Page 2

The Earthly Au thorities Showed Up

Helena’s shoulders stiffened as she walked toward the door. Skittering energy seemed to spike up and down her limbs. Rafferty’s own mouth felt like sandpaper as he forced himself up, his legs more stable now, following her to the swinging door that separated her kitchen from the rest of her house. He had it held open, only a crack since he was still naked, but it was enough to see all the way to the front.

His beloved lifted up onto her toes to look out the window at the top, but she didn’t seem reassured by wha t she saw.

“Oh, no,” she breathed, then shot a glance at him. Whoever it was, it was bad, which meant he needed to put pants on to face it. She seemed to mutter something, but he couldn’t hear it anymore. When he had been a demon, he could have heard her whisper halfway across the world. The reminder of his lack of powers ratcheted up his anxiety even more.

Turning away, he let the door fall softly shut so he could grab up the clothes she had left him. He heard the front door open.

“Can I help you?” she asked, her voice as neutral as possible if distant, muffled through the kit chen door.

Changing his mind by an overwhelming urgency to see, he went back to the door with an unzipped fly to silently press it o pen again.

Two women entered. Both wore professional peacoats over suits. His heartbeat kicked up a notch as one of the women held up a badge on a chain around her neck. The other woman opened a wallet to flash her cr edentials.

What if it was Vassago in disguise, come to get anot her snack?

“Hello, my name is Agent Archon. I work for the BDI, and we are investigating an incident of demon summoning that you might be connected to. Do you have a few minutes for some q uestions?”

Rafferty’s brain went completely blank. The BDI? He had no idea what that acronym stood for. What he did know was they were clearly the Earthly authorities, they had found his beloved Helena, and whatever they were going to do to her was all his fault.

Helena didn’t answer Agent Archon’s question, her gaze shifting from the badge to each wom an’s face.

The agents, of course, noted it. “First off, Ms. Rhodes, are you aware of the events that took place last night at Wrightwood Ballroom between the time of midnight and 1 :30 a.m.?”

While the first agent asked the question, the other agent lifted up a device in her hands, studying its readings.

Helena stood there, her mouth opening and closing. She clearly had no idea what to say. Agent Archon read her nonanswer with calculating eyes. “Ms. Rhodes, may I ask where you were last night during t hat time?”

“I was… at Wrightwood Ballroom,” Helena said in a sm all voice.

“So you were present last night?” Agent Archon confirmed. “And did you see and/or speak to Ms. Scarlet Kovacs during t hat time?”

Helena closed her eyes and pressed her fingers against them as if that would help her not see it, not relive those final moments before they had fallen thr ough hell.

“Ms. Rhodes,” Agent Archon said gently, coaxing, “you saw something, didn’t you? Something happened to Mr. Yosef Cantor, d idn’t it?”

“Yes,” Helena squ eaked out.

The other agent’s voice was softer, gentler. Enough to lull her into a false sense of security. “It’s alright. You’re safe now. We can protect you. You just have to tell us what happened. Tell us what you saw.”

“What happened to your coworker? Did it involve your boss?” Agent Archon’s tone of voice matched her partner’s. Coaxing and soothing.

“It wasn’t Scarlet’s fault,” Helena said, “Yosef, he…” Helena’s voice thickened, and she stopped speaking again. She clearly didn’t know w hat to do.

Rafferty didn’t know what to do either. He had always been instructed by his masters to stay away and keep himself from view whenever anyone other than his summoner appeared. He realized too late he was doing that exact thing without being compelled. He had to get out there and protect her! He knew what they were doing. Demons used these same sorts of tricks all the time.

“Did he summon the demon?” the agent asked as Rafferty threw the door open.

All three women turned to look direct ly at him.

“I don’t want to get anyone in trouble…” Helena shouted, moving to place herself between the agent s and him.

Agent Archon furrowed her brows as her attention went back to Helena, her mouth continuing to talk while her brain struggled with his shirtless appearance. “Ms. Rhodes. I don’t think I have to tell you that demon summoning is not only highly illegal but also highly dangerous. We need to know if the demon that killed Mr. Cantor, if it escaped after he summoned it, or did it manage to get s ent back.”

“Hi, who are you?” the partner asked, having not looked away from Rafferty as he quickly crossed toward the authorities, stopping when Helena interc epted him.

“Raffert y, don’t—”

“Sir, my partner asked you a question. Who are you?” Agent Archon repeated, her brain finally switchi ng tracks.

Helena spun around. “I think… we need to speak to a lawyer,” her voice stronger but respectful as he placed his hands on her shoulders pro tectively.

Agent Archon’s whole stanc e shifted.

Her partner hmm ’d, but nodded. “That’s fine. That’s your right, but I’m going to have to ask you to come into our offices and give a statement then. If tha t’s okay?”

But Agent Archon wasn’t having it. “Ms. Rhodes, every moment we spend taking you downtown, waiting for your lawyer, and compromising with you to get you to testify is another moment when someone else could be eaten alive by this creature. Or worse. That will be blood on your hands if you are involved,” she growled. “I want to pretend we have all the time in the world to follow procedures, but if you are somehow involved, every one of those victims will be another charge against you if you don’t tell us what you know r ight now!”

Her partner looked at her alarmed. “Arc, this isn’t how due process—”

Agent Archon took an aggressive step toward Helena, clearly due process be damned. “Where is th e demon?!”

“Here!” Rafferty said. Gripping Helena’s shoulders, he stepped around her, this time to shield her behind him. He wasn’t going to let anything happen to her. “I’m ri ght here.”

He knew what they saw. An ordinary human man, dressed in ordinary jeans and not much else. Agent Archon’s eyes raked up and down, her eyebrows pinching together hard when her gaze rested on his bare feet as though they offended her for not bei ng hooves.

Not that Rafferty had ever h ad hooves.

Then Agent Archon glanced at her partner before they both examined the device in the partn er’s hand.

Her partner shook her head, clearly confused. “Nothing.”

Agent Archon swung her attention back to Rafferty. “Sir…” The words died on her lips as she took in the grave seriousness of his face. It disconcerted her and she had to start again. “Sir, what makes you claim that you are a demon?”

Now it was Rafferty’s turn to be confused. “Because I am one, ” he said.

In times past, that declaration should have been enough to have him hauled off. The Earthly authorities didn’t mess around with demonic anything, and a confession was usually enough to get one burned or beheaded then burned. Or disemboweled. Or drowned. Whatever the prescribed remedy of the time for disposing of d emons was.

It had happened more than a few times.

Helena seized his arm protectively. “No, you’re not!” Then she turned to the agents. “Not anymore. He’s not a demon anymore. He ’s a man—”

“I am yours,” he shouted, attempting to drown her words. He pulled his wrist free from her grasp and put his hands before himself toward the agents as he dropped to his knees in submission. “Do with me what you will, but please spare Helena. She has done nothing wrong. She is innocent.”

“Rafferty!” Helena pleaded. “You have to stop talking. I’m going… I’m gonna get a lawyer, okay? We need a lawyer. A lawyer.”

Agent Archon patted the air with her hands as if to say calm down . “Possession?” she asked he r partner.

“It’s not unprecedented. I did this case study in school where the victim believed t hey were—”

“Later,” Agent Archon hissed, then turned once more to Rafferty, gently lowering his proffered hands with a light touch. “Sir, I don’t know what you’ve been through… what both of you have been throu gh, but…”

This was infuriating. “I am the demon you seek! Do with me what you will!” Rafferty repeated. He thrust his hands toward the agent again. “I am responsible for the man Yosef’s death. I am the one who attempted to corrupt this good woman, Helena, in order to acquire her soul. I am the monster you need to destroy to save yourselves. Cut my head off, burn me at the stake, I don’t care, but you must take me into your custody.”

Agent Archon’s partner squatted down onto one knee in front of Rafferty, smiling kindly. “Sir, you don’t have a trace of demonic energy about you,” she insisted, showing him the screen of her device as if he would have any idea what the wavy line in its viewer would mean. “I know this is confusing, but we’re going to help you. I promise.”

Huffing, Agent Archon pulled a cellphone out of her pocket. “I’m going to call for an intervention team all the same.” Then she looked to Helena. “If you want to call a lawyer, now would be the time.”

“So, we’re not under arrest?” Helena asked, with tenta tive hope.

“I would speak to your lawyer first,” the agent replied, moving across the porch to speak into her phone.

“Right. Right.” Helena nodded as she moved away to find her own mobile phone, only to pull up short remembering she had left it at the venue.

Rafferty’s mind spun. What was happe ning here?

“Sir, I am going to ask you to get up off the floor,” the second agent coaxed, gesturing for Rafferty to rise with her.

“You need to destroy me! Before it’s too late! I am the one who summoned the demon Vassago!”

“Rafferty! Stop! Please,” Helena begged, putting her own hand over his mouth to emphasize sto pping him.

“It’s alright, he doesn’t know what he is saying. You’re not under arrest, we’re going to get you help,” the agent assured. “Sir… I know you think you’re a demon, but if that were the case, we would be reading demonic energy from you, and there is nothing.”

“Wait, Sophia,” Agent Archon interjected, pressing her phone to her shoulder. “If he were possessed, there would be a trace of some demonic energy. Right? And you said you are reading nothing ?”

“Well, I…” Agent Sophia—at last she had a name—hesitated, not knowing how t o respond.

“Go to the kitchen!” the former demon barked, pointing the way. “If it is evidence you require, it is there you shall find it.”

“Rafferty, shut up!” Helena begged, clearly terrified. “Officers… or agents… I mean… please. We can explain all of this.”

But Agent Archon seemed to be at the end of her tether. She bolted past the kneeling man, heading for the swinging door that led to th e kitchen.

The agent swung open the door and stared down at the kitchen floor. “Agent Sophia! We have a summonin g circle.”