Taming Demons for Beginners (The Guild Codex: Demonized #1)(4)

Uncle Jack hadn’t been kidding about demon summoning being “lucrative.” This house had so many rooms that I was still getting lost on my third day.

Stopping at a window, I glared at the sprawling lawn, bathed in an orange sunset. Despite my uncle’s assumptions, I hadn’t moved in here because I needed somewhere to live—though I did. I was here because he hadn’t given me anything I was supposed to inherit from my parents. Money, even though I desperately needed it, wasn’t my main concern.

I wanted the heirlooms too precious to keep at home—specifically one keepsake that meant more to me than anything—and I was staying right here in this house until I got it.

I squinted at my reflection in the glass—my blue eyes narrowed ferociously behind black-rimmed glasses, my shoulder-length hair wild and dark around my pale face, my small mouth pressed into an angry line. Why couldn’t I give Uncle Jack a look like that? Instead, I crept around him like a scared mouse, staring at my feet and flinching every time he interrupted me.

Shoulders slumping, I headed toward the kitchen. Voices trickled out, followed by a cheerful laugh. The scent of tomato sauce and melted cheese reached my nose.

The chef’s kitchen dominated the house’s back corner: a high breakfast bar with beautiful marble counters contrasted with a monster-sized, stainless steel island with a double gas range, two ovens, and a massive range hood that descended from the ceiling.

Uncle Jack’s daughter, Amalia, and stepson, Travis, were bent over something on the stovetop that steamed in the way only delicious food could steam. Amalia was twenty like me, while Travis was a couple of years older. Unaware of my arrival, they dished food onto plates while Travis joked about something and Amalia laughed.

I hovered awkwardly, debating what to do. Telling my social-interaction jitters to take a hike, I got up the nerve to speak. “Hey guys.”

They didn’t react.

Too quiet. I tried again. “Hey guys. What are you making?”

Holding plates heaped with spaghetti noodles and thick red sauce, they turned around. Amalia’s gray eyes, edged in heavy eyeliner, went flat and the laughter on her face died. She swept her messy blond waves over one shoulder, grabbed a fork, and exited the kitchen without a word.

My innards shriveled like seaweed drying in the sun.

Travis shifted his weight from foot to foot. “Hey Robin. How’s it going?”

“Good,” I muttered. Nothing was good. Everything was crap.

“We made spaghetti,” he said after a moment. “There’s a bit left, if you want it.”

“Sure,” I told the floor.

A painful silence, then he carried his plate out of the kitchen. I looked up in time to see his back disappear, his tight t-shirt showing his muscular arms and broad shoulders.

I stood alone in the kitchen, furious and embarrassed by my inability to act like a socially capable human being, then approached the gas range. A pot and a saucepan held a few dregs of food. Sighing, I scooped the child-sized portion onto a plate. Maybe they thought that was all the food I needed. Short people didn’t require nourishment or something.

Leaning against the counter, I ate my inadequate meal as my thoughts jumped from my failed attempt to confront Uncle Jack, to my missing inheritance, to this stupid house and the demon in the basement. I didn’t want to be here.

I wanted to be home, tucked in my favorite reading chair with an old book, listening to my parents’ voices as they prepared dinner in the kitchen. We would’ve sat together at the table to eat, and Mom would’ve told me about the three-hundred-year-old book she was restoring for a client. Dad would’ve complained about his boss at the bank. I would’ve told them about the paper I was researching for my Roman history class.

Scooping the last noodle into my mouth, I set my plate in the sink and dried my tears on my shirt. Grief weighed on my chest, and I was desperate for something familiar—but what in this cold, sprawling mansion could possibly bring me comfort?

My gaze drifted to the pantry.

Five minutes later, I’d stacked the island with flour, butter, baking powder, baking soda, salt, shortening, white sugar, brown sugar, two eggs, vanilla extract, semi-sweet chocolate chips, and a surprising find—a bulk bag of pecans.

I searched the cupboards for mixing bowls, measuring cups, and utensils, and in no time at all, I was mixing dry ingredients in a bowl. As I worked, my worries faded. The unfamiliar kitchen didn’t matter. With each precise measurement and carefully followed step, I slid backward in time. I was baking in my parents’ kitchen, testing a new iteration of my chocolate-pecan cookie recipe.

The kitchen filled with the mouthwatering aroma of melted chocolate, and I tidied up while the cookies baked. When I pulled them from the oven, their centers fluffed with heat and edges golden brown, I could almost hear my mom exclaiming in delight. Leaving the cookies to cool, I finished cleaning, then stacked them on a plate.

It was a long walk to the bedrooms on the second level. I stopped in front of Amalia’s door, practiced breathing, then knocked. A moment passed.

The door cracked open and a gray eye glared at me. “What do you want?”

I held up the plate. “I made cookies. Would you like—”

“I’m on a diet.”

The door slammed shut.

I blinked rapidly, then exhaled. A dozen paces down the hall, I stopped in front of Travis’s door. Electronic music throbbed through the wood. I knocked. No answer. I knocked louder. The music pounded on. I couldn’t bring myself to shout for his attention. He was probably busy anyway.