by Mike Carey
She stood beside the open window, her hair lifted slightly by a cool spring breeze. She was naked and, as before, her terrible beauty stirred me and cowed me in equal measure. For a long time we regarded each other in silence. The smell faded instead of building, which gave me hope she wasn’t hunting that night; but just in case, I didn’t move. Succubi react to a running man as cats do to a running mouse.
“I was summoned for a specific task,” Juliet said at last, her incredible shot-silk voice caressing me like the flat of a razor blade.
I nodded. I knew damn well what that task was.
“And I can’t go back home until I finish it.”
There was no way I’d get to the door before she got to me, and the only thing at hand that would be any use as a weapon was the whisky bottle. I let my hand fall on it, as casually as I could.
The moment stretched.
“It never occurred to me before,” Juliet said, “that failure would bring such extensive benefits. But then—while I wore the chain, failure wasn’t an option. I really ought to thank you for that.”
I shook my head. It was meant to indicate that unbinding demons was all part of the Castor service, and that no thanks were needed or expected. Of course, I realized numbly, home for Juliet was Hell—or at any rate, a place for which Hell was the only word we had. It probably wasn’t a place that anyone ever got nostalgic about.
“So I need something else to occupy my time,” Juliet finished. “And I believe the job that you do would suit me well. But clearly there are rules, and some of them will be alien to me. So I’ve come here looking for instruction—you being the only human I’ve met who’s still alive.”
It took me a while to get a coherent answer out, because first I had to run what I’d just heard through my internal logic circuits, many of which had shorted out at the first sight of her.
“Work experience,” was what I managed to say after a pause that stretched out almost to breaking point. “You want a work-experience placement.”
“If that’s what it’s called, yes. To work with you. To watch you. To learn how it’s done.”
I sat down again, slowly and carefully, so that I wouldn’t fall over and so that there wouldn’t be any sudden movements that might make her change her mind and eviscerate me.
“Okay,” I said. “Yeah. Yes. I’m prepared to—take you on. It’s a hell of a lot better than the alternative. But—if you don’t mind me asking this—could you please put some clothes on? Because I need some blood to be in my brain. Otherwise I’m probably going to lose consciousness.”
Juliet quirked an eyebrow, glancing down at my agonizing erection where it tented the cloth of my trousers as if she was noticing it for the first time.
“Sorry,” she said, and without there being any interval of time or any sense of movement, she was dressed in the outfit that she’d worn when I’d first met her—the black shirt, the black leather trousers, the ice-pick heels.
It was an impressive ensemble, and it did the job. But did it—just maybe—lack the proper sense of professional gravitas?
I sat back in my chair, frowning judiciously as I rubbed the line of my chin with forefinger and thumb. After a moment or so, inspiration came.
“I’ve got this trench coat,” I told her. “One careful owner.”
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