Page 7 of Baking and Angels

This was… a different kind ofbad, but still nothing compared tothat.

Yet, why wouldn’t they believe him?

The door opened and closed, but he didn’t lift his head. He expected a small cup of water to appear in the tunnel of his vision, but instead, someone pulled the rocking chair forward to the other side of the small coffee table. A person sat down and crossed their legs.

Rafferty waited for what he assumed was the agent to start babbling more inane words at him, but the silence continued. Gooseflesh skittered across his arms as a feeling of familiar wrongness prickled his skin, then worked toward seeping into his bones. Inhaling a sharp breath, Rafferty’s head snapped up.

Vassago grinned too many teeth at him. “Salutations, mon vieil ami,” he said, his French lilting and musical.

Fear, the sort that Rafferty hadn’t felt in centuries, gripped his heart. His very mortal, pounding heart. Suddenly, it hit him how much he had gained back and how much he had to lose again.

“Retourne dans les ténèbres, immonde démon,” Rafferty intoned, his mother’s old words coming back to him. Return to the darkness, foul demon.

Vassago’s grin remained sharp. “You are not my caller anymore. You know that. And our obligation to each other is paid.” He had switched back to English, but for whose benefit, Rafferty wasn’t sure.

The demon cocked his head to the side as his eyes roved over Rafferty’s body as if he could see through the clothes he wore and relished the skin with lustfulintensity.

“What the ever-hating hell did you do to get such a fine body? Is it yours? Did you manage to trade for it?” Vassago leaned forward, dropping his crossed leg and mirroring Rafferty’s posture, his uncanny black eyes, two whirling pools of ink, staring unblinkingly. “Howdidyou do it?Howdid you do it?”

Rafferty curled up his lip as his answer.

Holding their standoff a second too long, Vassago sat back again, recrossing his leg, his giggle uncannily disconnected from the move. “Well, you didn’t sacrifice your ‘old soul’ I see. Checked in on her.”

That snapped Rafferty’s control, and he jumped to his feet and over the coffee table in one fluid motion. The demon laughed as Rafferty grabbed the front of the kitchen garb he still wore. The momentum shoved the rockers of the chair, sliding it backward into one of the cabinets. Rafferty pulled back a fist, righteous fury filling him.

“So, you are human!” Vassago crowed as if he had just proved something. “My hells, this is some sort of reversemiracle.”

Just as fast as it came on him, the feeling of loathing and rage left, the compelling need to destroy the monster in front of him draining away.

Vassago’s demonic aura.

It had an effect on humans, often making them violent and hateful, pushing them to do acts their higher minds would resist.

The fact that it had affected him like that was as much of a shock as any of the others he had experienced in the few short hours of his rebirth. Then Vassago pulled back on the aura, shielding it behind his fake human facade, and Rafferty found he could breathe and think clearly again.

“Hmm, better put that away. Don’t want to alert the other fishies,” Vassago cooed, pleased with his discovery, not at all bothered that Rafferty still gripped his shirt. “They got all sorts of nasty devices in this place and too many things of protection or whatever. I only got in through the tiniest crack in their armor and even just sitting here my skin’s all itchy. They already want to destroy me, just like you. Best not to throw gas on an existing fire.” He grinned again, too-sharp teeth and all. “If only I had your skills, shift that anger into lust. Ha, and you weren’t even a properincubus.”

Another tendril wafted through Rafferty, this one pinging his groin into a spiderweb of sensation throughouthis body.

Rafferty let Vassago’s shirt go and stumbled back, breathing heavily. “No,” he said.

“See, I’m too ham-fisted to play on lusts,” Vassago crowed, clearly still pleased with himself. “Boy, if you ever needed proof that you were alive, you got it.”

Rafferty ran his hands through his hair. “But what… what does this mean?” He hated that he was asking Vassago this, but so far, the old demon was the only other being in existence who had some understanding of the context Rafferty was dealing with.

“Look at you, Lares. A demon, not only risen from hell but also…redeemed,” Vassago continued, purring. “I have no idea what it means, but I’m excited to find out.” Vassago licked his lips, his own desire for what Rafferty had unmistakable.

Then the old demon shuddered, wincing in sharp pain.

Cocking his head to one side, Rafferty suddenly understood something. “You have no anchor here, do you? You ate him. And the circle has been closed and sealed.” They both knew what that meant. A demon couldn’t exist in reality without either a human anchor or the active circle they had been called through. The manic tension in every twitch and flinch betrayed Vassago’s nonchalant posture.

“How much energy are you spending to just remain here in reality?” Rafferty asked, already knowing the answer.

Shrugging, Vassago turned away. “I’ll figure that out. And don’t flatter yourself. I’m not offering a deal of that sort to you… since you and I have already done that tango?” An eyebrow arched with the implied question, testing if his statement was, in fact, true.

“Never,” Rafferty affirmed, a smile slipping over his face. He had no intention of endangering himself or Helena further by making a deal with this same demon who had tricked and condemned him the first time. But deals were something familiar. Something he felt confident in now. Despite all the changes, deals were nothing new.

“So, I’m glad I didn’t ask.” Vassago sniffed with the indignity a cat would admire. “Besides, I think your little old soul has everything wellin hand.”

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