Succubus Takes Manhattan

by Nina Harper

  His eyes narrowed and turned sly. “And you’ve got Keefe on the roster to do your shawl shoot. On a day that I’d already booked for Sonia.”

  Uh-oh. I could see where this was going and it was very bad.

  “But that’s a cover story,” I said softly. “Accessories gets a cover story maybe once every other year if we’re lucky. And I booked Keefe a month ago.”

  Lawrence glared. “Fashion is more important than accessories. My feature on emerging British designers is more important than shawls.” Somehow he managed to spit the word “shawls” as if it were a curse.

  “When is your feature scheduled?” I asked quite reasonably. My shawl story was set to run in November, and if he was after that I could possibly negotiate.

  Lawrence waved his hand in the air. “No definite date yet.”

  Oh. That had to mean that it hadn’t been approved yet. A thought quivered in the back of my head.

  Carefully, deliberately, I kept my face and voice perfectly innocent. “Did Amanda just approve the feature? Because I don’t remember it at the editorial meeting, but I was out of the country for a while . . .”

  Lawrence stood up, all six foot two of him towering over me, and glared down his nose. “You will sign over your booking to me,” he ordered in exactly the same tone my father the King might have used.

  I smiled at him. “I’ll be happy to do that,” I told him. “When Amanda confirms your cover article and the date.”

  “You do not say no to me!” he yelled, moving menacingly close. “You do not contradict me. You do exactly as I say and you do it right now.”

  I am not a princess of Babylon for nothing. I stood up and stared him down. “I report to Amanda, the same as you.” I kept my voice soft and even, but the threat underneath was clear. “And you’d better think twice before you start ordering your colleagues around as if we were your personal servants. No, Lawrence, we do not have to do what you tell us to just because you want something. Your article isn’t approved yet. I don’t think you’ve even proposed it yet. You want to go in with a complete setup to make it harder for Amanda to turn you down, but trust me, she doesn’t like being manipulated that way. I’d recommend that you propose the article through proper channels and schedule your model and photographer through the right office. Now, please leave.”

  Lawrence bellowed. When I wouldn’t drop my gaze, he picked up one of the boxes I’d so carefully set up and hurled it across the room. Then another, and another. Bags flew, cardboard broke. I ducked behind my chair as a Gucci bag weighted with hardware flew at my head.

  Large bangle bracelets bounced off the chair and broke, leaving pieces of jagged metal and plastic in the carpet. Lawrence bellowed again and emptied a box of assorted gloves and scarves for the outerwear issue over my ficus and kicked the plant.

  Then he spotted my spiral-bound notebook lying in the middle of my desk. In his rage he picked it up and tried to tear the entire thing across. When it wouldn’t tear, he began ripping pages out and tearing them and throwing them like confetti around the room.

  I picked up the chair and held it in front of me.

  It’s made of Lucite, both light and see-through so it worked just like police riot shields. As he yelled and stampeded I turned it around so the legs pointed toward him. “Get. Out. Of. My. Office. Now.” I said as I drove him toward the door with the chair.

  My office was a shambles, bags and costume jewelry scattered across the floor. Lawrence cast around but couldn’t find any more ammunition.

  “I will have you fired,” he threatened.

  “I don’t think so,” I replied, nudging him the last few inches.

  There was nowhere else for him to go. With a roar of rage, he left. I locked the door after him and surveyed the wreck of my office, and sank to the carpet in shock.

  I don’t know how long I sat on the floor. The phone rang insistently and finally I couldn’t ignore it any longer. At least he hadn’t trashed my desk. The phone sat where it always did, untouched. I pulled a tissue from the glass box on the windowsill, blew my nose, and picked up the phone.

  “Did you forget our meeting with Nathan?” Sybil asked, her voice full of confusion.

  And that was all it took to break through my haze. “Oh my goodness, Sybil, I’m so sorry. But my colleague barged in here and tried to take my photographer and trashed my office and threatened me!”

  “Oh, dear Satan, are you okay? Can you come over now?” she asked.

  “Yes,” I said, horrified that I’d spaced on the time, and opened the door.

  I started to pick up the boxes, wondering how long it would take me to re-create all the selections I’d finished up. They were all carefully recorded in my spiral notebook, the pages of which were torn and scattered among the other detritus.

  “Wait.” Danielle stood in the door watching me. “Don’t pick anything up yet. Do you have a camera? We should take pictures.”

  My eyes widened at this suggestion. “This is assault,” she said. “Physical aggression. Destruction of property. Harassment in the workplace is a major issue at any corporation these days.”

  “I need to go home and I need to do something about this,” I said, waving my arms at the mess.

  Danielle shook her head. “Not now,” she said. “Not just yet. Just go home.”

  I caught a cab and hit Sybil’s building two minutes after one. I went upstairs to find that Nathan was already seated on the sofa with a thick portfolio open on the coffee table.

  Sybil was barefoot, her eyes neon red and her hair carelessly pulled into a ponytail. She wore a pair of Citizen jeans and a Donna Karan cashmere sweater as if they were old sweats. She tried to smile at me but she was too close to tears.

  I flung my arms around her, not noticing the last streaks of her mascara on my shoulder. “I’m so scared,” she said as she hugged me and cried again.

  “We’ll take care of this,” I said gently. “You’ve been talking to Nathan. He told me that Vincent was probably fine.”

  “Yes,” she said. “Probably.” And then the waterworks started again.

  I wondered where Eros was. She’d probably gone on to her office now that she’d taken care of Sybil and scolded me and got Nathan working on the case. I wanted to ask, but that probably wouldn’t be a very good idea under the circumstances.

  Nathan got up and came over to me. He looked as if he were about to shake my hand and then stopped, confused, because it was appropriate and weird and wrong all at the same time. We stood there awkwardly for a minute until I sat on one of the silk-upholstered slipper chairs.

  Nathan sat down and resettled his papers on his lap, looking for all the world like a salesman or an accountant. “Let me go over this,” he said, all business. “Do we know that Vincent left his place of work at seven? Did anyone see him go that you know of? I’ll go down and ask the day man myself, but when did you actually have contact with him last?”

  “I talked to him around four in the afternoon,” said Sybil. “And he said he’d come straight over after he finished at seven.”

  “We know that he knew about Branford and was dedicated to keeping both of you safe, but do you know if he actually saw Branford? Did he plan to try to investigate on his own? Or did he plan to stay in place to protect both of you? And are there any other obligations he might have had, anyone else who might wish him harm, anyone whom he might want to work with? You’ve indicated that he is quite ambitious. Could he have gone off on his own to try to impress someone? You? Mephistopheles?”

  Nathan’s voice remained entirely even. Sybil poured coffee and tried to answer, and I tried to help her. But we didn’t know any more than I had told him over the phone. No, Vincent had said that he was staying at work. And while Vince may well have wanted to go off on his own and be a hero—both for Sybil and his future in Hell—he was also disciplined and careful about his priorities.

  Sybil and I just looked at each other and shook our heads.

  “What were th
e circumstances of his death?” Nathan asked, nonplussed.

  I shrugged. “I think he was killed in an accident. A car accident,” Sybil said, waving her hands helplessly. “I’m sure there were some enemies, he was qualified to become a demon, after all. But nothing big. And he wasn’t from the city, though I think he’d been familiar with it before he died. I mean, I think he might have come into town for some of the clubs before, but he was never on the Upper East Side. He used to tell me about it. I was teaching him about shopping and what kinds of clothes he should wear, as someone shooting for CEO.”

  Nathan’s eyebrows went up. “He was shooting for CEO?”

  Sybil winced. Nathan was hopelessly naive about Hell. “No,” she said. “But you should always dress for the role ahead of the one you want. It impresses people. Especially our people. Satan is a stickler for style, especially in Her inner circle. The more powerful and important demons are always physically beautiful and exquisitely dressed.”

  “Is Vincent beautiful?” Nathan asked.

  “Not quite yet,” I told him. “Vincent is definitely attractive as humans go, but upper-level demons usually pay Admin for improvement jobs. It’s expensive, but worth it.”

  He studied me. “Have you had an . . . improvement job?”

  Suddenly I was seeing the ex-boyfriend, the unpleasant part of the ex, too. I rolled my eyes and said nothing.

  At least Nathan had the grace to look embarrassed. “So you expect that at some point in the future, Vincent will change his appearance as a career move. Do you think he could have done that already, or be in the process?” he asked, avoiding my eyes.

  Sybil shook her head. “He couldn’t afford it. We’d talked about when he would have saved enough in favors and gotten enough power on his own to pay Admin. Their rates for this are pretty steep and he wasn’t there yet. He’d only been a demon for a few months! And for that he’s come very far. And he would have told me if he were ready to do anything like that. He would have consulted me, discussed exactly what he wanted done or should have done. I have more experience and I know Satan and I know he wanted to please Her. And now—” Sybil burst into tears again.

  Nathan nodded and made a notation in his book. “Has he ever missed or been late for an appointment before? Do you have his current address? Was he reliable at work?”

  Sybil nodded vigorously. “He’s never late. He’s good at work, I know. The other guys think he’s amazing, especially for such a young guy. And his address—wait a minute, let me write it down for you.” I glanced over and saw it was way uptown on the West Side. That would give him an unpleasant commute to my building. “Are you going to go search his apartment?” Sybil asked, almost as an afterthought.

  “I may,” Nathan said carefully.

  Sybil bit her lip. “I’ll come with you. He gave me a key.”

  I sat up a little straighter. I hadn’t known they’d been that serious.

  “Did he have the key to your place as well?” Nathan asked, all business.

  “Yes,” Sybil said. “It was reasonable. He was always doing nice little things for me.”

  “So he had your key,” Nathan repeated. Then he turned to me. “And he had access to your apartment as well.”

  I shrugged. “He’s our doorman, what good would he be if he couldn’t let in the plumber or hang up the dry cleaning? But I don’t think he would have it on him, I think they have a set of master keys in the office.”

  Nathan made notes and asked more questions about Vincent’s habits and his job. I was a little embarrassed that Sybil knew a lot more about my building security than I did.

  “You’ve called his apartment as well as his cell?” Nathan asked after it seemed like he’d exhausted all the avenues of inquiry.

  “He doesn’t have a landline,” Sybil said. “He just uses his cell as his main phone.”

  He seemed to consider a matter before he spoke. “Normally, I don’t like having clients along when I’m investigating, but since you have a key to his apartment I’m not sure there would be a problem if you came along.”

  “And me,” I included myself immediately. Nathan looked like he was going to protest, but I stood up and put on my coat. “I’m going with Sybil. I’m not letting her deal with this by herself.” The fact that he would be there was immaterial. A close woman friend, that was one thing. Your friend’s ex? Not much better than useless.

  chapter

  ELEVEN

  So we all crammed into a taxi to Washington Heights, right up under the George Washington Bridge—the west One-Sixties and on. Washington Heights is what real estate agents call a “transitional” neighborhood. Until very recently, it was working class and poor and ethnic, mainly immigrants who didn’t have family established in better neighborhoods. I remembered when it was Jewish and Italian and Greek and then Hispanic. Bodegas—where you can buy pork rinds and saints’ candles and other occult paraphernalia mixed in with the Campbell’s soup and ramen noodles and toilet paper—still dot the street corners. The complexion of the area is in the process of changing again, this time from poor and immigrant to young and hip and hopeful.

  Overhead the bridge traffic rumbles nonstop and the streets are in deep shadow from the tangle of overpasses and the bus station that perches atop giant pylons. Sybil led us to a run-down building next to one of the bridge access entrances. The place looked like a relic from the near past, the first floor and stairwell covered with graffiti, mainly in green and silver, probably gang tags. The linoleum on the stairs was worn through to the sub-flooring and I could hear TV voices shouting in Spanish.

  Vincent lived on the third floor. Sybil fitted two keys into two locks, one of them of the police bar variety favored in iffy areas. The door itself was solid metal, made to withstand serious attack.

  We entered through the kitchen, which was aggressively clean and unfathomably large. I looked to explore the cabinets under a huge slab of countertop, but couldn’t find the doors. “It’s a bathtub,” Sybil said softly, and then I saw that the Formica slab was just a loose, heavy piece which could be removed. And, as Sybil said, it was a bathtub, old and scarred enamel scoured impeccably clean.

  The kitchen led directly to another room in the railroad car arrangement. This middle room appeared to be a study and living room. A large TV sat against the wall and a small desk was tucked into a corner. I watched Nathan go through the desk methodically, sifting the bills and noting the books. I noted the books, too, all of the new demon coursework through the first four years. Vincent was definitely ambitious. Most demons didn’t qualify past the first year or so of study. Most preferred the other employment opportunities to the long years of apprenticeship and all the exams to rise in the ranks of Hell.

  Nathan moved around with confidence, making notes, looking, wiping a finger over the remotes to see how long they’d been unused. I was impressed with the way he searched: patient, organized, in command in an unfamiliar environment.

  Sybil had already moved into the bedroom. I was shocked to see the bed was made. Fine linens, six-hundred-thread-count sheets and a duvet cover in sage green looked vaguely familiar. Oh, right, Syb’s from before she’d redecorated. They had seemed feminine mixed with her florals, but here the simple lines and solid colors looked tailored, disciplined, and masculine. A framed picture of Sybil stood on the left side of the pine dresser, symmetrically balanced with a photo of an older, dark-haired woman on the right.

  “His mother,” Sybil said when she noticed me looking. “That was his biggest regret about being a demon, that he couldn’t come back and take care of her.”

  Other than the photos, the bedroom seemed strangely impersonal. The bed was freshly made, the clothes uniformly folded and organized in the dresser, the closet hung with all the shirts arranged by color and facing in the same direction.

  Sybil stood in the middle of the room shaking her head. “It’s wrong,” she said, and wrung her hands. “It’s just . . . wrong.”

  Nathan was next to he
r immediately. “What’s wrong?”

  Sybil looked around as if she were trapped. “Vincent is neat, he keeps the place well,” she stared slowly. “But . . . he’s not this anal. Not usually. And there’s only one uniform hanging in the closet, and he has three.”

  “Well, he was wearing one for work,” I said. “And the third could be at the cleaners.”

  “Then he didn’t come home to change,” Nathan said crisply and made more notes. “Let’s go through room by room, Sybil, and you tell me what’s wrong.”

  She looked around the bedroom again. “The uniforms. Everything is too neat in the closet. I think someone else must have gone through it.” She turned and looked at the bed. “There’s no book on the end table.”

  “He kept books in here?” I was surprised. I hadn’t pegged Vince as an intellectual.

  She nodded. “His current course work, and notebooks. He wrote out his notes by hand. He was working on The Hierarchy and Sin series.”

  We went back to the living room and this time Sybil looked over the bookcase by the desk. “And look here, none of the books from that series is here, either.” She looked around and appeared confused for a moment. “Something else is missing.”

  Nathan nodded. “Electronics. We can assume he had his phone on him, but there’s no computer.”

  Sybil nodded thoughtfully. “Right. I don’t see his computer. Or his iPod, or his camera. None of them.”

  “You know he had the iPod and the camera?” I didn’t think he’d earned that much.

  Sybil turned red. “I loaned him my old ones I didn’t need anymore.”

  “Are we done?” I asked, but I should have known better. Nathan went to examine the bathroom, only to find that there wasn’t one. There was a tiny water closet next to the kitchen.

  “There’s only the tub and sink in the kitchen,” Sybil said. She opened a cabinet next to the sink and, sure enough, it had a cheap mirror hung on the inside and the lowest shelf held a toothbrush, toothpaste, shaving cream, deodorant, and shampoo.