“So I suppose you want a full explanation. You’re certainly owed one at this point.”

She was wearing the bikini bottom and had put her shirt back on and buttoned it up. I sat at my dining room table drinking a beer while she rummaged around the kitchen scrounging up ingredients for what she told me was the best omelet on the planet. I had gotten dressed.

“Let’s start with the basics,” she said. “First off, as you may have guessed, I’m not Carol. Well I am, but I’m not. She’s gone and I have taken over her body and memories. I can be her easily because it’s all up here,” she pointed to her head, “but not her soul. That’s gone to heaven. Getting possessed by a demon is an express ticket to the good afterlife.”

I just stared at her.

“You heard me right,” she said. “I am a demon. A succubus to be precise. We kill by having sex.”

“I know what a succubus is supposed to be,” I replied angrily. “I’ve read Dante. How the hell am I supposed to believe that?”

She started to unbutton her shirt again.

“Oh, please,” I said. “This has been a long day already.”

“Be quiet,” she responded. “I don’t want to rip the shirt. I didn’t bring a second one.” She took it off and turned around. Again, there were those two tattoos. They shimmered for a moment, and then started to grow out of her back. In only a matter of seconds they grew into full wings.

She turned her head towards me but kept her back facing me. “What do you think?” she asked.

I let it all sink in for a moment.

“Am I getting the benefit of the doubt?”

I nodded. The wings folded back inwards and became tattoos again.

“Allow me to start over,” she said. “You want to know what a protected one is.”

“That would be a good place to start,” I replied.

“It’s like this. There’s sort of an uneasy truce between the forces of good and evil. Heaven and Hell if you will. You’ve read your Dante and your Milton and so on so you know that once upon a time we all used to be on the same side. More often than not we actually all want the same things and just differ in how to get things accomplished. At least the angels do. People like me tend to take sides, but that’s what we’re built for. It’s hard to be anything close to good when your entire genetic make-up is designed to kill by fucking.

“Anyway, part of this truce is that every once and a while it becomes necessary to take a human life too soon. When it happens, which ever side does it has to allow a ‘gimme’ for the other side. The other side chooses a person and turns them into a protected one. It’s very rare – I don’t think there are more than 20 of you on the whole planet – but it happens none the less.

“In fact, my taking of Carol Mei Wong probably created another protected one. And before you ask, I didn’t kill her. I was put in her body by my own bosses.”

“If what you say is true,” I said, “and I accept all of this, which side is protecting me?”

“No fucking clue,” she replied. “I was told that I was being inserted into your life for a specific assignment. I asked if I was allowed to kill you and was told to ‘go ahead and try’. Oh, I’ll bet they’re laughing their asses off over that one. I assumed that this was just a simple grab and go but I’ll bet that it’s going to be much more complicated than that.”

“So what am I protected from? It’s not from getting shot, I’m sure.”

“You’re protected from demons and angels,” she said. “And death. The usual earthly shit can do you serious harm and give you those sexy scars, but they won’t kill you. Conversely, demons like me and even angels can do you no harm at all. You cannot be taken to your final resting place until fate is finished with you. Given the amount of trauma you’ve sustained in your life I’d bet you were protected young.”

She had finished finding all of the ingredients and cookware she was after and turned on the gas on my stove. She moved with grace and speed putting together a fantastic smelling omelet. Paprika. I would have to remember that touch.

“So you know who and what I am?” I asked.

“I do. Ex-cop and former soldier with a fuck-ton of money, a small drinking problem and serious pain issues that you haven’t turned to pills for.”

“Pills lead to addiction, and I don’t want that.”

“Oh please, you’re addicted to sex. And for what it’s worth it works.” She slid the omelet onto a plate and brought the dish over to me. “Eat up. I have a feeling you’re going to need your strength.”

“So do you know about Freddy?” I asked as she walked back into the kitchen.

She stopped for a moment. Then she let out a sigh and started on a second omelet for herself. “A damned trigger word,” she said.

“A what?”

“A trigger word. You said ‘Freddy’ and the rest of the assignment got downloaded into my brain. You are one unlucky son of a bitch.” She finished cooking her own meal and then grabbed a beer of her own from the fridge. She sat down across from me.

“My boss is too damned clever for his own good,” she said. “I’d bet you anything that he knew exactly what would transpire and sent me down here to teach me a lesson and to take the assignment once I had tried to kill you. Damn, but he’s good.”

I had already finished my eggs and mess and chased it down with the last of my own beer. “Care to clue me in?” I asked.

“The demon you call Freddy is one of my people. Your mythos doesn’t have a name for what he can do. He can screw with time. Not just the perception of time but actual time. He can slow it down so much that it seems stopped, and he can isolate it so that a little pocket of the world moves at his speed while the rest slows down. You met him and saw his handiwork today. It’s why you were so late.

“He tried to kill you too?”

“And it obviously didn’t work,” I said.

“So he’s killing people this time,” she continued. “Well, using a partner at any rate. He can’t kill on his own without creating more like you. Kind of mundane for him. Last time he was on Earth he nearly destroyed the entire planet.”

“How so?”

“He created the Cuban Missile Crisis. He’s supposed to be in our version of jail.”

I held my head. “He’s an escaped con,” I intoned.

“He is.”

“And I’m one of the few people on the planet he can’t harm.”

“You are.”

“You want me to hunt him down and help capture him.”

“We do.”

I got up and walked to the fridge. This was going to require another beer. “Why me?” I asked. “Is it because I stumbled into his work?”

“Oh I seriously doubt you stumbled into it,” the succubus replied. “A demon kills a bunch of people and a protected one with your skill set stumbles into it? That’s too big a coincidence for me. Somebody probably steered everything into place.”

“And who would that be?”

“Damned if I know. Both sides put out a lot of subtle influence. For all I know the action that put you in the right place in the right time might have been something as simple as a fly buzzing your face 6 weeks ago. The ones who do this sort of thing are awfully good at it.”

I took a long swig of my new beer. “And what is your role in all of this?” I asked. “Are you supposed to by my Watson?”

She actually laughed. “As if you were some sort of Sherlock,” she said. “No, I will continue to be Carol for as long as this assignment lasts. Working as a massage parlor girl is good work for someone like me.”

I sat down in my recliner with a heavy thud. “Carol,” I said. “She’s really dead?”

“She is and I’m sorry about that.” She came over to me and straddled my lap, facing me. “I promise you she’s much happier now than she was before I came along. She had no family and no dependents. Like I said before, being taken over by a demon is an express ticket to paradise. I’ve seen heaven, you know. If it were possible and I knew I was going there I’d let you kill me right now.”

“So I have to pretend that you’re her,” I said.

“You do. Don’t worry, I’ll sell it. I will continue to do the work the real Carol was assigned to do for you. You need the massages and I like the sexual stuff although you’re going to need to stock up on condoms. Wow – that’s a phrase I never thought I’d hear myself say.”

I actually laughed at that. “Okay, suppose I go along with all of this,” I said. “We have a couple of problems. First of all, the only leads I have to work off of are the ones already in the possession of the police and the FBI. I don’t have access to those. I may be consulting on the case but I don’t have possession of any of the evidence. Second, presuming I could put together clues and actually find this guy. How do I catch him? Just because he can’t kill me doesn’t me he can’t elude or stop me.”

“All valid points,” Carol replied. I had resolved to start thinking of her as Carol. “Last one first; you don’t have to catch him, only find him. The catching will be handled by me.”

“Are you strong enough to do that? Do you have the ability to avoid what he can do?”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence, prick. Yes, I’m strong enough. Yes, I can shut him down. As demons go, I’m fairly high up the food chain. Higher than Freddy at any rate. As far as having the ability to work off of the leads that exist I’m at a loss as to what to tell you. I can do things like augment your senses – a succubus can give strength as well as take it although that’s really going to do a number on me – but getting you access to these things is part and parcel of why we need to hire you.”

“I’m for hire?” I asked. “I get paid for this?”

“You do,” she replied. “Hell, that part’s easy. Manipulating your species pitiful system of trade is easy.”

I thought about it for a moment. “Can I bring in outside help?”

“You can, but they can’t know about me. You live in the United States after all. Even in San Francisco your country is one of the most bizarre about religion. My mere existence and presence could cause an uproar unlike anything you could be prepared for.”

“That brings me to an additional problem,” I said. “The real Carol worked for one of the big Chinese families here in the city. The head of that family has gone to come lengths to bring her to me and if they find out that the original Carol is dead that will cause significant trouble for me and possibly even for you. I do not like the idea of lying to a family boss. That’s almost sure to come back and bite me on the ass.”

Carol got up from the table and came into the living room, sitting on the massage table. “That one you will need to leave with me for now,” she said. “I’m supposed to spy on you for your Mr. Feng. I’ll tell him that you know about this – face it, you’d have figured it out dealing with the real Carol – and have agreed to share everything you find out. That keeps you in good graces while we figure all of this out and allows me to keep my cover. I can keep my cover. Remember when I said that I know everything about her? I wasn’t kidding. I can tell you the name of the dog she owned when she was 6 years old.”

I stood and stretched, feeling tired and really only noticing now that it was getting late.

“Let me sleep on it,” I said. “I’m sure there’s something I haven’t thought of. Like am I making a deal with the devil here?”

She laughed. “No, no deal with the devil,” she answered. “You only deal with me, and you have the right to refuse. No quid pro quo. It’s not like I could make you do it anyway.” She jumped off of the massage table and patted it with her hand. “Tell you what. I’ll give you another hour up here.”

I’m not going to say no to a massage. Not ever. I nodded and stripped down. So did she.

“Only oral at most,” she said. “Something I can back away from quickly.”

“I seriously doubt I can perform again that quickly,” I replied, lying down on the table.

“Sure you can.”

She was right.