Page 31

Horrible D iscoveries

R afferty didn’t answer her. He stared straight ahead, his wings flared out over her door, arms behind his back, his feet splayed as if he were preparing to take a hit. Force wasn’t getting through him. Word s either.

Instead, she laid her hand on his chest, feeling the material of the black shirt he wore heave be neath it.

“Rafferty, just tell me.”

He looked at her then, his eyes dropping to take in her face, painted in shame. “I can make you sleep,” he said. “Just like I did before. I can make you forget about the kitchen again if you want.”

“What?” She took a step back. She didn’t want that. “What do you mean by again?”

His face was pained as he closed his eyes. “Of course, you wouldn’t remember.”

“Rafferty,” she said, warning in her voice. “Let me see what is happening in my kitchen.”

It was a command.

He obeyed it, standing to the side.

Laying her hand on the door, Helena could feel a strange heat from the other side of the door. For a brief moment, she thought her kitchen was on fire on the other side, but if that had been the case… the fire alarms would have gone off.

She looked over at the one attached to the wall beside the door, her fire alarm and monoxide detector in one. It was off. She could see that someone had pulled it off the wall, then set it slightly at an angle so it still hung there, but no longer connected to the base.

“Oh God,” she whispered and then fortified herself to push her kitchen door inwar d slowly.

The smell that hit her was awful. She had no idea how she hadn’t been smelling it in the rest of the house, but it was like cat sick and burning tires mixed with decaying body and a hint of pumpkin spice. Grasping at the top of her shirt, she pulled it up over her nose and it only helped a little.

Daring to open the door enough to actually see, she swore the room had its own light. Even though her kitchen came with windows, they were blacked out, caked with some sort of grease-like substance, both over the sink and covering her back door. The remnants of her kitchen remained, like the stove and the countertops, the dishwasher and the refrigerator, but all of her smaller appliances were gone, smothered under a sickly growth that branched around the room from no obvious source. In the center of the room, still burning into the tile, was the summoning circle. It had changed from when she last saw it. It had cut itself deep into the grooves of her floor, at least six inches below the surface. Smoke billowed from it, like someone had just snuffed out a candle, dancing on its own breeze in wicked curls and stranglin g shapes.

Blackness, different from what was on the windows, stained the rest of the tile. In places it flaked like drying blood on stone. Bits of detritus were everywhere, like the rotten foliage from a swamp or dark, sinister forest, but if she looked too long at what she thought was a twig, she knew such a thing could never have grown on a real tree. In fact, the longer she stared at it, the more it looked l ike bone.

She thought she would go in, but she couldn’t make herself. It was all too horrible.

“How… how could this happen in a few days? I thought you said we ha d longer?”

“I made a mistake in my calculation,” he said. “I didn’t take into account how much demonic magic it would burn to keep me in reality in this body twenty-four hours a day every day. In a few days, we burned through what is normally two weeks’ worth o f energy.”

“Two weeks!” Helena’s eyes couldn’t have be en wider.

“You asked me where I was sleeping… when you’re not here, I have gone back in to lower the strain on the circle.” Rafferty stepped into the kitchen, unbothered by the decay and rot ar ound him.

“You’ve been going back into hell?” she asked, horrified by the impl ications.

He tapped the circle with a toe. “To the threshold, not completely back in, but enough. Now…” Turning back to her, he folded his wings behind him, the black clothing ruffling about him in the stirring of the unearthly air over the circle. “I must return completely,” he said with finality.

“Rafferty,” Helena said. She wanted to say no, but how could she? What was happening was terrible and dangerous.

He shifted back to his human visage. “Don’t worry. I’ve controlled the cost. You’ve given me enough good memories to cover it easily. And I ’m sorry.”

“Please don’t be sorry—” Helena started to say, but he held up a hand to stop her.

“Wait. You don’t know what I’m apologizing for yet,” he said and crossed the space back to her. As soon as he was close, he brushed a hair out of her face gently, roving his eyes over her like he was trying to memorize every inch of it. “I’ll never give up this memory,” he said softly and cupped her face . “Never.”

She held his hand to her face, pressing it in. She couldn’t believe this was happening, that she was losing him, but they needed to do this. “What is it you’re s orry for?”

He sighed and leaned forward, to press his forehead against hers, closing their eyes. “I’ve been eating your memories,” he w hispered.

“I know. That was the deal—”

“No, the bad ones. This isn’t the first time you’ve discovered the circle, and I’ve eaten those memories so we could continue on, but now that it’s over… I can’t leave without you knowing that you’re missing pieces of y our life.”

“But … weren’t they bad memories?” s he asked.

He nodded against her forehead.

“And they don’t … ta ste good?”

He nodd ed again.

“But you ate the m anyway?”

“So you wouldn’t have to suffer,” he whispered, the truth forcing its way ou t of him.

“I love you too,” she whispered and wrapped her arms around his neck, tucking her face into his shoulder and squeez ing hard.

“No, that’s… that’s not why I told you,” he said, trying to push her away, but not having the heart or will to do it.

“Then why are you te lling me?”

“You’re… I thought it would help…” he s truggled.

“You wanted me to hate you, so I would feel violated? To make it easier to le t you go.”

“Dammit.” He gave in as soon as the truth was voiced. Dropping his head to her shoulder, he nodded against the crook of her arms. “How do you alwa ys know?”

“Because you wouldn’t do something to me without my pe rmission.”

“I co uld have.”

“No, you couldn’t.”

He growled low. “Your faith in me… I can’t bel ieve it.”

“That’s okay. I don’t need you to for it to be real.” She hated this. She hated it was ending this way, but…

“Couldn’t I summon you again? Not all the time, but again … sometime?” she asked, practicall y begged.

“You could,” he agreed. “I can’t stop you, even though I want to.”

He hugged her back, squeezing for all he was worth, his body pressing into hers. Then he pushed away harshly like she was hot to the touch and burning him. It caused him to stumble. She moved to help him again, but he kept his arm locked to hold her back. “Don’t come in here until I am gone. It could make you sick. I’ll try to take as much of the damage with me as I can. Do you remember the recipe I gave to clean thi s all up?”

She nodded, her throat becoming too thick to talk.

“Good,” he said. “The grooves will remain, unfortunately, until the circle is completely purged, which takes a year. You’ll have to put down a rug … or s omething.”

“I’ll figure it out,” she as sured him.

Reluctantly, he let her go, stepping back toward the summoning circle. Like a man preparing for his execution, he unbuttoned his clothes, taking them off. Helena thought about looking away, but she couldn’t. He folded the shirt and pants she had bought him, laying them to the side of the circle while still wearing the boxer briefs. He stood one last time, not looking in her direction and stepped into the center of the circle. As soon as he passed the invisible wall, he shifted back to the demon with the horns that swept back and his triangle tipped tail that whipped behind him, conveying his anxiety.

As he moved, Helena noted his bare feet and realized something that made he r giggle.

He paused and looked back, clearly perplexed by her inappropriate levity. “What?” he asked.

“Your feet,” she said, gesturing. “You have horns and a tail, but human feet instead o f hooves.”

Looking down at his own feet, he lifted one up as if he had never noticed that before. “Maybe I’m not wholly demon then,” he said with a s ad smile.

And then in a flash he was gone.