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automatically fuzz myself on any security camera or device and my phone number and the other e-mail address appears only for my prey. Once the bait gets taken, any other indication of my passing immediately dissolves. When She’s in work mode, Satan is unbelievably efficient. And She has got the entire Security Division to do the work, and they’re very good—among the smartest, most efficient demons in Hell. Under the leadership of Beliel, Security has become one of the premier divisions, which has escalated the rivalry between him and Meph, who is Satan’s first lieutenant, and Beelzebub and Marduk and Moloch.
    So no one, especially no human, should have been able to trace me. The e-mail spooked me for a moment and I deleted it. But not before I took note of the address and the name of the sender: one Nathan Coleman.
    Deleted.
    I got my cute aqua pajamas with the fish on them and last year’s embroidered slippers with sequins and threw them all into a Dean and DeLuca’s bag. Vincent waved at me when I came downstairs again. “Do you want a cab?” he asked, all eagerness. I should see if he has an account on MagicMirror.
    “No thanks,” I said. I was planning to hit the bodega on the corner for a couple of pints of Ben and Jerry’s as my contribution to the sweetfest. I’d get a cab when I got to the avenue, but I did appreciate the boy’s enthusiasm.
    I got to Eros’s place a little past seven, which was being really early for me. The doorman here isn’t a minion, but he knows us, so we don’t have any problems going directly upstairs. Once I arrived I dropped my bag and took the ice cream into her outrageously luxurious kitchen. Unlike my little closet with appliances stuck together and only enough countertop to cover the dishwasher, Eros had a kitchen where four people could comfortably congregate. I stashed the Phish Food and Cherry Garcia in the freezer, where it kept company with a stack of frozen pizzas and a tiny tub of Godiva Raspberry Truffle ice cream.
    I got to the living room where Sybil was already arrayed in a white cotton April Connell antique-style nightdress with enough pin tucking and lace insets to keep a Victorian seamstress at work for a week.
    I thought it was a bit early for the pj’s just yet, so I started leafing through the pile of take-out menus Eros had set out on the glass coffee table. Our hostess was in front of the fireplace carefully studying the position of her Duralog.
    Desi was the last to arrive, flushed and smiling with her packages under her arm.
    “You didn’t,” Eros said flatly.
    “Didn’t what?” Sybil asked.
    “There were already three e-mails, and I knew I was going to go. It just made sense,” Desi defended herself.
    “You didn’t actually send it already, did you?” Sybil demanded.
    Desi looked at the polished oak floor.
    “Desire, Minion of Hell, I am ashamed of you,” Eros said in her coldest voice. “Six hundred years old and you can’t put a guy off for even a day or two? Still? You know that’s the fastest way to lose him!”
    “But his e-mails were so nice,” Desi defended herself. “And we’re going to the museum on Thursday and I won’t see him before that, so it’s okay.”
    “It’s not okay,” Eros said. “I can’t believe you.”
    “Come on,” I tried to intervene. “We’re here to hang out and enjoy ourselves tonight. No boys was the rule. How about no getting down on our sisters, also?”
    All three of them stared at me. “No one was getting down on anyone,” Sybil said. “We’re just afraid that Desi could get hurt. You can’t send them an e-mail the same day. Even the next day is not good. You know that, Lily.”
    No , I thought, I don’t know that. A succubus does not play hard to get. Maybe that was part of my problem. Maybe if someone I liked had to work at it for a while he would think about me and what I was worth, and not just be so overcome with lust that he couldn’t help himself. Maybe I had been