-wise preteen who knew how to roll a joint, steal pseudoephedrine, and tell a dead person from a stoned one. But for all that knowledge, there was one thing Ariel didn’t comprehend: her mother didn’t want her.
Tanya shuffled her feet. “I’ve got this new boyfriend.”
Great.
“In fact, the apartment is his.”
Knowing where this was going, I crossed my arms over my chest.
“See, he doesn’t know I’ve got a kid.”
“Uh huh.” I wondered how many of my neighbors were watching us right now. The only person they feared more than Ariel was her mother.
Ariel was back on the porch before my sister-in-law could get to the point of her visit. Seeing her daughter standing there with her packed suitcase, Tanya licked her lips again. “Well, I stopped by because I need a few extra dollars. You know. To hold me over until I get a job.”
Ari looked up at me, her eyes pleading. She thought that a few extra dollars might give her an inroad with her mother whereas I knew that a few extra dollars would probably mean a phone call to Tanya’s supplier or a trip to the liquor store.
“Tanya, I’m sorry, but I can’t. Not this month.”
Tanya looked like she’d been expecting this, but Ariel, furious, flew at me. “What do you mean you can’t? You’ve got all kinds of money. You just put in a pool. And you’re getting Grace a computer. I heard you talking to someone on the phone about it.”
Tanya’s eyes lit up. “Sounds like you’re doing really good, Lil.”
“She is! But she and Uncle Ted are so selfish.” Ariel was crying hard now, her thick mascara making tire tracks down her cheeks. “They give everything to Grace, but nothing to me.”
That accusation cut me to the quick. True, Ted treated her like garbage, but I loved her. “Ariel, I’m sorry you feel that way.” My voice was so taut that the slightest breeze could have snapped it. “Unfortunately, I have a policy of not lending money to family members.”
“That’s bullshit!” Spittle flew from Ari’s mouth. “You used to give your stepsister money all the time.” She looked at her mother. “She did! I watched her do it.” She turned back on me. “You don’t like my mom because you think you’re better than her. You think you’re better than everyone! Well, to hell with you!” She grabbed her mother’s hand and started down the stairs. “C’mon, let’s go. We don’t need her.”
Tanya’s look of vicious triumph suddenly changed to surprise. “Wait! Hold up!” She yanked her hand out of her daughter’s. “Ari – ”
This time, the look of triumph was on my face as I waited for Tanya to admit that she didn’t want her daughter. Instead, Tanya flashed an evil smile and said, “Okay, kid. You want to go with me? Let’s go.” Then she turned and walked off with Ariel.
It was a blow I hadn’t seen coming. I stood on the porch gaping in astonishment as they got into the car, then blinked back tears as they drove off. Somehow, Tanya had bested me by taking the one thing I had wanted all along: my niece.
Chapter Four (#ulink_61142ea9-4eb9-5b66-bb0f-b5549986d32e)
Back in the house, I immediately picked up the phone to dial 911. Before I could punch the final number, however, I hesitated. Technically, Tanya had done nothing wrong. After all, she’d never signed custody of her daughter over to me. Legally, I wasn’t even a guardian. Not only that, Ariel had willingly gone with her mother. Her sober, in control of her faculties, mother.
Still, I knew Tanya’s history too well to give up that easily. I left the phone for the computer to visit the website for Michigan’s Protective Services Department. I scrolled down the page, looking for any information that would help me, but there wasn’t much I could use. Since Ari was in no immediate danger, there was no emergency – according to protective services. And because it was Friday evening, when I called the local office, I wasn’t too surprised to find it closed.
Discouraged, I decided to talk to my stepdad. Even though Simon was a tax attorney and not a criminal or family lawyer, I hoped that he’d be able to give me some advice.
I dialed my dad’s number but, to my surprise, Jasmine picked up. “Yeah?”
“Jas!” I said, thrilled. My stepsister had stopped speaking to me since she found me in bed with her boyfriend, Tommy. I’d tried everything – voice messages, texts, e-mails – but she refused to reply. When I tried to visit her in person, she locked herself in her room until I left. The only reason she’d answered the phone now was because my dad didn’t have caller ID.
“How are you?” I asked.
She ignored the question. “Dad’s not here.” Her voice was flat, like she was talking to a telemarketer and not her sister. “He and my mom went to the lake.”
I’d forgotten that my dad and his wife were making their annual pilgrimage to the other side of the state. They had rented a cottage, and right now would probably be sitting on the deck watching the sun set over Lake Michigan.
“Do you have a number for him?” I asked. I gave a brief explanation about Tanya and Ariel. “I was hoping Dad could give me some advice.”
“Oh, poor Ari.” Some of the dullness left Jasmine’s voice. “As if that kid hasn’t been through enough.” I heard my stepsister shuffle through some things. “No, I don’t have the number for the cottage.”
My heart fell. Since my dad didn’t own a cell phone, not even for emergencies, I wouldn’t be able to talk to him until he got back from vacation.
I heard a man cough in the background, then a voice that set my teeth on edge. “Hey, Susie Sushi! Hang up and let’s go.”
“Please tell me that isn’t who I think it is,” I said.
“Don’t start with me, Lil,” Jas warned.
“It’s Karl, isn’t it?” I gripped the phone tighter. “What’s he doing there?”
There was a long pause. “We’re back together,” she said.
“Jas, no! You can’t be serious.” Karl had been Jasmine’s boyfriend before Tommy. He was a dozen years older than my stepsister, and owned a successful computer graphics company. At first, my stepdad, Jas’s mother, and I had thought Jasmine had struck gold when she started dating him, but it didn’t take long for us to realize that Karl was a scumbag.
When Jas was around Karl, she drank much more than normal. She also smoked pot and, if her red eyes and dripping nose were any indication, did other drugs as well. Once, after my dad, Evelyn, and I had spent months convincing Jasmine to enroll at the local community college, Karl talked her out of it because he said that the classes would be too hard for her, and she’d end up dropping out anyway. Implying that she wasn’t smart was only one of his many putdowns. Because of Jasmine’s Asian features, Karl called her ‘Susie Sushi’ and his little ‘Jap’ – which he said stood for Japanese-American Princess. I used to lay awake at nights terrified that Karl would get Jasmine pregnant and forever link her destiny to his.
Karl spoke up in the background. “Jasmine! C’mon, chop, chop!”
“I gotta go,” Jasmine said, miserable once more.
I wanted to scream at her and demand to know why she was letting that cancer back into her life, but I knew from experience that if I spoke out against Karl, she’d fly to his defense. Still, I had to say something. “Maybe dating Karl on the rebound isn’t such a good idea,” I said.
“Why, Lil? Are you planning to sleep with him, too?” she asked.
The knife thrust went straight to my heart. Although I worked to maintain my ‘let the past stay in the past’ philosophy, my mistakes always came back to bite me. Hard. “I’m sorry about Tommy, Jas. You have no idea how sorry I am,” I said.
But my apology fell on dead air because she’d already hung up the phone.
Six months ago, when my stepsister, my daughter, my niece and I were all living in the cramped townhouse, I would have given anything for an hour alone. Even when the girls were in school, Jasmine would be home hounding me for money or whining because there was nothing to eat. Later, when she brought Tommy to live with us, I’d felt even more claustrophobic.
Now however, with both girls gone, Jas not speaking to me, and Tommy out of the country, I was completely alone. The silence of that big, empty house rang loudly in my ears. It was eerie, like visiting a shopping mall after all the stores have closed and everyone has gone home. With all that quiet surrounding me, I had nothing to distract me from my own, dark thoughts.
Deciding that I couldn’t endure another minute of the day sober, I drove to the nearest liquor store and bought a bottle of wine for me and a fifth of bourbon for my demon who begged for it like a little kid begging for candy in the checkout line at the grocery store. When I got home, I muscled down a shot of the bourbon to shut up my succubus, then poured a glass of chardonnay. I brought it over to the computer and went back to researching a way to get Ari away from her mother.
A small, instant-message window popped up on my computer screen. It was from Tommy.
Lil – u there?
My heart nearly stopped. Jasmine wasn’t the only one refusing to talk to me. Since he’d left the country, Tommy had been incommunicado as well. I’d called, texted, and e-mailed, but he never answered back. The silence was terrible. I had no idea where he was, or more importantly, how he was.
As much as I wanted to talk to him, I was afraid. I drained my glass and then took a deep breath before gathering enough nerve to reply. Hi.
I held my breath until, moments later, his response popped up. How r u?
I hesitated, then typed: K – and u?
Hot. Sick of Indian food. Earth-shattering diarrhea.
I smiled. TMI, I told him. Besides, don’t you mean earth-shittering?
He sent back a laughing smiley face.
Where r u? I asked.
Aurangabad to see Ajanta caves.
Before I’d destroyed his belief in God, Tommy had talked endlessly about his pilgrimage, and the Ajanta caves in India had been one of his favorite topics. He had shown me pictures from the Internet of the massive statues and ancient paintings hidden away in that secret place. Knowing he had finally made it there lifted my spirits. If any sacred spot would help him rediscover his faith, certainly it was that one.
I wrote: How r the caves?
To my surprise, he sent an emoticon that had its eyes squeezed shut and its tongue sticking out. Pain in the ass to get there, and the weather sucks. Constant rain.
But the caves themselves r awesome, right? I typed.
They r depressing. Just a wasted effort to impress the Great Nothingness.
My heart clenched. His pilgrimage hadn’t done a thing to restore his faith. The Tommy I’d first met would have been raving about the unity of human spirits and the rapture of touching the divine. He would have crawled over broken glass to get to those caves. Not any more.
Tommy sent another message. How r the girls?
I was tempted to tell him the truth about Ariel moving in with her mother, but I didn’t want to worry him. After all, there wasn’t much he could do from the other side of the world. So I typed, Girls r good.
And Jasmine?
I hesitated. Finally, I typed, Still upset.
She won’t return my calls, he said. I keep dreaming that she’s in trouble. I’m really worried.
So that’s why he was finally speaking to me. Tommy had an uncanny connection to the supernatural world. For one thing, he could read auras. He’d also known that there had been something different about me after I’d become a succubus. It didn’t surprise me that he’d picked up on Jasmine’s psychic distress signals.
For a moment, I thought about keeping Karl a secret. If Jasmine wasn’t speaking to Tommy, there wasn’t much he could do about the bad boyfriend. But it had been a hell of a day. Ariel, Grace, Jas…I was worried about all of them, and I desperately needed to share my burden. I bit my lip and typed: J got back together with Karl.
There was a long, long pause. So long, in fact, that I was sure the Internet had cut out on Tommy’s end. Realizing that my glass was empty, I refilled it, gulping down the chardonnay like a sports drink after a hard workout. Still, no new message appeared on my computer. I swore to myself that, no matter what, I wouldn’t contact Tommy again. I would let him go and live his life in peace, just as he deserved. This time, I really meant it.
Then my phone rang.
Of course, I knew who it was. I picked it up on the second ring. “Tommy!” His name came out more like a sob.
“Tell me what’s going on, Lil.”
I began crying as I gave him the drunken version of my conversation with Jasmine. “Karl was at my dad’s house,” I said. “I tried to talk to Jas about it, but she hung up on me.”
“Karl.” Tommy spoke the name like a curse word. “That bastard!”
“Believe me, I know. I just wish I could make her believe it.”
“He’s being investigated by the IRS, did you know that?”
I did, actually.
Tommy, furious, continued, “And one time he convinced her to – ” His voice dropped off.
“Convinced her to what?”
“Nothing. Never mind.”
“Tell me,” I insisted.
He sighed. “He convinced her to pose nude for him. I think some of those photos ended up on the Internet.”
Furious, I slammed my hands down on the desk. Jas thought that she was good for one thing only: looking beautiful. Karl, predator that he was, knew exactly how to exploit that.
“This is all my fault,” Tommy said. “God! How could I have been so stupid?” He didn’t get angry very often, but he certainly was now. I pictured him with the phone pressed against his ear, pacing circles in a cheap hotel room. “How could I have hurt her like that?”
Tears stung my eyes. He hated himself when I was the one who had caused the entire mess. “It was me,” I said. “I seduced you.”
He laughed harshly. “I knew what I was doing. You didn’t rape me.” Something fell over with a bang. Then something else shattered.
“Tommy!” I said, alarmed. “Are you okay?”
“No! I’m pissed!” He spoke so loudly that I had to pull the phone from my ear. “I’ve been over it in my mind a thousand times, and it still doesn’t make sense. I loved Jasmine, but then all at once, I was in love with you. How did that happen?”
I couldn’t answer that, of course. Not without explaining that I now housed a demon and worked for the Devil.
“I’m sorry, Lil.” His voice softened. “I can’t blame you when I’m just as guilty.”
“Don’t worry,” I begged him. “I promise to take care of Jasmine and keep Karl away from her. I’ll keep you posted, okay?”
“Yeah. Okay.”
We said goodbye and hung up. If nothing else, it had been good to talk to him. I only hoped it wouldn’t be another six months before we spoke again.
As it turned out, it wasn’t even six minutes.
When the phone rang, I immediately picked it up.
Tommy didn’t even bother with ‘hello’. “I can’t stand it. I’m coming home.”
I didn’t try to talk him out of it. “I’ll pay for your ticket,” I said and gave him my credit card number.
“I’m still in Aurangabad, and I’ll have to hitchhike to get to Mumbai. It might take a while, but I’m on my way.” He paused for a heartbeat. “Tell Jas I’m coming, okay? Tell her I love her.”
“I will.”
“And Lil, would you do me another favor?”
“Anything!”
“It would be best if we didn’t see each other. I don’t know what happened before, but I don’t want it to happen again.”
The thought of not seeing him made my chest ache. “Of course.” I blinked back tears. “I understand.” Not seeing Tommy was a cruel punishment, but one I surely deserved.
After Tommy hung up, my succubus suggested that we do something to cheer me up. “Agreed,” I told her and poured more wine.
Not that, she said.
Shuddering, I took a second shot of bourbon to shut her up.
That wasn’t what she meant, either. She told me I needed to do something fun. Something nice. When I asked her what that something was, she delivered a voiceless, inner scream that sliced my brain in half like a sharp knife cleaving through a ripe cantaloupe.
WILLIAM!!!
My eyes popped wide at her betrayal. “Oh, you evil little bitch!” I cried even as William strolled from the otherworld into my kitchen.
“You called?” The corners of his mouth curled in a suggestive smile, and his eyes burned when they touched mine. Lust, hot and sudden, consumed me.
As if reading my thoughts, he headed towards me. My succubus hopped in mad glee, desperate to be united with his incubus demon. But halfway across the room, he stopped and picked up the nearly empty wine bottle. His eyebrows knitted. “Did you drink all of this tonight?”
I gave a guilty shrug.
His concerned frown deepened. “Is something wrong?”
“It’s been a long day,” I said, not wanting to go into details. Especially not with him.
“That’s no excuse. I’ve had plenty of long days, and I never…”
“…you never let it bother you. Yes, I get it. You’re perfect,” I said sourly. I reached for my wineglass, but he moved it out of reach.
“What I was going to say is that I never drink alone. It’s too dangerous. Drinking lowers your inhibitions and gives your demon more control.”
“I’m in control!” I argued.
He crossed his arms over his chest. “Really. So why are you undressing?”
To my horror, I realized my demon had taken over my body and stripped off my shirt. My cheeks flaming, I snatched it from the floor and yanked it over my head.
William poured a shot of whiskey into the glass I’d been using. He knocked it back and smiled. “There. Now you’re not drinking alone.” He took a seat on the couch next to me. “Talk to me, Lil. What made this day so wretched?”
Once again, his demon had fled, leaving the real William behind. The one I wished would stick around more often. I sighed, deciding to trust him. “I keep thinking of all the people I’ve hurt since becoming part demon. I’ve done so much harm to my family!”
He shook his head. “Stop wallowing in your guilt, Lil. Wallowing is never good for the likes of us.”
“That’s easy for you to say,” I argued. “I can’t just tempt and move on.”
“I’m afraid you’re going to have to. It’s a matter of survival.”
I looked into his dark, soulful eyes. I was certain I saw pain hidden there. “What about you? Any regrets?”
For a moment, he hesitated, and I thought he’d be honest. But something scared him off, and in a flash, his pompous, egotistical incubus was back. “I regret nothing.” He smiled lasciviously. “Now, let’s get back to the reason you called me here.”
I was about to argue that I wasn’t the one who’d called him, but when he moved closer, the words died in my mouth. He smelled delicious, and my fingertips tingled at the prospect of running them down his chest. What difference did it make if William and I weren’t a couple? I’d had a hell of a night, and if a little fun could take the edge off my sorrows, then who was I to hold back?
“Well?” he asked.
Instead of replying, I kissed him. He immediately drew me into his arms, and kissed me back with an urgency that made my heart race. When I murmured approval, he stood and gently tugged my hand, leading me into the bedroom. We laid down on the bed, and he slid my shirt up over my stomach, feathering kisses along the waistband of my shorts. Groaning, I ran my fingers through his thick hair.
This was a good idea, I told my succubus. Nice job.
William unfastened the button on my shorts with one hand and traced the other up and down the inside of my thigh, making the muscles in my lower belly clench.
“Now, isn’t this better than wallowing?” he murmured.
It certainly was. My back arched when his fingers found the delicious spot between my legs. A night of passion was just what the doctor ordered.
But what about the morning after, my conscience asked.
Stop it, I scolded. Don’t overthink this.
That’s what you said when you seduced Tommy, it reminded me.
At the thought of Tommy, the pleasantly fuzzy feeling from the alcohol sharpened into common sense. I clenched William’s hair in my fists, yanking it tight.
“Ow!” He lifted his head and rubbed his scalp. “What was that for?”
“Sorry.” My mind was spinning, but not because of the alcohol. I did want sex with William. More than anything. Then again, sex would never be a panacea. Not for me at any rate. I needed a deeper kind of intimacy.
“William?”
“Hmm?” He’d gone back to his lovemaking by kissing my lower jaw, the stubble on his chin a pleasant friction.
“How do you do it?”
“Do what?”
“Live without regrets.”
He moved away and propped himself up on an elbow. “Do you want to talk or make love?”
“Both.”
“Well then, let’s start with the second and move on to the first.”
I pushed him away. “Just tell me how you do it.”
“I’m the perfect incubus, Lilith. I simply know how to keep myself under control at all times.”
I didn’t believe it. “What about when you first started?” I pressed. “Did you make any mistakes then?”
Again, pain flashed in his dark eyes, but he laughed it off. “I was always a ladies’ man. I was seducing women long before I met Helen.”
I believed it. He worked his job like he was born to it.
He traced my lips with his finger. “Don’t worry, Lilith. You’ll learn eventually. It’s just that the learning curve is more difficult for women than for men.”
I stiffened. “What do you mean by that?”
He sighed. “Don’t let your twenty-first century sensibilities mislead you. It’s a known fact. Men are hardier than women.”
“And by hardier, you mean…?”
He rolled onto his back and ran his fingers through his already deliciously mussed-up hair. “Emotionally stronger, okay? More in control of themselves. Not slaves to their emotions.”
I narrowed my eyes. “You’re on dangerous ground.” Once again, he was arrogant. Arrogant and proud of it!
“Relax. Women have their virtues as well.” He leaned in for another kiss, but I pushed him away.
“And what, pray tell, are a woman’s virtues?”
His face reddened. “Did you call me here in order to argue?”
I was about to tell him that I hadn’t called him at all when an otherworld shimmer of energy brought me up short. When Mr. Clerk called my name from the kitchen, William jumped off me like he’d been burned. I buttoned my shirt and fastened my shorts as footsteps came up the stairs. With a miserable look of disappointment, William disappeared through the otherworld doorway in my bedroom. When Mr. Clerk knocked on my bedroom door, I uttered a cheerful, “Come in.”
That had been far too close for comfort. Not just because Mr. Clerk nearly caught us, but because I’d nearly done something I would have regretted.
Chapter Five (#ulink_61142ea9-4eb9-5b66-bb0f-b5549986d32e)
Surprisingly, Mr. Clerk didn’t look much better than I felt. Normally, he was impeccably groomed, but now his white T-shirt was badly wrinkled and there was a coffee stain on his pants.
“Tough afternoon?” I asked.
“You don’t know the half of it,” he said. “Helen won’t leave me alone. I haven’t seen her this worked up about a client in years.” He paused, thinking. “Make that decades.”
“But you scheduled a new appointment?”
He gave a tired smile. “Yes.”
“Let me guess. That time would be now.” Going on an assignment was the last thing I wanted to do, but there was no way to avoid it. In the past six months, one simple rule governed my life: Always do what Miss Spry said.
“Yes. And you’ll need to change.”
“Something backless and sexy?” I asked. “With strappy sandals?”
“No.” Like a magician performing a trick, Mr. Clerk reached behind him and pulled out a large white box topped with a shiny red bow. “I’ve brought you something else.”
Presents always thrilled me. Especially presents wrapped as nicely as this. I tore off the bow and opened the box, expecting a lovely treat from one of my favorite designers. That’s not what I found. “Is this a joke?”
“No joke.”
I held up a pair of jean shorts so small that they might not have fitted Grace. “These aren’t my size.”
His eyes sparkled. “They will be. Come with me, and I’ll show you something new.”
Because Mr. Clerk claimed that I stank of booze, I showered while he sat on the toilet and shouted advice. I’d objected to him coming into the bathroom – “Boundaries,” I’d reminded him – but he’d rolled his eyes. “Lilith, I promise that you don’t interest me in the least.” Because I’d seen him fawning over William, I knew he wasn’t lying.
“You’ve already approached your client looking like yourself, and if you show up in the same form, it will make him suspicious,” Mr. Clerk said. “You need to look different.”
I stepped out of the shower, wrapped in a towel and dripping wet. “What do you want me to do?”
“First,” he said, “I want to work on your height.”
“My height?” I laughed. “You’re expecting me to grow taller?”
“No. Shorter.” He looked completely serious. “How tall are you? Five five? Five six?”
“Five six.”
“Okay, see if you can become five foot, two inches.”
I shook my head. “I have no idea how to do that.”
“Your succubus does,” he said. “Trust her.”
The idea of trusting my demon wasn’t comforting, but I complied with a sigh, closing my eyes and ordering my demon to compact my body.
At first, nothing happened. Then I felt a slight buzzing in my joints, followed by an abrupt plunging sensation, like I’d pressed the ‘down’ button on an express elevator. I opened my eyes just in time to see my head lower about five inches.
Mr. Clerk clapped his hands, delighted. “Nicely done!”
I wiped the steam from the mirror and looked at myself. Yes, I’d lost some height, but my weight had remained the same, giving me a nice, round figure. Horrified, I immediately instructed myself to drop twenty pounds. The muscles along my belly and butt pulled tight, momentarily giving me terrific cramps. The results, however, were amazing. Deciding that Mr. Clerk wouldn’t object, I dropped the towel for a really good look. I’d gone from 5’ 6” and 130 pounds to 5’ 2” and 110 pounds. I was nearly as petite as my mother had been.
I put on my robe and then worked on my facial features. I made my nose a little smaller and my lips a little poutier. I opted for a heart-shaped face that made me look like a pixie. I was even able to adjust the length of my hair, making it shorter in order to add to my elfin appearance.
“Wonderful! Even William isn’t that adept,” Mr. Clerk said.
Ha! Take that, William. I narrowed my eyes and smiled, pleased when the pixie in the mirror did the same.
“Are you sure that I have to wear those clothes you brought?” I asked. It seemed a shame to waste a perfectly good new look on a cheap halter and a pair of Daisy Dukes.
“Yes. They’re perfect for tonight.” He made little shooing motions with his hands. “Go ahead. Try them on.”
Grumbling, I pulled on the tight jean shorts and halter top. Even in my shrunken state, the shorts were so tiny they nearly showed off the bottoms of my butt cheeks. And the cotton halter was so poorly made that it wouldn’t sit right on my body no matter how much I tugged on it. “Where did you get this stuff?”
“Not every job requires designer fashions,” he said. “You need to dress like the people you’ll be meeting.”
“I look trashy.”
“Not quite yet, but you will.” And when he told me what I had to do next, I argued with him for nearly ten minutes. He held firm until, at last, I caved in and gave him what he wanted. When my demon finished, I looked over my shoulder in the mirror, chasing my back end like a dog chases its tail as I tried to get a look at my tattoo: a pair of feathery wings with a flowery wreath in the center. It lay far down on my back, just above the low rise of the shorts.
“My very own tramp stamp,” I said. “I feel so special.”
“You look like a tart,” he agreed, “but the man will never recognize you.”
I didn’t even recognize me. The idea was unsettling. Who was I now? Not Lilith Straight, that was for sure.
“Now about tonight,” Mr. Clerk said. “You are to make sure that your client stays at the bar until it closes. Got it?”
“Got it.” Once again, I fought with the tank top, willing it to stay put. “I don’t understand how that’s going to make Miss Spry happy, though.”
Mr. Clerk shook his head. “You’re not seeing the big picture. These little acts may not seem like much, but added together, they can create something darkly wonderful. If a human makes enough wrong decisions or allows more and more breeches in his moral code, his ethics will crumble. I’ve watched saints turn into monsters simply by refusing to listen to a cry for help. One small sin can add fuel to a holocaust.”
Tommy’s face slipped, unbidden, into my mind’s eye. Suddenly, I wished I hadn’t gotten into this conversation.
“Lilith, I know what you’re thinking.” I glanced at Mr. Clerk’s reflection in the mirror. “But remember, this is all about free will. Even the Devil doesn’t want an automaton. It’s much more fun to capture someone’s soul when they’re begging you to take it.” He patted my arm and then stood. “We have a lot at stake here, Lilith. I don’t want to pressure you, but this job is very important.”
I couldn’t tear my eyes away from the new me. Looking into the mirror and seeing a total stranger looking back was unsettling. “No pressure. Got it.”
“You can do this,” Mr. Clerk said before he left. “I have faith in you.”
At least one of us did.
Following the directions Mr. Clerk gave me, I passed from one otherworldly corridor to the next until I found myself looking into a redneck roadhouse called The Dirty Duck. Even at eleven o’clock, the place was crowded with Saturday night drinkers. Every table was full, and they were three-deep at the bar. A live band played country music while men and women shuffled through a line dance. There were plenty of cowboy boots and cowboy hats, not to mention John Deere baseball caps. A number of heavy women were stuffed like sausages into the tight casings of their T-shirts. This was not my type of crowd, but at least I’d fit in.
I still had twenty minutes before the window for temptation opened. I’d arrived ahead of schedule in order to soften my client up before the big moment. No way would I fail this time. After a final tug on the cheap halter, I stepped through the barrier that marked the human realm from the supernatural one. Immediately, the band’s music became deafening, and the smell of fried food nearly clogged my arteries. I edged my way through the crowd, peanut shells crunching under my feet, as I looked for my victim.
He sat alone on a corner table, several beer bottles scattered in front of him. He’d dressed up for the evening, wearing new jeans and a leather vest over his T-shirt. He looked unhappy.
Or so I thought until the band finished their song. Several dancers broke away from the lines, and two of them came over to his table. One was a tall, broad-shouldered man, and the other was a curvaceous blonde. She sat on my client’s lap, put her arms around his neck, and kissed him. They broke apart just long enough for him to smile and kiss her back.
I stood and stared like a junior-high kid who had watched her first crush ask out her best friend. Why hadn’t anyone thought to mention that my client already had a girlfriend? Suddenly, my night got a whole lot more complicated.
The other man at their table drank his beer and tried very hard not to watch my client and his girl making out like a couple of teens in the back row of a movie theater. He glanced wistfully at the single women sitting at the bar, but didn’t approach any of them. He wasn’t bad-looking, but his long face and large teeth made him miss handsome by a long way. He had nice thick hair, though, and a terrific set of biceps that probably came from hard labor rather than working out at a gym. I wasn’t in the market for a man, but if I had been, I could have done worse than my client’s friend.
Which gave me an idea. If I couldn’t reach my target, I could at least use their third wheel to lever myself inside their cozy circle.
I walked up to the table and leaned over the friend’s shoulder. “Wannna dance?” My succubus threw off charm like she was Tinkerbell with an armful of pixie dust.
“Okay…sure!” He grabbed my hand and pulled me onto the dance floor.
I was actually a pretty good dancer, but that night, no matter how I tried, I couldn’t make sense of what was going on. The line would zig right, and I’d zag left. When they backed up, I’d go forward instead. Twice, I staggered off the edge of the parquet floor and bumped into one of the tables. Apparently, my inner demon had no sense of rhythm. Either that, or I wasn’t used to the proportions of my new body.
Luckily, my client’s friend wasn’t the best dancer himself. His body flopped around like an inflatable tube man on a used car lot. But the grin on his face told me that he was enjoying himself.
Mercifully, the song ended, and my partner asked if I cared to join him for a drink. I gratefully accepted and was finally able to sit down at my client’s table.
“Looks like you found someone who’s a worse dancer than you are, J.T.,” the woman sitting in my client’s lap said. She winked at me. “No offense.”
I smiled sweetly. “None taken.” Bitch.
J.T. glared at her, obviously not appreciating her comment either. Then, to me, he said, “What can I get you?”
Since I’d already spent much of the night drinking, I asked him for soda water with lime. He disappeared into the crowd.
I reached across the table to shake hands. “My name’s Lilith. Nice to meet you.”
The woman had one of those faces that had aged prematurely, and I bet she was a good fifteen years younger than she looked. Twin lines of blush, much too dark for her complexion, striped her cheeks, and her hair was dark at the roots where her bleach job had grown out. I might have felt sorry for her if not for the comment about my dancing. “I’m Darla,” she said, without bothering to shake my hand. “This is Craig.” My client nodded at me, his expression guarded.
After our introductions, my client and his girlfriend sat in stony silence. I attempted small talk to break the ice. “So Craig, where do you work?”
He glared at me. “I don’t.”
“He got laid off today,” Darla said. “Permanently.”
That explained his bad mood. “I’m sorry to hear it,” I said. “Where did you work?”
“Packaging plant,” he said.
“Did you like it?”
“Not really.”
For the next ten minutes, I did my best to draw them into conversation, asking if they came there a lot and if they liked to dance, too. They responded in monosyllables, and eventually stopped answering altogether. An uncomfortable silence settled while I waited for J.T. to return.
When he finally did, he slid into the spot next to me and set a sweating glass of soda on the table. “You from around here?” He had to shout above the music in order to be heard.
“No, I’m from Detroit.” The words were out of my mouth before I knew it. I winced inwardly, cursing myself for my mistake. Giving personal information on a job was not a good idea.
“So what brings you to Orland?” J.T. asked.
I may work for the Father of Lies, but personally, I suck at it. Plus, I was still a little bleary from all the wine I’d drunk earlier. To give myself a moment to think, I took a long swallow of my soda. Then I noticed that the roadhouse was decorated with an outdoorsy motif. There were old fishing poles and snowshoes mounted on the walls, and a moose head hung behind the bar. “I’m visiting up here because I like to fish,” I finally said. “And hunt.”
J.T. laughed. “Well, I never would have guessed that.” Luckily for me, he was not only half in the bag, he was also under the allure of my demon. Unfortunately, Craig and his date were not buying my ridiculous lie. “You ever go out to the range?” J.T. asked.
I had no idea what a range was, but I grinned. “All the time.”
J.T. was lighting up more and more. He probably felt that he’d met his soul mate. “What do you shoot?”
A shooting range! Okay, that made sense. At the same time, my spirits plunged. If I had been a pilot on board an airplane, the dashboard would have been covered with blinking lights all warning me that I was about to crash. It had never occurred to me to prepare an alibi because, until now, my assignments had all been short and to the point. However, I was starting to sense that Craig was going to be a much more difficult project. I needed a better story, and I needed it pronto.
“Well, I’m also a journalist,” I hurriedly added. “I’m writing a piece on sportsmen.” Yes! It had taken a while, but my succubus had finally come to my rescue. “The story’s about how Michigan’s poor economy is taking a toll on tourism.” It was the perfect lie, offered up with an enormous serving of sangfroid. Grateful for my demon’s cunning, I gave her a mental high-five.
At this news, Craig leaned over the table and grabbed my wrist. Hard. His flinty eyes were those of a convicted felon. “What are you really writing about?”
“Sportsmen, like I said.” I locked stares with him. “I’m a journalist for The Detroit News doing a piece on hunters and fishermen.”
“Ease up, man,” J.T. said, but he, too, looked wary.
I smiled and attempted to send a charge of my demon’s allure at Craig, but my confidence was wavering, and as a result, the succubus’s power was limited.
Craig gripped my wrist tighter. “If you’re only here to write an article, then why give us the bull crap story about being a hunter?”
For a moment, I worried that Craig would drive me away from the table before I had a chance to tempt him, but at that moment, a waitress passed by with a tray of beers. “How about I buy the next round,” I offered. I waved the waitress over, and Craig finally let go of my wrist.
Darla looked at her watch. “We can’t stay for another round.” She stood up. “C’mon Craig, let’s go.”
The moment of temptation had finally arrived. It was time for action. “Where are you two off to in such a hurry?” I asked.
Darla gave me a ‘none of your damn business’ look before turning to Craig. “Home by midnight. That’s what you promised.”
Craig remained stubbornly seated. Maybe my job would be easier than I’d expected.
“C’mon,” Darla insisted. “One of us has to work tomorrow.” She tugged on his hand.
“If you need to leave now, I’m sure J.T. will drive Craig home,” I said. Then I glanced at the man sitting next to me, taking in his crooked smile. “Or maybe it would be better if Craig drove J.T. home.”
“Good idea,” Craig said. He gave Darla an evasive look. “I should probably stay.”
Darla glared at him. “You promised to be home by midnight.”
Although Craig obviously did not want to argue with his girlfriend, an argument was just what I needed to drive her out the door and keep him in the bar. Plus, I felt that I owed Darla for the smart remark about my terrible dancing. So I said, “I never met a man so eager to have his girlfriend tell him what to do.”
It worked like a charm. “You still haven’t,” Craig said. “I’m staying.”
Darla put her hands on her hips. “Why do we go through this every week? If you don’t leave right now, it will be the last time you see me. I’m not kidding around.”
“If you make me choose,” he said, “then you’re definitely going home alone.”
As I was inwardly crowing over my triumph, my demon cried out a warning. But it was too late. A waitress carrying a large tray of beers walked past. She clipped the edge of our table which caused her to lose her balance. The tray tilted, and the beers tipped over, drenching Craig.

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