1 Straight to Hell Page 20

  My dad greeted me warmly enough, but after we spent a few minutes talking about the repairs to my house, we sat at the kitchen table in awkward silence.

  “Is Jasmine home,” I finally asked.

  “No.” It was clear from the look on his face that ‘no’ probably meant she was in her bedroom, refusing to come out. Like me, my dad is a terrible liar. “You girls have been fighting?”

  “I did something really awful to her,” I admitted. Though there was no way in hell I was telling him what that ‘something’ was. I’d already disappointed him enough over the past few months. “I keep trying to apologize, but she won’t let me.”

  “Maybe the best thing you can do is give her time to be angry,” he said. My dad has heavy-lidded eyes that make him look wise and old. Like a turtle. So when he says things like this, they tend to sound as if they’ve come directly from the Buddha’s mouth.

  “I suppose,” I admitted. “But I’m tired of feeling like crap.” I’d been buried in guilt for the past few weeks and was beginning to understand why William’s eyes always held such a doleful expression.

  “She’ll forgive you eventually. She loves you.”

  “I hope so,” I said. I stood and collected my purse. “Tell her I stopped by, okay?”

  “Sure.” He hugged me. “Can I ask you a question?”

  I tensed. “Okay.”

  “That boy she was seeing. The one with all the jewelry in his face?”

  Now I was really getting nervous, wondering if my dad had some kind of sixth sense about what had transpired. “Yeah? What about him?”

  “Is he still living with you?”

  “No.” Dear, sweet, Tommy who had been a hard-used pawn in my devilish chess game had wanted to stay in Detroit with me. In fact, he’d begged me to marry him. In a weaker moment, I might have given in. After all, Tommy was gentle and kind-hearted and would have done everything he could to take care of me and the girls. But it would have been wrong. As much as I cared for Tommy, I didn’t love him the way a wife should love a husband. And I’d hurt him so much that I didn’t deserve to take anything else from him. Especially not his future. So I did what I thought was best for both of us: I set him free.

  It had taken a lot of convincing on the part of my succubus, but I’d finally talked him into making the pilgrimage. He cried when I drove him to the airport.

  I’d hoped that with so much space and time between us, my succubus’s influence would wear off like it had on Ted and Jasmine, but that wasn’t the case. Either Tommy’s affection for me had run deeper than I’d realized, or my succubus had done her job exceptionally well, but Tommy wouldn’t let go of me. He texted me at least twice a day – probably sending his cell phone bill through the roof – and the last e-mail he’d sent from an Internet café in Tokyo declared his undying love for me.

  I deleted it without replying.

  Yes, I’m a coward.

  “Tommy’s in Asia,” I told my dad. “He’s gone for at least a year. Why?”

  “We got into an interesting conversation after Carrie’s funeral, and he’d asked to borrow my copy of the Shorter Catechism. He said he knew a lot about Catholicism, but not so much about Presbyterianism, and he wanted to learn more about it. He was a very interesting young man.” My dad cast a glance upward toward the bedrooms on the second floor. “I’d hoped he and your sister would end up together.”

  I flinched. “I don’t think that will happen now.”

  “You really are like your mother, you know,” he said.

  “Please, Dad. Not right now, okay?” I knew I’d been behaving terribly these last few months and didn’t need him to remind me yet again. But when he saw my stricken expression, his eyes widened, and he held up his hands as if surrendering.

  “No, no! Not like that.” He looked away, as if unable to meet my eyes. “Lilly, I’m very sorry about what I said to you that day. Accusing you of neglecting your family was wrong. You’re a terrific mother.”

  I smiled and felt something in my chest loosen.

  My father continued. “I only meant that you have interesting friends. Just like Carrie did. And a big heart. You welcome everyone.”

  Now seemed like a good time to finally deliver Carrie’s message to my father. “I had this dream about Mom.” Of course, I had to pretend it was all a dream. I could never tell him the truth. “A very realistic dream. So real, in fact, that I swore I could smell sandalwood.” My dad smiled. “We were walking along and we had this conversation. About you.” Remembering those last moments with my mother once more brought tears to my eyes. A knot formed in my throat, and I had to cough before I could continue. “She wanted you to know that she really loved you. And that she was always grateful for what you did for us.”

  Now my dad looked choked up. He took a handkerchief from his pocket and lifted his glasses to wipe his eyes. “I missed her terribly after she was gone.”

  “Did you hate her? When she left, I mean?”

  He looked stunned. “No, of course not. I was angry, obviously, but I didn’t hate her. How could I hate someone who had given me such a wonderful gift?”

  Now I was surprised. Despite being a succubus, my mother wasn’t wealthy, and – to my knowledge – had never owned anything of value. “What did she give you?”

  He laughed softly and took my hand. “Oh, Lilith. Do you even have to ask?”

  I’ve told you how much I loved my dad, but at that moment, I realized how special my mother was and how much she’d been looking out for me. She knew a good man when she met one.

  I hugged my dad goodbye and went out to my car. Looking up at my sister’s window, I thought I saw the curtains sway. I waved. In case she was watching.

  “So you saw them work on the house?” Grace asked. Her eyes were bright and her hands were clasped under her chin the way they had been on Christmas morning.

  “Yup,” I said. “And we can move back in as soon as the builders fix it.”

  Ariel lingered near the doorway, saying nothing but listening to everything. Grace leaned closer to me. “Ari thinks that you might not want her to come live with us because of, you know, the fire.”

  “Ariel, not only do I want you to come with us, I’m giving you your own room. In fact, you can paint it any color you want.”

  “Black?” she asked, challenging me.

  I winced, but remembering how gracious my father’s wife was to Grace’s childish whims, I nodded. “Any color. Even black.”

  Ariel smiled.

  “And will Jasmine move in with us too,” Grace asked. There are days when I think I misnamed my daughter because ‘Hope’ would have been so much more appropriate.

  “No, honey. Not for a while, anyway.” I, too, could hope. “But I have a new job now, so things may be a little bit different.” From my purse, I took out a pair of small packages.

  Both girls tore at the paper, but Ari was faster.

  “A cell phone!” She ripped open the box to get at it. “My mom said she was going to get me a cell phone, but I can use this one until she gives me mine.”

  I knew that Tanya didn’t have enough money to huff a can of spray paint, but I kept my mouth shut. Sometimes shattering a person’s illusions is just too cruel.

  “You girls are getting bigger, and you’ll need to start being a little more independent,” I said. “There are times when you may need to come home from school and let yourselves in. You may even have to fix your own dinners from time to time.”

  Grace looked worried. “How long would you be gone?”

  “Not too long.” I hoped I could make this promise honestly. “But in case I’m gone for longer than an hour, I’ve got someone to watch you two. You know Mrs. Poppinjay?”

  Kate Poppinjay had worked in Grace’s classrooms from time to time, and Grace, like most kids, loved her. Ari looked suspicious, but she also knew who the paraprofessional was and nodded. For her part, Kate had been eager to take on the job despite the unpredictable hours. A recent wido
w whose children had moved on to live their own lives, she was happy to play a part in a family. The generous pay I offered her didn’t hurt, either.

  “I love you, Mom,” Grace said, hugging me.

  “I love you, too,” I said. “And you, too, Ariel.” I waved at my niece, and she came over to join our group hug.

  I might have been a seducing she-demon without a man in her life, but I still had a lot of love.

  Take that Miss Spry, I thought.

  THE END

  Excerpt from Book Two in the Lilith Straight Series – Straight to Heaven

  Chapter One

  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, the timing was off.

  I wondered if maybe I’d gotten the time wrong and missed the entire thing. I started to nibble my cuticle then decided it wasn’t worth ruining a sixty-dollar manicure. Instead, I paced back and forth in front of the post office where the rendezvous with my client was supposed to occur.

  As more time ticked by, my anxiety increased. I dreaded to think what would happen if I messed this up. Helen Spry, my demon overlord, loved to remind me that if I bungled any of my assignments, I’d be fired. And if I was fired, then my eight-year-old daughter, Grace, would become the next succubus because – as the contract signed by my great-great-great-great-great grandmother Sarah Goodswain mandated – one generation must always follow the next in service to the Devil.

  I looked at my watch again. 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 on the wrong side of the tracks from where I lived. The post office itself was okay, a fairly modern structure with plenty of windows all the better to reflect the sun at me, 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. Since I’d been waiting, 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 and looked me over, 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. My assignment might be over before it began! My spirits lifted, and I smiled. Any day that I didn’t have to drag someone to Hell was a really good day.

  I’d been keeping a tally of my successful temptations in a diary that I stored in my nightstand. I was up to eighteen. Eighteen poor souls who were a little closer to Hell thanks to me. Each of those red marks grieved me, but until I found a way to wriggle out of my contract, I was condemned to continue my work. Some days, the only thing that kept me moving forward was the promise to myself that my daughter would never be forced to keep a tally of her own.

  I had just decided to go home when, to my dismay, I saw 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. Damn! Getting my hopes up and then having them dashed was cruelly unfair, but if I wanted to keep Grace safe, I’d be adding tally number nineteen to my diary at the end of the day.

  From the looks of things, my victim wasn’t from this part of the city, either. 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 also 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 pick-up. 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. Right then, she told me that it made 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 of there. 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, he had a pair of flinty, gray eyes. 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 did.

  My client dithered by the Ship-It-Yourself machine. There was something in that package making him very nervous. Although it wasn’t in my best interest to overthink the assignment, I couldn’t help but be curious. What was inside that brown, cardboard box? Explosives? Contraband drugs? Or just a gift for a mistress? For my own peace of mind, I hoped that it was the last one.

  One of the hardest things about my job was to summon the will to tempt. Because my determination to do the Devil’s work was what fueled my succubus, her powers dwindled when I didn’t buy into my job 100%. Every time I got an assignment, I had to shut down my conscience and go into demon mode. This was almost an impossible task, but a necessary form of survival all the same. So instead of dwelling on what might be in my client’s box, I focused on what would make him want to mail his package. Which, judging from the way he was acting, could prove to be difficult.

  My succubus advised me that the direct approach would be best, so I walked over to my client and 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. U
nfortunately, 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 a little, 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 and moved in a little closer.

  I even 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 looked ready to escape out the door. I had to find a way past his moral barricades, or 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.