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Three

      The next morning, before my eyes had fully opened, I remembered three important things: my mother was dead, I’d been hit by a car, and I was now a succubus who worked for the Devil.

      At least one of those things seemed very unlikely.

      I investigated myself in the mirror. My face looked as it always did: green eyes, pert nose, rosebud mouth. The weariness in my eyes and faint wrinkles on my forehead didn’t result from any near-death experience. No, I blamed those on the divorce, the fire, and the fact that I could no longer afford my favorite Estée Lauder moisturizer.

      Surely, if I’d been turned into a demon, I’d look different. I examined my scalp for demon-style horns and glanced over my shoulder expecting a red, forked tail. Seeing neither, I undressed and took a good look at myself. My body was just as I remembered: a waistline I wished would grow smaller, breasts I wished would grow larger, and an ass that was still nice and firm.

      Yesterday’s run-in with the Volvo had left no bruises, scratches, sprains, or broken bones. How could I have been hit by a car, yet escape without injuries? Now, it wasn’t only the trip to Hell that I questioned. The accident, too, seemed unlikely.

      As I showered, I tried to explain away my memories. A seizure, perhaps? A hallucination? Or maybe the stress of the past twelve months had reached critical mass, and I was fully insane.

      After pulling on a pair of jeans and a sweater, I decided to experiment. Gathering my courage, I called, “Miss Spry? Are you there?”

      Nothing answered.

      “Hello? Demon overlord?”

      Still nothing.

      Yesterday, the bars in the waiting room, the endless gray corridor, and the terrible woman with the hot eyes had seemed so real. Now, those memories held the haziness of a dream. I shook my head as I left my bedroom. A succubus! Of all the stupid things to imagine. Real life was tough enough. The last thing I needed was drama from the spiritual realm.

      To my surprise, I wasn’t the first one awake. Tommy, Jasmine’s friend, sat at the kitchen table drinking coffee and eating a peanut butter sandwich. The night before, Jas had begged me to let him stay over. Since I’d been too overwhelmed to worry about the rules, I’d allowed it providing that he slept on the couch.

      Seeing me, he frowned and tilted his head in a way that made me paranoid. Did he sense something different about me? Something that I hadn’t discovered myself? Then, to my relief, his face smoothed and he smiled.

      “Coffee?” he asked, rising.

      I nodded and sank into a chair. “You’re up early.”

      “My job starts at seven.”

      Job? Jasmine finally found a guy who was employed? Hallelujah and pass the ketchup! “What do you do?”

      “I’m a mechanic. Mostly, I work on transmissions.” He set a mug in front of me and reclaimed his seat. “It’s not glamorous, but it’s steady work.” He sipped his coffee. “What about you? Are you an early riser, too, or couldn’t you sleep?”

      I shrugged. “A little of both.”

      “I’m sorry about your mother.”

      “Thanks.” The news of my mother’s death had yet to sink in. It seemed as distant as a dream.

      “If you need to talk, I’m glad to listen,” he continued. “When my sister died, my friends were the only things that kept me sane.” Tommy certainly looked intimidating, but his bald head, tats, and numerous facial piercings seemed to mask a gentle nature.

      I didn’t want to discuss my mother’s death. In some ways, that was the least of my problems. To keep the focus off of her, I asked about his tattoos.

      He held out his arms. “My friend did the work, but I drew the art. This one’s my favorite.” He patted his chest.

      “The demon tattoo,” I said, remembering.

      “It’s not just a demon.” He lifted his T-shirt, revealing the picture. “See, up here is the demon, but down below is an angel.”

      Sure enough, there were two creatures locked in battle. The snarling demon was held in place by an equally ferocious angel. The angel gripped the demon’s hairy back leg while the demon sunk its sharp teeth into angel’s fiery wings. It wasn’t clear who was winning the fight.

      “I call it ‘Duality’,” Tommy said. “You know, like in the dual nature of man.”

      “Which is?”

      “That we all want to behave better than we do. For example, most people will say that they want to feed the hungry, but they won’t give a homeless guy a dime because they’re frightened or disgusted by him. Or people want to be honest, but they cheat on their taxes.”

      “So you think that there’s a balance of good and bad inside of everyone?”

      “Not a balance, no. Evil tends to overwhelm good.” He pointed to his stomach. “See? The angel has a hold on the demon, but the demon’s already drawn blood.”

      My hands tightened on the coffee mug as I thought of Miss Spry and her hot eyes. “So evil always wins.”

      “Not if we keep fighting.”

      I couldn’t take my eyes from the tat. What if the previous day’s experiences were real? What if I actually had become a succubus? Would I still be able to battle my evil nature? “What if someone had an actual demon living inside of them?” I hadn’t meant to ask. The question had just slipped out. Embarrassed, I forced a laugh. “Hypothetically, I mean.”

      Tommy’s smooth forehead furrowed. “Demons are stronger than mortals, so I guess that a person with a real demon inside them would lose.”

      My throat clicked as I dry swallowed. “Lose what? Their goodness?”

      His serious gray eyes met mine. “No, their humanity.”

      After sending the girls off to school, my mother’s death hit me unexpectedly hard. My mother was really, truly dead. My sense of loss came as a surprise since Carrie and I hadn’t been close – her decision, not mine. Still, I felt a sharp pang of grief. I was a first grader all over again, standing onstage during my spring dance recital and praying that, just once, my mother would show up. The terrible longing that had plagued me throughout childhood resurged with a vengeance. I sat on the couch and cried.

      Surprisingly, my stepsister offered to drive me to the funeral home and help make Carrie’s arrangements. I was touched. Usually, moral support isn’t Jasmine’s forte. For example, when I told her that my ex-husband was having an affair, she said, “Maybe it’s because you’re getting fat.”

      Today, however, she hugged me tightly, something that once again brought me to tears. “Your mom was the best,” she said. “I’ll miss her.”

      The first part of that statement was false, and we both knew it. My mother had abandoned me when I was three and rarely returned to visit. The second part of the statement, however, was true. I’d always suspected that Jasmine envied me for the type of mother I had. Jas’s mother is nice enough, but she’s very proper and reserved. My mother, on the other hand, was a spitfire. She frequently hosted poetry slams in her living room. She took bartending lessons when she was seventy-five, and could out-drink any of her college-age classmates. She was always the first to throw a party and the last to leave one. People loved her. I probably would have loved her, too, if she hadn’t been my mother.

      Jasmine drove us to the funeral home that my stepfather had recommended. As expected, the place was a ponderously dreary place of heavy draperies, thick carpeting, and the sickening smell of freshly-cut, hothouse flowers. The funeral director, Harold Black, was a young man doing his very best to look as old as possible. His thinning hair and gold-framed glasses made him appear fifty rather than thirty. When we all sat down together, he gave me a mournful look. “I’m

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