Page 2 of Cookbooks and Demons

Chapter 2

Then Cindy

Arrives

When Helena didn’t answer at first, the thing in her kitchen repeatedhimself.

“What … the hell … did you … do?” He spat the words slowly like she was a stupid person.

“I… I have no idea!” she stuttered.How is this happening? What is happening?she thought.

Then the dishtowel she had left on the oven caught fire a mere few inches from her, which then leapt toher hair.

“Oh my God!” she bellowed, trying and failing to get away from her own enflamed hair. A hand jerked her up to her feet and a damp towel dropped overher head.

“Hold still. You’re okay,” the deep voice said, patting her head and hair gently but firmly through the towel. Then she found herself being escorted toher door.

“What are you…?” she tried to say, pulling the towel down to see, only to be thrust out of the doorentirely.

“Just… just stay out of the kitchen. I’ll fix this. We can talk terms later,” the demon ordered.

“But… but…”

“Don’t worry. This isn’t going to cost your soul. Maybe just a blood sacrifice.” His eyes roved over the kitchen disaster. He blew out a foul-smelling breath. “I don’t know. We’ll figure it out later,” he said as if she knew at all what he was talking about.

Then he left her staring stunned as the door swung back and forth until the jamb caught it in place. All she could hear now were sounds of someone muttering and moving about her kitchen.

“What… what have I done?” she repeated softly as she stared at the scarred wood ofthe door.

Then the demon popped his horrifying head out again. “How many to be served?”he asked.

“Uh… eight,” she replied, blinking numbly at the matter-of-factness of the question coming from the unearthly being.

“Got it,” he said, then hesitated. “You should go fix your hair. Then… I don’t know. Get the table settings ready.”

“Oh,” she replied, blinking at him and his unsettling face. “Okay.”

He nodded and went back into the kitchen. More clanks and clatters came throughthe door.

Helena stood there in her dining room, frozen in shock. She could hear the sounds continuing in her kitchen but did she… had she really just summoned… a demon?

Turning back to her door, she nudged it open the tiniest crack. Within, she saw the demon, still ugly and disturbing in his leather apron and nothing else, dropping her ruined pots and pans into the sink with disgust while his tail swiped along the counter with a wet cloth, sliding any spilled food scraps into her mop bucket now positioned on the floor.

Once he had discarded all her efforts, he slid the tray of fish filets, or the few remaining fish filets, onto the cleaned off counter. A knife flashed into his hands, though from where she had no idea, and he sliced along the filets. His tail abandoned the rag over the edge of the sink and stretched impossibly long to open her fridge. Almost on its own, the tail lifted the various jars stuffed into the side shelves in the door, then slowed to lift one jar then the next, one at a time. The demon glanced over, narrowing his opaque black eyes as if reading the labels. Then the tail selected one jar and brought it to him. He set down his knife and, taking the jar from his tail, unscrewed the lid. Taking an intense sniff inside, he stuck his pinkie finger in, then licked it.

“It’ll work,” the creature declared and set the jar down next to the filets. Then he turned back to the oven and opened it to peer inside. “I don’t like to be watched while I work,” he said, though he didn’t glance at the door while hesaid it.

Helena meeped and backed away from the door, holding her hands over her mouth to contain any other scream-like sounds from escaping her.

Oh, this was bad,bad, bad.

Demon summoning, while not unheard of, was highly illegal! She would have been better off being a drug addict than summoning a creature out of hell to do a deal with!

Her grandmother’s voice floated back to her out of the mists of her memory. “Ah well, you’ve already dropped the onions in the soup. Too late to take themout now.”

The old adage calmed her, and Helena decided that washing her face and combing her hair was a sensible thing to do. The mirror agreed when she got to her bathroom, and she felt much more centered after. “What do I do now?” she asked the mirror.

“Set the table!” the demon in her kitchen answered, making her jump. Though how he could hear her from there seemed impossible.

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