Page 16

Memory Devoured

“O h wow,” Helena breathed as she arched back. At some point in their exchange, she had come to straddle him. “I feel amazing!”

She settled back on his legs, rolling her shoulders as she savored the delicious feeling of power feeding her being.

Blinking, Rafferty realized his eyes were already open, even though he had been enveloped by that memory. A memory he realized he still retained. He could see it all in his mind’s eye. The train, the woman. The taste of her in his mouth, the feel of her body around hi s fingers.

Except, the memory was now changed. It was Helena he remembered there. Even though it wasn’t possible.

Helena’s eyes opened, and she smiled with so much affection it hummed through him. It was an expression of kindness, warmth, and a little bit of mischievous delight. Slowly, she kissed him affectionately, then nuzzled his neck, settling contentedly against him. “Are you alright?” she asked.

“Yes, but I don’t understand. You didn’t eat m y memory?”

She sat up and cocked her head to one side. “ I didn’t?”

He shook his head. “I still rem ember it.”

“Who was that woma n anyway?”

“I… I can’t remember that part. It’s different now.” He pressed his fingers into the ghost of the ice pick still inside his brain.

“I’m sorry, I wasn’t trying to hurt you.”

“No, that’s not it. I’m fine. But it’s weird. When I think of that memory now, I don’t see her. I see you.” He met her gaze but didn’t find any answers in her confused eyes. “Now I’m a bit worried.”

Then there was a knock at the door. “Dessert and snack cart. Do you want anything?” a voice called through the door.

Helena’s eyes went wide with delight. “Oooh, dessert cart,” she said, bouncing off his lap to open the door. “Oh, dear Lord! Rafferty, you have to come see this.”

Joining her at the door, he stared at the white, multilayered cart. It had a little awning above with a cheerful blue-and-white striped pattern. Hanging from around the top were pretzels dipped in various kinds of chocolate and pressed into sprinkles, candy, or nuts. The two shelves below had three different kinds of cakes and a mini–ice cream station with so many possible toppings in jars all around. There were also brownies and cookies in drawers along with several prepackaged candy and nut mixes.

“Oh my word, Rafferty, look! They really do have everything!” Helena pointed at a medium-sized bowl in t he middle.

“Are there eggs in that raw cookie dough?” Rafferty asked, gesturing to the bowl.

“No, sir. It has everything else, but not the eggs. So it is safe to consume,” the attendant said. “Would you like a scoop of that along with a scoop of i ce cream?”

“Yes! Please!” Helena squealed.

“We also have some RumChata in a chocolate shot glass,” she said, indicating an unmarked bottle in the back of the cart.

“I’m dying. I’ve died. This is amazing, yes, please!” Helena cried, ove rly giddy.

“And what would you like, sir?” the attendant asked as she finished preparing Helen a’s order.

“I…” He looked over the cart. “May I have some of that flourless chocolate cake?” He gestured at the plate in the middle near the back.

“It has a hint of orange if that is alright?” she added as she reached for a small paper plate to dish the pre-cut slice on.

“How can it not be?” he said, and he accepted th e dessert.

“Anything to drink?”

“Milk!” Helena called from inside their compartment, having already retreated back to the seat. “Definitely need s ome milk.”

The attendant retrieved two cold bottles from the end of her cart. “Would you like me to charge it to the car?” she asked.

“Yes, please!” Helena called back, and Rafferty accepted that the issue of payment was take n care of.

“Oh my gosh, I am so glad that lady at the ticket counter offered us the free upgrade. This is the best!” Helena declared once the cart moved on. She had already devoured half of the small train-shaped bowl the scoop of cookie dough and ice cream ha d come in.

Rafferty settled into the single seat across from her since she had decided to sit cross-legged and take up the entire double-seater. He didn’t mind. He enjoyed watching her enjoyment.

“This is so nice,” she said, smiling at him. “Getting to travel with my boyfriend. It’s like a slice of normal, you know?”

“Is this normal?” he asked. “I have no frame of r eference.”

“Hmm.” She nodded around a full mouth, sliding the spoon out with a sensual slowness. “When Cindy and I were coming home from college, we convinced our boyfriends at the time to come with us.”

“At the time?” Raffe rty asked.

“Yes, I’ve had quite a few before I met you,” she said, then cocked her head. “Is that a problem?”

He shook his head. “No, of course, forgive me. I know you had a life, and lovers, before my e xistence.”

“We did just share a memory of one of your own,” she po inted out.

His jaw stiffened. “She wasn’t my lover,” he said, the words making the chocolate cake taste bitter. “I wouldn’t call her that. Nothing I did with her I would call love. Love requires a choice, and I had very limited choices.”

He stuffed a larger bite of his dessert into his mouth, simply to have something more to do than talk.

“I suppose I know that,” she said, her words soft and tender as a feather brushing the air. “I know we never really talked about this before, but if someone would summon you, what happens to you if they ask something of you that you don’t wa nt to do?”

He swallowed, the cake sliding down his throat like a rock, threatening for a moment to choke. His gaze went long as he remembered the calculation. “There is a price that has to be paid when we are summoned. If we don’t do as our masters’ command, if we break our word… There is something in all of this, that binds us to our agreements. There is also something that prevents us from taking what we need without one. We aren’t sure what it is. Our summoners can send us back without paying the price if we don’t make a deal. Then it falls on us. If we break the agreement, the price is higher than if they simply sent us back. If we fulfill our end, then we can take what we were promised by any means and there is nothing our masters can do to stop us.”

Watching her take this in, he could see her reliving the consequences of such an imprudent deal like the one Yosef had made. Helena’s gaze had gone long as she listened, tapping her spoon in her bowl. “So when I accidentally summoned you the fir st time… ”

“I kept the price low. My trip there and back and the tiniest bit of power to make the ingredients I needed. It only cost you a memory. A vibrant memory. I didn’t gain anything from it but didn’t lose anything either. We can’t risk saying no to anyone. Though, we don’t want those who summon us to know that if they don’t already. Then we can get away with all kinds of things.” It didn’t exactly feel good to say that aloud, but there was some strange relief in it as well. These were things he would have never said to anyone, but revealing them to Helena felt right. He was safe with her.

But she pursed her eyebrows as a thought occurred to her. “Is that why you pledged yourself to me, mind, body, and soul? You weren’t just being romantic?”

He realized what she was getting at. “Just in case, you know?”

“Does that mean I have to do anything you say?” she asked, releasing one of those worried eyebrows so it could arch up inquisitively. Mischievousness returne d as well.

Yet, he couldn’t find the humor in it. “I would never do that to you,” he assured. “I may have been a monster for centuries, but I would never do tha t to you.”

Setting down her bowl next to her on the seat, she crossed the breath of space between them and wrapped her arms around him. Then he felt her wrap her wings around as well, filling in the remaining space until they were contained in a small cocoon of feathers. He sucked in a sha rp breath.

Wanting to pull away, he forced himself to stay, to let her hold him. Even as the eerie feeling washed over his skin, his long discipline of doing things he didn’t really want held him firm.

“I’m so sorry, Rafferty,” she whispered, his hard work keeping her oblivious to his true feelings.

She is just trying to comfort me. She loves me, he thought, and it helped.

The sensation eased as she reverted back to herself, apparently completely oblivious that her wings, horns, and even tail had been visible. Instead, she smiled and brushed her fingers down his cheek. “Good thing I’m not really a demo n, right?”

“We don’t actually know what has happened to you,” he said carefully.

She nodded. “I know. I’m aware that I might not be… an angel. But I don’t feel particularly compelled by anything, if that helps?” She blew out a sigh and retreated back to the double-seater to reclaim her abandoned treat bowl. “It’s probably why I want to go see Cindy so much. You know? Just focus on what I can do, what I can control, until I figure out some answers.”

She blew out another breath. “Do you think… we should tell the BDI… about me?”

“Absolutely not,” he answered, forcefully shaking his head. “They may not have believed us about me not being a demon, but if we show t hem you…”

“They’ll send me back,” she agreed, finishing for him. He was grateful. The words he would have said would have been far worse. “I know. We just hadn’t said it out loud yet.”

“It is agreed then,” he said, nodding as he took up the last of his own cake, even though he didn’t really want it anymore. There was no bringing himself to ever throw away food giv en to him.

“Are you okay, by the way, with all my… changes?” she asked. The vulnerability in her eyes at asking the question sliced through him lik e a knife.

“Of course. I would be a hypocrite if I weren’t,” he lied. “You let me touch you when I was a demon.”

“Well, if I’m honest, it wasn’t always easy. That aura you put out gave me the heebie jeebies.”

“On some level, you recognized that I didn’t belong here,” he explained.

“But you don’t feel like that now,” she encouraged. “So that means you do belong. Tha t’s good.”

“Yeah,” he said, but he wasn’t sure that was tr ue either.

“What happened to that woman, the one that you helped.” Then Helena wrinkled her nose. “If you don’t mind me asking. You don’t have to an swer if…”

“She died,” he said. “Not right then. Not when she had me, but eventually, years after she sent me back. I don’t really know. I don’t know if I care. That’s what it means to be a demon.”

He wished he hadn’t said it. Helena’s face sobered, all the joy she had been feeling about their trip sucked out. He just couldn’t stand her perkiness right then, and now that he had destroyed it, he reg retted it.

And if he was still a demon, he could have devoured the foul-tasting memory, and she could have gone back to be ing perky.

“Rafferty, do you think angels exist?” she asked.

He had uttered so many lies up to that point, he couldn’t give her another one. “Not every demonic deal turns out badly. The people that get good results, like the woman in that memory, they herald us as angels. Our gifts are ‘miracles.’ There are no angels. Only us.”

He dreaded what she would say to that, and if she would apply those rules to herself. He would have given anything at that moment to know what she was thinking, but a voice came over a speaker somewhere, mumbling some words that he hadn’t been focusing enough to u nderstand.

Helena appeared to, though, and she perked up. “We’re almost here!” she said, her excitement returning after their sobering con versation.