Magic Souls

CHAPTER 1 The Promotion Commotion It was the morning of the biggest presentation of my legal career, and I spent ten minutes practicing my speech in front of a potted ficus. The bronze faces of the partners stared down at me from the wall, and I tried to imagine my face among them. If my presentation went well, I’d become a mid-level associate at the Hanover Law Firm—the most prestigious law firm in the city—and I’d finally get my own office instead of having to share a cubicle. I hurried through the hall, swung into the conference room, and discovered that the meeting had begun without me. The partners sat around a long cedar table, watching a plasma TV mounted on the wall. They swiveled their heads toward me. “You’re late, Bebe,” said Annette Farwell, my arch-nemesis with stilettos and perky breasts. Her designer suit made my blouse and skirt look like consignment items. She wasn’t supposed to be in this meeting. She smirked at me from the head of the table, lacing her fingers together so that everyone could see her glittering maroon nails. “I’ve been working on this case for six months, and I don’t appreciate you interrupting my presentation.” My PowerPoint slides hovered on the TV screen. Only at the Hanover Law Firm were the partners so busy that they couldn’t tell when attorneys were stealing cases from each other. I nearly turned green when I saw Tucker Salinas sitting at the table. He looked sexy in his black suit and red tie, and I could smell his lavender cologne across the room. His wavy hair and brown skin made him stick out in the room full of pasty white people like me. “Wasn’t this your case, Bebe?” he said. “Well—” Annette raised her voice to cover mine. “Of course Bebe helped me. When she wasn’t on f*******:, she was wonderful. But time management is her weakness. It’s just like her to be late.” I wanted to say, I’m late because you rescheduled the meeting without telling me, but what came out was something between a pout and a nervous laugh. The managing partner shot up. “That’s all I need. It’s a tough decision—both of you do a great job. But on the basis of this case, Annette, we’re going to go ahead and promote you to mid-level associate. Bebe, we’ll discuss your performance at a later date.” Annette draped her palms over her mouth and sucked in air. “I can’t thank you enough for recognizing my hard work.” She schmoozed around the room, shaking everyone’s hands. The partners ignored me as they filed out, and when I tried to meet Tucker’s eyes, he looked through me, too. “It’s nothing personal,” Annette said after the last attorney left. She primped her bun with one hand and packed her portfolio with the other. “You’ll get your promotion in due time.” I blocked the door. “You stole my case.” “It’s so nice to finally hear you speak. I couldn’t tell if you were shocked, or if you were participating in one of your silent vegan protests again.” “This is wrong, Annette. You never worked on this case.” “You shouldn’t have left your computer unlocked.” “You’re committing fraud.” “You’re the fraud.” Annette stepped toward me. “And if you think I’m a b***h now,” she said, “I dare you to tell the partners. Then I can tell them how you broke company protocol and kissed Tucker Salinas.” “How do you know that?” Sure, I had kissed him. I’d had too many cocktails at happy hour—super embarrassing—but he hadn’t kissed me back. Annette saw me thinking and laughed. “You know the rules. Any kind of personal contact is grounds for termination. I’ll make you wish that you’d dropped out of law school like you should have, and wonder why you didn’t major in English, spend the rest of your life writing erotica, and contribute to society in some meaningful way other than being a tool for my personal advancement. Go on,” she said, pointing to the door, “tell the partners.” I didn’t know what to say. Annette pushed me aside and slammed the door behind her, leaving me alone with the lingering smell of cologne, legal pads, and betrayal. *** The law firm was inside an old Victorian mansion. No one used the third floor because the partners hadn’t brought the attic up to city code yet. It was dark and disorganized, with stacks of boxes and couches with plastic draped over them. A circular stained glass window gave the area an eerie light, as if it were haunted. I liked to go there sometimes to think. I sat on the landing and wiped my eyes. I kept thinking about how useless I was. Annette’s words shouldn’t have hurt me as much as they did, but I couldn’t stop thinking about what she’d said. Maybe she was right. Maybe I had chosen the wrong profession. “It’s not fair,” I said. “I wish I could go through life and be mean to people without facing consequences.” At that moment, a pile of boxes tumbled over, and glassware spilled out. I jumped up and scanned the darkness, but I didn’t see anything. Maybe it was a rat. I got goosebumps, but at the same time it felt as if the temperature in the attic rose ten degrees. I turned to go downstairs, but a tall, red-skinned demon in a suit and tie was standing in front of me. He had a long tail with a spade tip, and it circled behind him like an enchanted cobra. I nearly fainted when I saw him. “I accept your offer,” the demon said, grinning. His voice was deep and rich. “Annette is a real b***h, isn’t she?” I must have been hallucinating. “How’d you get in here?” I asked, blinking hard. He straightened his tie and extended a hand. “Forgive me—I slide between dimensions so much that I often forget human formalities. My name is Ladouche.” “You’re a demon, and I shouldn’t be talking to you.” “But we just made a deal, Bebe. We’ve got to talk details.” “I never made a deal.” “A minute ago,” the demon said, “didn’t you say that you wanted to ‘go through life and be mean to people without facing consequences’?” “Yes, but I wasn’t serious—” “Sure you were. Besides, I’ve already granted your wish.” He gazed downstairs. “I’m tired of watching humans betray each other.” He put a finger on the banister and it burst into flames. The fire tore down to the first floor, where an attorney was standing with his elbow against the banister, talking on a cell phone. When the fire singed his elbow, the attorney leaped away and shouted every curse word there was, but for some reason, he never looked upstairs. The banister returned to normal, and Ladouche laughed. “From now on, you can do whatever you want. Be mean, ruin someone’s day. When you do, I guarantee that you won’t get caught.” “W-why would I want to do that?” He grinned again and closed his hands into fists. “Because you need your job; because you want revenge; because Annette will do this to you again if you let her.” “No.” “She isn’t the first, Bebe. Shall we go through the list of the three hundred and seven people who have manipulated you throughout your twenty-six years of existence?” “Seriously? That many people?” I didn’t want to believe it; I didn’t want to believe that any of this was happening. Ladouche must have sensed my disbelief. “How about Jessica Ramirez, who threatened to spread false rumors about your nether parts if you didn’t do her contract law homework?” “She still failed, you know.” “Or Manny Singh,” Ladouche continued, “who fooled you into trusting him, only to betray you during your legal internship? But for him, you would have obtained a full scholarship to law school. That was a seventy-thousand dollar mistake.” “How do you know that?” “I know everything, and I also know this: the number of manipulations you will experience in your life will increase five-fold if you do not accept my offer.” “This is insane.” “I’ll show you something insane,” Ladouche said. He snapped his fingers, and a holographic screen hovered between us. Annette was on it; she was in the managing partner’s office. “If this is true,” the managing partner said, “She has to go. We need Tucker.” “You know me,” Annette said, “I wouldn’t come to you if it weren’t important—and true.” “No,” I said. “She can’t be—” The screen disappeared, and Ladouche frowned. “In a few minutes, you’ll be unemployed. How’s that for insanity?” I backed away and shook my head. “Fine. I don’t have anything to hide. Yeah, I kissed him. That’s not a crime, and if they fire me over some stupid firm policy, it’s just as well. It’s not worth the struggle.” Ladouche’s eyes burst into circular flames. “You’re pathetic. What will it take for you to stand up for yourself?” “I don’t know, but revenge isn’t the answer.” I was not going to give in to his temptation. “Funny! Where’d you learn that? Church?” I put my hands to my head and tried to shake him out of my vision, but he wouldn’t go away. “Go home, then,” he roared. “Cry yourself to sleep, like you do every time someone exploits you. When you wake up tomorrow morning, you’ll realize that Annette is twelve thousand dollars richer, and that your only chance for a promotion is gone. You’ll have to go to another firm and start over. It’ll take years, and along the way, others will use you, too. You’ll look back on this moment and think, ‘I should have listened to Uncle Ladouche. I should have gotten my revenge.’ But by then, I’ll be helping someone else and will have forgotten you entirely.” I backed down the stairs, too afraid to take my eyes off him, but he kept stepping toward me. “If you don’t stand up for yourself, Tucker will never notice you.” “That’s none of your business,” I said, trying not to show that his words stung. “You have no right to comment on my love life. Please leave, or I’ll call the cops.” Ladouche bowed, scowling at me all the way down, and then he vanished, leaving a veil of golden smoke in the air. It choked me, and I had to run downstairs to escape it. The managing partner was waiting outside his office as I came down the stairs. “Bebe, we need to talk.” I couldn’t deal with getting fired on top of everything else that had happened, so I pretended to keep coughing and ran past him, ducked into my cube for my purse, and kept running all the way out to the parking lot. *** My mind was on autopilot as I drove home. The sun was setting behind the city skyline, and it lit the horizon with an orange and pink fire—the kind of fire I felt inside as I thought about Annette. I couldn’t stop thinking about what had happened. And Ladouche—as if the day couldn’t get any stranger. Was he real? Could his promise really be true? I had to admit, it would be nice to push Annette out of the third floor window, and shrug my shoulders to the police when they asked me who did it . . . I heard a horn and glanced up; an SUV was barreling toward me. I screamed as its headlights brightened the interior of my car. I froze as it loomed near, but at the last second, I jerked my wheel. I lost control as my car zigzagged across the intersection and jolted to a stop on the side of the road, facing oncoming traffic. I heard a BOOM, and saw the SUV on the other side of the road, against a guardrail. The driver, a woman with long hair, rubbed her forehead as smoke rose from the hood. I looked back at the traffic signal and my heart stopped. My light had been red. A squad car pulled up behind me. Crap. The officer was at my window in an instant. He wore a tan uniform emblazoned with the Hanover sheriff star. He tapped the window with his knuckle, and when I rolled it down, he hooked his fingers in his belt and rocked on his toes as he spoke. “You okay, Miss?” “Officer, I’m so sorry—” “For what?” “I ran the red light.” I handed my license to him, but he wouldn’t accept it. “No, the other car ran the red light. I saw it.” “But—” “I just wanted to make sure you were okay.” He tipped his hat and left me dazed. The accident had been my fault; it was obvious. Why hadn’t he given me a ticket? I heard an “erh-hm” —Ladouche was in the passenger seat, reading a newspaper with a photo of the wrecked SUV on the front page, with a headline that said, UNINSURED MOTORISTS ON THE RISE! PROMISING ATTORNEY NOT AT FAULT, GETS HUGE SETTLEMENT. “Pretty impressive, yes?” he asked, folding the paper neatly into compartments. I nearly jumped out of the car. “Seriously, stop appearing like that.” “Of course you ran the red light, Bebe, but no one will ever know.” “How could you?” I cried. “Look—that innocent woman is going to get a ticket because of your trick.” “Stop worrying about other people.” He waved his hands and the windows frosted over, preventing me from seeing out. He shoved his face in front of mine and said, “Are you going to get your revenge or what?”