She nodded, then started walking away. “Well?” she called over her shoulder. “Are you coming or not?”
She was inviting him to join her? Astaroth considered her retreating form. She’d openly admitted to being his enemy, but she’d also admitted to valuing fairness, and it was possible he had other enemies lying in wait who didn’t have such scruples.
His eyes dropped to her arse again. Maybe fair fights and spandex had some merit, after all.
“Lead the way,” he said, limping after her.
* * *
Astaroth followed Calladia onto a street lined with shops and restaurants. Iron lampposts marched down the pavement, and humans, centaurs, pixies, and other creatures ambled by in pairs and groups, laughing and chatting.
A newspaper box sat at the edge of the curb, displaying the day’s headline. Astaroth checked the date.
He was missing over two centuries of memories.
Fear climbed his throat, and the nausea intensified. Panicking on a public street would only attract attention and convey weakness to any enemies who might be watching, so he shoved the fear down, straightened his shoulders, and resolved to playact this game of improvisation as well as he could until the memories returned.
A woman’s voice slipped into his head, echoing the thought. They cannot know what you are, she murmured in an accent as familiar as it was unidentifiable. The syllables were sharp, with the echo of antiquity laid upon them.
Who did the voice belong to? When he tried to think of people he knew, there was little to grasp onto. Apparently personal relationships had been relegated to the same dark hole as the events of the last two hundred years.
Dithering about it wouldn’t help matters, so Astaroth breathed deeply, aiming for calm. He caught a whiff of autumn leaves, cooking meat, and alcohol. Alcohol that was definitely wafting from his new companion. “Are you drunk?” he asked.
“So what if I am?” Calladia glared at him. “At least I’m not an amoral, insufferable piece of shit.”
“Ouch,” Astaroth said blandly. “Why are you drunk?”
“Why do you care?”
He shrugged. “It gives us something to talk about, since I don’t remember the rest of our acquaintance.”
“Not much of an acquaintance,” Calladia muttered. She sidestepped a gnome who had stopped to photograph a pumpkin. It was carved to show a grinning face, and a candle flickered inside. A word surfaced in Astaroth’s brain like a bubble popping to the surface of a glass of champagne: Halloween. An image came with it of small children in costumes begging for sweets, and the emotion that came with the flash of memory was warm and bright. Apparently he liked Halloween.
“Do you like Halloween?” he asked the witch.
Calladia’s forehead furrowed. “What?”
“I just remembered giving candy to children. It was nice.”
“What, to lure them into your van?” At Astaroth’s uncomprehending stare, Calladia sighed. “Yes, I like Halloween. But why would you hand out candy? And why would you think it was nice?”
“Why wouldn’t I?” He was fairly certain it was standard practice around the holiday, even if he didn’t remember much else.
“Because you’re an evil, despicable monster with no heart?”
“You have a tremendously poor opinion of me,” he said. “How long have we been enemies?”
They had reached a park set in the midst of town. At its entrance was a red clock with multiple faces and so many erratically spinning hands that Astaroth had to turn away before he vomited. Calladia studied the clock. “Approximately . . . twelve hours,” she said.
Astaroth laughed. “You’ve got to be joking.” When Calladia raised her eyebrows, he realized she was, in fact, serious. “That’s a short time to have formed such a strong opinion,” he said. “What did I do to you?”
Those blond brows remained elevated, conveying disdain and disbelief. “You tried to steal my friend’s soul and murder her boyfriend.”
“Oh.” That didn’t ring any bells, but he’d always had a responsibility to his species as a soul bargainer, so it stood to reason he was still up to it. He wasn’t as sure about the murder, but as he consulted his lack of intense reaction to the news, it didn’t feel out of the realm of possibility either. “What do you mean I tried to steal her soul?”
“You failed,” she said smugly.
That made no sense. Once agreed upon, a soul bargain was inviolable. The trade—a soul for a favor accomplished through demonic magic—had to occur, or the demon would never be able to leave the witch’s side. Maybe she meant he’d encouraged her friend to make a deal, but the friend had refused?
Pain spiked at his temple, and he decided to revisit that question later. “And the murder?” he asked. “Why did I try that?”
She threw her hands up. “Why would I know? I’m just the muscle of the gang.”
He looked her up and down again—quickly this time—and concluded she was correct. She had muscular calves, strong thighs, and the general build of someone who could do real damage, despite her lean frame. A tingle of appreciation raced down his spine. Why had his past self chosen to make an enemy of her rather than seizing the opportunity to use those thighs as earmuffs?
“So you remember handing out candy at Halloween,” Calladia said, interrupting his musings, “but you don’t remember trying to murder Oz or steal Mariel’s soul?”
The names pinged around his brain, eliciting a surge of dissatisfaction. “The name Oz is vaguely familiar,” he said, trying to pinpoint more of that elusive, unsettling feeling.
“Ozroth the Ruthless,” Calladia said. “Your protégé in soul bargaining.”
His headache intensified, and Astaroth rubbed his temples. “Lucifer, this is awful.”
“Do you remember hitting your head?”
Astaroth squeezed his eyes shut, racking his brain for the earliest memory after . . . whatever had happened to him. “I remember being on the ground and looking up at that Moloch bloke while he gave a speech about ending my miserable existence. Before that it’s just darkness, except for some snippets from centuries ago.”
The gap—nay, chasm—in his existence made him feel ill. How could he know he was a demon yet not remember his enemies? How could he remember giving candy to children on Halloween but not whatever had landed him in this situation?
Demons healed quickly though, so perhaps his memory was resurrecting itself one piece at a time, like a quilt being patched together.
It was concerning he’d only encountered enemies so far. He seemed to make a lot of them, but that could be due to sample size. “Do I have friends?” he blurted.
Calladia huffed. “If you do, I don’t want to meet them.”
The past twelve hours had apparently been upsetting for her, but was the situation any less upsetting for him? “Look,” he said, feeling a surge of irritation, “I understand you have some grievance against me, but considering my lack of memory, aren’t I the victim here?”