Succubus Revealed

《Succubus_Revealed》

Chapter 1

This wasn't the first time I'd worn a foil dress. It was, however, the first time I'd done so in a family-friendly setting.

"Vixen!"

Santa's voice rang out above the mall crowd, and I hurried away from where I'd been corralling a group of Burberryclad kids. It wasn't actually Santa Claus calling me, of course. The man sitting in the holly-and-light-bedecked gazebo was named Walter something-or-other, but he asked that those of us working as his "elves" refer to him as Santa at all times. Conversely, he had christened all of us with either reindeer or Seven Dwarves names. He took this job very seriously and said the names helped him stay in character. If we questioned that, he'd start regaling us with tales of his extensive career as a Shakespearean actor, one that he claimed had come to an end because of his age. We elves had our own ideas about what might have cut his career short.

"Santa needs another drink," he told me in a stage whisper, once I reached his side. "Grumpy won't get me one." He inclined his head toward another woman dressed in a green foil dress. She was holding back a squirming boy while Santa and I conducted our conversation. I met her pained expression and then glanced down at my watch.

"Well, Santa," I said, "that's because it's only been an hour since the last one. You know the deal: one shot in your coffee every three hours."

"We made that deal a week ago!" he hissed. "Before the crowds picked up. You have no idea what Santa endures." I didn't know if it was part of his acting method or just a personality quirk, but he also referred to himself in the third person a lot. "A girl just asked for SAT scores good enough to get her into Yale. I think she was nine."

I spared him a moment's sympathy. The mall where we were earning holiday pay was in one of Seattle's more affluent suburbs, and the requests he got sometimes went beyond footballs and ponies. The kids also tended to be better dressed than me (when I wasn't in elf-wear), which was no small feat.

"Sorry," I said. Tradition or not, I sometimes thought putting children on an old guy's lap was already creepy enough. We didn't need to mix alcohol into it. "The deal stands."

"Santa can't take much more of this!"

"Santa's got four hours left of his shift," I pointed out.

"I wish Comet was still here," he said petulantly. "She was much more lenient with the drinks."

"Yes. And I'm sure she's drinking alone right now, seeing as she's unemployed." Comet, a former elf, had been generous with Santa's shots and also partaken of them herself. Since she was half his weight, though, she hadn't held her liquor as well and had lost her job when mall officials caught her taking off her clothes in The Sharper Image. I gave a curt nod to Grumpy. "Go ahead."

The little boy hurried forward and climbed onto Santa's lap. To his credit, Santa switched into character and didn't pester me (or the boy) further about a drink. "Ho ho ho! What would you like for this nondenominational winter holiday season?" He even affected a slight British accent, which wasn't really necessary for the role but certainly made him seem more authoritative.

The boy regarded Santa solemnly. "I want my dad to move back home."

"Is that your father?" asked Santa, looking toward a couple standing near Grumpy. The woman was pretty and blond, with the look of someone in her thirties who'd been preemptively hitting the Botox. If the guy she was plastered all over was old enough to be out of college, I would have been very surprised.

"No," said the boy. "That's my mom and her friend Roger."

Santa was silent for a few moments. "Is there anything else you'd like?"

I left them to it and returned to my post near the line's start. Evening was wearing on, increasing the number of families turning out. Unlike Santa's, my shift ended in less than an hour. I could get in a little shopping time and miss the worst of the commuting traffic. As an official mall employee, I got a considerable discount, which made drunken Santas and foil dresses that much easier to bear. One of the greatest things about the happiest time of the year was that all the department stores had extensive cosmetics and fragrance gift sets out right now, gift sets that desperately needed a home in