Succubus Takes Manhattan (22 page)

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 would 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.”

“Yes, I really wore that,” I snapped, exasperated. The girl might be useful and a willing volunteer, but I wanted to take her head off. “And the rest of it. And if your fashion sense is more early Madonna, that’s your business. Tonight you’re supposed to be me, and these are my clothes.”

“I hate Madonna,” she wailed. “Madonna is so, like, not cool.”

It was my turn to say “Whatever,” though I expect that my intonation wasn’t quite as utterly world-weary as a nineteen-year-old’s could be. “Just put them on. And don’t do any makeup.”

The girl stuck her tongue out before she took the clothes and departed. I was so aghast that I was unable to move or speak or even think for minutes.

It was Desi’s giggle that brought me back. “You should see yourself,” she said, standing in the doorway. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you so . . . stunned, Lily. You look like you’ve just been slapped.”

Then it was Sybil’s turn to laugh lightly. “Oh, much worse than that. Raven doesn’t like Lily’s clothes.”

“The little philistine,” Desi said, her tone completely heartfelt.

“I heard that,” the little philistine yelled from the bathroom. I heard the door slam, and she entered the room.

“Makeup,” Desi said. “And shoes. What size do you wear?” This last was directed to Raven.

“Nine,” the girl answered, and I groaned. I wear size five and was thought to have large feet when I was alive. Though it comes in handy now because a lot of samples are sent in less-salable, very small sizes, so I often luck out.

No such luck for Raven. I didn’t have a pair that would come close. “This is going to be a problem,” I muttered. “Anyone else here wear a nine?”

Eros did. We all looked at her, but she said nothing. I couldn’t blame her—she was wearing the cutest pair of Christian Louboutins, from the spring line that had just been released a week ago.

“Meph,” Desi yelled. And Mephistopheles knocked discreetly on the door.

“Come on in,” I said, but he merely nudged the door a few inches. “Really, it’s okay,” I reassured him, but he resolutely stood his ground. Meph does not think it appropriate to enter a woman’s boudoir unless he is about to seduce her. (Well, that’s the way he would put it.)

“Raven won’t fit into Lily’s shoes,” Desi explained. “And she can’t go barefoot.”

“And you can’t find shoes that will fit?” he asked, a little horrified. Meph does not want to know anything about women’s clothes, except how to take them off. He certainly didn’t want to be dragged shopping. Not that that was an option at that hour of the evening.

“Can you throw a glamour on her shoes?” Desi asked sweetly, pointing to Raven. “Make them look like these?” She held up a pair of my favorite Manolos, the ones with the pink trim on the black straps. They would be exactly what I would choose with that outfit, come to think of it.

Meph shook his head slowly. “If she were wearing sandals, or something close, I might be able to do it. But she’s got those heavy flat boots the kids wear these days. I can’t enchant them to look like anything but heavy boots.”

He seemed sad. Raven shrugged. “Why don’t I just wear my boots then? It isn’t like anyone will be looking at my shoes.”

“Anyone who knows Lily knows she would never, ever, in a million years, wear Docs,” Sybil said.

“They don’t know Lily that well, though,” Eros pointed out. “They think they know something about us, but Marten confused them in Aruba. They have some information but it’s incomplete.”

“They know about Public,” I corrected her.

“Public is, well, public,” Eros continued without missing a beat. “They know things that can be observed, things that they can find out through conventional means. Some things we know they have inside information about, but mostly they’re going on mortal investigation.”

“My shoes are not exactly a secret,” I groused.

Eros shrugged. “I doubt they’ve got your Barneys bill. Maybe Meph can do something to smarten up the Docs? Put a few pink flowers on them, or make them appear more like Betsey Johnson’s? She
has
done some heavy boots with a punk look.”

I wasn’t sure that Meph could pull it off without at least a picture, and the boots Eros was thinking of were a couple of years out of date.

“I could possibly do some pink flowers on the boots,” Mephistopheles said dubiously. “If you’d sketch out what you mean. I’m not sure I have any idea how they ought to look.”

That wouldn’t be hard. Big daisies, throwbacks to the seventies, pink and yellow. Not that I would wear anything like that, but at least they would look like something.

“No,” Raven protested. “No pink. No flowers on my boots. I’m doing this all your way, but enough is enough.”

“It’s only illusion,” Eros explained reasonably. “The whole thing will dissolve in a few hours anyway.”

“No,” Raven said again. She softened. “Please? I’m wearing the clothes, we’ll do the makeup your way, but please don’t make me wear boots with big daisies.”

How did she know they were daisies? Had she actually remembered the style we were trying to re-create? If she could identify designer boots she might not be completely hopeless after all.

Something about the girl intrigued me. So many contradictions, all unresolved. Brains and ambition with a clichéd (and unattractive) look, willing to sacrifice, to be hurt, but not to have an illusion cast on her boots.

“Satan wears Chanel,” Desi said as if she were revealing a secret. “And Dior and Lanvin. Definitely classic French fashion.”

“Ladies, we’re running out of time,” Meph announced, clearly uncomfortable with the subject matter and where the conversation had ended up. “I suggest that we permit Raven her preferences in footwear, do her makeup, and start over to the park. We have only forty-five minutes.”

“We’ll never manage her nails,” Eros groused. “So the nails and the shoes will be definitely not Lily.”

“It’s dark and late and they’d have to notice. They’d have to know and we have no reason to think they will,” Sybil said, and she sounded like a leader, like the kind of powerful, definite person who would turn your quarter of a million into a fortune. “We should just finish up with the makeup and get on with it or we’ll be late, like Meph said.”

Desi and I took Raven into the bathroom and initiated her into the mysteries of Real Grown-up Makeup. A soft Estée Lauder blush, Lancôme eyebrow filler, and some shaping and arching to the brows themselves (she squirmed and protested while we tweezed, the whole time trying to explain that she had never had her brows waxed. Which was obvious).

We were ready. We were done. We presented her and reached for our coats.

“Not you, Lily,” Meph restrained me.

“What do you mean, not me?” I protested. I’d done the most of anyone to get Raven ready, to hire Nathan, to try to get Vincent back. I wanted to be there for the showdown. I deserved to be there!

“You still look like yourself, Lily. They’ll see the substitution with you standing right there,” Desi explained gently.

No, no, this could not be happening. I was going to go. They were not about to keep me away.

“Give me one minute,” I begged. “Just a minute. I’ve got a wig . . .”

“No, Lily. Not this time,” Meph interrupted. “You’ve done brilliantly, you’ve served Satan well and I would expect that She will admire your efforts. And one of those efforts has to be staying away from the exchange. Desire is right—your presence could destroy the entire plan.”

I pouted. I protested. And I gave up, or at least acted as if I accepted my defeat.

And as soon as they left I ran into the bathroom.

chapter
EIGHTEEN

It took all of ten minutes. Out of my four wigs I chose the dark brown page boy. It was good enough to pass in the dark.