Well, if he didn’t want painkillers, that was his issue. Calladia rested her chin on her knees and planned her next steps.
First: check on Clifford the Little Red Truck. If Clifford was intact, they could drive somewhere and get help. Mariel and Themmie would gladly help with anything she needed, but she didn’t want to admit she’d helped Astaroth, so she’d need to come up with a version of the truth that wouldn’t make them ask too many questions.
Her friends would undoubtedly offer her a place to stay, but Astaroth wasn’t the only reason to avoid that. If Moloch was targeting Calladia, she’d be damned before she put her friends at risk. But if Clifford had survived, so had her tent and emergency supplies, which meant she could camp out in the woods while figuring out next steps.
Emergency supplies wouldn’t help her fight Moloch though. She needed to be ready for future battles, which meant finding thread and possibly potion ingredients, since her yarn and herbs had gone up in smoke. She should also probably review her Combat Magic 101 textbook.
Calladia’s stomach dropped as she realized there was only one option: she had to go to her parents’ house to pick up the boxes she’d been storing in their basement since college. She’d meant to clear out her belongings a long time ago, but since she avoided seeing her mom as much as possible, she’d never finished the job.
Cynthia Cunnington was a terror on the best of days, but if Calladia had to choose between facing her mother or Moloch, she’d pick her mother. Weaponized disappointment was easier to survive than a fireball.
They stayed under the bridge until the sirens cut off and the flames had been extinguished. Calladia passed the time by texting various people: her boss and clients for the next few days to let them know she couldn’t make their training sessions, her friends to let them know her house had blown up—it’s a long story—but she was okay and would stop by Mariel’s house that evening to update them. Thank goodness she’d still had her phone, wallet, and keys in her windbreaker pocket after hitting the gym, or this would have been even more of a disaster.
She kept an eye out for Moloch, but he never showed up, which hopefully meant Astaroth was right and the demon thought they were dead.
By midafternoon, Astaroth’s teeth were chattering. Deciding they’d waited long enough, Calladia stood, groaning when her knees popped. “Come on,” she said. “Let’s see if my truck survived.”
They took the long route around the park before circling toward Calladia’s house. By the time they arrived, the police and firefighters were long gone, and Moloch was thankfully nowhere to be seen.
Calladia nearly started crying with relief when she saw her truck parked at the curb, coated in ash but otherwise intact. “Clifford!” she cried out. She unlocked the truck with trembling fingers, relieved to see it was still full of her possessions. She climbed in, then traced her hands over the dusty dashboard and cracked bench seat. “Hi, baby,” she whispered.
She couldn’t stand to look at the blackened ruins of her house. She had insurance for magical mishaps and extraplanar acts of malice—any property owner in a town this steeped in magic did—but it was hard to imagine rebuilding. That little yellow house had been an extension of herself, a piece of her heart plunked down on a plot of land.
Her entire life, she’d struggled to break free from her perfectionist mother’s expectations. Too loud, too messy, too angry, too coarse, too unambitious . . . Calladia had been too much of all the things her mother despised and not enough of everything else. Cynthia Cunnington had wanted a politician for a daughter, polished and polite. Instead, she’d gotten the town’s most incorrigible tomboy, and Calladia’s rebellion against expectations had only worsened over time. Now relations between them were at an all-time low after Calladia had publicly opposed her mom’s plans to build a luxury spa in the woods—a plan Mariel had just foiled.
In the midst of that never-ending family drama, finally being able to buy a house with her own money had been a bright spot. A way to set herself apart and start building something of her own, untouched by her mother’s judgments.
Now her home and all its promise had been turned into smoking rubble, and Calladia needed to face the person she most dreaded seeing.
Delaying wouldn’t help, so Calladia cracked her neck and started the ignition. “Let’s go,” she told Astaroth, who had settled onto the bench seat beside her. “Our revenge plot starts now.”
SEVEN
Hours after the attack, Astaroth was still furious.
It was an ugly emotion, hot and stinging. It coiled around his spinal cord, balled in his gut, seized his lungs in a stranglehold. He clenched his fists in his lap, staring at his whitened knuckles. How dare that Moloch bastard try to kill Calladia? Whatever Astaroth’s history with Moloch, he was sure he’d earned the demon’s hatred on his own merit. All Calladia had done was try to help someone she hadn’t needed—or wanted—to.
Calladia drummed her fingers over the steering wheel. Her own temper was evident in her set jaw and the aggressiveness with which she accelerated after each traffic light. The fact she was still moving, still planning, was awe-inspiring. Where someone else might have curled up in a ball and given up, Calladia had decided to fight.
Astaroth rubbed the spot behind his ear where the gold tracker had been. The skin still stung where its tiny barbs had dug in, and he despised the reminder that he’d been hunted down like an animal.
A thread of guilt mixed with the anger. Despite what he’d said earlier, Calladia had every right to be furious with him. He should have been warier. Even with his amnesia, he’d known about demonic fireballs and trackers—he just hadn’t put the pieces together until too late.
He closed his eyes and breathed, trying to center his thoughts. The conflict with Moloch had shaken a few things loose, but trying to bring his memories into focus was frustrating. It felt like piecing together a puzzle, except the pieces were blurry and slid sideways whenever he reached for them.
Still, there was apparently a key to defeating Moloch buried somewhere in his memory. He just had to dig it out.
“I’m going to ask Oz for advice,” Calladia abruptly said. When Astaroth looked up in surprise, she clarified. “About Moloch, not you.”
“Why not about me?” He didn’t remember Ozroth—and the fact he couldn’t remember his own protégé made him feel ill—but Ozroth undoubtedly remembered him.