Page 4

Then the Bo ss Arrives

“H elena, come on. It’s just a dinner party. Don’t panic,” Cindy chided as she came back in from her bedroom. The ER doctor was gone and, in her place, stood a perfect silhouetted socialite in tight black pants with bell-bottoms dusted in white and a bare-midriff halter top that sparkled blackly.

“You look…” Helena tried to find the right word, but snazzy was the only one that came to mind and there was no way in hell she was saying that one.

“I haven’t dressed up in so long I needed to go the distance,” Cindy explained and flipped a bit more at her short hair, now infused with product to make the back turn up toward the sky like her hair was made of feathers instead of strands. It gave her an airy beauty and highlighted her golden bl ondeness.

Her gorgeous friend came to the table and surveyed the dishes, picking one up. “Oh, this is nice. Goo d choice.”

The ordinariness of the plate helped refocus Helena back to earth. “Thanks. I thought it would be nice… you know.”

“Oh, yeah, definitely. Let’s get all this laid out,” Cindy agreed and helped her set the table. Between the two of them, they had it looking fairly nice with the forks and knives in the right places and the crystal glasses sparkling beside each plate. Helena set the garbage bag next to the kitchen door, no w filled.

“Yeah, it looks nice,” Helena agreed, watching her friend pull out two tapers from her cabinet that she had forgotte n she had.

Cindy held them up. “Should we go ahead and u se these ?”

“I uh,” Helena said, distracted as she glanced down as the kitchen door opened slightly beside her. She didn’t see anything, but the garbage bag whisked away, and she only flinched a little as it went. Cindy didn’t see any of it as she dug around for the candle holders, setting the tapers into a crystal pair that Helena’s aunt had given her and placed them in the central part of the table.

Cindy surveyed her handywork, propping her fists on her hips. “There. That looks great! Now we just need a lighter. Or should we wait to light them when everyone g ets here?”

“Oh, let’s wait until everyone…” and then the door cracked open again and one of her long, stick-like lighters appeared. “Or I’ll do it now,” Helena amended, taking it from the demon. “Uh, thank you,” she adde d softly.

The door shut again in response.

Cindy grinned and leaned forward to pitch her voice down. “I don’t think he’s surly. I think he’s just shy,” she said, and then giggled.

“Yeah, maybe,” Helena agreed weakly, because what else could she really say, and clicked the trigger to call up a flame at the tip.

Once the tapers were lit, Cindy dimmed down the dining room lights with the slide switch, and Helena genuinely smiled at the serene space. “It’s actually exactly how I pictured it,” He lena said.

“And you didn’t even have to sell your soul to get it,” Cind y quipped.

Helena eyed her a moment at the strangely on point quip, but Cindy didn’t seem to notice as she adjusted one of the cloth napkins that Helena had simply folded into a nice triangle. “Oh, I can do better than that. I know this great fold from when I worked as a server,” she said and gathered up all the napkins to redo.

“Oh, Cindy, you don’t have to do that.” Helena tried to intervene, but Cindy wave d her off.

“No, quit it,” she ordered, swatting away Helena’s offending hand. “Let me do this!”

Yielding, Helena glanced at the clock. It was already ten minutes past when people were supposed to be arriving!

“Oh no, where is everyone?” A panicked thought of having gone through … everything … she had just gone through and no one showing up to her dinner party sent a shiver of dread through h er heart.

“I wouldn’t worry yet. People are always late for dinner parties,” Cindy tried to assure her, but even she flashed a worried look at the clock. “Who all is supposed to b e coming?”

“Charles and Chris, and a couple people from work, and my boss…” She regretted the rash move even more upon saying it aloud.

Cindy’s eyebrows popped up to her hairline. “Oh. That was a b old move.”

“Yeah, well, they say you don’t get what you don’t ask for, and I thought, hey, maybe she’d… I don’t know … like to get to know me better?”

Cindy’s face looked worried. “Well, yeah, that’s what I said, but it’s one thing to take your boss out for coffee and another to invite them into your home and feed them. Oh!” She turned her head back toward the kitchen and nodded her head at it, mouthing, “That’s why the caterer.” She then tapped her nose, signaling she go t it now.

“That was just … a happy coi ncidence.”

“Hey, take your luck where you can find it,” Cindy said, then turned contemplative. “Maybe I should do this for the Head of Surgery at work.”

Just then the doorbell rang. A thrill of panic ripped through Helena, but Cindy, being the one with less on the line, got to the door first. Based on her squeals of greeting, Helena was relieved when Charles and Chris came in, also bearing a bottle of wine and hugs. Charles admired the plate settings while Chris worked on opening the wine, and Cindy womaned the door as Helena’s guests were coming fast and furious. Soon the room was filled with happy excited people, and Helena found herself too busy making introductions and seeding conversations to continue to worry about the demon in her kitchen.

At least until he appeared bearing a tray of hors d’oeuvres. Her eyes grew wide as she stared down at the little deconstructed pigs-in-a-blankets all in neat little rows on what she realized was one of the serving plates her mother had given her when she moved in, which Helena had stuffed on a shelf and promptly forgot about. Her guests cooed as they swarmed to each take one, keeping the demon from needing to enter farther than three steps into the room. Half the tray was gone before it occurred to her to spur forward and take it. She met the demon’s eyes as her hand touched his cold one under the tray. His eyes flashed from the hypnotic black pits to starburst fire before returning once more to the intense black as if warning her once more about blowing h is cover.

“Uh, thank you,” she said, and he nodded once before returning to th e kitchen.

As soon as the door swung shut, the women from her office and Cindy all let off a chorus “oooooooo la la,” that of course ended in giggles. One of them even fanned herself with her hand.

Helena’s cheeks burned. “Oh stop. He’s just doing this as a favor … to my grandma,” she said, trying to not let the lie stick in her throat.What the hell was her grandmother doing with a demon summoning spell in the back of her cookbo ok anyway?

A thought to ponder later … if there wa s a later.

“You see, I’ve had a little bit to think about this,” Cindy said, pointing at Helena’s nose with a finger from the hand currently wrapped around a half-drunk wine glass. “I don’t think he’s just doing this because he owes your gramma. Because from what we just witnessed there…” She didn’t finish the sentence, instead blowing out a breath and shaking her opposite hand like she was at a Chippendale’s show and it was all too hot t o handle.

That set off another chorus of giggles, not just from the office women, but the men in the room as well. Charlie even gave her a thumbs up. Helena’s cheeks burned hotly because all she wanted to do was scream at them to all run: there was a demon in the house! She had no idea how she summoned it, but they were all in danger, and she was probably going to be arrested because while demon summoning wasn’t unheard of in the world, it was definitely punishable by three different authorities, and even if she didn’t get caught, the thing in her kitchen would probably eat her soul and—

Her panicked train of thought was cut off by the doorbell ringing one final time. The laughter stopped as everyone noticed Helena’s terrified ex pression.

“My boss,” she w hispered.

Everyone scrambled then, feeling the same urgency that she did, mostly out of an abundance of care for her, but while she left her coworkers to tell the rest the lowdown concerning Helena’s boss, Helena rushed to the door.

Opening it, she about had an additional hear t attack.

There stood her boss, an elderly woman with silver hair professionally coifed by an expensive salon to emphasize the “silver vixen” look that was so vogue right then. The lady was dressed down for her, which meant that everything she wore probably individually would cover Helena’s mortgage payment for a month.

“Scarlet,” Helena greeted, offering what she hoped was a welcoming smile. She opened the door and gestured an open hand of welcome. “And Yosef, welcome, bot h of you.”

Scarlet’s arm crutches chinked as she placed one then the other inside the door before crossing the threshold herself with so much painful dignity that always made Helena flinch and admire her at the same time. Behind her followed Scarlet’s gorgeous assistant Yosef, carrying her bag with one hand out in readiness should his b oss fall.

Helena had forgotten to include Yosef in the count fo r dinner.

As she continued to step back to let the dignified socialite through her door, she glanced back over her shoulder at the table. The rest of her guests had all moved forward in a poor attempt of appearing like a nonchalant crowd in order to be ready to greet the unofficial matriarch of their city but not look like they were waiting to greet her. This had left the table more or less abandoned, and to her amazement, the demon was there, already adjusting the table settings for another person with smooth crisp motions. By the time Scarlet had finished her entrance, the table had been reset, and it looked like it had always been that way.

Then he was gone again into th e kitchen.

Maybe tonight wouldn’t be so bad a fter all?