Page 11

The Next Morn ing Sucked

Rafferty didn’t feel as bad as he thought he should have when he woke up. Instead of a pounding headache, he just felt dry. Like he really needed to soak up a whole bunch of water in a shower or tub.Opening his eyes, he found Helena lying beside him, curled up under the blanket, which he had clearly passed out on top of.

Light streamed through the curtains, cutting a slice of it over her cheek, giving her red-gold hair an outline of fire. He couldn’t drink the view in enough. She was so precious and sweet, sleeping like that, he could convince himself that nothing had changed about her. Even as he studied her, he couldn’t resist lifting a finger to caress down her cheek, only to hesitate an inch above her skin.

His forgotten shame filled him again, the alcohol having done nothing to wipe it truly away. He had abandoned her when she had been at her most vulnerable. And yet, she had just for given him.

Disgusted with himself, he withdrew his hand and slowly sat up so as not to di sturb her.

After everything she had done for him, all the times she had shown him mercy and compassion, and all he could think about was his revulsion at the idea of touching her. The uncanny feeling she had given off whispered underneath his skin, and he rubbed at his fingers to try to dispel it. How can I do th is to her?

This beautiful creature had become a demon for him, traded her life for his, and he couldn’t even bear to touch her. He had called her an angel, but he knew what he had seen, what he had felt. She had become what he had been, something that needed to go back into hell. His whole being told him the truth in the presence of her unnaturalness. And last night, she had used power on him to wipe away his hangover. It is only a matter of time before she will need to take energy back in. Who might she harm when tha t happens?

Not that he really cared about those theoretical victims. He had never cared before what other demons did or to whom, but to think of Helena that way…

Hating himself for thinking such thoughts, he slipped from the bed and tiptoed into the bathroom, shutting the door as silently as possible.

The hotel had provided an automatic sensor for the lights and the one over the shower stall clicked on in response. With a sigh of relief, he turned the handle within the stall, immensely enjoying the patter of the water as it fell against the floor. He had seen showers before, he had even eyed the one in Helena’s house, but had never dared to ask her if he could… take one.

Now, it felt almost sacred as he undressed, removing the jeans he wore and feeling his own hands slide down his very real skin. He felt pleasure at touching himself, where he had always had the equal and opposite sensation before. The same abhorrence at touching himself as he had at the thought of touching H elena now.

“I will master this,” he ordered himself. He couldn’t abandon her; he owed her too much. Even the thought that he could leave her, that maybe he wanted to, after everything she did for him, horr ified him.

Jerking his own hands away from himself, he opened the glass door of the shower and entered it. Immediately, he leapt back out with a small cry as his still-warm skin was hit by shards of icy wet. Guessing he hadn’t cranked the handle far enough, he reached around the stream to yank it all the way the other direction. Within moments, the water shifted from glacial to pleasantly warm. Sighing, Rafferty stepped into that, letting the gobs and gobs of water flow over his whole being, washing away his thought s with it.

Maybe it was the absence of active thoughts that allowed something else to take their place. A memory. Standing in a kitchen before the cooking fire with a large bowl filled with heated water and a rough bar of soap, washing himself with a cloth. Everyone he knew did it this way. Only the wealthy nobles would get to surround themselves with water, bathing in tubs that they could sit in, and that was only once or twice a week at most unless they were the king or queen. Ordering up bathwater was time-consuming. If he wanted to bathe more than that, he would have had to go to a stream, and those were often a brisk experience, only pleasant on the hottest of days. He had wondered then what it would feel like to simply let himself soak in so much w arm water.

Rafferty didn’t get much of a chance to dwell on the memory as, almost too late, he realized his artificial waterfall had turned into a lava-fall.

Another sharp cry escaped him as the shower scalded him out of it.

“Dammit!” he cursed.

“Rafferty? Are you okay?” Helena’s voice came from the other side of the bath room door.

He panicked. “Yeah, I…” He reached for the handle and tried to turn it back just as Helena opened the door. “No! Don’t come in!”

Predictably, he slipped. Falling out of the shower, he hissed as his knees banged on the ground, those sensations just as intense as all the others he had been experiencing. In fact, it felt like his knee had exploded, the nerve there shooting electric pain up his leg, overwhelming every other thought and stealing his br eath away.

“Oh crap! Are you alright?” she said as she entered the steamed-up room. All he could see from where he had landed on the ground were her ankles as she stepped past him to the shower itself, reaching in to tu rn it off.

Desperate for some shred of dignity despite everything, he swiped for a towel hanging on a rack bolted to the wall, but he only managed to drape it over himself. Why did I do that? he thought. She had seen him naked before. Not only that, but he never cared about be ing naked.

When he didn’t really ha ve a body.

“I’m an idiot!” he declared as he rolled on his back, not daring to straighten the throb bing knee.

“Are you hurt?” Helena asked, squatting down ne xt to him.

“Only my pride,” he muttered, then winced. “And my knee.”

“Yeah, I can see that,” Helena sai d gravely.

He stiffened. “Is it badly damaged?” he asked, unable to keep the fear from his voice.

Helena glanced down at him, then she averted her eyes away. Dread flooded th rough him.

“Does it feel like icy electricity shooting up your leg and snatching your breath away? But now it’s fading into a du ll throb?”

“Yeah,” he asked, the anxiety thick in his voice.

“Yes, I think you have done the worst thing in the world,” she continued gravely. “You banged your fu nny bone.”

She said it so deadpan Rafferty didn’t realize it was a joke until she broke out into an enormous grin and started giggling. “You’re going to be fine, don’t worry,” she assured him, and leaned in to give him a kiss on the cheek. “You never banged your knee when you were alive the fi rst time?”

“Not that I remember.” For a split second, he almost flinched away but instead forced himself to hold still and receive her kiss.

“I am sorry about last night,” he said instead, letting her help him sit up on the bathr oom floor.

“How are you feeling?” she asked, brushing her fingers through his hair tenderly.

“Embarrassed. Stupid,” he muttered.

“It’s alright, we’ve both gone through some… big changes the last couple of days.” She stood up and then offered him a hand, but he didn’t take it. “Did you at least have fun wit h éliott?”

“Yes, yes, I did,” he said truthfully, a grin threatening his lips at the fresh memory, whisps of the sound of the other man’s laughter ringing through his head.

To have a frie nd again…

“Does your knee still hurt?” she asked.

“No, it is better now,” he confirmed. “I just need a moment.” He gestured to the door, asking her to leave.

She gave him a sad smile that pained him t o look at.

“I just need a minute,” he said, and it sounded weak ev en to him.

But she left as he requested.

Then he lay back down on the cooler bathroom tile and sighe d angrily.

“Ungrateful,” he murmured. “You are un grateful.”

Finally, he had to screw up his courage to come out of the bathroom. Their eyes touched briefly, but then he looked away, moving toward his borrowed suitcase to pull out clothes himself. He laid them out on the bed, then turned his back to her. Without hesitation, he let the towel fall so that he could get dressed. From his periphery, he saw her only take in his nakedness a second before shyly loo king away.

He thought she would say something, hoped she would.

Instead, she grabbed up her toiletries bag and went to the bathroo m herself.

They continued in that tense silence, each plagued by their own thoughts, until she broke first. “Who is Eleanor?”

He jumped at the questi on. “Who?”

Helena didn’t answer but went to the side table by the bed and picked up a dog-eared business card. Only then did he remember. “Oh, right. She is a patissier, a dessert chef, here at the hotel. I met her last night in the kitchen. She mak es cakes.”

“Oh, I see,” Helena said, looking down at the card as if it could verify his words for her. “Why did she give you her card?”

“She said she could help me find work. I suppose I will need to find a job now.” He stared at the card and this new reality it s ymbolized.

A fresh panged look crossed her face. “God, I don’t even know if I have a job now,” Helena said, handing him the card. “Is this what you would li ke to do?”

He didn’t answer that, so she continued.

“Because I’ve been thinking, you know, while you were gone last night…” She went and fetched her mobile phone. “I was doing searches last night, and I found some things. And I mean, I was searching everything, you know, just jumping from rabbit hole to rabbit hole, but I ended up on this realtor’s site where it lists restaurants, cafés, and kitchens that are up for sale or rent in the city, and I thought we could go and look at some of them today. Not make any decisions or anything, but just go check them out. Get so me ideas?”

She held out the screen to him, showing him exactly what she described, small thumbnail pictures of beautifully decorated cafés with location and catchy words in the titles. There were a few restaurants ranging from classy to working-class, each with a price tag that suited them. As he scrolled down, looking at what Helena called possibilities, he paused on one that was familiar.

“Isn’t this that kitchen, that catering place we went to that had the awful food?” he asked, tapping the image to direct her attention, but the action opened up the entry eve n further.

Helena hovered over his shoulder, wrinkling her nose at the picture. “Yeah, I think so. That address looks familiar. That bastard went under, huh? Can’t say I’m sorry. Couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy,” she said dryly, still clearly bitter from the e xperience.

“I don’t know,” Rafferty said, a grin sneaking onto his face. “It gave me the opportunity to be your knight in shini ng armor.”

That reminder allowed his grin to infect her, and she even blushed a bit before slipping her arms around his neck.

“I love you,” she whispered into his neck. “You know that right? I meant what I said at the Winter R ose Ball.”

He didn’t say it back. He couldn’t. Instead, he made himself wrap his arms around her smaller body and pull her against him, shielding her with his whole being from the world, and himself. “I believe you.” Somehow, that meant more to him than the other words at that moment. “I believ e in you.”

They squeezed each other harder, and while they did, everything f elt right.

“I know everything is weird and complicated right now, but we will figure this out. Right?” Hel ena asked.

“Yeah,” he agreed. Because he had to agree. He had to h ave faith.

Breaking the hug at last, he looked down at his… girlfriend, delighted to call her such, even if just in his own mind. “Do you think the agents will allow us to just leave?” he asked.

“Well, we’re not prisoners. I think. They encouraged us to stay put, but I don’t think they can make us. And besides, I’m less worried about Vassago now than I was before.” She stepped back from their shared embrace, grinning mischievously. “I betcha I can take him now.”

When he didn’t smile back, she sobered a little, cupping his cheek with her hand.

“I need to tell you something,” he breathed. “It’s about Vassago.”

Worry quirked her eyebrows. “What a bout him?”

He rubbed his fingers at the lines her worry made. “We don’t have to fear him anymore. I wanted to tell you sooner, but… I guess I’m telling you now. I made a deal with him.”

Helena shifted away so she could look him full in the face, her eyes alarmingly wide. “What do you mean you made a deal with him?”

“He came to see me at the agent’ s office.”

“Yes, you told me that. I saw him, too.”

Rafferty continued. “Well, we made a deal. He won’t harm us or anyone.” He hoped his words would reassure her, but those lines between her eyebrows only deepened, her eyes reflecting m ore alarm.

He thought she would ask a million questions, demand answers, but she didn’t. Instead, she wrapped her arms around him tighter, hugging him hard, and buried her face into his shoulder. “You are such a good man.”

“It wasn’t that kind of deal,” he whispered into her hair, answering the question she didn’t ask. “I promised him I would not reveal any information about him to the authorities, and he promised he would leave us alone. You, me, your friends, even Scarlet. It’s demonbound; he’s obligated to keep it as long as I don’t speak of the deal with anyone but you.”

She remained silent for a thinki ng moment.

“And if I tell anyone, then it voids your deal as well?”

He swallowed. “Yes. The language of the deal covers that, but I couldn’t not tell you, so I made it a stipulation. I don’t want to keep secrets like that from you.”

She pulled away again. “So instead of demanding your mind, body, or soul, he bargained for your silence,” she said, working it out on her own. “But what about anyone else he might hurt in the meantime?”

Of course, her mind would go toward that. After all, she was a go od person.

“That sort of thing would have too high a cost. I protected what I could. We’re all safe.” He thought about it a moment longer, seeing the situation through her eyes. “I… I didn’t want to risk my soul or my life again. That may b e terrib—”

She grabbed his head and pulled it down to kiss him firmly. “Thank you,” she said when she broke it, gratitude flooding her eyes.

“For what?” he asked, startled by her gesture. She clearly didn’t understand what a piece of shit he was to bind her to a promise like that without a sking her.

“For saving my friends. Trusting me to keep your promise and protect you,” she said, then she kissed him again, a soft, chaste kiss filled with blessed tenderness. This he didn’t pull away from; ease washed through him. “Okay, so we’re safe, but specifically which friends, besides Scarlet? What about Cindy? And Charlie?”

“Yes, a nd Chris.”

Helena rolled her eyes, “Well, I don’t know about protecting Chris ri ght now…”

“A person like Chris would be a perfect target for a demon like Vassago,” he said. “Chris is important to Charlie and could be used to get to the rest of us in directly.”

Her brows furrowed as she understood that. “And to save anyone else would make the price too high. I un derstand.”

Rafferty nodded. “If I’m honest, as a demon, he paid way too much for my silence, really.” A grin spread across his face. “It’s a really g ood deal.”

She nodded, even though she clearly didn’t like it. “And that’s what Agent Archon was trying to tell us. It’s not our job to stop him or catch him. We’re just supposed to keep ourselves safe and just try to move on?”

“Yes. I suppose so,” he agreed.

“I see.” She nodded, thinking about it. “Then we ar e… okay?”

“We’re okay,” he agreed. “I care for you,” he said quickly, catching her other hand in both of his. “Deeply.”

“I know, Rafferty. You went through Hell for me,” she assured. “I suppose you could look at it like… when you were my demon, I was your whole world. Now you can have the actual whole world. And… if your feelings for me change, I’ll un derstand.”

“That won’t happen,” he insisted, hoping it was n’t a lie.

“I’m not worried,” she also insisted, another possible lie. Then she turned to grab her coat and pulled a purse from her suitcase. “Come on. If we are safe now, then let’s escape th is place.”

A knock came at the door.

Alarmed, their eyes met, reflecting back the same questions.

Helena moved first toward to door to answer it. “It must be th e agents.”

Yet, when she swung it open, there stood an unfamiliar woman, wearing a long, expensive winter coat, a scarf wrapped over her hair, and wide dark glasses perched on her nose. In one hand, she clutched a purse, in the other kid leather gloves. With shaking hands, she slipped off the glasses and pinched her eyebrows w ith worry.

Rafferty did not recognize h er at all.

“Can I help you?” Helena asked, politely, clearly not knowing the wom an either.

Then, the worry line between the stranger’s eyebrows deepened, wrinkling it even more in the young face. Even though she wore no makeup, she clearly was beautiful and soph isticated.

Maybe there was something in the tilt of her head, but then Helena squeaked, her fingers flying to her lips. “Scarlet?”