Succubus Dreams Page 0,3

and Cody's. Don't be late. Your presence is essential."

Shit. I hoped this wasn't actually my going away party. I'd been on pretty good behavior lately. "What's this about?"

"Find out when you get there. Don't be late," he repeated.

Stepping off the main thoroughfare and into the shadow of a building, the demon vanished.

A feeling of dread spread through me. Demons were never to be trusted, particularly when they looked like quirky movie stars and issued enigmatic invitations.

"Everything okay?" Seth asked me when I rejoined him.

I considered. "In as much as it ever is."

He wisely chose not to pursue the subject, and he and I eventually separated to take care of our respective tasks. I was dying to know what this meeting could be about but not nearly as much as I wanted to know what had made me lose my energy overnight. And as I ran my errands - groceries, oil change, Macy's - I also found the strange, brief dream replaying in my head. How could such a short dream have been so vivid? And why couldn't I stop thinking about it?

The puzzle distracted me so much that seven rolled around without me knowing it. Groaning, I headed off for my friend Peter's place, speeding the whole way. Great. I was going to be late. Even if this meeting didn't concern me and my impending unemployment, I might end up getting a taste of Jerome's wrath after all.

About six feet from the apartment door, I felt the hum of immortal signatures. A lot of them. My friends' auras, familiar and beloved, sang to me instantly. A few others gave me pause as I tried to remember who they belonged to; the greater Puget Sound area had a host of hellish employees that I almost never interacted with. One signature I didn't recognize at all. And one...one seemed almost familiar. I couldn't quite put my finger on who it belonged to, though.

I started to knock, decided an all staff meeting deserved more than jeans and a T-shirt, and shape-shifted my outfit into a brown dress with a low-cut, surplice top. My hair settled into a neat bun. I raised my hand to the door.

An annoyed vampire I barely remembered let me in. She inclined her chin to me by way of greeting and then continued her conversation with another vampire I'd only met once. I think they worked out of Tacoma, which as I far as I was concerned might as well be annexed to Hell itself.

My friend Hugh, dark-haired with a large frame, paced around while chatting animatedly on his cell phone. Jerome lounged in an armchair with a martini. His little-seen lieutenant demonesses stood in a corner, keeping to themselves as always. Peter and Cody - my good friends and the vampires who lived here - laughed about something in the kitchen with a few other hellish employees I only distantly knew.

It could have been an ordinary cocktail party, almost a celebration. I hoped that meant no smiting tonight since that would have really put a damper on the atmosphere. No one had noticed my arrival except for Jerome.

"Ten minutes late," he growled.

"Hey, it's a fashionable - "

My words were cut off as a tall, Amazonian blonde nearly barreled into me.

"Oh! You must be Georgina! I've been dying to meet you."

I raised my eyes past spandex-clad double-D breasts and up into big blue eyes with impossibly long lashes. A huge set of beauty pageant teeth smiled down at me.

My moments of speechlessness were few, but they did happen. This walking Barbie doll was a succubus. A really new one. So shiny and new, in fact, it was a wonder she didn't squeak. I recognized her age both from her signature and her appearance. No succubus with any sense would have shape-shifted into that. She was trying too hard, haphazardly piling together an assortment of pseudo male-fantasy body parts. It left her with a Frankensteinian creation that was both jaw-dropping and probably anatomically impossible.

Unaware of my astonishment and disdain, she took my hand and nearly broke it in a mammoth handshake.

"I can't wait to work with you," she continued. "I am so ready to make men everywhere suffer."

I finally found my voice. "Who...who are you?"

"She's your new best friend," a voice nearby said. "My, my look at you. Tawny's going to have a tough standard to keep up with."

A man elbowed his way toward us, and whatever curiosity I'd felt in the other succubus' presence disappeared like ashes in the