panties, fishnet stockings, and stiletto-heeled shoes, with a garter on her left thigh, two more on her upper arms, and a spiked collar around her neck. The clothes were fiery red while the collar, belt, garters, and shoes were night-black, and the spikes, buckles, and cross coin-silver. It took her a moment to realize the tiny woman looked exactly like her, even down to the glasses, except for the two red horns sprouting from either side of her head, and the long, sinuous barbed tail that emerged from her backside.
She looked up at Differel with a sly, devilish expression as the aristocrat stood up, but as soon as she saw who it was, she jumped, a shocked look on her face.
"Good God!" Despite her size, her voice sounded normal, and identical to her own. "Whatever I did, it couldn't have been bad enough to deserve this!"
"Who, or what, the bloody hell are you!?" Differel leaned over the desk, her hands braced against the top.
Recovering quickly, the diminutive Differel gave her a look admonishing her not to be daft. "That should be obvious. I'm your shoulder devil."
"My...what?!"
The devil-doll sighed in frustration and shook her head. "Do you have a hearing problem? Shoul--der--de--vil!"
"And just what is that supposed to be, exactly?"
She threw up her hands and looked towards the ceiling. "Oh for the love of Evil! How dense can you possibly be? I'm one of the two personifications that sit on your shoulders and offer advice on moral dilemmas. In my case, I personify temptation, and appeal to your selfish motivations."
Differel felt faint for a moment and resumed sitting. "I must be dreaming," she half-whispered, leaning forward. She held her head in her hands with her elbows resting on the desktop. "Yes, of course, I've fallen asleep over my work and I'm having a guilt-ridden nightmare."
"I wish!" The devilish-Differel sounded peeved as she placed her hands on her hips and turned away. "Being assigned to you is hardly what you would call a plum assignment. In fact, it's usually reserved either as a way to haze rookie tempters, or as a form of punishment."
Differel looked up and crossed her arms over the desk. "I beg your pardon?"
She spared her an exasperated glance over her shoulder. "Being a shoulder devil is an occupation, not a vocation. It's usually a devil's first job after graduating from the tempters training academy. However, it can be assigned to retirees who wish to keep their hands in the business, or to incompetents or malcontents as a way to teach them humility and the error of their ways. Haven't you ever read C. S. Lewis? The Screwtape Letters?"
That did seem rather familiar. "Alright, I see what you're getting at."
The devil-doll nodded her head and turned to face her again. "Finally! Now we can get down to business. Oh, by the way, the name's Differel Diabolique, but you can call me DeeDee. I prefer informality among friends."
Differel frowned. Her attitude was getting on her nerves. "Just a moment. If what you say is true, then there should be a 'shoulder angel', correct?"
"Exactly. She personifies your conscience and appeals to your altruistic motivations."
"Shouldn't she be here as well?"
Her face split into silly grin. "Are you kidding? You don't need her, you're a bigger stiff than she is."
Differel felt her anger flare as she sat upright. "Now just a bloody minute--!"
DeeDee's own face turned fiery red as she became upset. "I meant it as a compliment! Jesus, but you have a temper. I told you, being assigned to you is considered onerous duty. Why do you suppose that is, huh? It's because you're such a straight-arrow no tempter has a chance of getting you to commit any kind of sin, no matter how insignificant. So why would you need a shoulder angel? You do her job better than she would. In fact, I hear being assigned to you is considered a rather cushy posting Upstairs. She's probably off somewhere working on her tan, the stuck-up little bitch! Me, I'll probably spend my time doing my nails. Big whoop."
Differel forced herself to relax. If she was having a dream, she should be able to control it, but she would have to be calm, and if she wasn't, getting mad still wouldn't help her situation.
"Hey." DeeDee broke into her thoughts. "Do you mind if I change into something more comfortable?"
Before Differel had a chance to respond, the devil-doll disappeared in a flash of fire and a puff a smoke. A larger column of smoke and flame sprang up in front of the desk, startling her, accompanied again by the organ note, now loud enough to shake the desk. DeeDee reappeared, full-sized, but otherwise no different. She stretched in a languid, almost provocative, manner, as if working the kinks out of the compacted muscles.
"Man, does that feel good! Being shoulder-size gets to be pretty confining after awhile."
Somehow, Differel found her larger size more disturbing, in more ways than one. "Are you sure this isn't a dream?"
DeeDee walked around the desk to her side. Differel reached under the top to grip her pistol, but didn't pull it when she leaned backwards against the edge. "If you don't believe me, call someone. If this is a dream, they'll see me, otherwise they won't."
She raised an eyebrow as she removed her hand. "I can call anyone?"
"Anybody you like."
She smirked. "Hmph. As you wish." And she sent out a familiar mental summons.
Vlad Drakulya emerged from the corner closest to the door. "You rang, My Master?" he said in his deep bass voice.
From "Rhapsody in Orange"
The sight of Differel looking up from her desk stopped them in their tracks. She sat hunched over, leaning on her arms braced against the desktop. For a moment she almost looked like a zombie. She was haggard and disheveled, with heavy bags under her bloodshot eyes, her stringy, lifeless hair ragged and unkempt as if she hadn't showered for several days. It wasn't simply a matter of letting herself go; they had seen that before. It seemed indicative of a failure of will, as if she didn't care anymore. Eile glanced at Sunny, and from the look on her face she could tell she understood just how bad a shape Differel was in.
The aristocrat leaned back in her high-backed chair and rested her head against the padded leather. "What are you two doing here?" She looked and sounded weary, as if she had very little energy left.
"We haven't seen much of you lately, except in the Dreamlands," Sunny said as she closed the door, trying to sound airy, "so we just decided to drop by."
Eile decided to go along with her. "Yeah, Dracula was kind enough ta give us a lift."
She closed her eyes, as if the effort to get irritated was too much for her. "You two never were good liars. Aelfraed sent for you."
"Aw, cripes. Yeah, yer right, but he's worried about you. They all are, and now that we've seen you, so are we. Geezus, Diff, what's happened?"
She opened her eyes a crack. "That's none of your business."
Eile could feel herself getting angry, but she reflected that if she could a rise out of the blue-blood, that might snap her out of her malaise. "Like hell it is. We wanna help you."
Differel leaned forward and removed a cigarillo from the desk's humidor. Eile knew she used smoking as a defense mechanism, so the fact that she was getting one seemed a good sign. But she didn't like the way her hands shook as she lit it with her father's lighter.
"Everyone's been trying to help me." She stood in a slow, cautious manner. It was almost painful to watch.
"I don't need help." She walked around the chair towards the back windows, pausing for a moment to steady herself. "I need understanding and acceptance," she concluded before continuing on.
Sunny walked around the desk to be with her, and Eile followed. "That's what Eile meant," she said in a soothing tone.
She turned to face them, her visage grim as death. "No, you're like the others. You won't believe me either. You'll just laugh, or feign sympathy as you plot to have me committed."
Eile finally lost her temper. "Dammit, Differel, do we hafta spell it out, again?! We're yer friends! We're not gonna laugh at you, or question yer sanity; we will try ta help you anyway we can. But you h
afta level with us. Now, come on, what's wrong?"
She gave them a desperate look, as if she really wanted to believe them. "I...don't know--"
A lilting, child-like voice wafted through the air. "Aw, go on, tell them." It was followed by a giggle.
Sunny whipped her head around trying to locate the source of the voice, but Eile was more disturbed by Differel's reaction. She went rigid, as if having a seizure, and bit off the end of her cigarillo, which dropped on the marble floor in a small shower of sparks. She squeezed her eyes shut with a grimace and jammed her fists into each temple.
"Who said that?"
Differel snapped to attention and stared at Sunny in utter disbelief. "You...you heard that?!"
"Wellllll, yeah, naturally," Sunny said, her eyes wide with wonder. "Who is she?"
Differel charged straight at her and grabbed her by both arms. "You really heard her?!" She shook Sunny hard enough to whip her hair around her head.
"Cut it out!" Eile said. "Let her go, we both heard it!"
Differel threw Sunny at Eile and backed away from them. "How do I know you're not lying? How...how do I know you're even real!? Maybe you're just more hallucinations! Merciful God in Heaven, I may actually be going mad!! I can't live like this! Dear God, please, make it stop; make it stop--"
Eile strode up to Differel and slapped her across the face so hard she turned her head and knocked off her glasses. The blue-blood glared a look of
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