Page 2

T hen Cindy Arrives

W hen Helena didn’t answer at first, the thing in her kitchen repeated himself.

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

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

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

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

“Just… just stay out of the kitchen. I’ll fix this. We can talk terms later,” the demo n 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 talki ng 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 he r kitchen.

“What… what have I done?” she repeated softly as she stared at the scarred wood of the 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 uneart hly being.

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

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

He nodded and went back into the kitchen. More clanks and clatters came through the 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 t he 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 l icked 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 he said it.

Helena meeped and backed away from the door, holding her hands over her mouth to contain any other scream-like sounds from esca ping 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 d eal 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 them out 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 t he mirror.

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

Lacking another option, she went into her dining room and stared at the long table she rarely used. It was her mother who had convinced her to buy it, insisting that with her new job, she’d be entertaining a lot more, and it would come in handy. That had been three years ago, and no one but Helena herself had sat at that table yet. Boxes of the Fiestaware she had bought for the occasion sat on its dark surface waiting to be opened. Pulling back the flaps on the first box to stare down at the serene white plate with the “coastal sea” pattern gleaming up at her in all its blue and indigo glory seemed discordant with what was happening. She had also bought glasses that were similar, clear glass tumblers with seashells etched into the sides and a whole other box of wine glasses along with two brand-new sets of eating utensils.

She stood and stared at it all like they were alien objects dropped off by a passing space-shipping company. It had been so much fun to buy all this , but now—

Just then the doorbell rang. Helena jumped out of her skin again then turned her head toward her clock. It was an hour and a half before guests were supposed to arrive, so who co uld it be?

After a pregnant moment of panic, the doorbell rang again. Lacking other obvious options, Helena went to her door and looked through the peephole.

“Come on, Hel. Open up. I got wine that needs chilling, stat,” her friend Ci ndy said.

“Uh, hang on one second,” Helena said, glancing back toward her kitchen. To her shock, the demon stood right next to her, his hand planted against the door.

She meeped again, only to belatedly cover h er mouth.

“Hel? You okay?” Cindy called through the door.

“Yeah, one sec. I just stubbed my toe. Hang on,” Helena covered, speaking through her fingers.

The demon leaned in until he was too close to her face. “Don’t tell anyone about me,” he warned in a low voice. Again his strange smelling breath washed over her face. She had expected him to smell like disgusting things: rot and dead meat or at least halitosis. Instead, herby flavors accompanied the warmth of his breath, making her mouth water. It didn’t make his threat any less inti midating.

“I-I won’t,” she said, shaking her head.

He seemed to accept that, straightening up before turning back to the kitchen.

“Helena?” Cindy cal led again.

Hands shaking, Helena managed to get her deadbolt and chain undone to finally let her friend in. Cindy stood on the other side, eyebrows pinched in concern.

Helena forced a smile as she leaned in to give her friend a much needed hug. “What? Did you come from the ER? You’re still in you r scrubs.”

“Yeah, I figured I could change here; otherwise I would have been late,” Cindy answered, crossing the threshold with her duffle bag and a paper bag holding two bottles of wine, lying on their sides at the bottom. Her friend wrinkled her nose. “What is that terrib le smell?”

“I…” Helena glanced at her kitchen door. “I think I’ve completely ruined dinner, and I have no idea wh at to do.”

“Well, let’s first open some windows and/or burn some incense because damn, girl,” Cindy said, dropping her duffle bag onto the couch before turning toward the kitchen. “And we still got time. How about we order some of that barbecue I smelled coming up th e street?”

“Where are you going?!” Helena squawked when she realized where her friend w as headed.

Cindy jerked, startled by her friend’s outburst. “To put the wine in the freezer to chill,” she said defensively, unsure of what she had do ne wrong.

“Uh, I’ll take care of it,” Helena tried to cover, surging forward to take the bags. “Just, uh, stay out of the kitchen. It’s a real mess in there.”

“God, you should see my place right now,” Cindy countered, relinquishing the bag and turning her attention to the new plates. “Oh my gosh, these are gorgeous!”

Much to Helena’s dismay, Cindy followed her into the kitchen carrying one of the new plates to keep up the conversation. Already in the kitchen, Helena spun around to block her friend, but it was already too late. “Cin dy, wait!”

“Oh!” Cindy said, her eyes landing on the obvious someone past her shoulder . “Hello.”