Page 70 of Cookbooks and Demons

She pushed the closeddoor open.

“Cindy!” Helena shouted as she saw her friend lying in an overfull bathtub. Cindy’s arms hung on either side of the freestanding tub, her head lolled to one side. Her eyes were closed.

Helena slid through the wet, the opening now allowing the pooling water on the floor to crest out the door. Heedless of how soaked she was becoming, Helena’s knees hit the ground beside the tub as she grabbed at her friend’s face, mere inches from the surface of the water.

“Cindy! Wake up!” she shouted as her fingers moved to find her pulse in her neck. Holding her breath, she held still, struggling to feel for her friend’s heart over the sound of her own rapidlybeating.

Thump.

Tha-thump.

Tha-thump.

Faint, but it was there. So weak, so hardto feel.

“Cindy, please open your eyes!” Helena shouted, but Cindy didn’t respond at all.“Oh God!”

Helena scrambled in her pockets for her mobile phone, but her hands were shaking so much it dropped into the water. “NO!”

Grabbing it up the screen on her phone remained on, but the wet on it wouldn’t let her fingers unlock it. She pressed at the buttons on the sides to try to trigger the emergency summon five times, all while snaking her arm around her friend’s head to help keep it up. Somehow it worked, and the phone madethe call.

“911, what is your emergency?”

“I need help. My friend—” And then the phone died.

“No! No, no, no! Cindy! Please, open your eyes!” Helena’s voice cracked as her terror started to take over. Desperate, she threw her arms under Cindy’s, trying to lift her out of the tub, but she couldn’t get the leverage she needed. She was too heavy and the balance Cindy’s body had maintained on the tub edge was undone. She slipped under the still running water.

“Help me! Somebody help me!” Helena screamed as she desperately plunged into the tub, grabbing at her friend’s naked flesh to pull her back up to the surface. “Rafferty—”

She stopped. That wasn’this name.

“Lares!Help me!”

The tiled floor erupted with steam as the summon circle burned its way through the water. Helena screeched but didn’t stop as she pulled Cindy’s head from the water as visions of grotesque creatures clawed from the walls with whispers and cries of pain.

“Oh, just shut up!” she saidto them.

Strong arms came past her, reaching underneath the doctor to lift her limp body from the water. Sheets of wet cascaded off her body as she rose while Helena continued to protect her head, trying to keep it from whipping back. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw her demon shift to his human self, pulling back the eerie thrum of his presence behind his human facade. Otherwise he was as naked as he had always been when firstsummoned.

“Turn off the water. I’ve got her,”he said.

Immediately, Helena set Cindy’s head against his shoulder, then darted forward to do just that.

“What’s wrong with her?” Helena asked, then slipped only for his tail to catch her and steady her onher feet.

“She’s dying,” he said, his eyes roving over the form in his arms. “I can feel her life force bleeding away. She’s ingested something she shouldn’t have.”

“Can you save her?” Helena begged coming to the other side of Cindy, touching her friend before darting to grab up one of her overly large bath towels from the nearby shelf to cover her. “I’ll pay any price.”

Rafferty’s eyes widened with anger and fear. “Absolutely not. I won’tdo that.”

“She’s my friend. I can’t let her die!” Helena cried, her face twisting into an ugly sob. “Cindy, please open your eyes.”

“Hold on to me,” Rafferty ordered,sharply.

She didn’t question, only complied and wrapped her arms around his waist.

The circle beneath them burned into existence again. She hadn’t noticed that it disappeared before, but now it ignited to burn away the water it touched in a rush of scalding steam. It stung for a moment, but then was gone as Helena became aware of a sensation of falling intoan ocean…

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