Succubus Takes Manhattan

by Nina Harper

  “Lily, would you look at this?” Nathan’s voice sounded a bit strained and low, close to my shoulder.

  I turned to face him and was overwhelmed with his presence enveloping me. We were alone and the smell of his cologne (Versace L’Homme—thank goodness, something decent) and cashmere, the broad shoulder so tempting to lean on, the impulse to simply melt into him was nearly irresistible. Suddenly his arms were around me and he held me so tight and it felt so good. His face was just over mine. “Lily, Lily,” he whispered and all of a sudden we were kissing.

  His mouth devoured me. Why had we been apart? Why had we broken up? There was only this feeling of return between us, the knowledge that we both belonged here, together, with each other.

  He knew it, he had to feel it quivering like a frightened thing between us.

  Then he broke the kiss gently and stepped back. One single step. Not so much away from me but to show me something.

  “Look at this,” he said, and he pointed to the trash bin which he had pulled out from under the sink.

  “I’d rather not,” I replied, smiling. “It’s trash.”

  Nathan nodded. “Exactly. Do you have any idea how much information is in the trash? Archaeologists love trash middens. And here we are, and . . . look. Just look.”

  I took a deep breath and looked into the plastic-lined canister. There was a toothpaste box, coffee grounds and filters, and a few pieces of paper that looked like grocery receipts and movie stubs.

  Nathan reached down to the papers, and that was when I noticed that he had put on latex gloves. I was impressed; I never would have thought of that. But it enabled him to reach into the garbage and grab the papers. I didn’t see why they would be interesting. Nathan, though, wasn’t bothering with the movie tickets. Instead he had laid out the receipts on the counter, facedown, and that was when I saw the writing.

  Single words, as if they were personal reminders. They didn’t make any sense to me. “Get Sybil,” Nathan said to me.

  I found my friend still fondling the remotes with a bemused expression. “The other things should be here,” she said. “He was methodical, he kept all the remotes and the iPod and camera together. Everything in one place, he always said. And I always joked that this apartment was so small that there was only one place.”

  I put my arms around her and let her cry quietly for a minute before I told her that Nathan needed her in the kitchen. Then I steered her gently around the beanbag chair and the table.

  Nathan wasted no time. “Please, Sybil, we need your help. Take a look at this. Don’t touch it, just look. Is that Vincent’s handwriting?”

  She shook her head No.

  “Are you sure?” he asked again.

  “I’m sure,” she said.

  “Even I’m sure,” I added. I’d seen Vincent’s writing any number of times, on work orders and messages and notes detailing what a plumber or electrician had done while I was out. Vincent printed everything in neat, boxy letters that looked like he’d been trained to write on blueprints or something like that. The words here were scribbled cursive only vaguely intelligible, where Vincent’s writing was more legible than half the fonts on my computer.

  Nathan looked at them and hummed. Then he turned them over to the receipt side. I was confused. What could a grocery receipt tell him? Well, one was from Duane Reade. Nathan looked at that and then opened the cupboard where we’d discovered Vincent’s toothbrush.

  “What information can you get from a pharmacy receipt?” I asked, curious.

  Nathan smiled. “Look at this. First of all, this Duane Reade is in Brooklyn, see the address down here? Now look—there’s a shampoo purchase here.”

  “Yes, so?” I asked.

  Sybil’s eyes opened very wide. “Not the same shampoo as in the cabinet. The one on the receipt is Suave—look here. And Vincent uses L’Oréal.”

  “So this isn’t his handwriting and it isn’t his receipt,” I repeated slowly, understanding the implications. “And so if there are addresses on the other receipts we have some idea of where he’s being held!”

  “Not so fast,” Nathan said softly as he studied and made notes to himself. “We don’t know that he’s kidnapped or in trouble. So far as we know at the moment, he could be gone entirely voluntarily, although that looks less likely. What we do know is that there was someone here who was not Vincent. We know that this person shopped someplace that was not in this neighborhood.”

  “We know that person used cheap shampoo,” Sybil added.

  “A common brand,” Nathan agreed. “Those are the hardest to trace. Anyway, we know that someone else was here and possibly cleaned up after himself, and maybe took the electronics.”

  “A thief?” Sybil asked.

  Nathan shook his head. “A thief wouldn’t have left the place so neat. I’d bet serious money that whoever was here wiped down the surfaces so there won’t be prints. No, the electronics that were taken were things that could have useful information. I wonder . . .” He looked out the window blankly, his mind somewhere else.

  “What?” Sybil was agitated and worried. And I didn’t blame her.

  “I wonder if he was waylaid so that someone else could come up here and search. But for what? For keys? For his computer?”

  The computer was obvious. “You’re sure he didn’t bring it to work?” Nathan asked.

  “No, never,” Sybil insisted. “It was a Dell laptop, a big one. Fifteen inches, I think, too big for me to haul around. Mostly he just used it here, and for MagicMirror, of course. But it’s definitely gone. It’s too big to hide easily and it always sat on his desk or the bedside table.”

  Nathan gathered up the receipts from the counter and looked in all the other trash cans in the place to make sure there wasn’t anything else interesting in them. Then he put the slips of paper into an envelope and labeled it, and then put it into a plastic baggie in his notebook. I was impressed; he was acting just like a detective on the cop shows. He peeled off the latex gloves and dropped them into the kitchen garbage and asked Sybil to close up. “I don’t want any of us to leave prints, but Sybil has been here and her prints would be expected,” he explained as we exited.

  “I want to get this into the office and check it for prints, though I doubt they left any. Whoever was there looks very professional,” he added.

  “What do we do?” Sybil asked.

  Nathan turned and faced her, and took both her hands in his. He was so kind with her, so grave and determined. “We will find him. I’m in a big agency and we do this all the time. What you do is wait. Try to go about your normal routine. I know that’ll be hard, but try anyway. Go to your office, go home, see friends, go to your usual places. If this is a kidnapping they will most likely contact you.”

  “Do you think it is a kidnapping?” Sybil asked softly.

  Nathan stared into her eyes and smiled slightly. “I can’t tell yet, but right now the indications are against it. I think they wanted Vincent’s computer and files, and got him out of the way for a while. I don’t think they intended to kill him or even hurt him, or they wouldn’t have left the apartment so neat and clean. That wouldn’t make sense. They don’t want him to know that it’s been searched and things are missing, not immediately. And they cleaned their prints. They expect him to come back here.”

  “You really think so?” Hope was struggling feebly in Sybil’s eyes.

  “I’m just pointing out the evidence,” Nathan said firmly, and I wanted to throw my arms around him and kiss him again. Once for myself and once for how wonderful he was being to Sybil, addressing her concerns and calming her with facts, but not making empty promises.

  But it still bothered me. “Why?” I asked. “Why would anyone search Vincent’s apartment? Why would anyone kidnap him? What would they want?”

  “Money?” Sybil suggested. “I do have money. I don’t know what else. Unless they just hate demons.”

  “But if they just hate demons, why Vincent?” I pondered. “Beca
use he’s associated with us? Why not one of us? And what would they want, anyway? It doesn’t make any sense to me.”

  Nathan shook his head. “We don’t know for certain that Vincent has been kidnapped. We don’t know what happened, yet, and it’s my job to try to find out. Why don’t you both go home for a bit? Lily, could you go with Sybil? You both need lunch. I’ll bet you haven’t eaten anything all day, have you?” This last was said to Sybil again, and she shook her head.

  “Then go on. See if there is anything else you can think of. There may be some information when you get there. I’m going to take this to my office. We’ll be in touch.” With that last he looked directly at me. I wanted to throw my arms around him and tell him not to go, to come with us, with me. To stay with me tonight, forever.

  And then he was down the staircase before I could say anything. By the time Sybil and I had made it to the front door he was closing a car door behind him.

  “We’ll have to call a car service,” Sybil said. She had a number on speed dial, which made me wonder how often she came this far uptown with Vincent.

  Sybil insisted that she would be fine, and that I should go home and get some rest; and so I dropped her at her apartment and went home. Alone.

  chapter

  TWELVE

  A short nap and a hot bath later, I had just climbed into the realm of survivable. I’d lit three aromatherapy candles, one for calm, one for relaxation, and one for stress release. This was possibly a mistake as the scents blended into a jumbled mishmash rather than a pleasing potpourri. Still, I managed not to think about Vincent or Lawrence or work or even Meph and his problems. I let my mind drift over my wardrobe instead. After all, I still had a date tonight.

  Then my cell phone shattered my fragile cocoon.

  I debated not picking it up. The whole thing hurt too much, as if I were sore from a ski accident and achy all over, and any pressure, any interruption only made the dull throbbing erupt into acute agony.

  The phone did not stop, and so, knowing that this was a stupid move, I answered it.

  “Lily, you were brilliant,” Danielle said over a strangely echoey connection. “Lawrence, he stormed out of the office screaming. He ran into the street, he didn’t even take his coat.”

  “Don’t tell me he got run over,” I said, terrified that I’d killed the guy—without ensuring his eternal torment first.

  “We are not so lucky,” Danielle answered. “But he is gone for today, and who knows how long he will stay gone. He was in a rage. He pounded on Amanda’s door and demanded that she fire you immediately.”

  “And?” I asked. Lawrence might be powerful enough to make such demands and even get Amanda to listen to him, but she didn’t make editor in chief by being an idiot.

  “She told him to stuff it. Just like that,” Danielle chortled. “She said she was tired of his infantile displays. I quote exactly. She said those very words. That is when he left.”

  “Danielle, you’re an angel,” I told her, crossing my fingers. Not that Danielle is not the best coworker in the world, but “angel” isn’t exactly a compliment where I’m from. “What do you think will happen?”

  “I do not know,” she said airily. “It does not matter. You have won. Amanda supported you and told Lawrence that he was infantile. Which he is. I think the meeting tomorrow will be very interesting. But . . . I still do not understand what the problem was. What made him so very angry with you?”

  Ahhhh, now I understood why she was calling. I was shocked that she hadn’t been able to hear every word even though the door was closed. And I wondered if she’d called out of her own curiosity or if some of the others had put her up to it.

  “You know, everyone has looked at your office,” Danielle told me after I’d finished my recitation. “It looks like Iraq, like someone fought a war in there. All those lovely purses, all over the floor.”

  I almost sniffled. “Don’t let anyone take anything. Tomorrow I’ll have to redo what I did today. There are some really nice bags for a bunch of the upcoming shoots. If nothing’s damaged, a lot of the folk in fashion are going to be very happy.”

  “You will have much support,” Danielle assured me solemnly. “What are you doing now? When you left for lunch we thought you needed to go home and drink and take a lot of Valium.”

  “I had a bath and I’m going to have to go get dressed. I have a date tonight.”

  “Oh, no,” Danielle exclaimed. “How can you have a date after such a terrible day? Tonight you should wear only your slippers and eat foie gras and chocolate and not have to be amusing or look elegant.”

  I laughed. “Really, Danielle, I’m a bit shaky but I think a date is just the thing to take my mind off the whole Lawrence debacle.” Not to mention Vincent.

  She joined me in laughter. “Well, then, we shall see you tomorrow at editorial meeting?”

  “If I’m not in before the meeting do you think anyone would mind?”

  “Lily, if you manage to make it to meeting tomorrow at all you will be our heroine. Already everyone thinks that you deserve at least a full day of sick leave and extra hazard pay.” Danielle said this very seriously, which always made her accent more pronounced.

  “That’s the best reason in the world for me to show up. So I guess I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  When I got off the phone I felt much better. Definitely worth dripping down the hallway to get the call, I decided. Suddenly I felt free of the crushing misery of Lawrence’s tantrum and ready to go out with Marten.

  I was just thinking it was time to leave when the intercom buzzed. An unfamiliar doorman came on the line and announced that Marten was here and should he send him up?

  I was disoriented and a bit confused. I’d thought I was meeting Marten at his hotel. I hadn’t expected him to come up to me. “I’ll meet him in the lobby,” I said, and grabbed my coat and bag.

  The lobby of my building is not as grand as Eros’s, but it is warm and comfortable. Two large overstuffed club sofas face each other on the polished marble tile floor in front of an oversized fireplace. Usually fires are lit from December through February, but this month was cold enough that a fire was roaring on the hearth. I was glad that Marten had the opportunity to sit in comfort. He sat as close to the fire as he could get and was staring into it, and he didn’t see me arrive.

  “Marten, I’d thought I was going downtown to pick you up. I hadn’t expected you to come here,” I said as I approached.

  Marten shrugged. “Yes, I know I was taking a chance, but it did seem the more polite thing to do. You don’t mind?”

  I shook my head.

  “You didn’t want me to come up,” he said. He made it a simple statement of fact, without accusation or edge.

  “I had a bad day at work and the place is a mess. I didn’t want you to see dirty dishes and lingerie draped all over,” I said lightly.

  He smiled, and his eyes crinkled pleasantly at the corners and warmed. “I am sorry, I should have thought,” he said. “Of course you could not be expected to want a visitor on a workday. Where did you want to eat? Unlike my own city, which is more like a small town compared to this, there are so many choices that I could not decide.”

  “I made a reservation at Pastis,” I told him. Thank the Internet for Opentable.com—and some pull in Hell to get a table at one of the hottest places in the city at the last minute. Meph must want something from Marten very badly to give us his reservation, because it was Meph who offered. I would have been fine taking my chances on the line at Cafeteria.

  We got into a taxi and piled several large shopping bags into the trunk. I waited until we were settled and the cabbie confirmed where we were going before I popped the question. “Why did you come pick me up? We could have missed each other.”

  “But we didn’t,” Marten said. “I was in the neighborhood anyway and I wanted to see where you lived. It’s very nice.”

  “In the neighborhood?” I was suspicious.

  “Barneys.”
Well, okay, he did have the evidence. Those shopping bags. There wasn’t anything like Barneys in Orangestad.

  But Barneys was twenty blocks downtown. Not in the neighborhood at all, not by my reckoning.

  Marten reached over and took my hand across the cab’s backseat. “I am so happy that you have some time to see me this evening. You had a bad day at work—will you tell me about it?”

  Maybe I was just in a suspicious mood, but I wasn’t buying the terribly nice-guy act. He was covering something up. I was intrigued, but I wasn’t going to pass by an opportunity to tell him about Lawrence and his temper tantrums and how he terrorized the entire office. I didn’t tell him about Vincent, though. Not quite yet.

  And Marten listened. All the way downtown from the 60s (since it took that long to have the earlier part of the conversation) he paid attention, asked appropriate questions, appeared to actually process what I was saying. By the time we got out at Pastis, he had said very little besides “Why is that?” and “He did what?”

  We were seated much faster than I had ever been at Pastis. I don’t know whether it was because it was a Monday night, which is traditionally slow, or whether there was a special tick next to Meph’s reservation. In any case, we were shown to a quiet table far from the door and the waiter’s station, handed menus and left alone.

  We took a break in the conversation to think about food. Pastis is the sister restaurant to Balthazar, but their menus are somewhat different. After some consideration I decided on the homemade mushroom ravioli because I was definitely in need of comfort food.

  After we ordered, Marten asked again about Lawrence. “Are you certain he isn’t in the Hierarchy? He sounds like he could be demonic.”

  I shook my head. “Not a chance, unfortunately.”

  “Unfortunately?”

  I rolled my eyes at my date. “If Lawrence were a demon, unless he’s at Meph’s level I would outrank him. He’d think twice before blowing up at one of Satan’s Chosen. And he really wouldn’t try to make me give up my reserved photographer for a project that he hasn’t even gotten okayed yet. Besides, if he were a demon, I expect that I would have learned somewhere.”