Cooking With Demons

I was trying to make eggplant parm and accidentally summoned a demon. In my defense, the recipe was handwritten in a thrift-store cookbook titled Nonna’s Country Grimoire and Comfort Foods, and under “marinara” it said, in curly script, “For bright sauce, invoke heat and salt to hasten.” I read it out loud because some of us have to narrate our lives to keep from spiraling, and somewhere between “hasten” and “heat,” my smoke alarm coughed in Latin.

The stovetop wobbled. The pot burped. A plume of steam coalesced into a shape that was mostly shoulders, horns, and an apron that said Kiss the Cook in ancient Phoenician.

“Which one of you said my name wrong?” the demon asked, blinking through basil.

“Ah,” I said, clutching a wooden spoon like a rosary. “I was trying to cook dinner?”

He sniffed. “You tried to ‘salt to hasten’ while stirring clockwise on a waning gibbous. Do you want help or an apocalypse?”

“Option A,” I said quickly. “Help. Very help.”

“Good.” He tapped his spoon against my pot. “My name is Varos, sous-chef of the Ninth Pantry. Who taught you to saute? You are torturing this onion.”

“I watched a video,” I said.

“Onion screaming, oil smoking, saucepan crying,” he said sadly. “This is not a video. This is a cautionary tale.”

“Are you here to… steal my soul?” I asked, because I felt like we should address it.

He glanced at the eggplant slices bleeding onto paper towels. “We’ll get to terms later. Right now, you’re salting like a Victorian ghost.”

“I’m salting!” I protested. “Look! Pinches!”

“Pinches are for fairies,” Varos muttered. “This is cooking. Wrist. Commit.”

He reached, and I reflexively pulled the shaker away. His eyebrows rose.

“If you wanted to fight,” he said mildly, “you should have summoned a gladiator, not a line cook.”

“I’ve had a day,” I said, and the words came out a bit soggy. “My friend is coming over in—” I checked the oven clock “—thirty-seven minutes. I told her I could cook. I lied. I mean, I intended to later acquire the skill. Aspirational honesty.”

Varos’s eyes, which were the color of oven coils, softened. “Ah. A dinner to prove you are not a disaster.”

“Yes,” I said, relieved that he’d gotten it. “Or at least a charming disaster who can follow a recipe.”

“Let’s make you charming,” he said, rolling up his spectral sleeves. “Terms. I assist, I taste, I leave when dessert is plated. In exchange, you will never again read incantations out loud while sprinkling.”

“Do I have to sign in blood?”

“Tomato puree will suffice,” he said, handing me a jar. “Open. Now. Salt with your heart, not your fear.”

“I don’t own a heart-salt metric.”

He guided my hand. His claws were surprisingly cool. “Taste. Ask: is this bright like afternoon? If not, more salt. Acid. Honesty.”

“It’s… nicer,” I admitted. “Like the basil decided to sit up straight.”

“Exactly,” he said. “Onions next. Low heat. Give them time.” He lowered the flame with a flick of a talon. “You’ve been trying to cook on panic.”

“It’s efficient,” I said. “Everything burns at the same speed.”

He grunted. “Eggplant?”

“I salted it an hour ago. The internet said exorcise its bitterness.”

“The internet is dramatic,” he said. “But correct. Pat it dry.” He frowned toward my cutting board. “Knife grip.”

“I’m not going to survive a knife lecture from a demon.”

“You will survive because I am here,” he said. “Claw with your fingers. Tuck. And breathe.”

“Do demons breathe?”

“Only when something good is about to happen.” He sniffed again. “Butter?”

“I thought olive oil.”

“Olive oil for the sauce. Butter for the breadcrumbs. We are building a memory she will try to chase down later. Memory tastes like butter.” He glanced at the clock. “Thirty minutes. Who is she?”

“Rhea,” I said, crumb-coating eggplant. “We met in a hardware store because I was holding the wrong screws with conviction.”

“You wish to impress her with competence. How novel,” Varos said. “Were you loved for your jokes when you were small?”

“How are you both Gordon Ramsay and my therapist?” I asked.

“We have continuing education,” he said dryly. “Dip, dredge, shake off. Yes. Gentle.” He tilted the pan, let oil kiss the coated rounds. “Do you see? The sizzle when it’s ready to talk but not scream.”

“Is everything therapy with you?” I asked, watching the eggplant tan beautifully.

“Cooking is therapy with snacks,” he said. “Sauce is good. Don’t murder it with sugar.”

“I usually add a teaspoon.”

“Do you like liars?” he asked.

“No.”

“Then let the tomatoes speak for themselves.”

“Fine.”

“Al dente,” he warned as I reached for pasta. “It means ‘to the tooth.’ Not ‘to the soggy regret.’”

“Everything in my life is to the soggy regret.”

“Not tonight,” he said. “Tonight, we plate with intention.”

My phone buzzed. Rhea: On my way. Traffic is feral. Ten minutes?

I held it up. “We’re going to die.”

“We are going to flambé,” he said, entirely too calm. He set a match to a splash of wine in the sauce. Flames leapt, kissed the steam hood, and vanished. “Now it tastes like you meant it.”

There was a knock at the door.

“That is not ten minutes,” I hissed.

Varos’s horns twitched. “She is an early person. You will be a person who does not apologize for being alive in your doorway. Apron off. Deep breath. I will… disguise.”

“How does one disguise a six-foot horned being in my kitchen?”

He inhaled deeply. His outline shivered, collapsed, and reassembled into a tabby cat with slightly too many eyes.

“You’re a cat,” I said.

“Everyone believes cats are demons,” he said. “It’s the easiest cosplay.”

The knock again, three patient taps. I opened the door to Rhea in a mustard blazer, holding a bottle of wine and a plant.

“I brought you basil,” she said, peering past me. “Also, something is on fire?”

“It’s called a flambé,” I said, I hoped charmingly. “And, uh, this is Cat.”

“Cat,” she said, stepping in. “Absolutely.” She kissed my cheek, then sniffed. “It smells… amazing.”

“Thank you,” I said to Varos under my breath.

“Plating,” whispered the cat, tail swishing like punctuation. “Crust under, sauce under, slices layered like roof tiles. No cheese avalanche. We respect the eggplant.”

“I respect the eggplant,” I mumbled, hands suddenly precise.

“So,” Rhea said, leaning against the counter. “Do you always look this competent before we’ve even opened wine?”

“Oh no,” I said. “This is an outlier. Please don’t adjust your expectations.”

She laughed, bright as boiling water. “You’re adorable.”

“Garnish,” the cat hissed. “Basil at the last second. It will blacken if you parade it around like a peacock.”

I tore the basil, tossed it, and something in the kitchen exhaled. I plated, handed Rhea a fork, and waited for heaven or hell.

She took a bite. Closed her eyes. “I’m going to need to sit down.”

“Is that—”

“In a good way,” she said, eyes damp. “It tastes like… summer in a house with creaky floors.”

My shoulders dropped eight inches. The cat hopped onto a chair and pretended to be disinterested.

“Who taught you to make this?” she asked.

“A friend,” I said carefully.

“Invite them next time,” she said. “I want to compliment them and also steal them.”

The cat yawned, revealing far too many teeth. Rhea’s eyebrows climbed. “That’s a very… distinguished mouth.”

“He has opinions,” I said.

“Don’t we all,” she said, digging in.

We ate. It was, against all precedent, quiet and good. We talked about nothing and everything: the feral traffic, her basil dying because she waters from a place of panic, my thrift-store cookbook with cursed marinara notes. The cat patrolled like a floor manager, smacking my hand when I reached for more salt and purring when Rhea laughed.

After the plates were mostly bread-swept clean, Varos—still cat-shaped—cleared his throat. “Dessert?”

“I bought gelato,” I said.

“Acceptable. You will add a drizzle of olive oil and a pinch of salt.”

“On ice cream?”

“Trust me,” he said. “We are showing her that you can be weird and right.”

I did it. Rhea took a bite, startled, then delighted. “Okay, that’s witchcraft.”

“Just good groceries,” I said.

“Same thing,” she murmured.

When she went to wash her hands, Varos flickered back into his truer shape, towering over the sink like a saint in a museum painting that could critique your knife skills.

“You did well,” he said. “You let someone see you not apologizing.”

“I couldn’t have done it without you,” I said. “I mean it.”

He nodded. “You will anyway, next time.”

“You’re leaving?”

“A deal is a deal,” he said. “Also, your cat impression is exhausting.”

“Will I—” I hesitated, ridiculous. “Will I ever see you again?”

“Only if you summon me correctly.” He tapped the cookbook, where at the bottom of the marinara recipe, in faint ink I hadn’t noticed, it said: For brightness, add salt, heat, and company. Stir counterclockwise only when making peace with yourself.

“What does that mean?” I asked.

“Don’t cook alone if you can help it,” he said. “Or do, but invite yourself to the table.”

Rhea’s footsteps returned. Varos winked, then dissolved into steam that smelled like tomatoes in June.

“Where did your cat go?” she asked.

“He’s… freelance,” I said. “He’ll be back when I’m dramatic.”

“So, like, tomorrow,” she grinned.

“Probably,” I said.

We took our bowls to the couch. The kitchen glowed like the inside of a ripe fruit. I tucked the Nonna’s Grimoire back on the shelf, sticky with sauce and secrets. Next time, I decided, I would read the footnotes before I accidentally raised the dead. And, also, I would remember to toast the breadcrumbs before I invited the devil to dinner.