Chicken Soup Gone to Hell: Of Food and Other Demons

By Cara Wylde

I've always known I'm a terrible cook. But summoning a demon while attempting to make a simple chicken soup? That's just next level.

 

Asmodeus, King of Hell, ruler over too many demon armies to try counting them, is in the middle of my destroyed kitchen, awaiting an explanation. He says I'm a powerful witch, but that's just ridiculous. He says he's bound to me, and he'll fulfill any wish I have.

 

What do I say? Despite his horns, hooves, and tail, he's stupidly handsome. And I need to find a way to banish him before he gets under my skin.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Cara Wylde
• Release date: Feb 22, 2022
• ISBN: 9798201801199

Book preview

CHICKEN SOUP GONE TO HELL

OF FOOD AND OTHER DEMONS

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Copyright © 2022 by Cara Wylde

Cover by Otilia Jakab

All rights are reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher, except for the use of brief quotations in book reviews.

This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are fictitious or have been used fictitiously, and are not to be construed as real in any way. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales, or organizations is entirely coincidental.

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Table of Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

About the Author

Chapter One

Katie

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Eight in the morning, already on my second cup of black coffee, and I didn’t know what to do with myself. I kept glancing at the clock ticking away above the kitchen counter, but that didn’t make time pass any faster. I’d taken a free day from work because my dad was to be released from hospital later, after lunch, and I had to give him a ride.

Thinking about Dad, I sighed and shook my head for the umpteenth time in the past twenty-four hours. Once again, he’d landed himself in the hospital because he couldn’t be bothered to eat a salad from time to time. A huge fan of processed foods, takeaway, beer, and the casual cigarette, Dad was far from leading a healthy life. By some miracle, he wasn’t overweight, but his stomach could only take so much. He’d had another ulcer attack the day before, and I’d had to ask my colleague at the restaurant to cover my shift when he called to let me know an ambulance was on the way.

The lecture I gave him didn’t impress him. I knew what was going to happen next. He’d take his medication for a month or so, and stick to a relatively clean diet for less than that. It couldn’t be helped. He was stubborn. Giving up on French fries and his favorite melted cheese was pure punishment, in his opinion. Any chance he got, he made it known that he fully intended to live the last years of his life as a happy glutton. All I could do was be by his side, try to sneak in a vegetable or two when we had dinner together, and hope for the best. He was young still, and even as they admonished him, the doctors generally said he was going to be fine.

I wanted to believe that. I stood up and rinsed my empty cup in the sink. Yes, I believed that. I nodded to myself, then looked around the small, open-space kitchen, trying to find something to occupy my time with. I’d done all the laundry the night before, having found myself unable to sleep. My flat was in order, no dust to wipe off the decolored surfaces of the second-hand furniture, no random stuff to put away. The place was small. One bedroom, a diminutive balcony, no entrance hall to lead into the living room and the kitchen, and one tiny bathroom with an even tinier tub. It was a good thing I was a petite thing myself, only 5-foot tall, curvy, freckled, and blond, and I fit right in if I held my knees to my chest. But I’d been living here for nearly three years, the rent was cheap, and the place had come to grow on me. I didn’t need more than what I had, really. I was happily single, no cat, no dog, and I liked that cleaning once every two weeks was more than enough to keep the flat tidy.

My eyes fell on the notebook on the living room table. I’d brought it home the night before, after I’d found it among my dad’s things. The only reason I’d gone through the stuff under his bed was because I was looking for clean clothes to take to the hospital, and in the process of doing that, I’d also decided to gather all the dirty clothes lying around his house. A lost sock was poking from underneath the bed, and the next thing I knew, I was going through some old box I’d never seen before. Curiosity had gotten the best of me. I spent an hour looking at old pictures of my mom and dad before they’d had me, then pictures of me in a little crib. Nothing suspicious, really. The whole thing had given me a warm feeling. I missed my mother dearly, and I’d made a mental note to ask my dad why he’d never showed me those pictures before. And that was where I found the old notebook and, upon opening it, learned it had belonged to my grandmother on my mom’s side. The grandmother I’d never met, the grandmother who passed away years ago; I wasn’t even sure how many.

A cookbook. I took it in my hands now, opened it, and studied the recipes as I munched on my bottom lip. My grandma’s old notebook was nothing fancy. It wasn’t a personal diary, like I’d expected, but a simple cookbook she’d made herself. I flipped through the pages, feeling more and more like cooking wasn’t such a bad idea. If I wanted to make time pass faster, then it was, in fact, a wonderful idea. I wasn’t a great cook, and it was a lucky coincidence that I worked in a restaurant as a waitress. I always ate at work and brought something home with me. My finger traced the list of ingredients for a recipe that seemed to be calling to me. I felt the call like a soft hum in my chest. Maybe I was just hungry.

Chicken soup, I whispered to myself. Yes, that sounds like something even Dad won’t refuse.

I placed the cookbook on the counter and proceeded to dig for the ingredients. It was a simple recipe, and I happened to have everything I needed in the house. Even I could successfully make a banal chicken soup.

I filled the biggest pot I could find with water, set it on the stove, added a bit of salt, and dropped the chopped vegetables in. As I stirred slowly, my mind adrift, focusing on nothing in particular, I hummed softly. My grandma’s cookbook lay open on the counter, and I found her handwriting soothing. The flowery letters flowed beautifully, and as my vision went a bit blurry because I’d forgotten to blink, they seemed to dance on the page. I smiled, shook my head, and closed my eyes. I felt oddly at peace, and I thought... "This is