Succubus Takes Manhattan (27 page)

“No, no,” Danielle attempted to reassure me. “But I can tell that something is wrong. And I thought before that this was something small and you would recover quickly. But it is getting worse and you are not better and I think that soon someone else will notice. Whatever is happening at home that keeps you up all night, this is no good thing. And if I can help you I will. Can you at least tell me what has happened?”

My friends all knew. But Danielle was my friend too, my only real mortal friend. My only friend who didn’t know about the rest of my life, who took me as a mortal woman like herself, and that was important to me.

“There’s this guy,” I started, and Danielle nodded.

“I thought it was a man,” she said. “You have not had so much romance in your life, I think. Who is this man?”

I gave her a very edited version of Nathan and Marten, leaving out all the magic, Hell, Mephistopheles, and the Treasury. It ended up sounding lame to me, but Danielle nodded sagely at points in my narrative. And at the end she sighed and shook her head.

“American women,” she said. “I have lived here since I was twenty, but I still do not understand. Why do you not date both of them? Why must you choose? And even if you must choose, why must you choose now?”

“I can’t date two guys,” I protested, confused.

“Why not?” she countered. “You are only dating them, you have not known either for long, and you have no commitment to either of them. Your heart, yes, your heart is torn. But why? Because you believe you must give one up? So this Dutchman is in Aruba and that distance makes a problem, I agree. But this Nathan seems very young and undecided. He is in school, he is not in school, he is a scholar, he is a pretend detective. How can he commit to you if he cannot commit to even a plan of action for his life?”

“You think that’s the problem?”

Danielle shook her head delicately, jangling the lovely chandelier earrings I recognized from our April issue. “I think that you are being quite silly not to see that it is the problem,” she countered. “He clearly has feelings for you, but he runs. Why does any man run when he cares? Because he is a coward, because he is tied to another woman, or because he cannot make a decision. Because he cannot take a risk with his heart and his life.”

“That’s so romantic if he’s actually afraid that he’ll risk his heart for me,” the words came out before I realized what I had said. And it was true, that was a very romantic view of life. As a succubus, I was anything but romantic.

“Ah, but there you are wrong,” Danielle said almost as if she had been reading my mind. “It is merely realistic. Your Marten, it appears, is willing to take risks. He came up to New York without telling you to see you.”

“That was business!”

She waved her hand. “If he did not wish to see you he would not have come. He used the business as an excuse. And he is, after all, Dutch. He cannot let you know that he was so rash. But that is exactly what you need, Lily. You have always been so sensible. I have seen it. You have always been so focused on your career, on your achievements. You only want to date men who will fit into a particular pattern and so you have not dated at all. So neither Marten nor Nathan fit into the mold of the proper boyfriend you had envisioned for yourself. Nathan is not employed enough, not serious enough, not committed enough. Marten doesn’t live in New York. But both of them seem quite good for dating. Why not just date both of them and enjoy them?”

“You’re probably right, Danielle,” I admitted. “But I’m too tired to think about it now.”

“No,” she said. “You should not think about it at all. You should feel about it. What do you feel? What do you desire? That does not come from your head. You live in your head too much, Lily. Listen to your instinct.”

I think I was almost awake. Danielle sounded like a self-improvement and motivational book come to life. It was terrifying; I hadn’t known she’d had that in her.

I got up and hugged her, although Danielle was not normally the huggy kind. She was more of the air-kiss-on-both-cheeks kind. “Thank you, Danielle. That was what I needed to hear. Now—maybe now I can try to get some work done.”

Danielle shook her head. “And what will you do about these men?”

“I don’t know,” I admitted. “I’m not sure yet but I do know that I’ve got to pay more attention to work right now. And . . . just talking to you I got this funny feeling that I’ll figure it out.”

She nodded gravely. There is something about a Frenchwoman in a Dior outfit who takes affairs of the heart as something profound and serious. “That is true. And sometimes the best way to discover what you think is not to think about it.”

Then she turned and left me standing, slightly in shock. And in desperate need of more caffeine.

So I went down to the Starbucks in the lobby of the building to buy myself the biggest, most potent fix I could find and asked for a triple shot of espresso (along with vanilla syrup to make it a bit tastier) and returned to work. I worked hard and thought about nothing else for the first time in what seemed like weeks. I’d forgotten how good it felt to match the right accessories to different editors’ needs. It was more magical than anything I’d done with ritual. Then I checked in with the writers for the feature articles and the photographers for the next two issues’ Accents page.

Then it was time to go home. Most of the department had left and the hallways were silent. I realized that I hadn’t seen Lawrence all day—not at meeting, and I hadn’t heard his bellow down the hall.

I hoped it would stay that way.

Vincent was on duty when I arrived home with my dinner in a drippy pizza box. He took it from me while I fumbled for my mailbox key, dropped the junk into the conveniently placed trash, and found the three keys that would let me in to my apartment. Only then did I think to inquire as to his well-being and state of health.

“I’m fine now,” he said gravely. “Sybil has been wonderful. She took today off and we went to the Carnegie Deli for lunch because she believed that I needed chicken soup for a complete recovery. But we’re fine now.”

“Do you know what happened with Raven?” I pursued the subject.

Vincent shook his head. “Have you talked to Meph and Nathan about what happened when you were kidnapped?” I asked.

“Yes,” Vincent said wearily. “And I don’t want to talk about it anymore. You can ask Nathan or Mephistopheles if you want to know.”

Then the elevator arrived and really, I was too tired and overwhelmed to pursue the matter. I stepped into the elevator and let the doors close on Vincent and on anything else that could interfere with a serious evening of Taking Care of Me.

I didn’t check my e-mail or my voice mail. The only thing I turned on was the TiVo (where I’d recorded last week’s episodes of my three favorite shows) and didn’t even bother with heating up the pizza (though it was not as warm as I would like it and the cheese wasn’t runny anymore). It was the most delicious pizza I’d tasted in ages, and the
Gilmore Girls
sparkled and I indulged in a hot bath in my deep clawfoot tub with a Black Pearl bath bomb. At which point I was so tired and so relaxed that getting out of the bath to get into bed was the hardest task I could manage.

I slept for eight beautiful, glorious hours and when I woke up it was morning and sunny and warm. Spring had finally come.

My joyful ignorance lasted through my first cup of coffee, through two fried eggs, two slices of bacon, and a cheese Danish. I hummed, I went through my closet looking for a proper spring outfit for the day, and it was only after I’d chosen the pin-striped pencil skirt with black tights and a shell pink Anna Sui silk blouse trimmed with black Venice lace accents that I turned on my e-mail.

Which was a mistake. Twenty new messages, and none of them were spam. From Meph, from Marten, from Nathan, from Sybil and Desi and Eros. From everyone except Satan Herself, thank goodness. E-mail from Satan is always really bad news.

Even then it was not too late. I could have turned off the computer and gone into the office and thought about beautiful clothes. There were probably new bags and scarves and belts to catalog and coordinate for different editors, there were interns to provide with gossip, and maybe Danielle would even have some shoes to hand off.

But I’m an idiot, so I opened the first one. And all of my resolve and good mood was immediately destroyed.

chapter
TWENTY-TWO

All the e-mails said the same thing, basically. Where had I hidden Raven? Had I kidnapped her when I crashed the Burning Men’s circle? Didn’t I know she was wearing a wire, in magical terms, so they could find her and the kidnappers? Why had I disrupted their carefully laid plan with my idiot amateur attempts at a rescue? The fact that no one had ever told me the plan was ludicrous.

Meph, at least, was restrained. Marten wanted to know how I’d done it, after he’d made a talisman tracer so that they could follow her and had it flown up specially to New York from Orangestad. Eros said that I should have trusted everyone else and I never believed that anyone else could take care of things. Sybil said I was a doll for trying so hard, but clearly I had been overtired. Desi asked where I thought Raven might be.

The truth was, I had no idea where Raven was.

But since everyone thought I’d messed up, why was it my job to try to save Raven?

And where in Hell was the girl, anyway?

I couldn’t think. I couldn’t focus. I managed to get to the office, and given how much I’d done the day before I could handle most of what I needed on autopilot.

Which was a very good thing because my brain was definitely elsewhere.

Where was I going to find Raven? And how? I didn’t know if the shirt connection would work again. I wished I could call Marten in Aruba and ask him.

Maybe I could,
I thought. I had his cell number somewhere, but I would have to wait until a decent hour. It was still early for a party animal.

Then the phone rang. I looked at the caller ID. Nathan.

How did he even know I was awake?

The phone did not stop ringing. Why didn’t it roll over to voice mail already? And then voice mail picked up and there was silence. For two minutes. Until my cell phone started ringing.

There was no way around it, I was going to have to talk to someone sometime. I picked up the cell phone and answered brusquely.

“I found them!” Nathan said triumphantly even before I could ask what he was doing, calling me at eight in the morning.

“What do you mean?” I asked, wary.

“I mean I traced the owner of the apartment like I said I was going to. And I discovered that the title is in the name of one Steven Balducci. Ring any bells? And that’s not the only property he owns.”

The name was familiar. I thought for a moment. “Not that cop who dumped Desi because he’s in with Branford?” That felt like years ago, but it had only been two months since Desi had met a very cute cop while we were all at brunch. And he’d dumped her in Brooklyn in the middle of their first date when Craig Branford told him she was Hellspawn.

A cop who owned an apartment that large right on Gramercy Park? That seemed a little odd. Unless it belonged to his famous, wealthy uncle. But I couldn’t see how it fit.

And I couldn’t be the one to ask. Not right now, not when Desi was furious with me. So I told Nathan to call Desi and see what she knew. She must have learned more about him on that date they had than she had told us. And she would have figured out if he was rich. Desi is good that way.

“And wait a minute,” I said, cutting Nathan off before he could say good-bye. “Can you find out if he’s a cop?”

“Why?” Nathan asked.

“Because there was a guy who dated Desi whose name was Steve Balducci but he was a cop. Or he said he was a cop. But cops don’t live in apartments like that, so either it’s a different guy or he isn’t a cop.”

“Or he is a cop for other reasons,” Nathan sounded huffy and defensive. “He wouldn’t be the first guy with some family money to join the force.”

Right. And Nathan wasn’t the only almost Ph.D. in Near Eastern History who was playing PI while he figured out what to do with his life.

“But still, can you find out?” I asked, suddenly interested. What if the guy had lied to Desi?

“I can find that out,” Nathan said. “Do you want to have lunch today? We can go over what I’ve found and then figure out how to approach the others.”

“I can’t. I have to work. I’m already in trouble for all the time I’ve taken off and I have got to actually get things caught up. Because if we don’t have an Accessories page in the July issue then I’m going to lose my job.”

“Dinner? I can bring some takeout.”

The guy was persistent, I had to give him that. “Okay, dinner,” I agreed. “I want egg rolls and Crispy Chicken.”

“How about Benny’s?” he suggested. “I could really use a burrito.”

“Hmmm, a burrito sounds good. I haven’t been to Benny’s in ages,” I said, suddenly wondering if the last time I hit my favorite burrito place it had been when I’d run into Nathan. It brought back memories of how much fun he was during that dinner and how much we had in common.

“Get me a steak burrito with extra guac and cilantro,” I reeled off my favorite without thinking. “And chips. Get extra chips and salsa and a side of guac. Or maybe two.”

What can I say? I love guacamole and I’d only discovered it in the last twenty years.

“You’re on,” Nathan agreed and I could almost hear the smile in his voice.

For some reason his call put me in a better mood. Maybe because we were making some actual headway with this thing. Maybe because I didn’t have to worry about dinner. Maybe because I was not going to think about this mess for the next eight hours. I was going to pay attention to doing my job. For once.

I had lunch with Danielle at the deli around the corner, where we indulged in fatty corned beef and French fries and chocolate shakes, the old-fashioned kind where they put the leftovers in a second cup and give you both.

One of the great benefits of the deli was that no one from
Trend
would go there.