Page 90 of Cookbooks and Demons

That announcement seemed to relieve many of the staff.

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

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

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

“Hors d’oeuvres will go out on time,” Rafferty barked. “You do your jobs, and I will do mine. 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-in fridge.

“How are you going to do this? This meal… You should have been cooking all day in preparationand 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 thecheapest.”

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

“We bring in more hands,” he said.

“You mean—”

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

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

“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 good cover.

“Please let nothing else go wrong tonight,” she 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 helped 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 wonderland.

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 andlighting.

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 double check.

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

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 himfor 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 really there?

I am a demon,was all he ever calledhimself.

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

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 allcome 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 the tables.

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

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

He’s a demon!

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