Page 28

Then It Got Worse

T he following courses did not improve. Whatever course plan the “Executive Chef” was following was not modeled off of anything Helena recognized. They were able to finish some of the simple salad with the other dressing, which proved to be a basic ranch, eating enough of a dent to make Helena not feel guilty about sending the plates back. The rancid salads were followed by a soup that was basically broth. Its only sin was it hadn’t been impressive, but its virtue was it helped wipe out the remaining taste of the ba d salads.

Now she stared in horror at the mai n course.

“I don’t think I can eat that,” she said.

“Penne pasta, fried chicken breasts with a layer of cheese,” Rafferty reported, diagnosing the dish with a detached, clin ical eye.

“It looks like a cat vomited it up,” she said. Holding her knife and fork before her on the table like weapons of war, she prayed that someone would come and intervene, whisk the plates away and present her with something that actually looked l ike food.

But Rafferty cut into his chicken fried penne pasta and even dabbed it into the marinara sauce in preparation for them eating it. She had no choice but to do the same.

It tasted li ke metal.

“Oh God, this is awful,” she huffed under her breath as she tried to chew the lukewarm meat in mouth.

“Hmm-mmm,” Rafferty agreed, still chewing his food with the normal amount of gusto.

“I don’t suppose you could do the reverse thing where you can just make it taste like ash to me. Because honestly that would be an improvement r ight now.”

He shook his head to that request while continuing to chew, his eyes staring off in the middle distance, like he was trying to figure something out. Helena had no idea what there was to figure out. It was the blandest damn marinara she had ever tasted, and there was no way any of this was fresh. It all had to have come from a can. And the chicken had obviously bee n frozen.

Dropping her silverware onto her plate, she picked up her napkin and pressed it to her mouth. “I think I’m going to be sick.”

“Hmm,” Rafferty said, unperturbed as he cut another piece with the side of his fork while keeping a hand on the back of hers so he could still taste it.

Helena let him and reached for a glass of water to wash out her remaining discomfort. The whole meal, no one had come to give them any wine for their empty wine glasses and frankly, she hoped they never did. It made it easier to not think well of any of them.

Unfortunately, the young man who brought them all the courses returned, empt y-handed.

“Chef asked me to inquire about what you think of your meal?” he asked in a bored-tone, but the way he was blinking made her think he might be more exhausted th an bored.

“It’s terrible,” Rafferty declared with no preamble or hint o f regret.

Helena almos t choked.

The kitchen worker’s eyebrows rose up in his first real expression of the meeting.

Rafferty took that as permission to elaborate. “It’s undercooked and made with pre-prepared ingredients. There are no seasonings to even speak of, and I would even question the food safeness of any of this. I’m advising my client here to not finish her meal as I am genuinely concerned for food po isoning.”

He stood up then and offered his hand to help Helena up out of h er chair.

The worker grew alarmed, raising his own hands as if to stop them. “But wait—there is a dessert,” he said.

“Is it that Opera Cake over there?” Rafferty asked, gesturing at the worker who had stopped mid-icing along with the rest of the workers around the room to stare at the drama h appening.

“Uh, yeah… I think so,” the worker said, a t a loss.

“Then we’ll take that to-go, and I can let you know my thoughts,” Rafferty declared, then looked to Helena. “We can wait a few moments with your pe rmission?”

Helena wasn’t sure if his intention was to empower her in this moment or throw her under the bus, but she nodded as her mind raced to save the situation. Though it would help if she knew whether she needed to save it for or from. “Yes, of course.”

“Uh, okay,” the worker said, more deflated than when he had come over initially. Helena knew he had to be bracing, and she was certain the Executive Chef was going to rage. She expected it would be in Polis h as well.

Sure enough, after a few minutes of their standing there, waiting for the dessert to come back, an enraged voice echoed through the strangely quiet kitchen. Every worker had stopped and held their breath as a string of incomprehensible words followed by some fantastic metallic crashes came from behind a closed pair of double doors. Standing up, Helena could see that the pair of doors had a plate next to them that read “The Executive Kitchen.”

“This is a nightmare,” Helena murmured.

The double doors slammed open, making a horrible, sharp noise as they hit either side of the entryway, revealing the Executive Chef as he marched through to point an accusing finger at Helena.

Another litany of angry Polish words slapped her in the face, but she had no idea what he was specificall y saying.

The woman from the front rushed past, her haggard, tired face now alarmed and fearful. Helena felt terrible as she realized that this woman was probably his daughter and the extent of their history was on full display for everyone present as she tried to stand in front of him, speaking urgently and soothingly at her irat e father.

The old man never looked at her but kept his fiercely angry eyes on Helena the whole time. She was pretty sure if he felt like tearing her throat out with his own teeth, he would. Finally, pushing past his daughter, knocking her back into one of the kitchen workers, he charged straight for the source of his ire.

Startled, Helena tried to back away when Rafferty stepped betw een them.

“Oh, you think I’m intimidated by you!” the Executive Chef shouted, completely unimpressed. “I will kick your ass right here!” He made some rude gestures and slapped his chest as if daring Rafferty to hit him. Then he spit at Helena over Rafferty’s shoulder.

Quicker than a human should have moved, Rafferty blocked the spittle with a sharply rai sed hand.

It was all the signal the Executive Chef needed, however, taking the gesture as an attack and swung his own fist at Rafferty’s head. This the demon did not block or duck, but took full on the cheek, throwing his whole body to one side and half bent over. The older man then stepped up and seemed to be attempting to slam his knee repeatedly into Rafferty’s stomach but did not have the height or the weight to be very effective with it. By then, several of the kitchen workers fell on their boss to pull him off and away from the actually more dange rous man.

Helena, for her part, dived for Rafferty, grabbing the back of his jacket in a mindless, animal instinct to pull him away from the fight and out of reach of the Executive Chef’s attacks.

The grown daughter had come forward by then, standing between the two men, but shouting at Rafferty that she was going to call the police and report them for attacking he r father.

“What!? He attacked him!” Helena tried to defend, but the woman seemed to think she could win her argument by shouting louder and more incoherently, getting right up into Helena’s face as if she too was ready to throw dow n on her.

“I’m fine,” Rafferty said, sticking his arm between the two women.

The daughter glared up at him in challenge, only for her eyes to widen rounder than saucers. Instantly she muttered something and crossed herself, backing up quickly and Helena knew what she had seen and who it would i mplicate.

She grabbed Rafferty’s shoulder and turned him away, now terrified. “We need to go now!” she ordered and he came willingly. Sure enough, his eyes were smoldering with unholy starfire.

Ironically, the worker who had been serving them stood near the exit, holding a paper take out box as he stared with his own wide eyes at the whole s ituation.

Helena moved to rush past, but Rafferty plucked the box out of his hands, startling the man.

“Thank you,” Rafferty said, slapping the man on the arm in a friendly way and followed Helena straight out of the kitchen, the shop, and back to the safety of the city streets.

“Holy shit. I can’t believe that just happened,” Helena said, shaking from the whole e ncounter.

“Are you alright?” Rafferty asked, following beside her, clutching their contraband in h is hands.

“No, I am not alright!” she declared in no uncertain terms. Her whole self was shaking so badly, and she wanted to scream and run and fight and rage…

“It’s okay. I’m here.” She found herself pushed into a nearby alley, out of the sight and sound of the main road, which wasn’t that busy actually with only a few cars rolling by and a couple of people walking dogs at that time of early evening. It was dim in the alley and there was a doorway sunken into one of the buildings that made a walled-in alcove that no one could see from the street. The door was boarded up, so no one was coming out of the buildin g either.

Wings were around her then. A dark, leathery wall encompassed her while arms did the same, holding her close against a strong, sturdy body. Naturally, she tucked her face into the crook where the neck and the shoulder met, and she gripped a waist that didn’t flinch with how tightly she squeezed. She even felt a tail wrap around her bare ankles, and she didn’t care how weird that was. She wanted all of it, to be held by Rafferty’s wh ole self.

“Oh God, I was so scared,” Hel ena said.

“I’m here. I wouldn’t have let him hurt you,” the chest she clung to rumbled.

“Oh God, your face!” she said, leaning up to try to look at it, but the arms squeezed tighter to try to keep her from mov ing away.

“Please don’t. Don’t look at me like this. Just let me hold you , please.”

She realized then that he was sha king too.

“It’s okay. It’s okay, Raffie,” she soothed, drawing more strength from soothing than being soothed. She laid her head on his chest and sank into the spicy aroma of his natural self. He still wore the black shirt, the cloth the only thing between her cheek and his heartbeat.

She had no idea how long they stayed that way, but after her own heartbeat had calmed and the shaking for both of them had subsided, she asked, “Do you want to go get T hai food?”