Page 34 of Baking and Angels

“Don’t callit magic.”

“I just wanted to make you happy. How can that be bad?” She looked up at him with her beautiful, sincerely sweet eyes. She was the same person she had always been, her human appearance and the touch of her hand on his forearm felt so very real and normal that he could forget that she had changed at all. She was just his Helena.

His resolve melted like butter on the electric griddle. “Okay. I guess, this won’t really hurt anything. And it’s just us eating this…”

“Well, actually.” Helena looked at all the ingredients laid out. “Really, we could serve this up to those that remain of my coworkers. It’s a lot of food that’s going to go to waste otherwise.”

His lips thinned at that suggestion.

Then she batted her eyes at him, pleadingly.

“Fine.”

Her smile bloomed on her face. “I’ll go askeveryone.”

She left the little kitchenette as Rafferty dipped four bread slices into the batter and slapped the batch onto the griddle to a hissing sizzle. Within minutes, more people filed into the room, all sullen and dour. They received their plates of the fresh sandwiches with barely a word of thanks, but Rafferty didn’t mind, he just focused on making up the next batch, enjoying every second. This was what made him feel alive.

While he worked, drinks were retrieved from the other refrigerator. Condiments were appliedas needed.

Soon, the atmosphere of the room shifted. The remaining employees started to talk to each other. Then there were brighter faces accompanied by laughter. The room felt more like a party.

People slapped Rafferty on the back, complimenting his work. A couple of them even asked for his recipe. It fed his soul even more than food ever could, but it was a close contest. Helena beamed at him proudly. And all the while, he kept making sandwiches until every egg and slice of bread and meat was gone. The conversations continued. It felt good to just be a part of a group like this, a temporary community. He even got to eat some of his work, and it was as delicious as everyone aroundhim said.

He set his anxieties about her eggs aside. There was no way her intention didn’t get into the food with them, but it seemed to be as she said, she just wanted to make everyone happy. She couldn’t affect their minds, anyone who chose not to be happy would resist the pull of her energies, but they would still feel her call to that emotion.

Sometimes a demon can do miracles,he thought as he took another delicious bite, full of flavors.

Just as the plates were piling into the sink and Helena started the water before he could think to, the door to the kitchenette opened and the chatter in the room went silent as if a switch had been flipped. It was so jarring as Scarlet entered the room she jerked to a stop as the wall of eyes focused on her.

“Oh. Hello.”

Chapter 14

Then Helena Had

a Brilliant Idea

“Hi, Scarlet,” Helena said a delayed moment later, turning off the water and rubbing her wet hands on her jeans. “Would you like something to eat?”

That seemed to break the spell on the room. “Thanks” was murmured by all, and everyone filed out with excuses that they needed to return to this, that, or the other thing. Scarlet didn’t even try to heed them. She simply walked past and took the offered plate with the last sandwich on it from Helena. Then she went to the table and set it down as she assumed a seat, placing herself as elegantly in the chair as if she were in a five-star restaurant.

Then she paused, a sad smile on her face. “That is so easy now. It used to be such a production to simply sit ata table.”

Then both women looked up at Rafferty, who had been in the middle of grabbing one of the chairs that had been pushed back so that he could pull it up to the table tojoin them.

He froze as he realized they were both staring at him, his stomachclenching.

“Come on, sit down,” Helena encouraged, tapping the bare space next to her. Then she turned to Scarlet and gestured at her plate. “What do you think?”

Scarlet refocused on the sandwich, hesitating as if looking for a fork or knife to eat it with, then slummed down her manners a bit and picked it up. She took a tentative bite, and when it didn’t burn her like acid, she took a bigger one.

After a few seconds of chewing, her eyes fluttered. “Oh my,” she said with food still in her mouth, with her fingers leaping to cover her societal faux pas. “This is delicious.”

“I know, right?” Helena squealed, popping the last of her sandwich intoher mouth.

“So you really are a chef?” Scarlet asked, taking a sip of the sparkling water. “You weren’t justa demon?”

“Rafferty was a chef, yes, when he was last alive,” Helena said, as if that were a natural occurrence, for a man to be alive centuries later than anyone else he had been born with. His girlfriend nudged him with her elbowto speak.

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