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A Demon Name d Rafferty

H e sighed, the bat-like wings on his back drooping. “Where’s the cookbook?”

She scurried over to fetch it while he took position in the middle of the room. The summoning marks from before flared to life, and Helena realized that they had gone invisible before when her guests had been there. But she supposed since he could hide his appearance, he could have hidden the marks of her demon summoning as well. She hugged the open book against her chest, not knowing what page she needed to go to next an d waited.

Her … guest took up position in the middle of the circle, down on both knees and tucking his wings comfortably behind himself.

“Before I forget,” he added, and his tail whipped out to snatch at a piece of torn paper on the counter. His prehensile appendage held it out to her to take. “I wrote down a formula that you need to use to cleanse this circle after I’m gone. Mop once will take the initial mess out of your floor as well as the remnants of demon magic and then again for a year to thoroughly ,” he leaned forward to make her meet his eyes to stress his emphasis, “thoroughly clear out the magic so no one else can ‘accidentally’ call me again. And you should be fine. I checked. You got all the ingredients there, but if I make it for you, I’ll corrupt it, so you got to do it yourself.”

“And then go to church every Sunday and get blessed or something?” she asked. She sort of meant it as a joke—she had seen it in a mo vie once.

The demon just shrugged. “I mean, if you want to. If it’ll make you feel better, sure. Now turn to the spell you used to call me and read it backwards.” And then he resettled back, wrapping his tail around himself. The pose he assumed looked so very … zen-like and peaceful. He even had his eyes closed as if preparing to accept his fate.

A new sensation cut through Helena, watching him, one that had nothing to do with herself, just him.

“Um, are you going to be alright?” she asked, hesitating with her grandmother’s cookbook in h er hands.

“Am I going to be alright in hell?” he asked wryly, again that eyebrow cocking up in amusement as he peeked his e yes open.

“Well, yeah,” she said, not knowing how else to express the feeling cre eping in.

A look of almost tenderness warmed his star-burning eyes. “Yeah. I’m going to be fine.”

“But how can you? I t’s hell?”

He flicked his wings in surprise and confusion.“Look Helena, you’re clearly a very good person, but you have to understand, it’s where I belong. I did plenty to earn my place there. That’s not your responsibility.” But his hand did something else contrary to his words. Where he had had his fists balled and resting against his thighs, his right hand uncurled and lifted. The clawed fingers stretched toward her as if asking her to take it. Then he closed it again.

“You’d better get reading,” he said softly, re solutely.

Helena pursed her lips together, then pulled the book away and looked at the spell her grandmother had scrawled in her clean perfect cursive. “Thank you, by the way,” she said before reading.

His strange, alien face smiled sadly. “It was lovely to meet you , Helena.”

“It was lovely to… wait. What is your name? I know you said it earlier…”

“I ate it. Don’t worry about it,” he said, wavin g a hand.

She blinked once. “Why would you do that?”

He sighed. “Like I said, I clean up after myself. And because if you know my name, you can just summon me again without the spell, so forget it.” He narrowed his eyes in warning.

“How about Rafferty?” she asked quickly. “Can I call you Rafferty? That won’t summon yo u, right?”

He cocked his head at that.“Why Rafferty?”

“Rafferty Jones, Food Emergencies ? He’s a famous TV chef?”

The demon chuckled and shook his head. “Sure, you can call me Rafferty.”

“Thank you for everything, Rafferty,” she said. Her heart twisted as she said his new name. His presence still disgusted her, but he had been nothing but kind. “It was nice to meet you.”

“Okay, that’s enough,” Rafferty said, waving his hand at her. “Get on with it.”

Helena nodded, then lifted up the book and read the words of the spell one at a time backwards. She didn’t sense or smell anything, there was no shift like there had been before, but when she looked up, Rafferty was gone.

The world seemed so normal the next day. She got up, got ready for work, and even took the train—all normal, all the same. But she felt like she was only seeing it all for the fi rst time.

Once the demon had been sent back to … where he had come from, and she had mopped up all the traces of the summoning with a mix of baking soda, lemon, vinegar, and allspice, for some reason, from the recipe the demon instructed her to use, she had been sure she would never fall asleep. After all, what had just happened had been terrifying, hadn’t it? It should have kept her up all night with worry and fear, knowing demons existed for sure and that she had made a deal with one.

Instead, she fell asleep immediately upon her head hitting t he pillow.

Sitting on the bench of the train, she stared out at the trees passing. The train was elevated in this section and zipped through the carefully pruned branches of the trees lining each side, making the light dance and sway within the car. The late fall colors and the gentle rocking added to the peace and fulfillment she enjoyed. She wasn’t sure anyone else felt it, but there was a connection inside her that seemed to permeate everything around her. She was alive and whole and safe. And happy. It made her feel like she floated as she got off the train and walked the three blocks to her office building, then up the eight floors to Scarlet Promot ions, Inc.

“Well you look sunny today,” Yosef noted when Helena walked through the clear, tempered glass doors of th e office.

He stood near the reception desk with a set of folders tucked under one arm, looking perfect in his business khaki pants with the soft violet shirt. They were the casual, warm colors everyone in Scarlet’s office wore as the boss tried to foster her “garden of talent.” Everything in the office itself reflected that theme. There were flowers and potted plants everywhere, even some hanging vines in planters interspersed among the natural, not fluorescent, lights. Everyone was allowed to wear business casual with as many colors as they desired unless there was a formal business meeting of some kind with outside clients. There were no cubicle walls to separate everyone, just open concept desks that switched between sitting and standing with a hand crank. Small tables of refreshments sat at every end. Lunch was also catered every day. When privacy was needed, there was a row of silent booths installed along the one wall with round, ship-portico windows set in the doors so those within could be seen, but n ot heard.

It was a little kumbaya, but as far as office cultures go, there were far, far worse, if the life section of most major newspapers were to be believed.She had only been there three years, and outside of two coffee shops and a short stint in a box chain bookstore after college, it was the only place she had ever worked profe ssionally.

All of this was tucked back behind a long clear wall that cascaded in a magic waterfall fountain that made the moving colors beyond it shimmer and shimmy. Faces were hard to make out, but Helena realized that several of the blobby faces were looking through the wall at the little exchange happening in the recepti on foyer.

The first feeling of unease slid through Helena as she glanced from the watching eyes to Yosef. “Hi. What’s … going on?” she asked c arefully.

He sniffed at her, breaking his neutral face as he thrust out the folders to her. “You’re in charge of the McCater acco unt now.”

Helena stared at the folders before her. As one of five event coordinators, she would have been less shocked if he had presented her with the Oscar and Publishing Clearing Ho use Check.

“You’re serious?” she asked breathlessly as she reached to take the folders.

“Scarlet wanted to tell you herself, but she’s having a slow morning, so go over these, and she’ll meet with you at ten. He r office.”

“Alright, I’ll be there,” she agreed, hugging the files to her chest as happiness burned through her chest in happy little firework s of joy.

Yosef nodded once and turned to walk around the waterfall wall to Scarlet’ s office.

Helena exchanged a glance with the receptionist, the only true witness, who had been fielding calls the whole time. She excitedly gave Helena a dual thumbs up while continuing to talk to whoever was on the other end of the phone. Stunned, Helena allowed herself to grin back, and then moved to go around the glass waterf all wall.

“Congratulations!” the office erupted the second she cleared it, stunning her again into a standstill. Everyone there started clapping along with their cheers and more than a few people came forth to pat her on the back or give her hugs.

“Couldn’t have happened to a bette r person.”

“You absolutely deser ved this.”

“Invite me to dinner n ext time!”

The cheers and well wishes followed her all the way to her desk, where she numbly dropped her purse and messenger bag, while not daring to let go of the precious folders she had been given. Finally, Yosef reappeared and chased everyone away and back to work. She set the folders down on the desk like they were holy relics and pressed her fingers to her lips. Everything she eve r wanted.

“Thank you, Rafferty,” she whispered. He may have been a demon, but in this, he had been an angel.

She hoped wherever he was, he could hear her.