Thicker Than Water

Reggie gave a sour smile. ‘Thanks, Castor,’ he said. ‘But I think I’ll walk. If you get pulled over, I’d just as soon be somewhere else. You promised me a ton, right? I’d hate to think you were as big a prick-tease as your girlfriend.’

Juliet gave Reggie a thoughtful stare, then turned and looked inquiringly at me. ‘Prick-tease?’

‘Macho shithead obloquy,’ I parsed. ‘Means a girl who promises but doesn’t deliver.’

‘Oh. I see.’ Juliet turned to look at Reggie again. ‘But I do deliver,’ she assured him, deadpan. Reggie blanched, which on his dark-hued face made a striking effect. Juliet held his gaze and licked her lips, slowly. To forestall pants-wetting and hysterics, I took out the small sheaf of tenners that was Reggie’s pay-off, slapped him lightly in the face with it to break the spell, and shoved it into his hand.

‘Off you go, son,’ I said. ‘And don’t spend it all in the same shop. Remember, if the Met come rolling by, you were sat at home tonight with your dick in your hand. Or maybe Greg’s dick, I’m not fussed.’

Juliet looked away, letting him off the hook. There hadn’t been any real malice in the show of strength - except that even a faint whiff of misogyny pushes a lot of her buttons - and I know for a fact that she’s on the wagon these days as far as devouring men’s souls is concerned. Still, she can get inside your head and vandalise the furniture with frightening ease. And Reggie had been a real help tonight, even though he really didn’t owe me any favours, so I’d have hated to see him leave with bits of his psyche hanging loose.

He muttered some kind of goodnight and scrambled out of the van. I took it out of neutral and started to turn the wheel, but Juliet put a restraining hand on my arm.

‘I’m getting out here too, Castor,’ she said.

‘Seriously?’ I was surprised. ‘I can drop you off right outside your door.’

She smiled - or at any rate showed her teeth. ‘And then the thing in the back would know where I live.’

‘The thing in the back,’ I said, a little grimly, ‘is my best friend.’

Juliet shook her head. ‘Not really,’ she said. ‘Not any more. There’s a little of Rafael Ditko left, still, but mostly he’s Asmodeus now. There’s a kind of progressive deterioration that comes from being possessed by a demon - a deterioration of the human host, I mean. And because I know what Asmodeus is, and how he takes his pleasure, I’d prefer to keep him as far away from my private life as I can.’

I thought about that in silence for a moment. ‘And yet you agreed to help me tonight,’ I pointed out cautiously.

‘Yes.’ Juliet’s tone was thoughtful. ‘It’s something I’ve been discussing with Susan. The idea that you can experience pleasure in helping someone else even when there’s no direct advantage to be gained from doing it.’

‘Altruism,’ I hazarded.

‘Yes, exactly. Altruism. I decided to be altruistic tonight, to see how it felt.’

Susan is Juliet’s lover and more recently her civil partner - a union that’s already done a lot for Juliet in terms of taking some of the rough edges off her and making her less likely to rip people’s heads off in the course of casual interactions. But it’s a steep learning curve, in some respects. Steep, and bumpy, and filled with sudden, unexpected potholes.

The reason why it’s all those things is because Juliet is a succubus, which is to say a demon whose specific modality is sex. She feeds by arousing men’s desires and then consuming them, body and soul - the guy’s lust functioning in some indefinable way as a necessary ingredient in the feast. I mean, maybe she could still bring herself to devour a man who was thinking about his tax returns, but it would be like eating plain boiled rice or pasta without sauce.

To describe Juliet’s physical attributes is just a waste of words. She’s tall and slender with narrow hips but full breasts. She has the pale skin, the dark eyes and hair and yada yada that I mentioned earlier on. But these things are accidents: she could be any colour, any size, any shape. The point is that Juliet does something to your brain. It’s a combination of her scent - which is fox-rank on the first breath, ineffable perfume on the second - and her hypnotic gaze. Two seconds after you look at her you can’t remember the face of any other woman you ever met, and you don’t want to. She rewires your perceptions, painlessly, effortlessly: she becomes your Eve, your Helen, your long-lost and looked-for harbour.

Which until recently was an exquisite adaptation to a predatory lifestyle - as brutally functional as a tiger’s claws or a shark’s teeth. Now, as I think I already said, she’s taken thed he’s tae pledge and wouldn’t rend and eat you if you asked her to. It would just get her in trouble with her missus.

‘Well, how was it for you?’ I asked, clearing my throat which felt a little dry. ‘The altruism, I mean?’

‘Interesting,’ said Juliet. ‘And not unpleasant. But I think a little of it may go a long way, Castor.’

‘Meaning . . . ?’