Page 86 of White Lights
“I assumed you’d have finished it by now.” Rafe puts his hands up. “I don’t make the rules, but if you want your brother to seeLazarus, it has to be today. I can slip away now and make sure he gets it.”
“It’s not finished,” Dez says.
“Then finish it. I can wait a few minutes. But that’s it.”
“A few minutes? No.” Dez laughs bitterly. “That’s not enough time.”
Rafe puts a hand on her shoulder. She looks up at him, and, God, it would be so nice to forget all this, to drag him to her bed and take off every single article of his clothing, to tumble into his skin.
“Dez,” he says, “you’ve made something beautiful to inspire your brother. He’d want to see it.”
“Why can’t we just save it somewhere?” she asks. “I can finish in the next few days. I know I can. But I haven’t slept and—”
Rafe shakes his head. “It’s now or never.”
Dez is so tired. And what he’s saying, this sudden urgency, doesn’t make sense.
“Then it’s never,” she says, “because I’m not showing Mo this film until it’s ready.”
Rafe’s jaw clenches. He looks unsettled, maybe even scared.
“Wait here,” he finally says.
He jogs toward the entrance of the Vault, disappears behind the circular doorway, then returns a few moments later pushing what looks like a small bar cart. As he gets closer, Dez eyes two crystal cordial glasses and a small decanter of what looks like red wine rattling on the top shelf.
“We don’t have time for me to finish Mo’s film, but we do have time to drink?” Dez says.
“No one gets more time,” Rafe says. “But you can have slower time.”
“Did you say ‘slower time’?”
“This is called a Soma, courtesy of Ereshkigal herself.”
“Eri made it?” Dez asks.
He nods. “She doesn’t make them often, but I thought you might need one today.”
“What is it?”
“It’s a five-thousand-year-old drink invented by Sumerian priestesses. It buys you time.Timelessness, really. A timeless moment to finish your timeless film.”
Dez is used to time flying in the Vault, hours disappearing in what feels like only moments. It happened right before Rafe showed up when Dez was in Asher’s Lifeline. Now he’s saying this drink has the opposite effect.
“Is this a joke?”
“It’s real, Dez.” As he pours the decanter, splitting the wine-red liquid between the two glasses, the scent of thyme and ripe berries fills the air. He puts a glass in her hand.
“A drink can’t actually slow time,” she says.
“Willie Nelson and I beg to differ,” Rafe says. “Expand your Lens.”
Dez closes them both in the space she’s gotten comfortable inhabiting with him, though it’s never stopped feeling charged, as if their bodies are always about to touch, and they’d both be powerless to stop what happened after that.
“We’ll need a chaser, too,” Rafe says, and slides back the bar cart to reveal two small espresso cups and a carafe. He pours steaming, rich coffee into each of the cups. “First we drink the Soma,” he says, gesturing at the crystal glass in Dez’s hand. “Then we work on your film. As long as you want. As long as it takes. When we’re finished, these shots of espresso will still be as hot as they are right now.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
“I know this is hard to believe,” Rafe says. “But I promise—”
