Page 35

Breaking Limbo

“O h Lord! These taste so much better,” Helena cried, her mouth full and spilling crumbs as she took a too-big bite from one of the freshest lavender lemon suga r cookies.

Rafferty couldn’t help grinning as he slipped the spatula between another of the cookies and the parchment paper he had laid over the baking sheet, touching the top carefully with his clean fingers before transferring it safely to a plate. He could keep this show of joviality up as long as he didn’t think at all about what he intended to do. Just pretend this was all very normal. He found the calm inside his storm easy to slip back into, surprisi ngly easy.

Beside the cooling plate on the counter, Helena’s electric kettle whistled.

Before he could react, she snatched it up and brought it over to a pair of cups waiting for them with teabags inside. She filled them up to the brim, then took the time to tend to both, bobbing the teabags until they were completely soaked through and steeping properly. While she did that, he cut out another set of cookies to place on a fresh sheet of parchment.

It was all very domestic and homey.

He pushed the combination of buttons on the oven that set the timer. “We have enough for a half batch after this,” Rafferty said, rerolling up the dough to one smooth flat surface with a wood rolling pin, in preparation to punch out the l ast of it.

“Are you happy?” Helena asked, leaning against the counter with her back to it as she picked up her tea before it had finished steeping to blow over the surface of the hot water. “I mean with the cookies?” she added, tak ing a sip.

“They are alright, ” he said.

She cocked an eyebrow. “What’s wrong with them?” Casting her gaze over their bounty, she took an other sip.

“They’re plain,” he said, and they were. While he had found a nice flower cookie cutter from one of Helena’s drawers to punch the dough with, there was no real styl e to them.

“But they taste wonderful,” she said, plucking up a second one and bringing it to his lips. She waited, a twinkle in her eye, until he finally took a bite of the still-warm cookie. It burst over his tongue, shattering into thousands of little pieces by the pressure of his tongue with a fresh, light flavor. He couldn’t help it; his closed his eyes, a moan rumbling from his throat at the taste.

“You’re never going to get used to that, are you?” Helena asked, her amusement barely contained in her words.

“Never,” he agreed around his chewing. Her fingers slipped into his and he paused, holding the tastes on his tongue. But he didn’t dar e swallow.

“I guess you don’t need to hold my hand anymore to taste anything,” she asked. Then he felt that same eerie shiver run up his arm from where she to uched him.

“Yes, no more sucking the life from you,” he whispered as his other hand drew the cookbook closer to him on the counter, the first line of the prayer resting on his tongue along with the taste of le mon sugar.

Lie down, lost one, lie down, he recited the words in his mind. He just had to bring himself to say them out loud. And this would al l be over.

“You never sucked the life out of me,” she whispered, her lips ticklin g his own.

“Don’t… don’t patronize me,” he whispered back, the intoxicating tendrils of her allure slipping into him.

“No, it’s true,” she insisted, setting a soft kiss at the corner of his mouth. “It wasn’t like the first time when you swallowed the memory whole, and I felt this… void then. It was like I knew something was supposed to be there, but it wasn’t there anymore.” She picked up his fingers she had captured to brush them over her lips, her warm breath making them tingle. “But after that, you gave it back to me. Whatever you took, came right back, more intense than before. More delicious.” She met his gaze, her gold eyes burning through him. “It’s how I knew you loved me… when we could share the taste together.”

Whatever traitorous words lingered in his mouth died as her words choked them. What was she te lling him?

His memory raced back to before, when he had been a demon and she had so willingly given him her memories of taste, to pay his price and feed his soul.

“You mean”—he struggled—“I didn’t hurt you?”

“Nope,” she said, popping up on her toes to kiss the tip of his nose. “Anything I gave you, you gave me right back. You didn’t re alize it?”

“No, I didn’t,” he said, shaking his head. “So when you gave me the energy back… I mean as we are now…”

“Yes, we both get everything we need. Maybe if more demons realized that sooner, there would be less need for, you know, all the bullshit yo u all do.”

His mind couldn’t comprehend it. This wasn’t true. It couldn’ t be true.

It’s a trick. It has to be, his mind screamed. Demons don’t return energy. There isn’t enough for both. It was finite. She had to be lying.

“I feel like ordering in tonight, I think the kitchen has been brutalized enough,” she declared, spinning to exit the room.

She has to be lying, he tol d himself.

“Helena,” Raff erty said.

“Yeah?” She paused at the swinging kit chen door.

He didn’t answer immediately, instead looking down at the flattened cookbook under his palm, the words of the prayer staring at him in surreal, faded ink. “Lie down…” he tried to say, but the pain in his heart forced his mouth around the first words of the prayer and his ey es closed.

“Raffie?” Hel ena asked.

He let the book go, stepping back from it. He couldn’t do it. Maybe he could never have done it, but it didn’t matter. He couldn’t do this t o her now.

“Yeah. Yeah, let’s order takeout,” he said instead, letting the co okbook go.

“Is everything alright?” she persisted, coming a st ep closer.

“Everything is…” But the lie wouldn’t come. The pressure of the truth made his jaw ache. “I can’t do this,” he admitted.

“Can’t make dinner?” she asked, because, of course, she would. It was what they had been talking about. “I know, tha t’s why…”

He shook his head. “I can’t be with you. I’m sorry.” He hated himself for every word, and yet they felt so right coming out of the dark places of his mind.

Her whole body stiffened as he spok e. “What—”

“I’m a liar. And a cheat. I’ve deceived people my entire existence. Destroy ed lives.”

“ Rafferty?”

“That isn’t my name!” He whirled toward her, electricity shooting down his limbs even if none appeared in reality. “I sold my name. I’m nothing.”

“You’re the man I love!” Helena insisted, moving toward him to take his face, but he slapped those seeking hands away. She continued, unabated. “Just… slow down. Slow down and we’ll tal k about…”

“I can’t!” He pushed past her to go to the door of the kitchen. To e scape her.

“Raff—Whatever… whatever it is, we can work through this. You’re not a demon anymore.”

“No, but you are!” He spun back, and she came up short just before him, her eyes wide as the truth hit her full in the face. “And I can’t watch you become just like me. I can’t. I ju st can’t!”

His voice broke. Fuck. Why does my voice have to break when I need strength?

In place of strength, anger would do.

He growled as he tu rned away.

“You don’t mean that. You’re just afraid.” She tried to touch him again, and again he slapped her h ands away.

“Helena! You can’t trust me. I will betray you!” He seized the cookbook, the damned cookbook, and showed her the spell. “I was going to use this to send you back.”

“Send me back. Send me back where?” she asked, but as her gaze rapidly cascaded down the words, understanding broke over her, followed by horror.

“You were going to send me to Hell?” she asked, taking a step back from him.

He watched as her facade me lted away.

Her other form emerged with the glistening skin and the horns that encircled her head. Her brilliant wings flashed white as if the colors of the rainbow washed down the filaments. Now she also had a long, thin tail, which whipped between her legs with its little tuft of hair at the end, shape implying the typical triangle. She was still so very beautiful and not of t his world.

It brought him to his knees before her, overwhelming his senses as she amplified all the feelings she wanted him to feel, making them stronger than his negative ones: His love for her. A deep desire to fall before her in worship with his mind, body, and soul. He wanted to give his life for hers, and he would have no regrets doing it.

B ut he did.

He regretted.

E verything .

In that same moment, she realized what she was doing. She stared at her hands, each with golden-tipped nails, in shock. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry,” she repeated, and she tried to dim her light. She writhed, desperate to get her true appearance back under control, and it broke his heart to watch her try to change herself for him. “I didn’t mean to.”

He got back up off his knees, and she didn’t move to help him this time. She didn’t dare. Instead, she wrapped her hands around herself, huggin g tightly.

“Rafferty, I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to.”

“I can’t do this,” he repeated softly, knowing this time she would accept it, now that she understood what she had done. “I’ll keep your secret. I won’t let BDI know, but I have to go. Please. L et me go.”

Tears streamed down her face, and even though her head shook a little, he could see from the pain painting her form that she was relenting. “But where would you go?” she asked, her voice squeaking o ut of her.

He had only one thought. “I have a friend I can call. I do not… I cannot tell you any more t han that.”

“Rafferty…” She openly wept now. “I love you.” Her last desperate argument; her last plea for him not to go.

He turned to leave the room, before it became too hard. “Good-bye , Helena.”

“Hey, there he is,” éliott called as he pulled up to the curb. Rafferty sat upon a bench a few blocks down from Helena’s house, his head resting in the palms of his hands. It had been all he could do not to grab his bag and turn back, to beg Helena for forgiveness and take back everything he had said. He knew that what he was doing was right, and he understood he wouldn’t feel it. Not with a demon playing with his emotions.

éliott reached across from the driver’s seat to open the door. “Come on, get in. It is going to rain.”

Rafferty obeyed, throwing his bag into the backseat before climbing into the front.

“Dog weather, all of it,” éliott muttered as he looked through the windshield up at t he clouds.

“Un temps de chien,” Rafferty agreed, letting the French fall from him, though he wasn’t really speaking of th e weather.

A few moments later, éliott pulled away to the chorus of thunder and the flashing of lightning. “I picked you up just in time,” éliott commented, just as water pounded ont o the car.

“Thank you,” Rafferty managed to say, though he barely heard the other man as he wrestled with his own internal maelstrom.

“Do you wish to tell me what happened?”

Rafferty couldn’t even say “no.” Only silence stretched bet ween them.

After a minute or so éliott nodded. “I understand,” he said softly. “Don’t worry, my friend. It will all be alright in the end.”

“I just broke the heart of the woman who saved my soul,” he said. “I don’t deserve…”

éliott’s phone went off, interrupting. A strange feeling slipped down Rafferty’s arms, making the hairs stand up straight. What was that?

“Sorry,” the other man said, picking it up from inside one of the cup holders to glance at the screen. “Oh dear.”

He set the phone down and hit a button on a little screen on his dashboard.

“Oui, hello, Eleanor?”

“éliott,” Eleanor’s voice came over the speakers. “I need y our help.”

“Anything, belle. What do you need?”

Eleano r growled.

There was a crashing sound over the phone.

“Eleanor? Are you alright?”

“Just get over here before I destroy the whole kitchen!” Then sh e hung up.

éliott swore beautifully in French, a phrase that made the corners of Rafferty’s mouth lift. That phrase had apparently withstood the test of time. “Do you wish to be dropped off at my pla ce first?”

“Yeah, it’s fine,” Rafferty said. He didn’t really care one way or anothe r anymore.

“Good, because we are here,” he said, pulling up in front of another house. Rafferty had no idea where they were, and he blinked as he stared at the two-story building. It looked like someone’s idea for a castle if it were a house. “I live in the second-floor apartment, but my landlady, she lives on t he first.”

Rafferty nodded, then got out and retrieved his bag. It wasn’t until éliott pulled away that he realized he hadn’t been given a key or anything.

Slumping under the weight of everything, he dropped himself and the bag on the steps. The ice and the salt on the step ground into his butt through his pants, but he let it. He imagined himself freezing there. Then he would go back to where he deser ved to be.

“This is all I’ve ever been,” he whispered. A worthless being amongst countless other worthless, unimporta nt beings.

Then a door behind h im opened.

“There he is. Welcome, angel food,” a warm voice said as the yellow light washed over him.

A familiar woman stood at the door. She seemed to glow with the light behind her, her pale hair lit up around her face, making it harder to make out.

“Well, don’t just sit there. Come in,” Hone y invited.

Rafferty felt his hackles raise. He wanted to ask about the strange coincidence of her being here, but more than anything, he wanted to be alone in the cold, where he deserved. “I’m here to stay with éliott for a few days, but he took off without leaving me the key,” he explained, hoping she would take the information and leave.

“Yeah, that sounds like him. Why don’t you come in and wait for him inside? It’s freezing out there,” she urged, opening the d oor wider.

“No, that’s fine. I’m fine out here,” he said, even as another gust of cold wind cut him to the bone.

“And yet you are welcome,” she said.

“Really, I am fine.” He didn’t dare look at her, keeping his focus on the frost- and salt-encrust ed street.

“As you wish,” she acknowledged, then shut the door once more.

Rafferty immediately regretted not taking her up on her offer as a fresh slice of ice-cold air cut through him despite his mo dern coat.

It had been Helena’s last gift to him, using her power to dry it for him before he left. He hadn’t even argued with her about it.

Shivering hard, he curled into himself, squeezing his eyes shut.

It felt like hell. Alone, in an endless dark, with only his pain and regrets for company. Well, that and the other condemned demonic souls feeding off of each other. He wondered if he just stayed like that on that frozen step, would he die and return to that place? At least there, he knew he belonged, and it was what he deserved. He unde rstood it.

But he would be throwing away Helena’s gift to him. Even more guilt compounded. While the touch of those in hell had always been something to fear, had always promised suffering, hers had been…

Burning hot tears pricked at his eyes and he pressed his shaking fists into them. Even that was gone, her loving and safe touch. She was becoming… had become one of the creatures of the dark, just as he had.

And that was all his fault, too. He had corrupted her. Corrupted her love.

He had f ailed her.

“Merde, Helena. I’m so sorry,” he said, his voice squeaking o ut of him.

Only the cold whistled in response.

Then a weight dropped on his shoulders.