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Do It Fast or D o It Right

R afferty backed away then, his face disappearing into the darkness, and Helena couldn’t help feeling like she had made a terrible mistake.

“Thank you,” she said lamely. “Um, what should we do now?”

“You need to take me to the kitchen and grant me the authority to cook in there,” he said, again with that cold, imperso nal tone.

“Oh. Right,” she said and slid her hand around the door until she found the knob.

She was so ready to get out of that horrible room that she opened the door faster than was prudent. Plunging them back into the light, it blinded her for a moment.

“Helena? What are you doing i n there?”

Jumping at the voice, she realized Yosef stood right in front of her. She tried to back up, but Rafferty came right up behind her, blocking her path.

Yosef looked from her to him and back to her. “They said you came back here to call for help… that we don’t hav e a chef?”

“Yes, yes, I did. I called for help,” she agreed, motioning to the demon behind her. “You remember Rafferty. He cooked at my dinner party a few months ago. He’s come to help me.”

“Oh,” Yosef said, looking unconvinced. “What were you two doing ba ck there?”

“Making out,” Rafferty said, so completely deadpan that Yosef had no choice but to take it for the truth. Especially when he looked to Helena for confirmation and sh e blushed.

“Well, wouldn’t you? If your boyfriend came to save the day,” she said.

Yosef blinked rapidly, then shook his head. “Okay, fine. We don’t have time for this. Let’s just go.” And he pivoted to head back toward the kitchens, leaving Helena and Rafferty t o follow.

“How is Scarlet?” she asked, catching up with Yosef to walk beside him. Rafferty followed behind quietly.

“She should be in a hospital bed, but she convinced her doctor to let her make her speech tonight. Then she swears she’ll go, but I doubt it.” Yosef stopped and ran his hand through his hair, mussing it up. “Dammit.”

“Hey, hey,” Helena said, setting her hand to his back. “It’s going to be okay. She’s going to be alright.” But Yosef shook her hand off.

“No, she’s not,” he said sharply. “Dammit. I was born in the wr ong time…”

“You really do love her?” Hel ena said.

Yosef whirled on her. “What the hell does that mean?” he demanded but didn’t give her a chance to clarify. “Of course I love her. You think because she’s so much older than me that what? I’m just after her money or s omething?”

“I didn’t mean—” Helena tried to say, putting her hands up in surrender, but Yosef kept coming until Rafferty’s hand on his chest sto pped him.

“We don’t have time for this,” Rafferty reminded hi m evenly.

Yosef took a step back and straightened. “I’m sorry. The stress is getting to me,” he said lamely. “I will … just take a minute to collect myself.” He turned and walked off, much to Helena’ s relief.

“Let’s get,” Rafferty said, turning in that d irection.

She wanted to thank him for intervening, but he didn’t give her the opportunity to as he pushed into th e kitchen.

The wait staff still stood there chatting with each other and waiting for someone to give them inst ructions.

“Everyone,” Helena called, commanding the attention again. Gratifyingly, they all turned to her. “I am really sorry for all of the confusion but thank you all for stickin g around.”

“We are still getting paid, right?” one of the waiters asked from the middle of the crowd, with several of them “yeah”-ing in a greement.

“Yes, of course. Nothing else has changed,” she assured. “Except this. I called in re-enforcements.” She turned to Rafferty and gestured to him. “This is Rafferty. He is in charge of this kitchen. You will follow his dir ections.”

That announcement seemed to relieve many of t he staff.

“Prepare to serve the refreshments, check the wine, and sort yourselves out,” Rafferty ordered, takin g charge.

“What? Just him?” another server asked. “Where is the rest of hi s staff?”

“Nothing’s been cooked yet,” another added. “We have nothing but wine to serve.”

“Hors d’oeuvres will go out on time,” Rafferty barked. “You do your jobs, and I will do mi ne. Deal?”

There were nods and half-hearted “yes, chefs,” but Helena couldn’t blame them. Once the staff dispersed to prepare, she followed Rafferty to the large walk-i n fridge.

“How are you going to do this? This meal… You should have been cooking all day in preparation and now…”

“You have a choice to make,” Rafferty said, turning around inside the cold fridge, crossing his arms to face her. “The easiest thing would be to magic up the food. It would also be the cheapest.”

“No!” Helena said, swiping her arms across herself in the universal arm gesture of “absolutely not.” “What’s the othe r option?”

“We bring in more hands, ” he said.

“ You mean—”

“I’ll take care of it,” Rafferty said. “Go enjoy your reward.”

He turned away and started opening boxes. Helena hesitated. “Raffie, are… are we alright?”

“Get the hell out of my kitchen. I got work to do,” he barked. An invisible force pushed her away. She thought she was going to slam into the refrigerator door, but then it opened by itself and she stumbled out into the kitchen. A couple of the wait staff looked up, but she caught herself and cleared her throat while straightening her dress. They looked away uninterested, which was fine since she couldn’t come up with a go od cover.

“Please let nothing else go wrong tonight,” sh e prayed.

The ballroom was coming together beautifully. Despite the issues with the kitchen, everything else arrived on time with little to no resistance. The flowers were beautiful and even more extravagant than originally budgeted for, all the embellishments gratis. The article had done the trick it needed to. She was glad Scarlet’s carrot stick trick had worked and that Helena had been able to pull off the “I’m not supposed to tell you this” little white lie. She had never been that good at lying, but Scarlet’s explanation of “just helping people get out of their own way with whatever they are willing to accept” advice help ed a lot.

The table settings, the chairs, the lights, the quartet in the corner tuning up: everything was almost ready. The room was winter festive splendor with evergreen trees clustered in the corners, festooned with icicles and white lights twinkling like stars. Enormous silver and gold bunting wrapped around the walls, and suspended with the chandelier, a thousand snowflake-shaped crystals spun slowly to create the magical winter wo nderland.

Helena walked around the tables, setting each place card she had been checking earlier at the top of each plate before checking it off on her clipboard. At the front of the room, techs were going over all of the requirements for the microphones and lighting.

At last, the final card was set and she passed her clipboard with its diagram of what everything was supposed to look like to one of the other office workers to do a walkthrough doub le check.

“Madame,” éliott said, coming up to her and bowing a little at the waist. “Your presence is requested in the kitchen.”

Bracing herself, Helena nodded and thanked éliott. She didn’t like this. She didn’t like feeling afraid to go see Rafferty. As she wove her way through the tables toward the doors to the kitchen, which were hidden inside a fake little tunnel made to look like ice, she wished she had never called him for help.

That’s ridiculous, she thought. I should be allowed to call for help from my boyfriend. But was he really her boyfriend? Yes, she had said the words, yet she couldn’t remember him agreeing to it or even calling himself that. Had she presumed a level of relationship that wasn’t rea lly there?

I am a demon, was all he ever called himself.

Her faith in him truly shaken, she pushed her way into the kitchen.

The place was bustling with people. Cooks and assistants of all stripes were moving about the room preparing food of all colors and platings. She stopped in utter awe at the personnel. Where did they all come from?

“Excuse me,” one of the wait staff said, trying to get past her with a tray covered with little dishes of pink and honey-yellow butters for th e tables.

She stepped inside to get out of their way as two more of the wait staff exited with the same thing on the ir trays.

Drifting over to one of the cooking counters, where a young man was chopping up and preparing garnishes, she reached out to touch his sleeve. Wide black eyes shot back at her as he froze completely at the invasion. She retreated immediately, but it was like she had attracted the attention of an angry snake. He wouldn’t look away. If anything, he started leaning toward her, his gaze hungrily locked on hers.

“Um… I’m looking for…” she said, as the blackness of the cook’s eyes began to swirl like a whirlpool in in ky water.

He’ s a demon!

She looked away to the rest of the room. All of the cooks that she could see had bl ack eyes.

They were a ll demons.