inding them wasn't so easy. No one was at my apartment, and Vincent didn't answer his phone. I drove down to the Cellar, hoping maybe they'd all decided to start drinking mid-day. Nope. The pub was barren, with only a couple bored patrons sitting at the bar.

Frustrated, I called Hugh, deciding it was time to get help from my own resources.

"Is Jerome back yet?"

"No," the imp said. "Do you need him?"

"Kind of."

"Kind of?"

"It's a long story."

"I'm in the city for a meeting. You want to have lunch and explain? I'm practically down the street from your place. I'll meet you there, and we'll go eat."

It was the first time I'd talked to Hugh since the blowup at Peter's over Seth and me. I was still reeling from all that, but I did kind of want to get feedback from another immortal source. Besides, I was rapidly running out of options.

It only took ten minutes for him to show up, but it felt like an hour.

"Holy shit," said Hugh, spotting the Christmas trees when he walked in. "Your apartment's a national park."

"Be quiet."

"I'm serious. You need a ranger working in here."

"Come on. Let's go."

We walked to a deli down the street. Once we were seated with our food, I began explaining to him why I needed Jerome. By the time I finished the Nyx story, Hugh's mirth had faded.

"Fuck," he said, biting into an enormous Reuben. "That might be worth bugging Jerome after all."

"Where is he?" I asked. "Another training?"

Hugh shrugged. "Not entirely sure. He was vague about it. Grace and Hiroko insinuated he's having 'a personality conflict' with another demon and went to settle it."

"Oh, God," I said. "Not a duel?"

"I don't know. I hope not. Those crazy bitches seemed pretty smug, so they're probably hoping for some opportunity to pull a power play out of all this. You know how they are. Still...you could probably go to them for help with all this."

I could...but if Jerome had something weird going on, I didn't want to get enmeshed with his lieutenants and possibly be used in some way. The two demonesses worked for him but would seize any chance for promotion, and when political tremors shook our world, everyone was quick to exploit everyone else.

"I'll hold out for the angels," I said. "As long as I can space out my energy fixes, there shouldn't be a problem. If I can't find Carter and friends in another day or so, I'll think about talking to Grace and Hiroko."

"I can get a hold of him if you really need it," said Hugh.

I smiled at the uneasy tone in his voice. "Yeah, but your instructions were to avoid bothering him at all costs, right?"

The imp nodded.

"It's okay. I'll wait on the angels. If I have to go to Grace and Hiroko, they can be the ones to decide if it's worth interrupting Jerome for. I mean, the evidence is pretty solid...but, well, if we're wrong, and it turns out to be nothing...

Jerome's going to be pissed that I bothered him based on the word of two humans."

"Pissed at all of us."

"Yeah." I idly picked holes in my sandwich with the toothpick that held it together.

"Are you scared?" asked Hugh. "Of Nyx?"

"Yeah. I am. I don't like the idea of anything invading my sleep. Certainly not something that powerful. That guy I mentioned - Dante - is going to try to make me a charm or something to ward her away."

Hugh snorted. "No human can make a charm like that."

"He's a magician. He said he could."

"Sweetie. Nyx is a fucking deity - no, more than that. An uber-deity. A force of the universe that was instrumental in creation. She's been weakened over time, yeah, but some strung-out, psychic sham can't make a charm powerful enough to scare her off. There are probably only a handful of humans in the world who could, and to get that kind of power..." Hugh shook his head. "I don't know. Based on what you've told me, I'm just not seeing it."

I'd had my own doubts about Dante, but I'd thus far managed to push them aside and keep hoping for the best. Hearing Hugh, I felt all of my misgivings return.

"Fuck," I said.

Silence fell as we munched on our sandwiches a bit. Rain fell outside, and hungry customers ducked in to avoid it. Hugh watched a cute brunette order at the counter, then he turned his attention back to me.

"Any idea when Niphon's leaving?"

I frowned. "Whenever Tawny gets a victim."

Now Hugh frowned. "But she did, didn't she?"

"Did she?"

"I don't know. That's what Simon said. Or at least, he thought she did. He said she was up there dancing with a glow a couple nights ago. Made up for the shitty job she was doing."

A couple nights ago...

"No...that's impossible. I saw her right around then, and she still hadn't taken anybody. She was so low, I had to kiss her again. He's wrong."

"Maybe she got a glow from the kiss." Hugh sounded kind of hopeful. "You use a lot of tongue?"

"It wasn't that big of a kiss. No glow. Just enough to get by."

"Huh." He swirled the ice around in his Diet Coke. "I guess Simon was wrong. Figured he'd be good at spotting that stuff."

I would have thought so too. "Hugh...this is going to sound weird, but I think Tawny may be faking how inept she is."

He looked rightfully startled. "Why the fuck would she do that?"

"I don't know. I think it's to help Niphon. But none of this makes sense. This is the second time I've heard of her possibly getting a fix, but then I've seen her shortly thereafter, and she was way too low to have burned through so much so quickly."

"Maybe she's got your problem."

"I have a lot of problems."

"Your Nyx problem. Maybe Tawny's losing her energy too."

Whoa. Interesting idea. And why not? If Nyx was preying on one succubus, why not two? And it would explain how Tawny was losing energy so quickly. Except...

"If Nyx is taking her energy, that means she's actually getting it to begin with. But Tawny keeps telling me she isn't having sex."

"Huh. A servant of Hell lying. Go figure."

"Yeah, but why? Niphon's risking getting both of them in a shitload of trouble if Jerome or anyone else finds out. He's gambling a lot just to stick around and annoy me. And if Hell thinks Tawny isn't doing her job, they'll recall her."

Hugh gave me a funny look.

"What?" I asked. "What's that for?"

"You didn't read the book, did you?"

"What book?"

"The succubus manual."

"You know I didn't."

"And I even got you the abridged one," he said, sounding wounded.

"Hugh," I growled. "What's your point?"

"The point is that as her mentor, you're accountable for her actions. If she can't bag a victim, you're the one they'll call in."

"What? That's ridiculous."

"Those are the rules now."

"So, what, I get slapped on the wrist for her screwing up?"

"Slap on the wrist? For being a succubus who can't teach another one to have sex? It's so ludicrous, it's probably never happened before. I don't know what they'd do. Censure you at the very least. Transfer you to work under a senior succubus."

"I am a senior succubus."

He shrugged.

"But if she's lying..."

"Then prove it."

I rubbed my eyes. "This is utterly insane. Why does Niphon hate me so much? He already bought my soul, for God's sake. What more is there?"

I expected some smartass remark. Instead, I received silence. I looked at Hugh. "What? What is it now?" He pointedly glanced away. "Hugh!"

"I don't know, Georgina." Hugh rarely called me by my first name. I was usually honey or sweetie. "Sometimes we make deals, and they seem airtight, but something goes wrong."

"What do you mean?"

"I worked with another imp when I lived in Dallas. Raquel. She brokered this one deal with a guy who was pissed off when his wife left him because he found out he was sterile. Couldn't have kids." Hugh helpfully illustrated the meaning by pointing down toward his lower torso.

"I know what sterile means, Mr. Wizard. Get on with it."

"So, he sold his soul under the conditions that his ex-wife couldn't have kids either. He was bitter and into the poetic justice thing, apparently. Wanted to punish her with what she'd punished him over. So, he gave up his soul, and our side gave her some kind of inflammation thing that totally destroyed her fallopian tubes and scarred up her uterus. I don't know. Girl stuff." I had to hold back an eye roll. Hugh might feign ignorance about 'girl stuff,' but he'd found time in his years of corruption to go to medical school. He knew more about this than I did.

"Harsh," I said. "But fitting from the guy's point of view, I guess."

"Yeah. Should have been a done deal, but something went wrong. Or, well, right. Her ovaries still worked - she was making eggs, even if she couldn't carry a baby. She and her new husband found a surrogate mother. The wife donated eggs, they mixed up a Petri dish cocktail, and the surrogate carried the baby. Bam!"

"The wife had a child after all," I mused. "Wow. Hell gets defeated by science. All those philosophers from the Enlightenment were right."

Hugh scoffed at my joke. "It was stupid. Someone - by which I mean, Raquel - should have thought of that when they picked the infection as a way to make that lady infertile. Raquel fucked up. The guy was able to take his case back to Hell and won his soul back for breach of contract."

"Oh, wow," I said. "I bet that went over well. What's Raquel doing nowadays?"

He grimaced. "I think we're all happier not knowing."

I agreed. "But what's this have to do with me? That's kind of a rare case."

"Eh, it happens more than you'd think. Most of the time, the seller doesn't even notice something got messed up. But if the imp or someone else in authority catches it, I've seen them move Heaven and Earth - no pun intended - to fix it."

"So, you're implying that Niphon's here, finagling all this stuff with Tawny, because he did something wrong in my purchase?"

Hugh spread his hands out. "I don't know. All I know is that when an imp shows up and is going to this much trouble over something, the evidence suggests it's big. Maybe not a situation like Raquel's, maybe not a breach of contract, but something."

"My contract's long since done," I murmured. "Everyone it involved is dead now. If there was a problem, I would have had to bring it up back then."

"Like I said, I don't know. Maybe I'm jumping to conclusions."

"Could you look? Could you get a hold of the contract?"

"No." Hugh's answer came almost before I finished speaking. "Absolutely not."

"But if there's some wording I didn't know about - "

"You think I can just go walk into Hell's records and pull a contract I'm not involved with?" he exclaimed. "Fuck. If I got caught, it'd make what happened to Raquel look like a promotion."

"But - "

"No," he said again, voice like stone. "No debate. I love you, sweetie. You know I do. You're like my sister, and I'd do almost anything for you, but not this. I'm sorry." I glared. He glared back. "Look, you want my advice? Get rid of Niphon. And Tawny, if you can. Expose them if they really are pulling something here, and Jerome will take it from there."

"Jerome's not even around! Damn it. Why can't you help me with this? You were so quick to help with my love life when you were talking to Seth the other night."

Hugh narrowed his eyes. "It was probably the best thing I've ever done for you."

"Are you insane? He's walking around talking about that now - all worried about how he's going to hurt me and make me miserable!"

"Good," snapped Hugh. "He should be."

I shoved my trash onto my tray and stood up. "See you later. Thanks for...well, nothing."

Hugh followed me over to the garbage bins. "You're behaving irrationally. On all of this."

"I'd never treat you the way you're treating me," I said, dumping my tray. "I'm your friend."

"Friendship has nothing to do with this."

"It has everything to do with this!"

He stacked his tray on the others and looked at his watch. "Look, I have to go. I'm sorry I can't give you the answers you want. Am I going to see you at Peter's?" Peter, unable to pass up party-giving opportunities, was hosting a Christmas dinner, weird as that seemed.

"No. I'm going to be with Seth. Unless he breaks up with me because of your great advice."

Hugh bit his lip on some remark that probably would have been uncomplimentary. Shaking his head, he turned around and left.