Succubus Takes Manhattan

by Nina Harper

  “I’m going to call in an order,” Desi said too brightly. “What do people want? We’ve got one Shrimp with Cashews. How about more Peking ravioli and some Mu Shu Chicken?”

  “Um, fine,” Nathan gulped.

  “How’s the Hunan Pork?” Meph asked.

  “Not bad,” Eros said. “But not as hot as you might like it.”

  “I’ll take an order of Firey Twins, then,” Meph said, and returned his attention to Azoked.

  “I see precisely what Lily is asking for, and I applaud her for thinking of the larger picture and calling you in on the case. So, Azoked of the Akashic Library, I am asking you myself to undertake this project. It could prove vital in the history of Hell, of the entire Hierarchy. And we shall all be most grateful.”

  Azoked got up and nodded to Mephistopheles. “Indeed, I shall be happy to do this research. This is the kind of analysis that a Librarian lives for, that does not come so often to those of us who labor among the records. And, of course, it will be my honor to serve Mephistopheles.”

  My mouth was open so wide that my jaw nearly hit the coffee table. Azoked certainly knew the polite phrases of the older aristocracy, that was for sure.

  Then, even more amazingly, Azoked bowed to Meph and disappeared. Back to the Akashic, I assumed, to start on her new project. But she hadn’t even waited to see if we’d ordered her sashimi. Which we hadn’t.

  “Well, the answer to the kidnapper’s request is simple enough,” Meph said as he cast a glance over the debris of our demolished takeout. He must have been hungry. “We take a minor demon, enchant her to look like Lily, and then make the switch. When we do the enchantment we add a marker we can trace in the magic, so we can find where they take her. Then we attack the lot of them on their own territory where they think they are safe. . .”

  “Except for the demon you enchant,” Nathan protested. “What happens to her? She could be tortured, or even killed, and you don’t care.”

  Eros rolled her eyes, but Meph met him head-on. “No. The demon will be a volunteer, and she is immortal. She can’t be killed. She may suffer a few moments of pain, yes, but she will be serving me and, more important, Satan. She will have my favor and will be well situated to advance. It is a very small price for the potential benefits. I expect that we’ll have a fair number of volunteers.”

  “Absolutely not,” Nathan protested. “Even if it weren’t unethical, we don’t negotiate with kidnappers. Ever. We have no guarantee that they actually have Vincent, and if they do we can’t trust that they’ll actually trade him back. We need to track them down, and we should be doing that now.”

  “But it’s a good plan,” I said. I think I was pleading.

  Then Nathan turned his eyes on me and his look was cold. “Yes,” he said. “You’re one of them. Ethics in Hell, what was I thinking? Of course you’ll let someone else take the fall for you while you go off scot-free and you don’t even care. You know, Lily, until this minute I had almost forgotten what you are.”

  No. Oh no. He wasn’t going to blame me for that. That was his problem. I was about to lash into him when Meph held up his hands.

  “Nathan, why don’t you pursue your avenues of inquiry?” Meph said diplomatically. “I can certainly get a volunteer and we can be ready to go in case we need to. We have four hours. If you can’t find any leads in that time, we can go with my plan. Unless you have a better one?”

  “Lily, where are you in this? Are you going to help Mephistopheles or are you going to try to track down the kidnappers with me?” Nathan pleaded.

  He was clearly confused. Meph’s plan was excellent, and would work. And would gain the volunteer a career in Hell that she couldn’t have dreamed of otherwise. Thousands of lesser demons compete every day to come to the attention of the higher circles.

  “You think a little bit of physical pain is unethical,” I said to him in a low voice. I didn’t really want all these witnesses to our argument. “But you can torment me, you can throw me out of your life without a second thought and that’s just fine. Because I’m a demon so my feelings don’t count. At least our volunteer will know what she’s getting into and will get some serious benefits in return for her few hours of misery. Me? I’ve been miserable for a month and you think you’re Mr. Nice Guy.”

  I turned my back and flounced across the room. I didn’t want to hear his answer, didn’t want to see his face. I was too furious to even think.

  Fortunately, the intercom rang just then as a doorman announced the arrival of the second wave of food. I went to the door and Meph met me as the delivery man arrived. Meph pulled out his wallet, which I found strange. I already had cash in hand. Meph slowly returned his wallet to his jacket pocket as I paid for the large bag.

  As I cleared away the empty cartons and opened the new steaming ones on the table, I heard Nathan move to the door. “I’ll be in touch,” he said. And then I heard the door close behind him.

  Even though my apartment was jammed with people I felt cold and horribly alone. I think a tear rolled down my cheek.

  “You’re getting the Peking ravioli soggy,” Eros said. I didn’t care.

  It was Desi who came up to me, Desi who led me from the food table to the sofa and sat me down and handed me my own Kleenex. It was Desi who told me to blow my nose and Desi who fed me a Benadryl and a big dish of Shrimp with Cashews.

  “You’ve been so brave and caring,” she said as she petted my hair. “You’ve put Vincent’s safety ahead of your hurt at seeing Nathan now, to have to work with him and even feed him in your own apartment. You’ve been so good to all of us, to Sybil, to everyone, and no one has said anything to you at all. So I’m going to say it. You’re the best friend ever.”

  And then Eros and Sybil joined Desi hugging me while Meph disappeared into the bedroom.

  “I’m sorry,” Sybil said. “I’ve been so scared and worried about Vincent that I didn’t ever tell you how much I admire you being willing to deal with Nathan at all. I’m really sorry about this whole mess and about dragging you into it.”

  What can I say? My friends are the greatest.

  I was heartbroken and so was Sybil; we didn’t talk much. Meph broke the silence when he came back into the room.

  “I have a volunteer,” he announced.

  chapter

  SEVENTEEN

  Her name was Raven (how unoriginal) and she was scrawny, too young, and scared-looking. She also looked determined.

  “I’ve been a demon for seven months,” she said. “And yeah, of course I want to advance. I’m not stupid. But I also know Vincent from class—we were in orientation group together and we’ve been study partners, so I’m doing this for him, too.”

  Sybil eyed her suspiciously. “Are you in love with him?” she practically hissed.

  Raven laughed, and her laughter was clear and resonant and merry, and made me like her at least a little better. “Not even a little bit,” she said straight to Syb. “He’s too mainstream for me. Nah, I go for skinny long-haired guys with ink and facial piercings who wear nail polish and read Rilke. Preferably in the original. But Vincent is a good study partner. He doesn’t distract me and he’s smart and, even though you might not figure it out from the way I look, so am I. We’re buddies, that’s all.”

  I could feel Sybil tremble next to me. “Come on,” I whispered. “She’s flat-chested and she bites her nails. And look at her clothes. No, Vincent appreciates class and beauty and elegance. You’ve got no competition, Syb. Relax.”

  “That outfit came from some mall shop on Long Island,” Eros agreed. “Not Vincent’s style at all.”

  Raven giggled. “Yeah, I’d agree that I’m not his style. He’s not mine.” She studied Sybil carefully. “You’re his girlfriend, the famous greed demon?” the little baby demon demanded.

  Sybil nodded.

  “Well, if you want to know, he talks about you all the time. About how beautiful and elegant and smart and talented you are. He’s been pushing the coursework rea
lly hard because he wants to impress you, doesn’t think he has a shot until he makes a mark in the Hierarchy. He keeps saying things like, ‘She’s Satan’s Chosen, how could I be in her league?’ And I’m the one who has to keep reminding him that everyone started someplace and you couldn’t have started out as Satan’s Chosen. But it gives me hope for my own future, so it’s really exciting for me to meet you.”

  “And so you’re hoping to catch his attention by volunteering. He should be grateful to you,” Sybil said.

  The girl deflated. I tried to imagine her when she was human, probably from some suburb, a little too smart, a little too weird for her family and school, always passed over and pushed aside. Her hair was dyed black with blue and violet streaks, shaved underneath but stringy and spiked on top. For some reason the facial piercings were actually cute on her, one emphasizing her lower lip, and the other in her cheek. Where a dimple would have been if she’d had dimples. If she ever smiled.

  The look she gave Sybil was suddenly shockingly mature and measured. “No,” she said, and it was clear she was serious. “I’m doing it because I have ambitions too. I want to be one of Satan’s Chosen. I might never have thought of it if Vincent hadn’t told me about all of you. Here he was in my orientation group and dating one of Satan’s personal friends! And positioned to serve another. It made me think about what I want to accomplish—and this is a great opportunity.”

  Sybil nodded solemnly. “Yes, I understand,” she said, and I think we all did.

  The girl might have chewed-up nails and too much smudged eyeliner, might look a little too much like a junkie or a Neil Gaiman fangirl, but there was something under that ridiculously dyed hair that I could respect. Raven had a spark, determination, ambition, things that we’ve seen too rarely in Hell of late. Give her a thousand years and a better wardrobe and she could be one of our friends.

  “You do know that it’s highly likely you will be physically hurt, possibly badly?” Eros said. Leave it to Eros to make sure that the girl knew the worst right up front.

  Raven nodded firmly. “That was in the description.” Then she pulled up her sleeves and we saw the scars. She’d been a cutter in life, and I’d bet a suicide as well.

  Not all suicides end up in Hell, not anymore. Once upon a time, killing oneself was considered the greatest sin, the rejection of His greatest gift of life. Today Upstairs is full of psychologists and theorists who are ready to say that humans who kill themselves are mentally unstable and therefore not responsible for their actions. Anyone who manages to get too far on that road but repents, even a little bit, is immediately saved. Even the ones who merely feel a little sad for the life they are rejecting are grandfathered in as “repentant” and don’t end up in Hell.

  No, it takes a deliberate act without any second thoughts. I wondered what Raven had done.

  “Now, if we can douse the electricity and get Lily to stand next to Raven . . .” Meph directed. As I took my place beside the ragged-looking girl, I did notice that we were both the same height. And close to the same weight, although hers was not distributed as strategically as mine. This close, and by candlelight, I realized that under the clown makeup and the pallor of death her skin was not bad at all and her eyes would be rather pretty without all the thick black liner. Gray eyes—that wouldn’t be too hard to glamour to my green.

  Her hair was another matter, though. Spiky and straight and possibly overdue for a wash, it could not be more different from mine. Good thing that it was a demon of Meph’s status and expertise who was doing the glamouring. He could pull it off. I didn’t know if I could have done it.

  I wondered if Marten could.

  Candles burned. My friends stood in a semicircle around us, candles in hand. Raven and I stood together as Meph muttered words in Greek, Aramaic, and Hell Latin.

  I felt dizzy and just a touch motionsick. I swayed and put out a hand and laid it on Raven’s shoulder. And I felt something pour from me to her, a liquid element of essential magical identity that in a human would have been drops of soul, and she shimmered and glowed.

  And changed.

  First her gray eyes became green, and then the shape of them shifted, and then each of her features followed.

  It was like seeing an image morph in Photoshop, fabulous and impossible. Her body filled out in the right places but her clothes still looked like they fit—because this was illusion. Her body really was no different than it had been before we started. Neither was her face, but it would take more than a mortal a very long time to figure that out.

  Finally her hair started to curl and lighten. Meph passed his hands over her hair several times, and with each pass copper-colored sparks fell onto and into her lifeless tresses. And, bit by bit, they came to resemble mine.

  Meph raised his hands, muttered more pseudo-Latin, and then clapped three times. At each clap, one of my friends doused her candle, until we were standing in the dark.

  “It is done,” Mephistopheles intoned, and it was done indeed.

  “Now,” Meph said, turning the lights back on, “you’ll have to loan her an outfit and get her put together.”

  As I could see. There she was, me, but her face was still covered in way too much Urban Decay and her clothes—it was better not to think too much about her clothes.

  “Why don’t you take a shower and wash off the makeup, and I’ll figure out something for you to wear?” I asked her too brightly. She shrugged as if it didn’t matter to her and went into the bathroom.

  “Clean towels on the top shelf,” I called after her, worried that I would have to disinfect the place. Then I firmly reminded myself that some of my prey were skuzzier and that Raven, for all her grooming needing some improvement, was doing us a great service.

  That didn’t help when it came to thinking about what clothes of mine she could borrow. I couldn’t part with my favorite Seven for all Mankind jeans. I really didn’t want to loan her any of my La Perla lingerie. I don’t believe in sharing underwear, so if I loaned it, it was hers.

  Okay, think, I told myself as I dug through my drawers.

  “I’ll replace anything you give her,” Sybil said at my side. I hadn’t noticed Syb enter the bedroom.

  “No, please, it’s the least I can do,” I muttered as I pulled out panties, bras, merry widows, garter belts, and stockings. My favorite new lavender and gold were there, the lovely reembroidered Chantilly lace in sea green, the four sets of pink and pearl, each a different combination and lace accent. There was the delicate powder blue and cream, the sky blue with satin ribbons, the cute retro polka dots, turquoise on lime.

  And then I remembered. In the hamper, the things that I’d bought on Eighth Street when Marten and I had been hiding. Mint green, but without the subtlety of finer lingerie, scratchy polyester lace that was too stiff to mold to a body’s curves, this I wouldn’t mind getting rid of. I smiled grimly. “Thank you, Syb, but I think these’ll do. No trouble.”

  “You’re going to give her unwashed underwear?” Sybil was truly shocked. She was a senior demon in Hell, but the thought of giving a skanky girl like Raven lingerie that I had worn for only a few hours horrified her. I sighed. “Okay, I’ll rinse them out in the kitchen sink and run them through the dryer. Good enough?”

  Sybil nodded mutely, her sensibilities salvaged.

  The three-year-old Calvin Kleins were no longer the most fashionable, I thought. I could part with them. I threw them on the bed and then considered the top. It had to be something that would really look like what I would wear, but that I wouldn’t mind giving up.

  I started pulling things out of the closet, out of the dresser, throwing all of them on my poor, overstrained duvet. Not the green D&G camisole, not the Versace voile floral blouses, not a Prada anything. I found a very old Betsey Johnson that I hadn’t worn in at least five years, with little pink rosettes and ribbons through dense black stretchy lace. I thought Raven might like that, and she could keep it. It had short, slightly puffed cap sleeves, so she woul
d definitely need another layer, but I thought that little ribbons and rosettes were too last year. There was a Betsey Johnson faux fur shrug that I’d bought to go with it that I had forgotten about completely.

  I draped the outfit on my boudoir chair, and sighed at the mess around me. “Do you want some help getting that all put away?” Sybil asked.

  I nodded wordlessly and she began to fold and arrange gently, organizing my tops. Sybil hung things in the closet, all facing the same direction, all of a color group, and separated into long and short sleeves. I was fascinated. I would have said something, but just then Raven padded in, wrapped in a towel and dripping on my Persian silk carpet. “Dry your hair,” I ordered her. “The blow dryer is in the cabinet under the window. Bend over, turn your head upside down, and use the diffuser.”

  The young demon rolled her (my?) eyes at me. “Whatever,” she said, and left wet footprints on her way back to the bathroom.

  Was this the way mothers feel about teenagers? They’re messy, they’re entitled, they don’t have any sense of the cost of things, and don’t think about what other people are putting out or doing for them. I was glad I’d never had any children of my own if this is what it was like to live with them.

  Syb kept glancing at her watch. Raven took over twenty minutes to dry her hair and I was terrified that she was playing with my makeup, and that she’d paint up her/my face to look like some Siouxsie wannabe. Fortunately, when she returned her hair was nearly dry and her face was still bare.

  I handed over the clothes, expecting her to be pleased and even excited by the better quality. She held up the Betsey Johnson. “Pink ribbons? Little roses? Are you kidding? Yuck.”

  “That happens to be a Betsey Johnson, who designs extremely trendy clothes for younger women and who was one of the movers in the London Mod scene,” I recited for her edification.

  “Yeah, about a million years ago,” Raven groused. “The little roses are still gross. And this underwear? You really wear this? It’s the color of monkey puke.”