Page 19 of Cookbooks and Demons

He sighed. “The black tea with a dollop of honey and a sprinkle of nutmeg and cinnamon. Chamomile tea with peppermint or lavender would be better, but you don’t have any. Black tea will give you an immune boost. Cinnamon for health, protection, and happiness… nutmeg is for luck usually, but in this case it just goes well with cinnamon.”

He stretched his arm to its full-length to hold the cup out for her to take. Her hands shook as she did. It smelled warm and wonderful. She knew she shouldn’t trust it, but she drank down half before she began to feel like the person who could make that sortof call.

The first thing the demon did was walk back to her shattered back door. He held out his hand toward it. A weird, unearthly, glassy sound slid over her skin, giving her goosebumps, and then the glass reformed itself in the door. He opened the door and retrieved her pan, then came back to drop it into the sink. Beside her, he resumed a squat, his wings wrapped around him, like he was trying to shield himself fromher view.

She licked her lips. “What happened to me?” she asked.

“I showed you what Iam fully.”

Helena shuddered with the memory. “I’m going to feel that in my nightmares forever,aren’t I?”

“Probably, but I don’t know,” he admitted. “I am an unnatural thing trying to force itself into creation.” He dragged his black nail along her kitchen tile. The nail left no trace but seemed to be drawing something, or maybe he just liked the feel of the semi-smooth surface. “We all crave it. Being here increation.”

“But you can’tbe here?”

He shook his head, which meant shaking his horns. “You feel it even if you don’t know what to call it. We just don’t belong here.”

“What’s wrong with where you are?” She took another sip ofher tea.

“It hurts to be there, like all the time. We can never get comfortable in our own skin. That uncanny feeling you get around me. I feel that about myself every second. And there is no reprieve except…”

She didn’t want to prompt him to continue, pretty sure she understood, but she did need to confirm. “Except when you consume the essence ofanother.”

“From one of creation, yes,” he said. He stopped his tracing and set his chin on his arms, wrapped about his knees. His wings hovered behind him now, as if he intended to fold them all the way around and hide. “You should sendme back.”

Helena shook her head. “This isn’t fair.”

“I did this to myself. I sold my own soul to another demon and got dragged into the darkness for it. I have no one to blame but myself, and you are not responsible for me,” he said resolutely. “As it is, I’m not really sure what we’re going to have to do to fix this current summoning without payment from you. I fudged the rules last time.”

They fell into silence fora minute.

“I have an idea,” she said and stood up to go to her fridge. While her legs were still wobbly, they held her. From inside, she pulled out a three-quarter wheel of brie and an unmarked jar. Then she grabbed some crackers from her cupboard and her charcuterie board. She set it all down on the floor between them, then knee-walked over to her silverware drawer to retrieve a butter knife.

The whole time, the demon watched her from within his little wing cave.

She uncapped the jar, spread some of the contents onto one of the crackers, then sliced off a thin piece of the brie to set on topof that.

“You should have done the brie first, then the jam on top of that,” Rafferty commented in a low voice, like it pained him to watch her assemble the snack.

“Noted,” she said dryly, not really caring for being told how to make her own snack the way she liked it. When she finished her preparations, she held the whole mess before her. “This is really tasty. You’re going to love this.”

“It’ll taste like ash,” he repliedbitterly.

“No it won’t,” she assured, forcing herself to smile. Then she popped the whole thing into her mouth. She held it there and leaned forward, beckoning him to dothe same.

“What are you doing?” he asked warily.

“Do that thing you did before where you pull the memory of this taste from my mind,” she instructed.

His wings actually recoiled away an inch. “You are crazy. You want me to touch you again?”

“I’m giving you permission to touch me,” she stressed. “Big difference. Now do it. I’llbe fine.”

He hesitated, but she stared him down, meeting his starburst eyes with determination. Then he shifted, the eyes dimming to plain darkness, but instead of the uncanny demon sitting before her, it was the man-form he wore before. She had to admit it made it easier to be close to him, not because of the unnerving appearance, but it felt like his demonic aura had lessened considerably. Like a dimmer switch just before it clicked off.

He then leaned forward like she wanted and set his forehead against hers.

Helena chewed the snack in her mouth and continued to breathe through her nose as the cold sensation rolled through her mind, leeching away the taste even as her brain registered it.There was less drama to it than before, no strange sideways feeling or whispers accompanying flashes of what she assumed had been hell. Just the ice cream headache, which actually lessened as she gave the memory away.

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