(with a substantial increase in salary and the prospect of a rent-free apartment above Rachel's garage) as the answer to her prayers. When her husband, Joshua, returns home, he finds his daughter, Sarah, strangely flirtatious. The only person who seems immune thus far is Alex.

During dinner one night, Rachel and Joshua agree to let the kids pursue their career goals without interference. Sarah will attend culinary school. With the help of his parents' connections, Alex will transfer from his dead-end community college into the theater department at

Northwestern University.

“The Devil's Playthings" ends with Rachel and Joshua reconciling.

Driven by admiration of Josh's artwork, which graphically depicts their love for each other, including the night Alex was conceived, Rachel performs oral sex on him. Later that night, they make love for the first time in months. At the moment of her orgasm, Rachel falls unconscious. When she wakes, she finds herself in a beautiful, pastoral scene, where she is greeted by a gorgeous woman who introduces herself as Althea, a succubus who has been sharing her mind.

Rachel does not take the news well.

“My name is Althea," the incredibly lovely woman said. "I am the firstborn daughter of Lilith, who you may recognize as Adam's first wife. I am one of the succubi, and I have been sharing your body with you for the past several days."

“What? Don't be ridiculous," Rachel said. "Succubi aren't real. And the only person I'm sharing my body with is my husband, not some figment of my imagination." In truth, she wasn't quite sure what a succubi was. Or was it succubus? It brought to mind some of the boys she had known in college. The ones who were pasty-faced from never seeing sunlight, and who could speak Elvish and Klingon.

The gorgeous woman standing in front of her sighed at her outraged tone, and Rachel tried to look away from the distracting motions of her chest. Althea was wearing the kind of outfit which would have most women hauled up on an indecency charge. Nude from the waist up, her legs were covered in a short skirt of almost blinding whiteness, which contrasted with her golden skin. Slit on one side, it allowed a distracting flash of thigh to escape whenever she took a step. Her blonde hair, attractively tousled, fell in a tumbling series of ringlets down her back. Her waist was slim, her arms slender and attractive, and her breasts spectacular, teardrop-shaped wonders that sat high and proud on her chest, the nipples tilted slightly upward.

Her eyes were an arresting shade of green, dark as jade, and hinted at wicked, private pleasures. She looked sleepy-eyed and sensual, as if she had just crawled out of her lover's bed.

Or was about to crawl into it.

“I knew this would be difficult," she said. Her voice was resigned. "It has been centuries since I shared the body of a mortal. And that was always a choice made by us both, not this bastardized joining I was forced into. Listen, Rachel," she continued. "Do you remember the boy who was killed in the traffic accident? Peter Miller?"

Rachel nodded warily. The face of the young man who had died, almost in her arms, several days ago, still haunted her.

“Well, he was a monster and a fool, but he wasn't an idiot. Somehow he got his hands on an old grimoire, a spellbook. He performed a ritual which he thought would tear me out of my body and into the mind of his would-be girlfriend. So that she would be so horny she would have no choice but to sleep with him." She grimaced in disgust. "As if I would allow myself to be used for something like that!

“But he got it wrong. My soul was pulled away from my physical form," she said, as calmly as if they were discussing a trip to the drugstore.

“But instead of going into that poor girl, I was forced into him." She shuddered, her golden skin turning pale and sallow. "It was horrible.

His mind was a festering sewer, filled with hate for women.

“And then he got hit by a bus. I have never been so near death. If he had died while I was trapped in his mind, I would have perished as well. I was lucky. I was very, very Lucky that you came along, my child. When you took that boy's hand, I had just enough power to transfer my soul to your mind." Her lips quirked with dark humor.

“It was like an exorcism, but in reverse.

“But I can't stay here forever," she said. "Mortals are not meant to contain the consciousness of a succubus. Their bodies...change. So I started to work to regain my power, so I could move back into my own form.