Page 95 of Baking and Angels

Flinching, her statement forced him to look back at her. She nodded with an air of confirmation, but he still wasn’t sure what she was confirming.

“You can’t know,” hewhispered.

“That you are a demon who has not only escaped Hell but found a new life here on this plane of existence known as creation or reality, for lack of better more comprehensive words. And that the woman who saved you is becoming something you struggle to define.” Her smile faded down to one tinged with sadness. “I’ve been watching you for a long time, Lares. In fact, I am the one that gave you that name.”

Rafferty’s entire body went still, his muscles locking with a strange urge to run and an inability to do so as the skin covering themprickled.

This time she was the one who looked away, casting her sad smile out over the dark and cold. “It is the name of a Greek god of house and hearth. Protection god. It was aspirational.” She glanced back at him, and he saw the metallic flash of power inher eyes.

“You… you’re one of… you’re a demon?” His voice cracked, hismouth dry.

“I wouldn’t call myself that,” she said, shaking her head. “I mean, I trymy best.”

Gripping hard on the quilt with his shaking hands, he pulled it tight, more terrified by his next question. “Or are you… one of…them?”

“You mean an angel?” Honey laughed a sparkling peal. “We do go by that. Others would call us such, but I thought you would know better. There are no such things as angels, right?” She gave him a conspiratorial smile.

“Ah.” The sound burst from Rafferty’s chest. It was neither a laugh nor a cry. More like a burst of relief and despair. “Are you here to sendme back?”

She blinked at that. “Back? Back where?”

“To whereI belong.”

Her lips pursed a moment. “I’m not here to judge you, corn muffin. Nor punish you if that’s what you’re thinking. You’ve already punished yourself enough. And I bet it’s not what you want. Not really. It’s just what you think you deserve. Éliott and I have been debating this. He argues that you wouldn’t have tried to work so hard to escape it to be here, but I thinkyouthink you deserve to bethere. Or at least it is a more comfortable idea. That’s why you’re having trouble adjusting.”

“It wasn’t comfortable. It was torment.” He growled at her daring to call it anything else.

“But you knew what to expect. You knew who you were. That is its own sort ofcomfort.”

Rafferty blinked, following her strange sort of sense. “Idobelong there,” he agreed. His face dropped into his hands as he felt his being shattering at theadmission.

They sat like that for a long moment. At first, he thought she was waiting for him to get it together, but that wasn’t quite right. She wasn’t ignoring him either; she still felt present with him, while not in a hurry for him to do or say anything more.

Finally, when he felt more in control of himself, he asked, “What happens now?”

“Well, one option would be to get off this freezing porch and come inside. The others are waiting to talk to you.”

There were others. It didn’t surprise him. “I’m ready,”he agreed.

Nodding, Honey stood up, folding her blanket over her arm, and led him intoher house.

Only it wasn’t a house on the inside.

The last thing Rafferty saw as he stepped through was the light of the circle bursting from the floor. Then everything went white.

He is back.

He knows this place intimately… and itknows him.

Despair cuts. He expects to be held in a small, enclosed space. The eternal crush. The darkness, the emptiness. A coldness that isn’t coldness. Existing,but alone.

Yet, what he feels is… space. A wide openness, filling and alive. Teeming with energy. There are no concrete shapes, no bodies or sense of physical form, and still so much… existence. They welcome him, reach out to touch him. Though he does not hear it, he perceives laughter and a joy. And relief.

Grief fills him, tendrils of darkness that ignite his fear, that they, the others, will be disgusted by him and push him away. Yet, they don’t. They do not recoil; they are only holding still, waiting, ready. A single being comes forward, moving past his darkness, or rather weaving through them, avoiding the tendrils until the last minute. It is Honey, though he does not know how he knows it. He simply does. He knows she means to hold him, and he decides to let her. Just with that simple decision, his darknessretreats.

Love in the form of light pours into him. He knows he doesn’t shine as brightly as the others, and it doesn’t seem to matter. The others reach out to him with the same eagerness and joyas before.

Once he is calm, Honey leads him through, and the other lights go their own way. She brings him to a place… a field ofdarkness.

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