3 Straight by the Rules Read online

  “ I called for you fifteen minutes ago.” Helen stood behind her desk. Her eyes were hot.

  She might have been angry, but so was I. “I had to leave my birthday dinner with my father to come here.”

  Helen glared at me. “Well, isn’t that special?” Horns had appeared above her eyebrows, and her face elongated. In a moment, her hands would turn into claws.

  I used my anger to boost my courage. “How come there isn’t a single clock in Hell, yet you always demand that I keep to the minute?”

  “It’s in your contract, Lilith. You are bound to come when I call you,” Helen snapped. “Now, sit down.”

  Though my knees trembled, I remained standing. “Why? Does the contract say I have to sit when you tell me to?”

  Delilah’s wide eyes sent me a silent message: Are you crazy? She had already taken a seat in front of Helen’s desk, and she jiggled her right foot so frantically that she jarred the little end table on which Helen’s precious piece of wood sat.

  Helen’s hot eyes met mine. “Fine. Stand if you want. I simply thought you’d be more comfortable seated.”

  It was nice to know I didn’t have to comply with every she gave. Still, fear made my knees so weak that the chair seemed like a good idea. I sat very slowly, to show Helen that she wasn’t the boss of me. Not entirely anyway.

  Helen relaxed, and the horns retreated. “Good. I need to talk to you about the problems in our department. Especially in regards to the party you recently attended. Lilith, I’ve been told you tempted the wrong man.”

  I glanced at Delilah, but she wouldn’t meet my eyes. Apparently, she’d confessed.

  “I’m not blaming you,” Helen said. “I realize this is Delilah’s fault.”

  Delilah shifted in her chair, and her enormous frame accidentally knocked the little table again. The domed glass case holding the piece of the true cross trembled.

  “Careful!” Helen glared at her.

  Delilah cringed. For such a large woman, she could make herself appear very small.

  “Give her a break,” I said. “Those charts are impossible to read!” My succubus frantically ordered me to shut up, but I didn’t listen. “You could at least give her some direction!”

  Helen took a seat behind her desk and steepled her fingers. “I don’t think you ladies appreciate my position. I, too, have quotas, and deadlines, and bosses to appease. If I don’t do my job, I’ll be removed from this position, and you’ll be assigned to another demon. I know you think I’m a monster, but believe me, there are far worse creatures than I.”

  A boss worse than Helen Spry? I couldn’t imagine.

  “Since you failed to seduce the correct client,” Helen continued, “you’ll need to finish this project.”

  “I’ll get to work on it right away,” Delilah said. She patted my hand. “Don’t worry. I won’t get the wrong one this time.”

  “No, you won’t,” Helen said, “because I won’t let you fail. In order to make sure the right person is tempted, Lilith is to seduce everyone who attended that party.”

  I gaped at her. “Every one? Men and women both?”

  She nodded.

  “But there had to be over fifty people there!”

  “Fifty-three,” Delilah said mournfully. “Sixty-one if you include the staff.”

  “I do include the staff,” Helen said, her voice like steel.

  Sixty-one clients? I felt faint. Since becoming a succubus, I’d kept a tally of all of the poor souls I’d tempted, and I’d already reached twenty-two. I didn’t want to boost the number to eighty-three anytime soon.

  Delilah, stunned, rose from her seat. As she left the office, she mumbled to herself. “I need to find the bartender’s address, and I can’t forget the man who only stayed for ten minutes.”

  Furious, I collected my things, ready to follow Delilah out the door.

  Helen stopped me. “What’s that?”

  I slung my bag over my shoulder. “Prada,” I said, dryly.

  “Not the purse!” Helen grabbed the manila envelope from my hands, and before I could protest, tore it open. Inside was a small, leather-bound book. As she scanned the flyleaf, her eyes widened. She quickly turned to another page, and after reading that one, she slammed the book shut. “Your mother kept a diary?”

  “Yes, and I want it back!”

  “This is not for your eyes,” she said. “Since it was written by an employee of Hell, it is now my property. Upon their deaths, all succubi belongings must return to me. It’s in your contract.”

  “I don’t think so!” I lunged for it, and as I did, my purse knocked over the glass case holding the piece of the cross. The case didn’t break, but the bottom popped off, and the bit of wood rolled under the desk.

  Helen’s shriek of alarm painfully reverberated between my ears. “Don’t stand there! Get that relic!”

  Quickly, I reached under her desk and found the nugget of wood. Holding it carefully between two fingers, I set it back on its pedestal. Helen replaced the top and refastened the latches. Her forehead gleamed with perspiration.

  “Are you afraid it’s going to bite you?” I asked.

  “Don’t be ridiculous! It’s a very rare, very dear relic, and I don’t want to lose it to your clumsiness.” She picked up the case and studied her treasure. “Luckily for you, it looks undamaged.”

  Apparently, Helen hadn’t heard that Heaven didn’t consider relics either rare or dear. In fact, the wood probably had been compost in some angel’s flower garden before it had been shipped off to Hell. But if a tiny lump of old wood could tie Helen in knots, I would have loved to see how she’d handle something really valuable. I imagined Helen throwing herself in front of a moving freight train to save the hideous bookends made from the jewels in King Solomon’s temple. It was a beautiful picture.

  “What are you smiling at?” She narrowed her eyes and tugged on her pearls.

  “Like there’s anything to smile about in Hell,” I said.

  “I’m glad you understand.”

  Helen put my mother’s diary into her desk and locked the drawer with a key that hung around her neck. “Now, go get some sleep because you’re going to be a very busy succubus tomorrow.”

  Still outraged, I said, “I won’t tempt sixty-one people!”

  “You’ll be tempting a lot more than sixty-one before your life is over.”

  “I mean I won’t needlessly tempt sixty-one. Just tell Delilah who the real target is, and I’ll work on him. I don’t want the others to suffer.”

  “Really? How noble of you.” Helen sat down and leaned back in her chair. “Tell me, did you enjoy feeling helpless as those men at the party ogled you?”

  I dropped my eyes.

  “Did you know that pictures of you were passed from phone to phone? Most of them wound up on the Internet. Google ‘sushi party favor’ and see what comes up.” She grinned nastily. “Be sure to read the comments.”

  I squirmed, but remained silent.

  “I know what those men were thinking when they looked at you. Would you like to hear some of their thoughts?”

  I swallowed. “No.”

  “My point is that not one of those men is innocent. You do realize that, don’t you?”

  Innocent or not, I wouldn’t tempt anyone needlessly. “I’ll complete the job with my original client but no one else.”

  Helen’s eyes narrowed. “You are a fool. It’s too late to fix this mess with a single temptation. Because of the way the two of you messed up the party, I have no idea who was the intended target, so I want everyone tempted.”

  “No.”

  “Don’t push me,” she warned. “You will do what you’re told.”

  “No. I won’t.” I left her office, fully expecting a pair of fiery daggers to stab me in the back as I went. After saying goodnight to Delilah, I headed for home, still waiting to feel the pain of Helen’s fury.

  Chapter Eleven

  When I got home, I braced myself for one of Hele
n’s nasty surprises, but everything was quiet. Jasmine was nowhere in sight, and the shower was running. Ariel was in her room, reading.

  I sat on the edge of her bed next to Drinking Tea who had settled himself on her legs. “It’s late. You should be sleeping.”

  She lowered her book, revealing a pair of red-rimmed eyes. Tear-stained mascara smudged her cheeks.

  “Oh, Ari! What’s wrong?”

  “They’re killing Aslan!” Her voice trembled. “He’s tied to this stone table, and the White Witch is cutting off his mane. They’re going to murder him! And it’s all stupid Edmund’s fault because he wanted that damn Turkish delight. I hate that kid!”

  I hid a smile, relieved that her worry was over the story and nothing more serious. “What’s Turkish delight?”

  “Tommy told me it’s this candy they sell in England or something. The White Witch gave some to Edmund, and he wanted more of it. But she was like, ‘No, not until you let me kill your brother and sisters.’”

  “So this boy allowed his entire family to be murdered in order to get some candy?” I wondered what kind of sicko would write such a thing in a children’s story.

  “It’s not just any candy,” Ari said. “It’s the devil’s candy. It’s magic, and you would do anything to get some.” She plucked a stray thread on the blanket. “Tommy said everyone has a candy like that. Something you’d sell your family to get.” Her voice was hardly above a whisper. “For my mom, it’s drugs.”

  “Oh, Ariel.” I tried to hug her, but she pulled away. The sleeve of her t-shirt rucked up revealing a new henna tattoo on her shoulder: a lion with a regal expression, and a thick, curling mane. Tommy’s hours of practice were paying off. “It’s beautiful,” I told her, impressed.

  Finally, she smiled. “It’s Aslan.” She returned to the book. “Now, I have to find out what happens to him.”

  Although it was hours past her bedtime, I knew she wouldn’t turn off her light without a fight. “How about if you lay down and close your eyes, and I’ll read the story?” I asked.

  She agreed, and by the third sentence, fell sound asleep.

  I kissed her forehead, turned out the light, and left the room.

  By that time, the shower had stopped running and the bathroom door was open, letting steam into the hallway. I went into my room to change into my pajamas and found Tommy, naked to the waist, taking a folded t-shirt from the pile of laundry on the bed.

  He looked as startled as I was. But his presence in my bedroom didn’t shock me nearly as much as what I saw tattooed above his heart.

  One word, written in an elegant script: Lilith.

  “You got a tattoo of my name?!” I stared at the letters, trying to make them spell out something other than what they did.

  He yanked a shirt over his head.

  “Tommy! What the hell were you thinking?”

  His eyes blazed. “I was thinking that I loved you!”

  “But still – a tattoo?!” I hoped William never saw that thing.

  Tommy sat on my bed. “I got this when you forced me to leave the country. At the time, I literally did not think I could live without you. But halfway over the Pacific, I realized what a stupid thing I’d done.” He shook his head. “You have no idea what it’s like to be seduced by a succubus. When you’re near me, your qi – your life force – swallows me whole! I have no desire other than to make you happy. You’ve enslaved me.”

  I dropped my eyes. “I never wanted that to happen.”

  “Then let me go.”

  “I can’t!”

  He laughed bitterly. “I didn’t think you would.”

  “I’m serious,” I protested. “If I knew how, I would. But my temptations never last this long on other people, so I have no idea what to do.” I thought of my poor father. Beguiled. That was how he’d described his relationship with my mother. For nearly thirty years, she’d kept him in her power and left Evelyn to deal with the mess.

  Tommy rubbed the tattoo over his heart in the gesture I’d grown so familiar with. “In a way, I’m relieved that you know,” he said. “The secret was killing me. I tried to hide it from everyone, but the doctors and nurses all saw it. And Neil did the art. Of course, he told Sam.”

  No wonder everyone had been so surprised to meet me in person. Dressed in my soccer mom clothes, I didn’t appear to be the kind of person who would inspire a tattoo. “Jas doesn’t know, does she?” I asked.

  “Of course not! I sent her out to get food so that I could take a shower without her seeing me.” He sighed. “I’d planned on having Neil put another tattoo over this one the minute I got back to Detroit, so she would never find out.” His shoulders slumped. “I hadn’t counted on being attacked by a demon and needing two surgeries.”

  So it was my fault that my stepsister and her boyfriend couldn’t have the fairy tale, happily-ever-after ending they deserved.

  “I’m going crazy!” Tommy said. “I can’t stay here, but life at Neil’s flat-out sucks!”

  “I’m sorry,” I said, hating the pain in his features.

  “I’ve even been praying about this. Not that it’s helped.” He pressed the heels of his hands to his eyes. “I’d thought that meeting God face-to-face might count for something, but apparently he’s not taking my calls.” He sighed. “Have you talked to my mom yet?”

  I wished I had better news for him. “I did go to see her.” I told him about the nexus, and the lethal amounts of otherworld energy pouring through the house. “We have to get your mother out of there,” I said. “She can’t stay.”

  “But she won’t leave. If I even mention the possibility of moving, she barricades herself inside.”

  The sound of the front door opening interrupted our conversation. I quickly left the bedroom and met Jas who held two bags full of greasy, fast food. Seeing me, she glared. “Can I have a word with you?”

  Tommy had followed me into the living room, and the two of us exchanged anxious looks as Jasmine handed him the bags and dragged me off to the kitchen.

  “What the hell is this?” my stepsister demanded. She pulled several, small packets from the pocket of her jeans.

  It took me a moment to realize they were the samples of the HotGel© Corrine had given me. The one Jasmine held out was called Cinammmmon.

  “I found these things on the countertop in the bathroom,” she said. “Is this supposed to be a joke? Because it’s not funny.”

  “No joke,” I promised. “Only a gift from Corrine. She’s trying to convince me to host a Naughty Nancy party.”

  Jas’s face relaxed. “Okay, good. Because did you see the label on this stuff?” She held the packet close to her eyes and, squinting, read, “Warning: may cause irritation, or in rare cases, chemical burns. People with sensitive skin or known skin allergies should avoid this product. Wash all areas thoroughly after using.” She tossed the packet into the trashcan. “I thought you were trying to tell me that my love life sucks so much I should set my lady parts on fire.”

  I laughed. “I would never do that to you.”

  She started to smile, too. “That also explains the cheesy dominatrix costume.”

  My eyes widened. “The what?”

  Jasmine took a package from the kitchen table. “I found this outside the front door today.”

  On the package was a picture of a model wearing a black bustier and brandishing a whip. Corrine had stuck a note to it: “This could be your hostess gift if you agree to have a party!” I groaned.

  “Is that from Corrine, too?” Jas asked.

  I nodded. “I may have to take out a restraining order against her.”

  Jas wrinkled her nose. “Why on earth would she send you a dominatrix costume? Sexy librarian, maybe.” She considered. “No, forget that. Plain librarian would be better.”

  I glared at her.

  “Well, anyway, I feel a lot better now.” Jas sucked in her cheeks and dropped her eyes. “I keep worrying there’s still something between you and Tommy.”


  “He loves you and only you,” I said. It was the truth of course, but inwardly, I cringed as I remembered the tattoo. If my stepsister ever saw it, she’d never forgive either of us.

  While Jasmine gathered silverware and ketchup, I went back into the living room where Tommy waited anxiously. “I think you were right about needing to move in with your mother.” There were a thousand reasons why I shouldn’t mess with Doris’s head, but there was one compelling reason to act: Tommy and Jasmine’s future depended on it. “I’ll talk to her.”

  A spark of hope lit his eyes. “That’s terrific! Thank you.”

  He might be relieved, but I remained very, very worried.

  Although I put on my pajamas and slipped into bed, I was too agitated to drift off. Seeing that Ariel’s book still lay where I’d dropped it, I started to read. I had thought it would bore me to sleep, but after a few pages, I’d lost myself in the story of the little girl who found a magical pathway through the old wardrobe. The snowy woods, the lamp post, the faun’s cave – I could envision it all. When Lucy’s brother, Edmund, entered Narnia and ran across the White Witch, I gasped. There was no mistaking Helen Spry. The writer had perfectly captured her terrible, manipulative cruelty.

  At the part where Aslan the lion put himself at the mercy of the White Witch, I couldn’t bear to read further. If the lion died, I would have been devastated.

  Ariel had been right about one thing: Edmund was despicable. Every bad thing in the book hinged on that boy’s obsession with the devil’s candy.

  As I turned off the reading lamp and pulled up the covers, I realized Helen had never once offered me candy. Tea, yes, but never candy.

  Tea.

  The tea I’d given to my father.

  Oh, shit.

  Because it was long after midnight, I figured I could slip into my dad’s house, get the tea, and throw it away without him ever knowing. I hated to steal from my father, but it was for his own good. The stuff had already stirred up potent memories of my mother. If he kept drinking it, who knew what other damage it would do.

  But before I could enter the otherworld, a frisson of uneasiness shivered along my spine. Someone I loved was in trouble. Mentally, I reached out to Grace, but she was fine. Likewise with Ariel and Jasmine. I concentrated harder, my heart pounding.