Daughter to Demons

by Jeffrey M. Mahr and Levanah

Chapter Nineteen:
The Best-Laid Plans

Most people of action are inclined to fatalism
and most of thought believe in providence.
― Honoré De Balzac.

 

Jackie cradled the stone in her palm. She was sitting in her new living room in front of a blazing fire, although it was the middle of summer and the air-conditioning was on, maintaining the delicate balance between Sal’s comfort and Frank’s. The sun through the window spilled through it, casting a fragmented greenish net of light across her hand and arm, reflecting green stars onto the walls and ceiling, occasionally spearing her eye with a brilliant flash. Inside the stone, she could feel the soul of her sister Jane, something of her feistiness, her vulnerability, the caring heart she’d had to hide beneath belligerence and anger. But all these things were part of her, just as her own sometimes belligerence and anger were part of her, but not all. She could love perhaps more easily than she could hate, but both were necessary. Without her fury, and her mocking tongue, Sansanvi might not have been so very angry, might have been more careful, and kept his distance, in which eventuality he might have been able to best her and she’d be dead. Without her love, she wouldn’t have had the power to resist, much less to emerge victorious. Perhaps her mother could have snatched her soul away from dissolution as well, and she and Jane might have shared space in the pouch she now had open before her, and there’d be two green diamonds, and someone else would be looking at them.

But this was now, and she was here, and she literally didn’t know what to do. Her mother hadn’t exactly made her feel that she’d be welcome back to her club until she did, but she didn’t know where to begin. She already knew that her books didn’t say much of anything about Cain’s birth other than the bare fact of it, nor how her mother had managed it, much less a few million demons, or angels, as it turned out; the boundary seemed somewhat more flexible than she’d been given to understand in Catechism Class. Of course, she took those memories with a grain of salt, because she remembered going to an all-girls school in great detail, but knew that the school must have been coëducational, because she’d attended back when she was Jack.

It was an odd feeling, because she knew who she really was, but also realized that her memories were an odd re-crystalization of a fluid sort of quantum reality, a re-projection of the holographic whole of her existence upon a different multi-dimensional screen, her intertwined worldlines encompassing all that she could have been or might become, the stodgy professor ensconced in an ivory tower, the ravening rival to her mother, acting out on her behalf her mother’s rage against the injustice of a male-dominated world by taking it apart, piece by piece, until it shattered into bits and tatters, waiting for a more auspicious act of Creation, the smirking Jack — She had a sudden flash of parallel memory, in which she saw herself, as Jack, putting money in her mother’s g-string that first night, her fingers straying a bit lower than they should have, and realized that what may have prompted Lilith’s nocturnal visitations just might have been her own actions — She flushed with belated shame.

‘Hoist with your own petard, aren’t you, Jackie dear. Remember that the next time you feel morally superior to anyone.’ From her new perspective, she saw that she couldn’t exactly blame Lilith for her sometimes hostile attitude, since she herself had been treating Lilith at least as shabbily as Lilith treated some men. And then she thought of her true self, the simple Jackie, sail set toward an unknown destination, a part of all she’d been and seen, and of those she’d met along the way.

Sailing, she realized, implied a wind, some purpose to fill the sails, and the same impulse that had driven her mother out of an arranged marriage and into the free world drove her, or at least she realized that now. She’d been depending on Lilith, however ungratefully, to do everything for her, so that she kept going back to her side, asking — demanding — another handout whenever things went wrong. It was time, she thought, to steer something of her own course, and she realized that she did know someone who’d been around back then — although she didn’t know how welcome she’d be on his doorstep, having just done one of his fellow angels a rather nasty turn — ‘her angel,’ Semangelaf. He’d said that he lived in a Jesuit monastery near Coxsackie, and Coxsackie wasn’t all that large.

A few minutes on the Internet yielded the Abbey of Piccolomini, with an address and a telephone number.

She stared at it a while, and then punched in the number. A man answered, so she said, “Hello, is Father Ngelaf there, please? This is Jackie Renfrew. We met quite some time ago.”

“Just a minute, please; I’ll see if he’s in his room.”

There was a longish wait before a familiar voice came on the line. “Jackie, how good to hear from you. To what do I owe the honor of your call?”

“Well, actually, I have a couple of questions, but first I’d like to say that I captured your friend Sansanvi when he tried to kill me, so I wanted to ask if you had any hard feelings about that.”

“You say he tried to kill you?” he asked, but his tone seemed dubious.

“He did indeed, and had previously murdered one of my close kin, another succubus, but not a terribly effective one. She certainly wouldn’t fit the scenario you outlined to me of an unrepentant murderess and menace to society, because she was very young and inexperienced.”

“This is a very serious accusation, Jackie. Do you have any proof?” He was starting to sound like a damned bureaucrat, covering up his corporate ass with weasel words and orchestrated ‘surprise.’

Jackie was getting irritated. “Well, other than that I have a dead sister and his sorry ass in jail, I suppose I don’t. You’ll just have to take my word for it.”

“You … captured an archangel?”

Now, she was officially ticked off. “Look, if we’re going to play Twenty Questions here, just forget I asked. I’ve got better things to do than make idle chit-chat with an angel who doesn’t seem to know whether I’m lying to him or not. Is this the same Semangelaf I talked to in the bus station? If so, how’d he get so stupid between then and now?”

“But you have to release him.” He seemed stuck on the issue, like the people still argued about who really won Florida, as if corrupt politicians and partisan judges didn’t exist, or had no power, as if there were an infallible referee somewhere with the power to ensure for absolutely-positively-certain that the ‘good guys’ always won. Get over it. Bad things happen. Nobody argues about whether Kitty Genovese really died because she was murdered by a criminal and no one who heard her scream bothered to help her. Oh, oh! Do-over! Give me a break.

Jackie tried once more to explain. “No, I don’t, and in very fact I’m never going to let him go. He killed a friend of mine, then he tried to kill me, so I have a very personal interest in dissuading him from further attempts. Not to worry, though; eventually plate tectonics will bring him to a subduction zone and he’ll be released, not more than five hundred and eighty million years from now by my rough calculation — well, unless someone who doesn’t like him, like me, for only one example, and I will be looking out for him, moves him in the interval, but even then surely within twelve billion years or so from now, when the Earth slowly spirals into the Sun during its red giant phase — by which time one hopes that he’ll repent himself of his rash actions and be a good boy thenceforward. I like to take the long view; it seems cheerier, somehow.” She smiled benignly, even though he couldn’t see her expression.

“But you can’t just lock up an archangel….”

She rolled her eyes. “I beg to differ, because I did, in very fact, just lock up a putative ‘angel,’ although I’m not at all sure about his current position in the hierarchy. Call me crazy, but I think having his ass whipped by an unarmed girl might lower his standing in the playoffs, and it seems to me that — having chosen a life of crime — he’s a fallen angel at best, perhaps a has-been angel, and quite possibly a mere demon when one looks at the issue calmly.”

“But…. How ever did you manage it?”

Jackie was instantly suspicious, so said, “Well, I started out with eye of newt and toe of frog, so it’s definitely a New California Fusion recipe, but I found it in Sunset Magazine, which I just adore for their architecture and landscaping ideas, although the recipes are great as well. It may have been in the October issue, for Halloween, you understand, but I could be wrong.” The way he was acting, he might take umbrage at her little trick, in which case she might eventually be very glad that he didn’t know exactly how it worked, and she had no plans to tell him.

“Why are you lying to me?” He tried to inject a stern tone of reprimand into his words, but it was difficult to carry this off over the telephone, so he merely sounded constipated.

“Why ever not?” she said with considerable insolence, and feeling just a bit more like a grown-up. She could hardly believe how much in awe of him she’d been before this revelatory conversation. “We’re already agreed on the fact that you suck at lie detection — in particular that you have difficulty distinguishing between patent truth and ludicrously unlikely fiction — and are generally an idiot, so let’s just say that I’ve politely declined to answer an intrusive question that you had no business asking using humorous deflection. In other words, it’s none of your damned business, Mister Nosey-Parker. You have your choice here; you can choose to be my friend or you can choose to take up with sociopaths and murderers, just because they happen to part their hair on the same side you do, but you can’t be both.”

There was a long pause before he said, “Fair enough. Could you please tell me how he tried to kill you? Is there any possibility you misunderstood?”

“I don’t think so, having seen countless horror films as a young girl. The only cliché he omitted, as far as I can recall, was ‘Slowly I turned, step by step, inch by inch.’ In simple fact he grabbed me with his hands — I was blithely alone in my boudoir in a state of déshabillé at the time — and attempted to squeeze the life out of me, having prefaced his naughty actions with the succinctly witty bon mot, ‘Die, bitch!’ Oh, and he called me a ‘cunt’ as well. It didn’t sound like an admiring compliment, especially when preceded by the B-word.” She paused, then added, “It also disproved the old theory that cold hands indicate a warm heart, because his hands were as cold as ice, and his heart was definitely on the chilly side as well.”

There was a long pause before he answered, and then he only said, “So you say his captivity is ensured over geologic time?”

“Pretty sure. I gave him to my mother, which seemed fair, since he was killing her children, and she’d already engaged another angel to destroy him. She was tickled pink to get him alive and kicking, but I somehow doubt that she’ll misplace him in a paroxysm of girlish enthusiasm.”

“I imagine,” he said drily. “I don’t suppose you’d tell me who that angel might be….”

“You imagine correctly. As I said, it’s really none of your damned business, since you’ve never declared your real position in this long-standing conflict. From my own observation and belief, I think that I’m on the side of the angels, as it were, and if you’ll pardon my presumption. Given the recent behavior of someone I’d believed to be an angel, I begin to question the terminology itself, and suspect that its only real meaning is as a method of ‘keeping track’ of where the players are positioned on the field, so I strongly suspect that my mother’s not quite the demon you’ve made out. I know that in the Bible the terms Daimon and Angelos are used more-or-less interchangeably, although Hebrew tends to favor one word, Malakh, ‘Messenger,’ since the Jewish tradition isn’t quite so focused on Manichæan black and white or good and evil, so we can presume that any differentiation between the terms is probably very late, a pious invention, as it were, meant to further a particular viewpoint. I also suspect — especially given my recent experience — that as you yourself implied when you talked about our ‘dual natures,’ an ‘angel’ can ‘fall’ at any time, and that the choice isn’t historical only, but continuing, which implies that ‘fallen angels’ can — as the song says — pick themselves up, dust themselves off, and start all over again.”

He laughed briefly, and with no particular good humor. “There speaks a scholar. It’s true, although very rare. Once one has committed one’s heart to evil, our Maker may ‘harden’ that heart to make it possible to do evil without utterly destroying one’s soul, just as slaughterhouse workers become inured to the suffering and cruel deaths of animals. Roughly the same thing occurs when one commits to living a virtuous life, so it becomes simultaneously easier to perform good works and more difficult to imagine doing otherwise. I apologize. Is there anything I can do to restore your trust in my word?”

“I’m perfectly willing to be persuaded, because you did Frank and me a wonderful service when I was feeling mighty low, and I’m grateful, but I’m not a pushover; I demand reciprocity and honesty.”

“I agree. It’s a reasonable demand, and I’m sorry that I doubted you, but what you described is so very rare that it seemed, at first, impossible, nor did I believe that you alone could have defeated him. I was wrong, and not for the first time in a very long life. As you spoke, I tried to locate Sansanvi in the world, and he seems to have gone missing, which lends considerable credence to your story. I’ve also taken another look at your aura, which turns out to be easily perceptible, even from here, almost as noticeable as that of Lilith. As the current idiom goes, Grrl, you been ‘workin’ out.’ I’m personally convinced, and the likelihood of the two isolated facts — your story, and Sansanvi disappearing — occurring simultaneously through pure coïncidence are even more unlikely than the story itself. Ergo, Sansanvi succumbed to his baser nature and did in fact kill your friend and others, and tried to kill you. It follows then that whatever you did was part of an act of self-defence, and so carries no blame, and may perhaps even have been compassionate, because it seems likely that when you had him in your power, you might well have destroyed him, as would have been your right in common law. In fact, you spared his life, thus preserving the possibility of his eventual repentance and reconciliation to society-at-large.”

Jackie thought about that for a while, and realized that it was true. Sansanvi was drowning; she could have persuaded him to drown in very truth. “You’re right, but whatever I did wasn’t a conscious decision. When he was helpless, my anger vanished, and I had no desire to harm him, only to prevent him from harming me or anyone else.”

“You were not only justified, but required to stop the ‘Rodef,’ the one who pursues for the purpose of murder or rape, by any means necessary. In halacha, one is seen as ‘saving’ the murderer from the grievous sin of murder, even at the cost of his own life, since a sane person would rather die than kill an innocent human being. Since it was evidently within your power to prevent the murder without killing the pursuer, your obligation was to do exactly what you did. Case closed. You done good, Jacquelyn Leigh Renfrew.”

She rolled her eyes, which of course he couldn’t see. “Well, that’s certainly a load off my mind.” She tried not to sound sarcastic.

“Sweetie?” Jackie’s voice was soft but it was difficult for Frank not to notice, because she was sitting — and not quietly enough for Frank’s entire comfort — in his lap at the time. He was trying to watch something on the television. She was far less than rapt. “I’ve been thinking about what I want to do after graduation.”

“I thought you already knew, Jackie. You were going to apply for an assistant professorship somewhere, and work toward a full professorship and tenure. I’m flexible.” He shrugged. “Engineers can find work almost anywhere.”

“You’re such a doll, Frank, but that’s exactly what I’m thinking about. When I made those plans, I was ‘Jack’ Renfrew, but the job prospects for PhDs are in the pits these days, and especially so for female PhDs. And if I figure out how to make babies, which angel Sam says is entirely possible — although he’s not sure how it works — I’d want to take time out to be a mother to our child, or children, depending on what we decide, which would take me right off the tenure track, with no telling how long it might take to get back.”

“But couldn’t you just influence the tenure committee somehow and get back on?”

Jackie flew into a rage almost literally, because she levitated right off his lap.“Right! Maybe if I give them all blowjobs they’ll be even happier. You think….”

Frank grabbed an ankle and drew her down again, “Hush, Sweetheart, you know I didn’t mean it like that. I meant like you ‘influenced’ the police to accept the fact that Sarah had been changed by an experimental medical procedure, so they let Hank go back to work instead of arresting him on suspicion of murder.”

“Oh.” She brought her emotions under quick control, because she’d never told Frank the exact nature of the pressure she’d brought to bear upon his superiors, which had been somewhat less ‘impersonal’ than she’d made out. She knew that she’d had to do it, to preserve both the Compact and Hank’s job, not to mention freedom, but it wasn’t anything she was especially proud of. ‘Moving right along, then….’ “The problem is, though, that it wouldn’t be fair to take advantage of that sort of power to jump in line in front of other women with the same problems, or even men, and as time goes on I’m becoming less enthused about the security of a tenured faculty position at all, because I’m feeling both more secure personally and more adventurous, but also because I’ve seen all the tedium endured by Doctor Long, who complains endlessly about faculty politics and backbiting. That whole sordid episode with DeBauck was at least partially inspired by DeBauck’s hatred of Doctor Long, you know, because he could easily have found another ‘patsy’ for the crime — he’d already got away with twelve murders by then — but he had to put the house there to spite Doctor Long, and you came to his attention through me, because Doctor Long was my advisor, so hurting you hurt Doctor Long indirectly. I was trying to find a replacement ‘family’ in academia, I think,” she smiled, “ but I have a family now, two of them, actually, although one’s a bit more ‘difficult’ than the other, so I’d like to reset my goals to encompass more of my desires.”

“Okay.” He seemed cautious, for which Jackie couldn’t really blame him. He was amazingly open-minded about her supernatural nature, and strange family, considering the fact that he was a ‘reality-based’ engineer, but his mind was definitely susceptible to boggling. “So, what do you want to do?”

“I want… to design clothes.” She said the words a little like Milla Jovovich as Jean d’Arc in The Messenger had said ‘I have a message from God,’ a little hesitant, but certain none-the-less.

Frank was astonished. “You’re kidding, right?”

“Not at all. You’ve seen how many fashion magazines I subscribe to, because I absolutely love the human creativity and joy embodied in them, or at least the ones I like.” She thought about that for a second, then pursed her lips in a slight frown. “It’s kind of circular.”

“Well, yeah, but fashion?” He spoke the last word as others might say the word ‘slug.’

“I want to create,” she let her passion grow, “not read and talk about the things created by others, long ago. I don’t want to molder away in some academic ivory tower. I want to be out on the street, on the runway, I want people to see what I can do, what I can do for them. This is my power, Frank, can’t you see? I have a unique gift. I can see how people fit together, and I can also see how people’s clothes can be a part of them, enhance their individual beauty, in a way few others can do with as much certainty and skill.”

“But how can you throw away years of study….”

She rolled her eyes in exasperation. “Because I’m not ‘throwing it away,’ Frank. Fashion is the new mythology! People want to wear shoes by Christian Louboutin because of the legend, the psychic aura that his shoes embody, just like the Marines are still singing about defeating the pirates of Tripoli. Myths are stronger than reality, because they’re rooted deeper in our brains than mere utility. Women will want to wear my clothes because I can truly connect them with their inner Guenevere, or subconscious Angelina Jolie. Whatever they want to be, I’ll know it, and know exactly how to bring out the inner strength and beauty they most desperately yearn to see in themselves.”

“But you still intend to finish your Doctorate, right?” He still sounded dubious.

“Of course, Frank. I’m not quite a fool.” She frowned slightly. “ Having an academic background in something very much like magic is something I can use to create my own legend, and the aura of magic will surround my collections, without ever going beyond the power of the human mind to create its own reality.”

“Oh, well then. That makes sense.” He seemed absurdly pleased with himself for some reason. “The degree is just a ticket to get you in the door. What counts is what you’ve really done, and done lately, for most real jobs.” He gave her a little cuddle. “Whatever makes you happy, I’m happy with, Sweetheart.” He smiled and went straight back to watching some weird show that featured clips of the New York Giants doing nothing in particular with various other teams as a pre-Superbowl retrospective, whatever the hell that was.

Jackie was standing outside the door of La Calaca, wondering whether she ought to go in. In the daylight, the genteel decay of the building was clearly visible, but there was also something about it that reminded her of Babylonian Ziggurats, or Mayan Temples, even though there were only two levels, perhaps because the walls seemed to lean inward slightly, and because the smaller top level was set back from the main mass of the building, leaving a narrow area — not a balcony, because there was no railing — around what looked almost like an altar. The broken windows on the top floor didn’t make it look so much derelict as weathered, open to the elements, which pervaded it. As she was watching, a bird flew in through the window; there’d been a sprig of grass, or something, in its beak, as if it were building a nest, and the normal sounds of the city — cars honking, the rush of wheels on pavement, engines reving, even sirens in the distance — were absent, as if this place were somehow displaced from where it seemed to be, surrounded by buildings, an entire city, and were standing free, alone on a vast plaza.

She took the bird for an omen, and walked in.

Her mother wasn’t there. When she asked the bartender where she was, he shrugged, as if it were none of his business, which she supposed it wasn’t.

Frustrated, she turned away, and wandered through the club, which seemed much larger on the inside than it seemed to be from the street. There were several large rooms in addition to the entry, where there were benches and a reception desk, the bar proper, which the main door from the entry opened into, and one on either side, separated from it only partially by wide pocket doors, which were open. On one side was what appeared to be a restaurant and banquet hall, with many tables and many chairs, empty, but available, presumably for the evening meal or for catered events. She didn’t remember noticing the restaurant on her first visit, but then she hadn’t been interested in much beyond a beer or two at the time. Maybe they closed the doors to keep down the noise. The other side featured the dance floor, which had another large hall opening off from it, the stage floor, both of which had dozens of small cocktail tables surrounding the main area, each with two or three chairs. On either side of the stage there were doors which opened, she knew from her first visit, on hallways lined with doors, at the end of which were respectively the men’s and women’s restrooms.

The women’s room was down the hallway to the left, so she idly wandered down and entered. It was much larger than the men’s room that she vaguely remembered from her first visit, and divided into two main rooms, the first, separated from the door by an anteroom, was devoted to three walls of mirrors, with a series of makeup tables and cushioned stools spaced along the perimeter, each with enough room between them that you could stand away from the table and see yourself in a full-length mirror. In a secluded alcove off this room were several chaises longues, and more mirrors on the walls, but the lighting was dim, so the mirrors didn’t reveal quite so much. On the other side of the main room was the entrance to the facilities, where there were a number of pretty washstands, and two rows of stalls on the other side, with at least twice as many stalls as she remembered from the men’s room, and at least ten times the total space available.

In this suite of rooms, there was nothing that catered to men, no urinals, no wide-screen television available to catch up on the latest scores, and everything was luxurious, designed to make one feel almost at home, as if everything one could possibly need was ready to hand, even a shower room at the end of each row of stalls, large white towels available on shelves beside each door, shampoo and soaps in baskets, lotions lined up in tiny bottles, each individually packaged, and benches near the door, where one could imagine freshening up after a long night of celebration, perhaps resting on one of the chaises, touching up one’s makeup and then sallying forth as beautiful as nature and artifice might make one.

Having no metabolism, and the ability to change her appearance in an instant, the various amenities were largely superfluous for her, of course, but the care taken here for the comfort of women in general made her feel honored, dispassionately cherished in a way she’d never experienced before.

It was a side of her mother that she hadn’t noticed, perhaps because it was purely dedicated to a purpose Jackie had as little real use for as did her mother, but which mortal women did require, for which her mother had generously — make that lavishly — provided.

Walking back toward the entry door, she saw around her none of the calculation she thought of when she imagined Lilith, no ‘What’s in it for me?’ All she saw, in fact, was… kindness, and compassion. ‘Even a child is known by his doings,’ she thought, ‘whether his work be pure, and whether it be right.’

When she walked out into the main bar, Lilith was still ‘out,’ so she sat down on a barstool to wait.

The bartender was a gorgeous hunk who could have made a good living posing for the covers of women’s romance novels. He had a nice square jaw, broad shoulders, and features so perfectly symmetrical that he could have been his own image in a mirror. He poured her a glass of lemonade with a powerful grace that somehow reminded her of a nicer Tom Cruise, for which he refused payment, explaining — in a Boston accent thick enough to spread on toast — that Lilith had told him that she had a gratis bar tab.

Smiling, she laid down a tip, the price of the drink plus a little extra. “I understand, so this is just for you. What’s your name?”

“Calvin, Ma’am.”

“Thank you, Calvin. Call me Jackie. ‘Ma’am’ makes me feel like my own grandmother.”

“Alright, Jackie. It’s a professional courtesy, ya know, nothin’ to do with age. If a ten-year-old girl walked in, I’d say, ‘I’m sorry, Ma’am, but you’ll have to leave until you’re twenty-one years old in this state. Have a nice day.’ ”

Jackie laughed. “Really?”

He laughed too. “No, not really. If she was that young, I’d probably say ‘Miss,’ and I’d have to find someone to take care of her until we found a responsible relative. It doesn’t happen very often, but the neighborhood has quite a few ‘latch-key’ kids within a few blocks off the main drag, and sometimes they get scared. We usually have someone around who can take care of them, either one of the wait staff or someone from the kitchen or the back office. Sometimes, what they really want is a sandwich or something, so we try to keep a few bag lunches packed and on hand, some juice maybe, or milk, and some kind of fruit, plus a sandwich. Nobody goes away hungry.”

“So they’re not frightened of a place with skeletons on the walls?”

“Las calaveras? Of course not. Why would they be? La Calaca welcomes everyone, and everyone is happy in her land. El Día de los Muertos is a very big holiday, at least in this part of town, and we pass out plenty of candy skulls and pan de los muertos for the days before and after.” He grinned and added, “One big advantage of offering food to the dead is that they only eat the spiritual part of it, so living people can safely eat whatever they leave behind, and our ‘dead bread’ is very popular, because we bake a little calaverita inside, a silver dollar, so the dear departed can buy themselves a drink in the afterlife, and the living can spend whatever’s left. We hire some local teenagers to run a booth out in the parking lot, so the kids aren’t tempted to run in and get us in trouble about our licensing.”

“A silver dollar? Doesn’t that get expensive?”

“Not that much, actually. We run a special for the month afterward, dinner for two in the restaurant, plus one bottle of the house wine, for one silver dollar. We call it our 1850 celebration, and hand out prizes for the couple with the best 1850’s costume. It helps build good will in the neighborhood, and we usually wind up taking in more silver dollars than we pass out during the run-up to Thanksgiving and Christmas. While we don’t exactly make money off of it, when you count in the good will engendered in the neighborhood community, it’s a minor expense. This place is wicked profitable. Your… mom, is it? She’s wicked smart; everything she touches just turns to gold.”

“Yeah, she’s that,” Jackie said, feeling oddly proud.

“You look a lot like her. I noticed that the first night you were in here.”

“Yeah, well. She tries to keep it quiet, I think. You know how women are about their ages.”

“Okay. Mum’s the word, then.” He laughed at his own joke.

Jackie was tickled too, but managed to stop herself from laughing before she spit lemonade across the bar. “Exactly,” she managed to say, after swallowing her bit of drink to wherever it went. She hadn’t quite figured out how she could drink, and even eat, without any of the usual consequences.

One of the men sitting at the other end of bar raised his empty glass in mute supplication, and Calvin, who obviously had eyes in the back of his head, reached up for a new glass and poured a perfect beer, with just the right head, perfectly rising slightly above the rim without a single drip to mar the appearance of the glass before he turned around and walked down the bar to hand the man his beer.

He stayed to talk a while, and in the interim, one of the men sitting at the table behind her, seizing his opportunity, walked up behind her and said, “Can I buy you a drink?”

She turned around to face him, and was about to say, ‘No, thank you,’ when she caught a glimpse of something very sad behind his eyes. “Of course,” she said. “My name’s Jackie. What’s yours?”

“Tom. Tom Ackroyd. I don’t usually walk up to strangers, but you looked different than most women, for some reason.”

“I like to think so, Tom.” She smiled and laid one hand on his arm, which was all it took.

“No, really, it was almost as if I knew you.”

“We may have met….” She stared at him pointedly. “Tom Ackroyd… your wife passed away recently, didn’t she? I was so sorry to hear of your loss.” She took his big hand in both of her smaller ones.

His face worked for a while as he tried to control himself, but then a single tear trickled down from his right eye. He turned his head away, to hide himself from her, then mumbled, “Yes.”

“She loved you very much, you know.”

“Betty? Did you know her?”

“Not very well, Tom, but women talk…. You know how it is, don’t you, Tom? How women talk? It must have been very hard on you, and on your… daughter…. Ellen, isn’t it?”

“Yes, it was.” He was enthralled.

“Ellen is so very young. She needs both a father and a mother now, doesn’t she, Tom?”

“Yes, she does, but….”

She laid her finger on his lips, hushing him. “She needs a mother and a father both, Tom, and you have to make that happen, because you can’t raise her on your own. You realize that now, don’t you?”

“Yes, you’re right. I was just thinking that. I can’t possibly raise her by myself, but….”

Jackie stopped him with another touch of her hand to his lips. “But you can’t do what you planned to do, Tom, because Betty still loves you both, and she wants you both to be happy. You know that, don’t you, Tom? You can feel it.”

“She wants us to be happy,” he said, his lips twitching slightly, into a sad smile.

“And Betty wants to see her daughter grow up, and become a woman, because Ellen’s going to meet a wonderful man, and he’ll be the love of her life, just as you were for Betty, and Betty was for you. You can see that now, can’t you, Tom? You can see your beautiful daughter on your arm, and she’s dressed in a beautiful white gown as you walk down the aisle with her, toward the fine young man she’s chosen. Your heart swells with pride, Tom, and is full of love as you realize that your child, yours and Betty’s, is about to embark on a new life, and that soon there’ll be children, and then grandchildren, and on and on, an everlasting memorial to your love for Betty, and of Betty’s love for you. You want that, don’t you, Tom?”

He turned to face her. He was weeping openly now, his face desperate and contorted by the grief he’d tried to hide. “I do want it, Jackie, I can see it now.”

“Good, Tom.” She looked deep into his eyes. “I want to see it too. And there’s a woman in your office, a woman you’ve noticed, I think her name is Ruth. She’s a widow, isn’t she, Tom? She’s someone you could talk to and she’d understand everything, wouldn’t she?”

He seemed surprised. “Yes…. Yes, of course she would….”

“She’s noticed you too, Tom, and wanted to say something, but was afraid to intrude, afraid it was too soon, because she understands how fragile your emotions were after your great loss, because she experienced the same thing. In fact, you probably feel like you should approach her, and offer your sympathy, because only now can you fully understand how deeply her own loss affected her, and how strong and brave she must be to hold her head up high and soldier on.”

“She’s shown a lot of courage, that’s true.” He nodded.

“But you could help her, couldn’t you, Tom? Because you’re a man, still in the prime of life, and she’s a woman you could easily love, because you already admire her, and she’d love Ellen, because she never had children of her own, so it would be a second chance at happiness for you both, and for Ellen too, because Ellen is just at that age when she needs a mother, another woman she can talk to, and you know how women like to talk, don’t you, Tom? It would be such a relief if Ruth could help you to raise Ellen to be the wonderful woman she’s destined to become. Don’t you agree, Tom?”

“Yes, I do. I was just a little crazy for a while, that’s all. Once I thought about it, I realized how much I had to live for, and how many people depended on me still.”

“I’m so glad to hear that, Tom. Why don’t you give Ruth a call right now? She’ll be very glad to hear from you, I think. She’s been waiting for you to make the first move. You can use my phone, Tom. Her number is on speed-dial as number five. But before you do, you want to give me the gun you have in your waistband, because you don’t want to worry Ruth during your first real meeting.”

He blinked, and looked down. “Of course. Would you mind? I’d be very grateful.”

He handed her a snub-nose automatic, which she slipped into her purse so deftly that she might have practiced it. “Not at all, Tom. She’s a lucky woman.” she reached down towards his thigh. “In fact, you’re a little excited by the thought of seeing her, aren’t you?”

He blushed. “Yes, I am a little.”

“Don’t be embarrassed, Tom. That’s the one compliment a man can offer a woman that she knows can’t possibly be insincere.”

“It’s a little awkward, though. Everyone will see.”

She handed him her phone. She’d already dialed the number. “It’ll be fine, Tom. You’ll see. You’re a virile man, and you’re looking forward to seeing her. It’s perfectly natural.”

He held the phone up to his ear, listening….

As she watched Tom leave the bar, she said, “Hello, Mother.”

Her mother’s voice was right behind her ear, whispering, “That was masterfully done, Daughter. I’m proud of you.”

“Well, it saved a frightful mess, and possibly a visit from the police.” She turned, and handed her mother the gun. “Could you take care of this for me, please? I don’t want to carry it out. It has an unpleasant feel about it.”

Lilith took it, and beckoned Calvin with a small movement of her forefinger. He noticed and was standing before them within the second. “Would you please dispose of this, Calvin? The gentleman won’t be needing it, as it turns out.”

“Of course, Ma’am. Consider it done.” It vanished into his pocket.

“Thank you, dear. Please set down a two hundred dollar tip for yourself as well. Take it out of petty cash.”

“Thank you, Ma’am, but it’s no trouble.”

She smiled. “Neither is it for me, dear, and friendship is rarely its own reward in these venal times. There are always bills to pay, and pleasures to be indulged in.”

“As you wish, Ma’am.”

She dismissed him with another motion, then sighed. “It’s such a shame to see a great talent like yours go to waste, Jackie, dear. Why didn’t you feed from him? He was aroused almost to the point of pain. It would have been a kindness, really….”

“Mother, who can truly say that anything is ever wasted until it’s gone? I didn’t arouse him just to tease him, but to put him back in touch with his own lust for life, because living had lost its appeal.” She paused, considering what to say. “I suspect we’re on the same side, Mother, in the end, and certainly draw from the same well. After all, your own power, far greater than my own, created me, just as I am. Who’s to say what end was ultimately served? Did you ever hear the story of Sir Tristram and Lady Iseult? Or perhaps Vis and Rāmin would make the same point.”

“Yes, to both,” she said suspiciously.

“Well, then, you understand. Sometimes we can’t see the end of the story until it’s written. Even tangled tales have a way of working out, however little we know of where we’re going with it.” She quite deliberately changed the subject and her usual attitude of suspicion toward Lilith, her… benefactor, all in all, to whom she owed her respect, at least, and probably some level of fealty. “Now, look at all these lovely men; what say we sit and chat a bit, and if their days are sweetened by our presence, what’s the harm?” She smiled with impish good humor.

“Jackie emerged from the shade of the bar into bright sunshine, which made a nice metaphor, with a new set of keys on her ring, and a new appreciation of her mother’s shrewd business sense. Lilith had driven a hard bargain, and now owned a third interest in her fledgeling business, but would front the large storefronts on one side of the valet parking entry drive, the entirety of the empty warehouse behind it for her atelier, as well as twenty reserved parking spaces in the parking structure on the other side of the entry, with a commitment to share a portion of the valet costs, depending on what proportion of spaces were used by her staff, her future customers, and her. As she entered her car and then drove out onto the street, she had a new appreciation for the whole area, because her mother owned it, lock, stock, and barrel, and kept it vacant to minimize noise and parking complaints.”

“We’ll see about that, she thought.”

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. The closer it got to the the New York Spring/Summer Fashion Week, the crazier it became. She had one secret shortcut that made a world of difference on the front end, because she could imagine herself into her creations using a dozen imaginary models in the blink of an eye, which made the initial photography for her collection very quick indeed. It still took time to convert those photographs into patterns, then woven and/or dyed materials and sewn fabric though, and to find real models for the showings and pre-screenings, and she was running out of time, which was why she was sitting on a barstool talking to her mother just then. “Mary would be of great help to me, Mother, if you could contact her on my behalf, or tell me how she can be contacted.”

“And why exactly should I do that, Daughter? So you can convert her to your twisted way of thinking?” Lilith, as always, danced on the edge of paranoid hostility.

Of course, Lilith really did have enemies, as Jackie well knew, so she cut her mother some slack. “Not at all, Mother, I’d like to give her career a boost by introducing her to the pleasures of having thousands of men lusting after her at once. As a Supermodel — and I have every expectation that she will be, because she has a natural grace that’s simply wonderful to see. She’ll be able to fascinate legions of virile young men — not, of course, that she could possibly compete with you — and with her extraordinary martial arts skills may be able to parlay her career into film, which of course would increase the number and enthusiasm of her fans. I noticed her potential right away, when I first saw her at the Convention.”

Lilith’s eyes narrowed in suspicion. “Do you intend to set her up as a rival to my power?”

Jackie couldn’t resist rolling her eyes. “Of course not, Mother, as I said. In fact, I’d be honored if you found time to model some of my creations. I’ve seen you dance, and you have a power and presence on the stage that I could only dream about. I hesitated to ask, but if you’d consent, I’d be glad to feature you as our chief model and spokeswoman. It could only help with our first showings.”

She smiled at the compliment. “I’ll think about it, Daughter dear. It’s been quite a while since I was a public figure — other than in my local area of influence here — but upstate New York is hardly the center of civilization these days, even though my needs are very modest. Perhaps it’s time I ventured farther afield….”

“I’d be very grateful. In fact, if we could recruit any of the better-behaved and graceful among my sisters, it would be a great help. I plan on presenting forty-two runs and exits, so having a corps de ballet of sorts would minimize changes and ensure an impressive finale.”

“Do you have any particular preferences?”

“I’d like women who are very accomplished at shapeshifting and holding a form despite very strong emotions and desires from the crowds around them. Other than that, no, as long as they can project the proper attitudes and movements of a professional model and take direction. I’ll be paying high scale and furnishing references, if any among my sisters wish to pursue a career in the field.”

Lilith considered for only a moment before she said, “There are quite a few who come readily to mind and two who may be able to immediately help you to establish yourself as well, since two of your sisters already work in the industry, and have achieved a certain amount of fame.”

Jackie scowled and almost whined, “Mother, I’d hate to take advantage of anyone, and I haven’t budgeted for top model rates, so I don’t want any arms twisted on my behalf.”

“Nonsense, dear. That’s what mothers are for.” She smiled with that aura of smug parental superiority that a million-odd years of experience tends to enhance.

Jackie rolled her eyes again — this time in resignation — and said, “Thank you, Mother, I’ll just trot over now and see how the new realizations are coming along.” What she really wanted to do, of course, was to remove herself from her mother’s presence, since she tended toward overbearing at those many times she wasn’t being charming.

“What an excellent idea! I’ll come with you and see how you’re getting along.” In the blink of an eye, she’d suppressed the attention of everyone in the room and changed her outfit into an Chère Adeline creation from last year’s collection, a delicately simple white belted linen shift inspired by fin du XIXe siècle French fashions, which were in turn inspired by the classical Greek peplos for women. On her, of course, it looked absolutely fabulous.

It was just a short walk out the front door of La Calaca and then out to the sidewalk and a few steps down to the entry to the storefront boutique and fitting rooms. The atelier was in the warehouse behind the row of storefronts and had its own parking lot, employee entrance, and loading dock for deliveries, but Jackie had budgeted for a door cut through the brick wall at the rear of the fitting and display salon to connect directly to the interior of her atelier. This section of town being what it was, she’d hired separate guard coverage to protect her employees — women from the neighborhood, for the most part — from predatory attacks during their time in the immediate area, and their vehicles, if any, while they were inside. She’d made arrangements for a food truck to stop by during the lunch break, so the increased level of amenities made the area more attractive as well, so she had people walking over from the few businesses in the area for a quick lunch.

It had been surprisingly expensive, because she needed an engineering report, an architect’s plan, permits, conditional use licenses, and the new door had to be supported with iron framing for seismic safety, but it meant that she could move stock directly into the shop without worrying about the weather. It also made tours more impressive, because you could walk through the reception area, back into what she was calling the lounge, with fitting rooms and a staging area toward the back for private showings, and then continue down a short hallway to a massive iron double door, which opened in turn into another reception area in the remodeled warehouse building, adjoined by two executive offices, the drafting room, and another set of double doors that led to where the women worked, bathed in bright light from skylights high above the floor, aided by modern halogen lighting that guaranteed true ‘daylight’ color appearance, no matter what the sky looked like.

The two women walked past a large CAM laser cutting table with large racks of shelving behind it, now piled high with bolts of fabric, most of it custom-dyed and printed, although there were quite a few off-the-shelf fabrics as well, including raw muslin, jute, colored silks, woolen materials, and fiber batting. Off to the side, closed cabinets held findings, notions, sewing and embroidery thread, as well as reels of ribbon, elastics, and various reïnforcing materials.

Just beyond, the sewing and tailoring workspaces were mostly in use, with commercial sewing machines, sergers, blindstichers, and one section devoted to hand-fitting and tailoring, with an assortment of dressmaker’s dummies, ironing boards, free-standing mirrors, and smaller cutting tables ready for use.

As they approached, Lilith said, “So soon?”

Jackie stopped, still far enough removed from the work-floor to ensure privacy, and said, “I’ve already tested my designs as manifested ætheric constructs, so I took off patterns and am having a few samples of each run off in three of the basic sizes.”

“Surely not prêt-à-porter!”

Jackie was scandalized. “Of course not, Mother, but neither entirely bespoke. One needs outfits to model, or the final customer has nothing from which to request alterations and changes, nor does one have anything that might be called a collection. Potential owners of my designs will typically need to have something available to touch and feel, and to see in motion on a model, before their imaginations can take it from there, or everyone would be a fashion designer and we could skip the runway showings entirely. I have to have enough outfits to stage impressive runway shows as well as fashion ‘trunk shows’ and other semi-private showings. On the other hand, I do expect eventually to create prêt-à-porter collections inspired by some of my unique designs, because that’s where the real money is. The list of haute couture houses changes almost every year, and there are essentially none whose prêt-à-porter collections don’t help to fund their high-end lines, because the super-rich are becoming fewer every year, and the not-so-rich are being squeezed from above and below as more of the necessities of daily life are falling into fewer and fewer hands.”

“Yet this is the way of the world, is it not?” Having been a Queen, Lilith didn’t seem existentially bothered by social inequality, even dire poverty.

Jackie wasn’t quite so sanguine, having never been numbered among the ‘upper classes,’ although she did note that her mother seemed to feel the responsibility of noblesse oblige, so wasn’t really an appropriate target for her egalitarian ire. “True, the natural tendency of great wealth is to accumulate more wealth, because life is very loosely a zero-sum game and people are greedy, but a healthy ecosystem demands a nourishing environment, fat mice, and fat deer, so that the fat cats, and even lions, can survive, so it’s important to kill a few lions from time to time.”

Lilith looked at her with deep suspicion. “And perhaps it’s time for the lions to take charge again. Allowing the rabble free rein rarely leads to good results. This was my country before the American Indians came along. Perhaps I should take it back. Unlike many of the later inhabitants, I neither signed treaties nor ceded sovereignty. By natural right and force of arms, these continents are my demesne, to do with as I please.”

“Mother, I neither quarrel with your claim nor deny your right. It seems like it might be troublesome to enforce, however, and as you said, you’re a lover, not a fighter. Looking at the issue from another angle, though, it seems to me that it’s not the government itself at the root of the problem, but a series of petty merchants and traders who’ve arrogated to themselves self-styled ‘rights’ in respect to the diminishment of your own sovereignty, as if they owed no fealty to their overlord nor respect and obligation to your true subjects in their historic rights.”

That intrigued her. “How so?”

“True nobility always implied a duty toward one’s feudal charges as well as to one’s feudal lords. The ancient sovereigns who were ordained by Divine Right were required to be just, and charged to impose a Divine Order upon the world. Part of that Divine Prerogative was the right to impose taxes on particular classes, but especially the merchant and other classes of non-workers, because they most depend upon a stable state to safeguard their property and livelihoods. The soulless officials and factotums possible under the rule of ‘The People’ or ‘The Revolution’ — much less avaricious Mercantilism — are capable of any tyranny, any excess, because they know neither limits nor shame. The King of France had internal limits as well as external ones, since he had at least to appear to be regal lest he call his House into question, and any subject had the right to directly petition the King for redress in the name of his Divine obligations. Robespierre, on the other hand, was free to impose the Reign of Terror because he had no limitations at all, except those imposed by his own apparatus of State oppression, which led directly to his own death on the guillotine a year after he started down that path.”

Lilith sniffed with exaggerated contempt. “I remember him; a nasty little man.” She smiled. “He was very surprised to find an unpleasant afterlife waiting for him on the other side of the scaffold.”

That surprised her. It was all very well to have a mother who was a Goddess at one time or another, but an entirely different kettle of fish to brush up against the theology and doctrines of her youth. It raised the figurative hair on the back of her figurative neck. “I’ve been meaning to ask you about that, Mother, is Hell a real place? You’ve talked about it before, but your position as the Queen and Goddess of the Aztec and Mayan Underworld, Mictláan, seems slightly contradictory.”

“Not at all, Dear. We all of us make our own reality. You know of Jumbe Mungu and his unfortunate plight; well, it’s a species of solipsism. What we believe creates what we believe in, while what we disbelieve fades over time. The Aztecs believed in a happy afterlife for everyone, so that’s what they got, with Gods and Goddesses to match. Part of my own power is the strength of my believers, although my modern-day worship has been secularised to a considerable extent, so I live a partly-secular existence these days, but I’ve been thousands of Goddesses over the years, some more powerful than others, and will undoubtedly become thousands more, because the core of my power is human love and feminine sexuality, and that seems unlikely to ever go completely out of style. Robespierre believed in a literal Heaven and Hell, for all his ‘Enlightenment’ pretensions, and people who believe in Hell generally go there, with all that implies.”

Jackie was so startled by this casual comment that she asked, “But why would anyone who truly believes in literal damnation commit sins worthy of being sent there?”

She laughed. “Because believing in such things is inherently unkind, even cruel. It’s a sort of Catch-22, as Joseph Heller once said about another impossible conundrum. The darkness at the heart of the Heaven/Hell dichotomy is the pleasure one derives from consigning people one doesn’t really care for — and whom one fondly believes to be one’s moral ‘inferiors’ — to torture and damnation. Heaven, as usually conceived, is thus the embodiment of Pride, Avarice, Gluttony, and Sloth, so anyone who wants or expects to go there must surely be guilty of at least three or four mortal sins, and then add in the murderous rage inherent in wishing people into Hell, which introduces Anger, quite possibly Envy, perhaps even a kinky sort of sadistic Lust, into the noisome morass which comprises the Heaven/Hell Weltanshauung and you have the Seven Deadly Sins in a nutshell. To a Believer, Hell’s the only possible destination, once things have been carefully explained. Things become much clearer after death, so by and large the recently departed sort themselves out into appropriate categories without much fuss, no matter what their expectations had been in life…. And then again, quite a few very decent people choose Hell for altruistic reasons. Jesus, we note, made sure to head straight to Hell, since Hell is where all the real work lies waiting.”

“But the Harrowing of Hell was a one-time thing, wasn’t it?”

“Really? Where’s the justice in that? What does one say to the latecomers? ‘Sorry, you just missed him. Tough luck?’ In fact, why not let’s eliminate poverty and despair throughout the world forever by picking out one guy lying in a gutter somewhere and giving him five bucks for a hot meal and a nickel for one of Lucy van Pelt’s psychiatric sessions?” She made a sour face. “Magical thinking is everywhere these days, isn’t it? Saves caring about real people and real lives.”

Jackie blinked. “And the Aztecs?”

She smiled benignly. “They, and their Mayan ancestors, although described as ‘bloodthirsty and cruel’ by the same vicious Spaniards who tortured, slaughtered, and enslaved them, had a much more humane view of the afterlife than did the Spanish. In the Aztec/Mayan worldview, everyone was equal, and shared the same fate, which wasn’t at all unpleasant, as long as people remembered them and offered appropriate sacrifices. Since the sacrifices are still going on, everyone is still happy in Mictláan, and I am still Queen and Goddess of that particular Afterlife.”

“But….”

“But what?” Lilith looked blandly curious.

Jackie thought about all the ways this conversation could possibly go and instantly decided to change the subject. “Oh, I was just thinking about my collection. I think the time is right for a return to at least some ‘maxi’ lengths in dresses, gowns, and outerwear, because it’s distinctively feminine but without the ‘goods on display’ appearance so evident in the recent past….” Then she added, “Not that there’s anything wrong with flaunting one’s assets on occasion, of course.”

Lilith arched a brow. “Indeed not, Daughter, but there’s a time and place for everything. I do agree that long and sleek will be ‘in’ this year.” She started walking towards where the women were working. “Now let’s see your collection.”

After showing Lilith the outfits she had ready, Jackie started to introduce her workers, but quickly found that not only did every woman there know ‘La Patrona’ by sight, but that her mother knew each and every one of them by name, knew enough about them to ask after their children and husbands or boyfriends, and, when presented with any pause or hesitation in their voices, quickly wormed out of them exactly what sort of problem they were facing, whether a rent payment, family illness, or troubles with the law, and solved it, either by telling them quietly to contact her firm of lawyers, writing a check, or giving them a number to call, telling them to say that Madame Lilith had asked the person on the other end of the line to take care of it. It was an astonishing performance, and Jackie belatedly realized that her little lecture on the meaning of ‘nobility’ had been wasted on Lilith, because she embodied true noblesse — make that regal obligation — and for the first time imagined that life as the subject of such a Sovereign as her mother had been — and in some ways still was — would very likely have been very much better than most of the alternatives. Suddenly, she felt deeply ashamed of every uncharitable thought she’d ever harbored about her. “Thank you for helping them,” she said.

Lilith seemed surprised. “What? You’re giving them a paycheck, aren’t you? We all do what we can using the tools with which we’re most familiar. These are modern times, and perhaps your ideas are simply another method of achieving the same ends. No matter what either of us can do personally, the world is larger than both of us put together.”

“I see the truth of that now, Mother, but had thought at first that only I knew what ought to be done.” She hesitated, fully-conscious of the bitter irony involved, and then added, “I apologize.”

She offered a brief bright smile. “You’re still young; that’s excuse enough, but you’re still learning, something many give up on shortly after memorizing their alphabet and multiplication tables. But I’m learning from you as well, as much as it pains me to say it. It had simply never occurred to me that keeping all these buildings and shops vacant for my convenience was contributing to the overall poverty I tried to alleviate on an individual basis.”

“Thank you for noticing, Mother. That’s one of the reasons I leased one of the empty storefronts to a fabric, sewing notions, and supplies shop. It allows me to concentrate on my designs while the shop owner concentrates on keeping track of what I need and use. Plus, the shop is a recruitment aid, because the neighborhood women who now shop there are often quite skilled, so it’s a mutually beneficial arrangement. One of the fringe benefits I offer to my employees is the freedom to use their sewing machines and the other facilities here after hours for their own projects, which generates extra household income for them in manners limited only by their own imaginations, and generates extra revenue for the fabric shop as well, since the women are able to buy their supplies locally. That’s something I learned from you, Mother, seeing your own interactions with your employees, like Calvin, for example. He’s fantastically loyal, but you offer him loyalty as well, and kindness, and more than that the chance to be part of an enterprise that pays attention to the people around them, a job that he can take personal pride in performing, as part of a ‘band of sworn brothers,’ so to speak, which is rare in these days of management by the fluctuations of the bottom line.”

“It’s all a matter of perspective, Daughter. I do pay attention to the ‘bottom line,’ as you say, since I have a responsibility to my retainers to run a profitable business in whose success they can share, but I measure my personal success over generations rather than the end of the next quarter, so have the advantage of taking the very long view.”

“How do you handle their knowledge of you over many decades, though? Don’t they start noticing that you’re not getting any older at some point?”

“I usually just ‘retire,’ and have a shape-shifted ‘younger cousin’ come in to take over, or sometimes I just bequeath the business to the employees, or whatever subset of them seem to have the inclination and ability to operate the place for the longer haul.”

Jackie was just getting ready to ask another question when her mother suddenly looked up toward the skylights and froze the women where they worked and pointed her finger toward the nearest opening, saying, “Zalambur! Get down here this instant!”

There was a scream from on high as what can only be described as a particularly loathsome demon came drifting down from the ceiling, writhing and twisting in fury, but evidently helpless to resist.

When he lay before them, still struggling, she said, “Be still, pathetic worm! What are you doing here?”

His struggles turned to grovelling and he whined like a dog that’s just been kicked. “Forgive me, Kali! Great Queen of Zemargad! Rider on the Storm! Winged Messenger of Death! I didn’t know that this was your domain!”

“Liar! The Earth itself is my domain, and all that lies beneath and above, all within the crystalline Lunar Sphere itself!” She lashed his back with fire and he screamed.

“Mercy! O Great Goddess! O Fierce Spirit of Myriad Names and Many Shapes, have mercy upon your miserable slave!” he wailed a great ululation of agony and despair.

His shrieks were hurting Jackie’s ears. “You know this fellow?”

“I do.” Lilith was calm and spoke in measured tones, despite the racket he was making. “He’s Zalambur, the patron of dishonest merchants and one of the seven sons of Iblīs, not by me, for which I thank my lucky stars.”

“What’s he doing here? Neither of us is dishonest that I know of.”

“Spying, of course, and my guess is that someone hazarded his soul to bargain for his intervention.”

Jackie’s mind was boggled. “That works?”

“Of course. A certain low class of demons use them like poker chips in their pathetic little boy-games of political intrigue and oneupmanship.” She sneered at Zalumbar, who did his sorry best to appear contrite.

“But what are you going to do? Kill him?”

Lilith stared at her as if she’d lost her mind. “No, of course not; this is his wretched job, but he’s lost this particular round to me.” She turned to address the demon. “Listen to me, Zalambur, craven cur that you are, despite your miserable failure, I will allow you to succeed at the exact terms of your assigned task, so you get the soul of whoever sent you, because that seems only fair, but I see that his contract with you didn’t specify the order of delivery and payment, which was very careless of him, so you aren’t actually required to yield up the information you’ve gathered here until after his death, when you have his soul in hand, which will give you an added bonus in bragging rights for tricking him into a worthless bargain, despite that fact that you were taken in your treachery, and so lose standing in the contest. Do you understand?”

“Yes, O Radiant Queen! Your Mercy is renowned throughout the Worlds!”

She smiled in a particularly unfriendly way. “It is, isn’t it? Hear this, Zalambur, before telling my secrets your listener must die the true death, and if you — or any of your minions or peers — dare to trespass upon any of my domains of interest from this moment on, the usual conditions apply, so be very careful in future. You can enquire at my law firm for a current list, as you should have done prior to your foolish undertaking.”

“You’re the Paragon of Lucidity and Kindness, O Great Goddess! I am unworthy of your Divine Forbearance, much less than the dust beneath your Holy Feet!”

She was bored already. “Yes, yes. You’re Dismissed! Get out!” She sped him on his way with another quick blast of flame, so he shrieked again as he translated into ætherial form and then it was over. The women started working again and the familiar chatter and rhythmic hum of the machines rose again as if it had never stopped.

“Now,” Lilith observed calmly, “after seeing your designs and observing the level of interest taken by at least one of your competitors, I think that I should take on the position of modiste, première d’atelier de couture in our little enterprise, to offer my protection from unfair competition and perhaps the benefit of my long experience in the fashion industry.”

Jackie tried to protest. “But….”

“There’s no need to thank me, dear. I’m part of the management in any case, and an owner, so of course my labor is gratis, an investment in the firm.”

“But do you…?”

“My dear child,” she rolled her lovely eyes with exaggerated ennui, “I am the First Woman of the World. I invented both weaving and sewing, as well as every other distaff art, and have spun and sewn and woven as an occupation for many more thousands of years than you could possibly imagine. There are examples of my embroidery hanging in many of the great museums of Europe and even China. I don’t foresee the slightest bit of trouble, and it will free you from having to attend to the mundane details. You’ll find that I invented multitasking as well, so it won’t affect any of my other projects.” She glanced at Jackie in a sort of respectful regard. “You’ve attracted strong interest from your competitors, Daughter, which does me honor, but setting a spy in our midst was disrespectful. I’m bound to guard both you, my daughter, and our mutual interests from any interference, although you yourself are formidable.” She gave the word the French pronunciation. “Is there anything you might need in addition to my handling of the needle crafts?”

Jackie didn’t have to reflect upon this question, because she been thinking about it for a long time. “Actually, there is. I’d like to have Jumbe Mungu, if you can spare him.”

“Whatever for?” She seemed puzzled. “Surely you don’t intend to present a men’s wear collection in addition to women’s wear?”

“No, not this season at least. I’d like to feature him as the lead singer in a World-Rock Fusion band, which will form the core sound for our video advertising. He has a unique and beautiful voice that would guarantee instant recognition, and I want to buy some advance exposure to ensure it. If I have it timed right, he’ll be right at the crest of the avant garde by the start of the New York Season, so he’ll still be edgy and not at all clichéd for the showings.”

Lilith thought about this for only a second before she laughed with real glee. “You minx! You’re going to make him into a Rock and Roll God, aren’t you?”

She smiled modestly. “Well, I did have some thoughts along those lines. Doctor Long seems a rather precarious lifeline, and I’d like to ensure that he’s around for a good long time, if only to serve as an annoying example of change and impermanence for your ‘pathetic little volcano godling’ a while longer.”

Lilith let fly a delightful peal of laughter like those which must have graced the hills and riverbanks of Eden, as free and untroubled as the song of birds. “Daughter, there are times, more often than I’d at first suspected, when you’re simply delightful! You’re a girl after my own heart’s desire, as clever and feisty and as bold as brass.”

Jackie grinned like a girl waking up on Christmas morning. “You’ve got my vote for Mother of the Year.”

As easily as if they’d rehearsed it, they linked arms and walked back toward the offices and the door to the boutique together, side by side, and Lilith started singing ‘Mutual Admiration Society’ a cappella, from the Broadway play, Happy Hunting. Jackie knew all the words for some reason, and took the soprano part.

 

Copyright © 1998, 2002, 2005, 2007, 2009 by Jeffrey M. Mahr

Copyright © 2011 by Levanah