chapter
TEN

Work. I wasn’t lying, I had a lot to do and I was dead exhausted. A date, no sleep, great sex, sounds like the right life for a demon to me. Only the getting up, getting dressed, and actually doing any work was not easy under those circumstances.

“Lily, your eyes are puffy,” Danielle said when I dragged into the office at ten with two grande doubleshot mochachinos that I bought on the theory that the double boost of caffeine and sugar would get me through the morning. What was left of it.

“Yes, I know,” I said and shrugged. “It happens.”

She gave me a long penetrating stare and then smiled. “Oh, indeed. Well, that is good, I expect.”

Then she disappeared behind the closed door to shoe-land and I was in my office. Which had, since I’d left on Friday, filled up with parcels that someone had thrown all over my sofa and coffee table.

I sighed and started unwrapping belts, beaded earrings, and bags. Lots of bags. I sat down, cradled my head in my arms on my desk and tried to ignore the universe.

Unfortunately, the universe seems to know when it’s being blown off and doesn’t like it much. The phone rang. I wasn’t going to pick up, but I didn’t want anyone thinking I was taking a second sick day.

“Where have you been?” a familiar voice started without even a greeting. “Do you know how bad Sybil is? Why didn’t you pick up your phone this morning?”

It was Eros, and I had no idea what she was talking about. “What do you mean?” I asked. “We saw Sybil yesterday at brunch and everything was fine.”

“Vincent disappeared this morning,” Eros informed me. “He was supposed to go to Syb’s right after his shift ended last night and he never showed up. He isn’t answering his cell phone, and she needed to check with you to see if you’d seen him or heard from him, and you weren’t answering.”

“Wait, wait,” I said, and dug through my purse.

It was off. I hadn’t left it off, I was certain. I tried to turn it on and there was the culprit: low battery. I’d been so distracted I hadn’t thought about recharging the thing.

“Look, Eros, I haven’t been home and forgetting to charge my phone is not a hanging offense. I’ve had some extra work, okay? And a date. How was I to know that Vincent would go and disappear and Sybil would need me? How about you fill me in and I’ll call Sybil,” I suggested.

“Sybil is over here now, where she’s been since seven thirty this morning when Vincent didn’t show. We went by your place and there was no trace of you or him,” Eros informed me. “We were afraid you’d both disappeared.”

Did they think we’d run off together? I wanted to laugh but that would only make Sybil and Eros more upset. It isn’t like Eros spent every night at home.

“Put Sybil on, okay?” I asked.

“Hi, Lily,” Sybil said, sniffling. “I just wanted to know when was the last time you talked to Vincent, or saw him. You didn’t see him this morning or late last night, did you?”

And then I remembered that I hadn’t seen him when I’d left the night before. I hadn’t thought anything of it at the time—Vincent works a regular shift rotation and sometimes he had time off, so it didn’t alarm me when he wasn’t there. “I didn’t know he was supposed to work last night,” I admitted sadly. “If I’d realized he was supposed to be on I could have alerted you then.”

I felt awful. And afraid. Demons, especially talented, capable demons like Vincent don’t just disappear.

“I want to find him,” Sybil said.

“Of course,” I agreed. “Of course you do. But he’s probably fine. I want you to admit that, that he’s probably just fine.”

Sybil broke into tears again. “I don’t know that he’s probably fine. I keep thinking of him burning in holy water or being held in a salt triangle and being tormented and commanded by some ceremonial magician.”

“The only ceremonial magician I’ve met in a hundred years is on our side,” I said reassuringly. “And if Vincent had run into him, the two of them would be more likely to be in trouble for their bar tab than anything else.”

“Stop making fun of her,” Eros yelled into the mouth-piece. She must have grabbed the phone from Sybil, who I could hear sniffling in the background. “You are—what’s happened to you, Lily? You know Sybil isn’t up to your humor at a time like this.”

Sybil is the most fragile of the four of us and we all know it. For centuries, Desi, Eros, and I had all conspired to take care of her. Keeping Sybil from being hurt yet again was our sacred duty as her friends, and our duty to each other as well.

“Find him,” Eros ordered me. “You. Now. Find Vincent and make things okay for Sybil. Or I will curse you. I am still a demigoddess, and you still have the roots of a mortal.”

Oh, give me a break. I was mortal three thousand years ago, and while I was never as powerful as Eros, I am not entirely without strength. Besides which, Satan has favored me on several occasions. Even among Her Companions, Satan has shown me particular affection.

Besides, where did Eros get off giving me orders? If she were so much more powerful she should just find Vincent herself. Eros pretended to always be so cool and above it all, but she was overreacting as badly as Sybil. I knew that, and I knew that Eros always put on an imperious front to cover up for feeling afraid.

“Give me Sybil again,” I sighed. Talking to Eros was useless until she calmed down.

“What?” Sybil asked through her sobs.

“Has Eros tried to find Vincent?” I asked.

“Won’t work,” Sybil whispered.

“Speak up,” I said. “I can’t hear you. And why wouldn’t it work? Why do you think that I could do it if Eros can’t?”

“He likes you,” Sybil confessed.

“Oh.”

I had no idea that Vincent hadn’t liked Eros. I also didn’t know what his liking me had to do with me possibly being able to find him.

“But how do you expect me to find him if you and Eros can’t?” I was definitely confused.

“You know a detective,” Sybil said as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. “And he told you about Branford showing up again, so maybe he knows where the guy is. Maybe he’s seen Vincent. Could you call Nathan?”

Now it all made sense.

Call Nathan. He’d called me, to warn me. It would be reasonable, natural even, for me to call him about Vincent’s disappearance. That’s what private detectives did all the time, right, find people? And he was the only private detective any of us knew. Oh, sure, there must be a few million in service to Satan, but we didn’t know any of them personally. And they might not understand all the issues with Branford, what he had done and what he was trying to do.

Nathan was an obvious choice.

My mind went blank. It should be so simple. And this is just what I had wanted, a sincere and legitimate reason to talk to him.

I said my good-byes to Sybil, and hit speed dial for his cell phone.

He picked up on the first ring. “Lily, are you okay?” Concern warmed his voice and I knew he still cared.

“I’m fine,” I reassured him quickly. “It’s not me, it’s Sybil. Well, Vincent, the doorman at my building, is missing. And he’s been dating Sybil and she’s afraid that Branford caught him. Or something else bad happened to him. So can you find him? As a detective, I mean. We can pay.”

“Let’s take this one step at a time. Do you have any reason to believe that he’s been targeted by Branford? What’s his relationship to Sybil? Start from the top.”

I calmed down, at least enough to talk. “Vincent is a demon. He’s very junior, but he’s doing well and has a lot of promise. And he’s been dating Sybil. I always have a demon doorman who runs errands and sometimes helps cleaning up after my deliveries.”

“Wait a sec,” he interrupted. “Do other succubi have demon servants? Or only you?”

I thought for a moment. “I don’t know,” I admitted. “But Vincent is hardly my servant. He’s more like my keeper sometimes.” I heard his sharp intake of breath and I recanted. “Okay, not really like a keeper. But he does keep an eye on me, pass messages, help clean up and so on. It’s a low-ranked position, but Vincent is better than almost anyone in his class. Meph is impressed with him and he’s going to rise in the Hierarchy. We think he’s headed to at least a deputy chief.”

“So he’s a talented young demon on the rise,” Nathan said, very matter-of-factly. I wish he had been so professionally calm when I told him about what kind of demon I was. But he hadn’t believed in demons then.

“Exactly,” I agreed. “And he’s been dating Sybil. Which we think is a little inappropriate because Syb is one of Her Companions and Vincent is just a junior newbie with a lot of promise. But they’ve just started dating officially and now he’s missing. He said he was going over to Sybil’s when he got off duty this morning, and he never arrived. And I don’t remember seeing him last night when I left, either, so it could be that he never even made it in to work.”

“When does his shift end? When did Sybil expect him?” Nathan was all business now.

“I think he gets off at seven in the morning. And Sybil said she started to worry at seven thirty.”

“Hmmm,” Nathan said, and I could see him rolling the pen between his long fingers as he gazed out the window, thinking. “And Sybil’s place is?”

“Only five minutes away by cab. I can walk it in heels in fifteen minutes. So half an hour including time for him to pick up coffee and finish signing out or whatever they do,” I said wearily. “So can you do it? Can you find him?”

“I can try,” Nathan said briskly. “I should also talk to Sybil, and she or you or whomever needs to sign a contract and give us a deposit. And there are more details I should get and a picture, also, if you have one. When can you come in? Or I can go over there, no problem.”

“What day?” I asked. It was hard enough for me to talk to him on the phone. The thought of seeing him in person was terrifying. Excruciating. I had to remind myself that there was no hope. Still, deep inside me I believed that if I got to see him, if only he thought and listened, he would reconsider.

“Today,” he replied firmly. “The sooner the better. The faster I can pick up his trail the more likely I am to find him.”

“Before anything bad happens,” I whispered.

“We don’t know that anything bad is going to happen,” Nathan said crisply, and I could tell that he had made this little speech loads of times. “It’s only been a few hours, and there could be a perfectly good explanation. He could have decided to stop home and shower, he could have decided to go shopping and gotten distracted, he could have run into an old friend. We don’t know. I want to talk to both of you as soon as possible. Just let me know when and where and I’ll meet you.”

“I’ve got to call Sybil to figure it out,” I said lamely. “Thank you.” And then I hung up.

I was going to see Nathan today. I didn’t know whether I was elated or miserable. I had a date with Marten that evening, Sybil was crying, and Vincent was missing. And me—I was exhausted and confused and wanted more than anything to take a long bath and a longer nap and have the entire world go away.

Instead, I called Sybil back and we agreed to rendezvous over at her place in two hours, which I could call lunch. She had pictures and information there.

“But one thing, Syb,” I said before hanging up. “It sounded like Eros was upset with me this morning. Or was she just worried about Vincent and I’m being paranoid?” I knew I had to be politic in asking Sybil; she was terribly frightened, and with good reason, and I didn’t want to make things worse.

Fortunately, I think the question distracted her. “I don’t think it was you at all,” she said after a moment of consideration. “She had wanted to call Beliel right away, before you, and I said that I wanted to talk to you first. I don’t think you noticed, but she spent a lot of Hatuman’s party with Beliel. And I wanted Nathan, not one of Beliel’s Security demons, looking into things. I know Eros is friendly with Beliel, but that whole department makes me twitchy.”

“Me too,” I agreed, thinking about this new information. Could Eros be dating Beliel? That thought was entirely weird but it niggled and wouldn’t leave my brain. Something to look into later, maybe, but a low priority now.

Instead, I called Nathan back, gave him the address, and checked my shoot log. If I was going to disappear for a long lunch with a private detective and a distraught friend, I’d better be caught up on work.

I opened my features book and started to look through at what shoots were scheduled and where an editor had requested bags. While I am thoroughly modern and fully computerized, I keep this record in a spiral-bound notebook. That way I can sketch and color in ideas to have a more accurate image of what the feature is about.

The Fendi was definitely going in the holiday issue and there were a couple from Coach that were just right for Helene’s October spread on plaid skirts. I giggled with glee as the new line fit almost effortlessly into the upcoming issues, practically placing themselves. I pulled out my boxes and labeled each of them by shoot and editor and started filling them with bags.

Of course, jewelry and scarves and other possible accessories (glasses? belts? gloves?) would all be added as I found just the right things for the clothes to be featured. The best part of the process was showing their hand-picked accessories to the editors when they came to show me the clothes. They thought I was psychic because I could so accurately predict what would work best for a particular spread.

Well, okay, I’d been setting fashion for three thousand years, give or take a decade or so. There have been eras when the fashions were just awful. The eighties, for example. Big hair and ankle socks with heels. Who thought of that? Sheesh!

I was so focused on the task, so consumed by the new pieces and the smell of leather that I lost all track of time. So I jumped, shocked, when my office door banged open and a six-foot-two man in exquisite Lagerfeld barged in like a tornado.

“Lily, Lily, save me from this madhouse,” Lawrence yelled, his fingers clutching compulsively at his hair, disarranging his two-hundred-dollar cut and blow-dry from M. Louis. “You are the only sane, reasonable person in this hellhole. These others are insensitive, evil, cutthroat demons out to murder me and dump my mangled body into the East River.”

I blinked. “I don’t think they do that anymore. Especially not with all the work that’s gone into cleaning up the river.”

Lawrence looked like he was going to explode again, so I shifted a few boxes to the floor and motioned for him to sit on the sofa. He looked at the spot as if it might be contaminated, steeled himself and perched on my elegant reproduction eighteenth-century French brocade. I glanced at my mantel clock and figured I had half an hour before I had to leave.

“What’s the problem?” I asked.

“What’s not the problem?” he spewed. “The gross incompetence? The fact that no one can get me the photographer I want on the same day the model I want is available? The fact that the model’s agency objected to the outdoor shoot? Where can I start?”

Classic Lawrence. “Well, do you need any accessories? I can’t do anything about models’ schedules or shooting permits in the park, but if you need a really nice bag I can take care of it. How were the belts for the white shirt shoot, by the way?”

He gritted his teeth. “They were perfect. I still don’t know how you knew . . .”

I smiled perkily. “You told me what you wanted. I’ve got the inventory of belts. It was no big deal. So . . . do you want a bag?”

“No,” he said, pouting.

“Well, do you want some jewelry? Or glasses? I just got in a shipment of new Versace frames, they’re very interesting. Very Euro.”

“Oh, that’s how you categorize us? Euro? That’s so—Americans are so provincial.” His accent was stronger, but I didn’t know if I was supposed to take that as more Euro or that the British were something different from effete continentals.

I just stared at him in big-eyed innocence. In three thousand years, a girl can learn to impersonate a lot of innocence. “I was talking about how great the glasses are.” I paused for a moment to let it sink in. “What do you want? I can’t help you if you don’t tell me what you want.”

“I want Sonia available on the same day as Jackson Keefe.”

Okay. Fine. What precisely did he want me to do about that? I’m the accessories editor. I don’t book models. Sometimes I choose photographers, but except for my very few features (like my shawls and wraps special, where I already had a commitment from the selfsame Keefe) I have nothing to do with scheduling. Mostly I do my accessories page every month and support the fashion division.

I shrugged. “I don’t know how I can help you with that,” I said softly. “Really. I do accessories. You know that.”

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 the 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.