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the only residents of the Big Apple facing the presence of demons. Tamia was in the middle of a professional death match with a demon of her own.
    After Tamia sat in a team meeting for two hours and took more notes than anyone else—simply to prove that she was paying the most attention—Phaedra requested a private meeting in her office. Once Tamia made it inside and was instructed to close the door, she was informed that she was no longer a part of the team and was being reassigned.
    “But I’ve done most of the work on the Lucas case. I’ve had the most contact with the client,” Tamia pleaded. She didn’t want to be moved. It was such a big case and it would look good on her list of achievements when she was up for partner in a few months.
    “So you’re saying it’s your case?” Phaedra asked, her voice pregnant with accusation. Her blond hair was blown straight and cut blunt above the shoulders. It was a conservative cut, yet her beauty made its hardness sexy. She wore a fitted black skirt suit that left little wiggle room, and no stockings.
    “No, you’re the lead,” Tamia said apologetically. “Look, I’m not trying to step on your toes here. It’s just a big case and I want in.”
    Tamia was correct. The Lucas case was the biggest civil rights case on the firm’s list. Frederick Lucas was a former porn star who’d been dropped from his agency when word of his erectile dysfunction had been leaked to the media. The agent claimed Lucas couldn’t do the work. Lucas claimed he simply needed better work conditions. It was one of those quirky cases that was sure to keep the firm’s name in the news and the client list growing.
    “Look, Dinkins, we just don’t need so many hands on this. A paralegal could handle some of the work you’re doing.”
    Yeah, that was an insult.
    “Is this about sharing the spotlight?”
    “Sharing?” Phaedra smiled pleasantly. “I don’t share anything. I’m a taker. You know that.” She winked. “Look, I’m giving you something with a little buzz. It’ll be enough to get you some notice.”
    She slid a blue folder from beneath her keyboard and handed it to Tamia.
    “Richard Holder,” Tamia read the name on the folder. “Who is he?” She opened the folder and fingered the pages. She wanted to put up more of a fight about the Lucas thing but knew it would only end in disaster if she made a big stink. Phaedra had the ears and eyes (literally) of the senior partners and Tamia was only the new black girl on the block.
    “He’s some kind of organizer in Harlem—a community leader. The police played bang-bang in his apartment one night, looking for a boy they suspected in a robbery case. Turns out the boy was an illegal from Nigeria. He was working with Holder.”
    “They killed him?”
    “No. No one died—hence the lack of news coverage.” Tamia almost heard Phaedra’s sigh. “And the boy was nowhere near the robbery.”
    “So, what’s the case?”
    “Well, Holder tried to get the cops fired, citing that they had no right to enter his home. And then, all of a sudden, the state is trying to slap him with this slave labor charge. He wasn’t paying the boy.”
    Phaedra went on to explain that Holder had a hearing coming up and that he needed a strong lead to prepare him.
    “This kind of man,” she kept saying, needed someone who could “understand him…work with him.” She then pointed out that he’d probably work better with someone who was more like him…someone “cultural.”
    “You are cultural?” Phaedra asked before standing to suggest the meeting was over. “Keep me posted,” she added before Tamia could answer.
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    “That bitch,” Tamia growled in a way that scared her usually hardened assistant. Still holding the blue folder, Tamia was walking into her office.
    Seeing the red in her boss’s eyes, Naudia knew to follow Tamia into the office and close the door.
    “Pelst?” Naudia quizzed, looking at the foreign folder Tamia was