Page 49

It Got Serious

S uddenly, Rafferty stumbled, collapsing backward.

The only reason he didn’t land on the ground was his hand slamming onto the counter behind him, keeping him upright.

“Rafferty!” she cried and ran around the workstation to get to his side.

“Is he alright?” one of the waitresses asked as she fetched m ore wine.

“No, of course he’s not alright,” éliott said, coming up to chase the waitress back out to the floor. “The man just pulled off a miracle. I’m surprised he is still standing at all. Now get a move on. Table eighteen needs re freshing.”

Helena nodded her thanks to éliott, who had proved as reliable a head waiter as his cousin had proved a failure as a chef. He nodded back and gestured for the back. “Get him out of here. Rest. I will handle what remains.”

She nodded and took Rafferty’s arm over her shoulders. Her demon moved alarmingly slowly, and she was just relieved that he let her help him. Together, they navigated out of the back into the dock area, which was far more deserted now that most of the business of the ball had been taken care of.

Only a security guard looked up from his paperback with a bored, disinterested expression on his face that became more acutely interested at the sight of them.

“Is he alright?” h e called.

“Yes, we’re fine. It’s just been a big night,” Helena cal led back.

“There’s an alcove over that way with some chairs if you need to sit down,” the guard offered.

“Thank you. We’ll do that,” she agreed, waving and smiling for all she w as worth.

But they didn’t make it far toward that alcove before Rafferty began to stutter. Helena noticed it as the thrumming wrongness flipping on and off like a toddler with a light switch. Glancing up, she saw his wings flit in and out of existence, along with his horns and gray skin as his face remained a contorted mask of pain no matter what form h e was in.

“Oh, no, please Rafferty. Hold on just a little farther,” Helen a begged.

“Hey! What’s going on there?” the security guard called af ter them.

Helen tried to compel their steps faster, but Rafferty bucked again, groaning in pain as his legs gave out underneath them. He fell onto his side, catching one of his wings beneath him. A sharp snap bent his wing wrong, and he howled in pain.

“Rafferty!” Helena shouted as she pulled on his arm to try to get him off his own wing, which instantly disappeared, only to reappear again as he rolled onto his hands and knees on the ground. The wing was clearly bent at a wro ng angle.

“What the hell?!” the security guard exclaimed from t oo close.

She looked up to see him standing only a few feet away, staring wide-eyed down on the anathema be side her.

“Get… get the hell away from it!” the guard shouted, his hands shaking as he went for his enormous flashlight at his belt. Holding it in both hands, he hefted it like a billy club, then took a hop-skip step tow ard them.

“No, don’t!” she tried to shout, but she couldn’t get to her feet in time to step in front of him as the guard aimed for the demo n’s head.

Instead, Rafferty flexed his wings back mightily. They womph ed the guard, upsetting his already precarious balance to knock him back onto his butt. The flashlight fell from his hands and Helena scrambled to grab it. As she did that, Rafferty turned on his knees and seized the guar d’s head.

“Forget,” he gro wled out.

“Rafferty! Don’t!” Helena cried, throwing the flashlight away before pulling on his arms to force him to let go of the guard. “Don’t hurt him , please!”

Rafferty yielded to her, releasing him weakly, but the guard just kept staring ahead blankly.

“What di d you do?”

“I ate his memory of the last few minutes,” Rafferty said, turning away so he could use the wall to regain his feet, shifting back to human as he did so. “He will be fine.”

“Rafferty, what is happenin g to you?”

“The price needs to be paid,” he said, leaning against the wall, his arms tucked against his sides. “Take me back to th e circle.”

“But … it was my pric e to pay.”

He shook his head. “No. I won’t do it. I won’t take y our life.”

Using the wall to help himself, he continued to walk down the hall toward the forbidden door. Helena stared at him as she realized what he was saying. “You … never intended to make me pay for tonight.”

“No, but you thought I was going to, didn’t you!” he shot back. “The second things got hard, you turned to yo ur demon.”

Suddenly, his coldness made a different kind of sense. He wasn’t tricking her. He was angry and disappointe d in her.

“I reached out to you, not ‘my demon.’ I needed help. I didn’t know what to do!” She stood up to go after him. “So I reached out to the person I trusted most, my… my boyfriend, if we even are in that rela tionship.”

He groaned as he leaned against the wall. She came around to help hold him up at the shoulders. “You need to take from me whatever you need. My mind, body, or soul—whichever. I do n’t care!”

“No,” he said, grabbing her shoulders to push her away. “You don’t understand. What needed to be done tonight… it had a very high cost. This cost will kill you, maybe even wipe you from existence forever.” He cupped his hand around her cheek. “I can’t let that happen to the person I…”

Helena went still. “Did you know that when I asked this of you?” she pressed.

His eyes told her t he truth.

“So everything you were saying to me, how cold you were being… it was because you were angry at me? I … disappointed you by asking for i t, right?”

“Everyone does in the end. Why would you be any different?” he said snidely, his contempt bare now.

It hurt, but not as much as losing him was going to hurt. “But why didn’t you tell me what the p rice was?”

“You didn’t ask until it was too late to change it!” he barked back. “You proved me right by not caring what the price was, just that you got what yo u wanted!”

“You have your own agency, dammit! You could have told me without making me ask twenty questions,” she barked at him. She wanted to shake him, but instead she pushed in and hugged him tight. “No, you can’t die. I won’t let i t happen.”

He deflated a little bit, wrapping one of his arms around her. “I’m already dead, Helena,” he whispered. “I’ve just been putting off the in evitable.”

“It’s not inevitable. We can figure this out. Please. Stop trying to be right and start working with me to figure out how to save you!”

“You… you want to save me?” he asked as if he were only just now h earing it.

“Yes! I love you! That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you. I didn’t want all of this in exchange for your life. If anything I wanted… I wanted your help, but mostly I want ed a hug!”

“Then why didn’t you ask for that?”

“Because … I don’t always have the right answer right when I need it!”

Rafferty blinked at that, understanding finally. “Oh dammit. I screwed up.” He leaned forward to set his weary head on her shoulder while she thought des perately.

“What if…” she said, idea starting to form. “If the price would kill one of us, what if … we share it?”

“What?” he grunted groggily.

“You and I. If we combined what we have, would that be enough to right the imbalance without killing eithe r of us?”

“I…” He shook his head. “I don’t kno w… maybe?”

“Okay, well, it’s all we got, so we got to try. Put your arm around me.” He leaned his weight into her and immediately Helena regretted it. Now he was really giving in to her, and she just did not have the right shoes on for this. Still, they stumbled across the hall toward the forbid den door.

“But Helena, it will hurt. It will leave you devastated,” Rafferty mumbled, shifting again to his demo nic form.

“Yeah, well you can’t heal if you’re not alive, and at this point, I would say this situation is both our doing, so it makes sense we’re going to have to fix it together.” They were only a few feet from the door when another woman’s voice screamed.

They both stopped, staring at the door.

“That came from in there,” He lena said.

“Someone found the summoning circle,” Rafferty sai d warily.

Together, they spurred forward, Rafferty reaching out his free hand to push the door open as she hauled them both through.

Within the darkened room, the summoning circle glowed, casting up a sickly, dim light. Helena stared at it. She could feel its eerie gravity pulling at her, its hunger. The debt was large, and it needed to be s atisfied.

Rafferty laughed dryly. “Huh, I racked up a bigger debt than I imagined.” Then he cried out in pain.

“I should say so. Holy hell in a handbasket, that was quite the feat tonight.” Within the depths of the dark, Vassago’s voice sang out mockingly musical. “Come in and shut the door already.”

“Helena! Get out of here! Go get help!” Scarlet cried from the opposite side of the circle. To Helena’s shock, her boss and mentor stood on the other side, held there by Yosef. Madness had filled Yos ef’s eyes.

“That’s right, Helena. You should turn around and just walk away,” h e warned.

“Oh, no need to worry. No need at all. You’re not the only one selling your soul for a miracle. Look what the cat dragged in, as they say.”

The wrong feeling returned, and Helena knew that Rafferty had shifted again without her even needing to look.

“Ah now there’s a beautiful face, isn’t it?” Vassago laughed as Scarlet and Yosef’s eyes went wide. And she knew what they saw.

“Oh, Helena, not you too,” Scarl et moaned.

“It’s not what you think,” Helena trie d to say.

Vassago gestured at the door, and it slammed shut behind Helena and Rafferty, plunging them all into the unholy light that held them all e nthralled.