Page 14

The Food Netwo rk is Dangerous

“S o you do this on purpose?” Helena asked, leaning back into the kitchen.

“I…” Rafferty hesitated, looking at the door into the dining room piled with the dishes he’d made. The outer corners of his eyes squinched even more, like he wasn’t sure if he was in pain. “No. I didn’t intentionally go out to do this to you on purpose, but it just sort of … happened.”

“How much is this going to cost me?” s he asked.

Again, he looked around at what he had done. “I’m not sure,” he said. “I tried to use as much real food as p ossible.”

“Still, the point of this was to get me on the hook for a meal that I can’t possibly eat all of?” s he asked.

“That … is the strategy that could be used in this instance, yes,” Raffe rty said.

She arched an eyebrow at him. “Are demons not allowed to lie? Because I would think this would be something that would be beneficial for you to l ie about.”

“We can lie,” he said defensively. “But I’m not.”

“Okay, so if I got this straight, you were just acting like a demon does without really thinking about it, and now I owe you a cosmic debt for your labor because I didn’t say you could not do what you did. But you didn’t do it on purpose. You just weren’t thinking about it and it just came n aturally?”

Rafferty pursed his lips together, like he was debating something. “Most of the cooking I’ve been exposed to is either what I already knew or what I can glean when I’m here. Since you left me for the day to my own devices, I did what I usually do.” He gestured over to a pile of books at the end of her extra counter below where she kept her dishes. They were all opened and stacked haphazardly on different pages, some with things stuck in between for quick flip backs, like spoons and her ca n opener.

“And then…” he continued, once more he sitating.

“And then what?” Helen a pressed.

He squared his shoulders to face his judge and confess his sins. “I discovered the Food Network channel.”

Taking a step forward, he pulled out one of the celebrity chef books Helena bought in college. She had burned two things she tried to make from it and had never opened it again. On the lower part of the cover over the smiling chef’s face was the printed tagline: “As seen on the Food Network!”

“Oh my dear lord,” Helena breathed. She went back into the main room, passing by the dining room to go into the living room section where the TV continued to broadcast its latest offering, You Think You Can Macaroon?

“Oh my God. It’s like I left a drug addict at home and forgot to lock up my cocaine stash,” she stated, then glanced over at Rafferty as he followed her into the room. “I don’t have a cocaine stash, by the way.”

“I wasn’t going to say anything if you did,” he replied.

“But what I still don’t understand is… how did you get all this food? I know for a fact I wouldn’t buy…” she glanced over at the table, trying to pick out what she was seeing amongst the cornucopia of options, “pomegranates or seaweed or whatever that purple stuff is.”

“Purple cauliflo wer rice.”

“Yeah, you see. I know for a fact I do not have any purple cauliflo wer rice.”

“Well… you don’t buy the rice. You get the cauliflower and then you—”

“Not the point!” Helena said, torn between anger and amusement at this bizarre situation. It was just so much food! “How did you do all this? Is it all dem on magic?”

“I…” He hesitated, then reached into his pocket and pulled out a black mobile smartphone. He held it out to her. “I saw you have one of these and while I was watching this show about dive diners in the Southwestern Americas, there was this commercial for an app on a phone that can allow you to order whatever groceries you want and so I made a phone and then made the numbers go up in the wallet thing and…” He looked around again at the groceries. “I got carr ied away.”

“Yes, we’ve established you got ‘carried away.’” she said, attempting to make sense of what he was telling her. “So you magicked a phone into existence and then basically magically hacked it to give yourself enough money to order all t his food.”

“And give a generous tip, yes.”

“Uh huh,” she acknowledged. “Therefore, you stole all th is food?”

He froze at that. “I… yes. Technically, as far as human laws are concerned. Though the authorities would have a difficult time proving that I did,” he agreed. “I didn’t want to use demon magic to cook with because then I wouldn’t know how it actually turned out, like if the dish worked or not.”

She didn’t think her eyebrows could furrow harder, but she surprised herself. “W hat? Why?”

He cleared his throat. “Demon magic can make anything seem tasty, even garbage. I wanted to know if the dishes actually worked, so for that … I needed r eal food.”

“Oh. Wow.” Helena nodded, practicing radical acceptance. “Okay, that made sense. Well, I guess I should be relieved it’s not all made out of children and dogs or something.” She hooted and retreated back into the dining room to look at it all. “It’s … no t, right?”

“No,” Rafferty said, bringing the casserole dish with his grilled sandwiches on them as he followed her into the din ing room.

Helena’s stomach growled. Despite the issue at hand, it had been a long day, and she couldn’t quite remember what she had for lunch. She looked down at the pile of grilled sandwiches he had made. All but the last one had been cut into triangles. They didn’t quite look right, yet she couldn’t put her finger on what w as wrong.

“What are those?” s he asked.

“French Toast Turkey Sandwich,” he said.

Her stomach insisted she try one. It was getting too hard to think with all this food around. Still she hesitated. “Is anything more going to happen to me if I eat one?” s he asked.

“No, these don’t have any demon magic in them, like I said. I wanted to know if the recipes actually worked,” he said, holding the casserole dish out to her. She took one and dared herself to take a de cent bite.

“I mean don’t get me wrong, I—my God…” was all she got out before she stopped as the pillowy delight of the sandwich hit her mouth. She had had turkey and cheddar cheese sandwiches before, but this was something entirely d ifferent.

“When you said, ‘French Toast,’ I thought this was going to be sweet,” she said as she took another mouthful. “But it’s not! It’s amazing.” Mustard with mustard seeds bursting in her mouth added tanginess and the whole thing was gone before she realized it. “That was inspired,” she complemented. “Did you come up w ith that?”

Rafferty averted his gaze. “I saw it on Diners V s Dining.”

“Wha t’s that?”

“It’s a show about diner cooks and high-end restaurant chefs competing to make the most original, high-level cuisine. I saw one of the diner cooks make this, and I felt compelled t o try it.”

“Hmm,” Helena said, looking down at the casserole dish of remaining sandwiches, wondering how something so delicious could be the cause of so mu ch drama.

“I don’t know if it’s price-of-my-soul good, but it’s really good,” she added, reaching for another triangle. Still, there was no helping it. “Alright, so how are we going to do this?”

Rafferty flinched at her questio n. “What?”

“Your payment. I mean, I simply can’t eat all of this food in one sitting and then have you eat all my memories like we normally do. I don’t even know how many memories you need. I mean how is this even quantifiable? How much do I need to pay back ene rgy-wise?”

Rafferty chewed his lips a little more aggressively, and it was only then that she realized he was getting angry. Looking at him, she noticed that his wings were appearing and disappearing behind his back, along with his crest of horns. The tail just remained, flicking back and forth. A low-level growl rumbled from his chest.

Helena felt the instinctual tug to back up from a dangerous animal, but her higher functions told her doing so would be a mistake. Like prey triggering a predator.

“Look, um. I’m sorry I don’t know, but please don’t get upset at me for asking questions,” she started to say, but he dropped the casserole dish onto an empty chair, the only remaining available surface, with a loud thunk. Thankfully, the casserole dish was quality and resisted breaking. Then he spun on his heels and marched himself into the kitchen. Beyond the swinging of her kitchen door, she heard the thumping and clanking of dishes being moved vigorousl y around.

“Great,” she sighed, popping the last bite of that gloriously delicious sandwich into her mouth. “I invited a demon into my home, and now he’s pissed off, and I don’t really understand why.” But it wasn’t like googling this issue wouldn’t get her some red flags with certain government agencies. “Maybe I should send him back?” she asked herse lf softly.

The swinging door banged open again. “Yes! That is exactly what you should do!” Rafferty shouted as he re-entered, moving around like an aggressive leopard with nowhere to go. “You need to send me back!”