3 Straight by the Rules by Michelle Scott Page A

wasn’t surprised to see industrial carpeting, gray walls, and fluorescent lights reflected back at me.  This portal was exactly the same as every other supernatural doorway.  Except that it was growing.
    Having an otherworld doorway spontaneously appear in my apartment deeply disturbed me.  If this kept up, my home would be overrun.  I needed to ask William about it when he arrived.
    As I was checking on the chicken Florentine in the oven, I felt a shiver in the air that told me an otherworldly visitor had arrived.  Trying hard to suppress my eager smile, I flipped my hair over my shoulder and turned to greet my guest.
    It was the wrong guest.
    Delilah stood in my kitchen doorway, a paper bag in her hands.  She looked around warily, as if expecting a nasty surprise.  “Something smells good,” she grudgingly admitted.
    “Thank you,” I told her.
    She looked over her shoulder at the flickering candles on the dining room table.  “Are you expecting company?”
    “Yes, actually.”
    “Well, I’m sorry to hear it because you have an assignment in five minutes.”  She didn’t look one bit sorry.
    I was horrified.  “What?  Now!  Can’t it wait?”
    She shook her head.  “Miss Spry said you are not to miss it.”  I could sense Helen’s hot-eyed glare behind Delilah’s frown.  “And she said to give you this, too.”  She handed me the bag.
    It was the tea I had wanted for my father.  I could smell the smoky aroma through the paper.  Getting the tea didn’t soften my temper, however.  “Are you sure you can’t change that appointment?”
    She glared at me.  “I’d thought you’d be happy to go do your dirty work.  Isn’t that what you succubi like to do?”
    “No, it isn’t what I like to do,” I said.  “Helen forces me to.”
    Delilah blinked.  “ Forces you?  You mean, you don’t want to sleep with all those men?”
    “I don’t sleep with men.  Wait – have you been reading Wikipedia?”
    “Maybe.”  She hesitated.  “Yes.”  She sat down on a kitchen chair that groaned under her bulk.  “I thought that you and William had signed up for your jobs.”
    “I don’t know about William,” I said, “but I never wanted this.  I hate working for Helen.”
    “Me, too.”  Delilah twisted her silver bangles on her wrists.  “I passed two months ago.  Breast cancer.  When I was alive, I wasn’t what you’d call a Christian lady, so I didn’t think I was good enough to get into Heaven.  Which is why I ended up working for her .”  Her eyes glistened.
    “Welcome to the club,” I said.
    She levered her body out of the chair.  “I’m sorry, Lilith Straight.  I had you figured all wrong.  And I’m sorry, too, about what you’ll have to do tonight.”
    My stomach clenched.  “What am I doing?”
    She handed me a slip of paper.  “Dirty work.”
     
    As much as I wanted to defy Helen and brush off the assignment, I couldn’t.  After all, I wanted to see my daughter one last time before Helen decimated me.  And Helen would decimate me if I refused to follow her direct orders.  So instead of keeping my date with William, I  stomped to my bedroom to change out of my clothes and into something more appropriate.
    I arrived at the location wearing little more than a silk robe and a smile.  And because I was nervous, the smile was as thin as the robe.
    The hotel banquet room bustled with wait staff who laid out stacks of china on buffet tables and lit cans of Sterno under chafing dishes.  I snagged the attention of the bartender who was arranging bottles of liquor.  “I’m the sushi model,” I said.  “Do you know where I need to be?”
    He ogled me, taking in my long, bare legs and clingy silk robe before directing me to a bleached-blonde forty-something wearing a high-gloss lipstick that matched her scarlet nails.  Her nametag read: Barb Silverstone, event coordinator.  She carried a clipboard and shouted orders to a pair of waiters