SWNOVELS : Chapter 13
Calladia was not a graceful sleeper.
Astaroth watched the rise and fall of her chest beneath the sleeping bag. Her forehead was furrowed, and periodically she thrashed around, kicking or flailing as she changed position. She’d rotated more than a rotisserie chicken over the last hour, and it was tremendously fun to watch.
“Baggins,” she muttered, wrinkling her nose. “Shhh.”
She was also a sleep talker, much to his delight. Her soft breaths had been interspersed with nonsensical words and snuffles, and it made him want to know what she was dreaming about.
She shifted again and flung out an arm, smacking his cheek where he lay on his side facing her.
“Ow,” he said blandly.
“Pastrami,” she replied before flipping to face away from him. “Gimme.”
Astaroth yawned, and his jaw cracked. He’d slept briefly before Calladia’s latest dream had woken him up, and then he’d been too entertained to close his eyes again. It was also deucedly uncomfortable in the tent. Calladia had her sleeping bag, a pillow, and a narrow roll-up mat to provide some cushion from the hard ground, but Astaroth was left trying to fashion a cocoon out of three blankets she’d provided, one of which was an annoyingly crinkly emergency blanket. The flannel beneath him at least helped with the chill creeping up from the ground, but it was bloody cold regardless, and his neck had a crick after trying to use his dirty, balled-up suit jacket as a pillow.
After chugging a few bottles of water, he also needed to relieve himself again. He groaned at the idea of having to go outside. A light rain had started, pattering against the tent fabric. The sound was soothing, and it conjured up a sense memory of lying in bed in his London flat, listening to rain smacking the glass. Pleasant, so long as the damp remained outside and he remained inside.
His bladder would not be denied though, so he eased out of the cocoon and shoved his feet into his discarded trainers. He unzipped the tent gently so as not to disrupt Calladia, although if hitting him in the face hadn’t woken her up, it stood to reason a little noise wouldn’t either.
The night was frigid and damp. Rain tapped against his horns and sank into his hair as he made his way to the tree line. The sky was overcast, but as a cloud shifted, a sliver of moon appeared.
Astaroth exhaled as he relieved himself. Calladia had been right about demons having less frequent bodily urges than humans, so it was odd that he was sleeping, eating, and using the loo two days in a row, but maybe it was a symptom of the accident. His scrambled brain must be sending mixed messages to his body.
He tipped his head back, looking at the scudding clouds overhead. The moon peeped out again, then hid its face coyly. When another patch of sky was revealed, he saw stars shining brilliant and pure against the blackness.
There were no stars in the demon plane, only a perpetual twilight that ranged from gray to purple to deepest black. Mist wound through the city streets, and the golden orbs of human souls drifted like fireflies.
Those souls harvested from witches and warlocks were the key to the realm’s existence. Many ages past, the demon Lucifer had been banished from the mortal realm by an evil warlock. He’d opened a portal onto a world of dark, primordial chaos, but he’d brought the soul of a human he’d aided with him, and the light had pushed the darkness back. As other demons sought refuge from persecution, the lights had multiplied, and soon the plane was thriving. That essence—that pure, magical life—had been the seed to grow everything from red-blossomed fire lilies to three-headed hellhounds to the shimmering golden fish that leaped above rivers of lava. Without human souls, the plane would return to darkness, and its occupants would grow frail and eventually die—demons included.
Making bargains was a sacred responsibility, and he’d never hesitated to do whatever it took to gain those souls. Blackmail, threats, violence, manipulation . . . a human had to initiate the bargain, but some could be pushed into doing so, and others required a nudge to complete one after the initial summoning. If Astaroth could twist the words of a bargain to deliver less than what a mortal expected, so much the better. There was pride to be had in subverting the absurd deals some megalomaniacal witches and warlocks requested. One didn’t want to initiate an apocalypse while performing one’s duty, after all. As a tool wielded for the good of the species, trickery was considered a form of honor for demons, and no one had built a reputation for trickery better than his.
When Astaroth thought back though, he couldn’t remember many of his deals. A love bargain here, a revenge bargain there . . . The endless cycle of coups and fortunes and passion and violence blurred together. He’d meddled in the affairs of humans for centuries, but even revisiting a few impressive bargains, such as the kingdom he’d single-handedly toppled in the 1600s, elicited little enthusiasm. It was like flipping through the pages of a history book and reading the dry details of someone else’s accomplishments.
He sighed as he tore his gaze from the stars and headed to the tent. Maybe the last century or so had held more interesting deals, but of all the things he wanted to remember, those bargains didn’t seem that pressing.
“I’m too old,” he muttered, shivering as the night chill sank into him. Old and bored enough that bargains had lost their luster, and amnesia, while a devastating setback, was also refreshingly interesting. How else to explain the dullness he felt when thinking back on his exploits, versus the spark of excitement when he wondered what Calladia was muttering in her sleep now or what they would bicker about tomorrow?
Time wore everything down like water over stone. Astaroth’s body would never age—although it was certainly taking its time to heal from his recent injuries—but inside he recognized the dulling contours of his past self. He’d burned in those early centuries, consumed by ambition, drunk on the power of shaping worlds and lives. But life had lost its ability to surprise sometime in the murky past.
Calladia, at least, was always surprising. Mortals tended to be, with their brief lives and oversized hungers. Maybe that was why he’d started spending more time on Earth over the centuries, even if he’d sworn it was from a dedication to duty that allowed no respite.
He slipped into the tent and zipped it behind him. When he turned, he saw Calladia looking at him beneath heavy lids. “ ’S raining?” she mumbled.
“It is,” he confirmed as he toed off his shoes. He clambered into the blankets.
Calladia’s head dropped to the pillow. “Good,” she said, closing her eyes. “The sandwich is safe.”
He stifled a laugh at the nonsensical words. Still asleep, then, or sliding back into it so quickly that dreams and reality blurred. Soon she was breathing deeply, one hand curled next to her face. Her blond braid was a mess after all that thrashing, and a section of loose hair curved over her cheek, the ends tickling her lips with every exhale.
Astaroth reached out and gently tucked the strands behind her ear.
Then he turned over with a curse, putting his back to her.
As the rain and her soft breathing mingled, he wondered: Why, when he had been shivering a few seconds ago, did his chest now feel oddly warm?
They were winding down a mountain road the next morning, passing in and out of patches of mist. There hadn’t been many turnoffs, and Calladia swore this road was the one that old warlock had instructed her to take, but with every kilometer farther into the forest, Astaroth doubted this plan more.
Calladia’s fingers drummed against the steering wheel. “I thought you liked drama.”
“As a concept, yes. When it’s impeding my goals? Less so.”
He was feeling decidedly cranky this morning after a night tossing and turning. Calladia had provided him with a granola bar for breakfast, but his stomach still felt hollow. This frequent eating and sleeping business was obnoxious. Astaroth scratched his neck and glared out the window, as if the pine trees might answer for the wrongs he was suffering. At that moment, his stomach gave a loud grumble.
Calladia looked askance at him. “You’re hungry again? Already?”
“Another symptom of my brain damage, apparently.” A thought spun up from the hazy recesses of his mind: Bing might have information about amnesia. He racked his brain, trying to remember who Bing was, but came up blank. “Do you know of an oracle named Bing?” he asked. “I just had a random thought that I might be able to ask them about this.”
Calladia burst into loud laughter. Astaroth jumped at the noise, then found himself unable to tear his gaze away from Calladia as she cackled and slapped the steering wheel. “An oracle,” she wheezed. “You think Bing is an oracle. Even more remarkably, you use Bing!”
“No need to mock me,” he said, torn between embarrassment and a fascination with her amusement. She laughed as boldly as she did everything else, and as soon as the sound tapered off, he found himself wanting to hear it again.
“Sorry,” she said, wiping her eyes. “It’s just . . . gosh. I love that. Every time I Google something, I’m going to call it ‘consulting the oracle.’ ” She was still grinning as she glanced at him. “Bing and Google are internet search engines. You type things on your computer or your phone, and it shows results from across the web.”
“Ah. The internet.” That did sound familiar. He pulled the phone out of his pocket, tapping the screen and scowling when it requested a passcode. “If only I could remember how to get into this blasted thing.”
“You don’t have biometrics set up?” Calladia asked. “Like unlocking it with your fingerprint?”
The words felt familiar, but with little to anchor them in his head, the idea struck him as absurd. It was astounding how much had changed over the course of his long life. At the moment, his most vivid memories involved swinging a sword on European battlefields or entertaining queens by firelight. Now it was possible for a device the size of his palm to be unlocked with a fingerprint so the user could search the internet for information.
He slid his finger over the case, pressing it to various promising-looking spots. “It doesn’t seem like I do.”
Calladia swerved to avoid an oversized chipmunk sitting in the middle of the road—one with purple fur, wings, and fangs. “Probably for the best,” she said. “I heard it’s easy to hack those things with the right tools. Someone lifts a fingerprint, prints it on special paper, and bam, they can unlock your shit.”
Interesting. He’d need to look into that in case the technique could be helpful for soul bargaining.
Calladia switched on the radio and scanned through stations. Static, laughter, static, opera, static . . . then a familiar female voice danced over a rhythmic guitar line. Astaroth nodded along.
He didn’t realize he was quietly singing until Calladia gasped. “Wait,” she said. “No way.”
She was probably surprised by his recall of the lyrics—as was Astaroth, now that he thought of it. “I don’t know how I know the song,” he said. “It’s just familiar. Maybe there’s an amnesia exception for music?”
“Not that,” she said, flapping her hand. “You’re a Swiftie?”
He squinted, confused. “Is that a species? We’ve already established I’m a demon.”
Calladia cackled again, flashing her spellbinding grin. “So Bing’s an oracle and Swifties are a species. This is perfect.”
“Come on,” he said, once again annoyed and entranced. His lips tugged at the corners like he might join her hilarity, but fearsome demons didn’t laugh at themselves.
“Swifties are fans of Taylor Swift,” Calladia said once she’d stopped chuckling. “She’s a pop singer. Well, she started in country, but she’s branched out since then.”
Taylor Swift. He turned the name over in his head, but no images appeared. He shrugged. “Apparently I’m a Swiftie.”
This seemed to delight Calladia even more. “Me, too!” she exclaimed. She turned the song up, then alternated between singing—loudly and with a questionable understanding of pitch—and explaining the inspiration for the song. “She writes about her exes a lot,” she practically yelled over the music. “In this one, she’s singing about a guy she dated when she was younger. He was older and more experienced, so it was kind of a problematic age gap.”
“How much older?” Astaroth asked, intrigued by what she considered problematic. Three centuries? Five?
She made a face. “Thirteen years.”
Astaroth choked on his own spit. He coughed, pounding his chest. “You think thirteen years is problematic?” he wheezed when he was finally able to speak.
“She was only nineteen!” Calladia said defensively. “That’s a big maturity gap.”
“Huh.” Astaroth felt an odd tightness in his chest. It was worry, he realized, though why he should worry about Calladia’s age preferences was a mystery. “So you wouldn’t date someone thirteen years older than you?”
“I would,” Calladia said, “but I’m not nineteen. I’m twenty-eight. A lot of growth happens during your twenties.”
Twenty-eight. Lucifer, that was young. Yes, he knew she was human and thus subject to a short life span, but he hadn’t really thought about it specifically. When Astaroth had been twenty-eight, he’d been . . .
He frowned. What had he been up to at twenty-eight? He’d struck his first bargain around forty, but before then . . .
Fog.
Hang it, why couldn’t he remember?
“I guess that seems silly to you,” Calladia said.
Astaroth snapped back to the conversation. “What?”
“A thirteen-year age gap being problematic.” She slid him a glance. “Since you’re older than dirt.”
“I object,” Astaroth said. “Dirt is substantially older than me.”
“Still, you must have had, ah, relations with plenty of people younger than you.”
“I have,” he said. “Though it all blurs together after a while.” Nameless faces, nameless bodies, the dances of attraction or manipulation or boredom or some mix of the three. There had been princes and priestesses, demons and elves and humans. None of them stood out as being particularly remarkable.
“Hmm.”
He couldn’t tell what sentiment lay behind that syllable, but her jaw looked tighter than it had before. “You disapprove?”
“Not at all. If I was six hundred years old or whatever, I’d probably have a massive body count, too.” Her fingers flexed on the steering wheel. “I guess you get good at it after that long.”
“Oh, I was good at it from the start.” He smirked at her eye roll. “Why, looking for tips?”
He’d gladly give her some. Or literally the tip, should she express interest. The spandex had been packed away, but her well-worn jeans were just as much of a problem, as he suspected anything would be that had the fortune of cupping that remarkable arse. He eyed the fall of her messy blond braid over her shoulder, imagining wrapping the bright length around his hand while he thrust into her from behind.
His trousers grew tighter.
“No, thank you,” she said vehemently.
It wasn’t the enthusiastic response a demon might hope for, but it was the response he’d expected. Still, he deflated a bit. Metaphorically. The trouser situation remained an issue.
Calladia braked, and Astaroth was distracted from her rebuttal and his erection by the sight of a stop sign. The road terminated in an intersection, where a green sign with white arrows indicated what lay ahead: scenic lookout, 5 miles to the left, and fable farms, 15 miles to the right.
Calladia pointed to the sign. “Maybe Alzapraz’s instructions weren’t so bad, after all. ‘Head east and begin the fable.’ ”
“It’s a bit of a reach,” Astaroth said. “Shouldn’t he have said ‘begin at the Fable’ if he meant it as a literal place? Or, I don’t know, ‘drive to Fable Farms,’ if he really wanted to be helpful?” A certain type of warlock adored riddle shite like this, and though it was a solid branding move, it was deeply obnoxious for the people forced to solve those riddles.
Calladia flicked on her blinker. “It’s the best clue we’ve gotten, and I’m driving, so you can shut up and go along for the ride.” Her lips curved. “Or you can sing more pop songs. Silence or singing—those are your options.”
The radio had moved on to something jangly and unpleasant. He sighed. “Silence it is.”