A Demon’s Guide to Wooing a Witch

Astaroth’s face hurt, and his brain was foggy. He stared at the angry witch standing over him, trying to figure out where he knew her from. She clearly knew him, after all, and she didn’t seem to like him much, despite having saved him from whoever that Moloch fellow was.

He tried to remember anything prior to the past few minutes. He had a jumbled impression of vaguely familiar faces, the flicker of firelight . . . and nothing else. Just the residual emotional echo of some horror.

Who was this woman? Who was the demon who had punched Astaroth in the face before threatening to skewer him alive? Why did his head feel like it was stuffed with cotton?

“What do you mean, where are you and who am I?” The witch crossed her arms, displaying a pair of impressive biceps. She was tall and lean, with sun-kissed white skin, long blond hair tied up in a ponytail, and a thunderous expression. She was wearing a pair of daisy-patterned leggings and a shirt that said Sweat Like a Girl. The cheap fabric of her leggings made Astaroth shudder with distaste, though he could admit it highlighted her arse in a compelling way.

“I can’t remember anything,” Astaroth said, rubbing his aching temples. His head pounded, and not just from being punched by Moloch. “I don’t know how I got here or where I am.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” the woman said. “Can demons get amnesia?”

He reached up to touch one of his horns. He knew they were black, the way he knew his name was Astaroth and that spandex was repellent in most contexts. But although he had a general sense of self, he had no idea what that self had been up to before the preceding minutes. “I suppose they can,” he said, rubbing his forehead with his palms. “Lucifer, my head hurts.” Pain pulsed inside his skull, punctuated by sharp, fiery stabs.

The witch shifted from foot to foot, looking between him and the entrance to the alleyway. “You really don’t recognize me?”

A thought emerged from the chaos in his head. “Are we lovers?” He had a vivid image of her crushing him between her muscular thighs, though he couldn’t tell if that was a memory or wishful thinking.

“No!” She looked horrified.

Astaroth winced. All right, not lovers. His gaze dropped to her thighs again. “Pity.”

She snapped her fingers. “Eyes up, asshole.”

Astaroth returned his focus to her face, blinking when his vision wavered. “Are we enemies, then?”

Her laugh sounded wild. “Yes, you could say that.”

“Ah.” He was off to a terrific start. “And your name is . . . ?”

“Calladia.” She dug her fingers into the top of her ponytail, messing it up, then groaned. “Hecate, what am I supposed to do?”

Astaroth forced himself to stand, biting down a whimper as he put weight on a sore leg. Clearly something terrible had happened to him before Moloch had decided to deliver a beating. “I suppose you have the advantage, since I’ve no idea what’s happening,” he said. “I’ve got to warn you, if you try to murder me, I won’t cooperate.”

Standing helped the pain somewhat, although the fresh surge of dizziness was unwelcome. Upright, he could recall that people had tried to murder him before. He had a flash of memory from one of the Jacobite uprisings or another, back when he’d dabbled in mortal warfare. A troll had swung a mace at him, knocking him down and leaving a dent in his favorite breastplate.

Why could he remember fighting in a Jacobite uprising but not arriving on this street in the here and now? What had he been up to since the 1700s? It was clearly a long time past then, but while he recognized various modern features—neon lights, the flicker of a television from a nearby window, the blink of aircraft lights far overhead—he wasn’t sure of his place among them. It was like receiving a script for a play that contained nothing but descriptions of props and staging, and Astaroth had just been shoved onstage to perform an unknown part for a hostile audience.

Calladia was pacing in tight switchbacks. Step step step turn, step step step turn. “Damn it,” she said, kicking a pebble into the brick wall of the alley. “I should leave you here.”

That was better than the alternative of her murdering him, not that he could see where she might hide a weapon in that ensemble. She could perform a spell to smack him into the wall the way she had Moloch though. “Ah, where is here?” he asked.

“Glimmer Falls.”

The name was vaguely familiar. He mouthed the words, begging them to spark a memory.

They did not.

Was Glimmer Falls where he resided? He’d bounced between various locations in Europe for centuries, though the details of where he’d lived grew hazy after the American Revolution. What a time that had been! Masquerading as a redcoat, he’d played all sides, manipulating countless souls out of magically gifted soldiers and commanders desperate for victory.

Given the accents surrounding him, including Calladia’s, he was once again in America. He couldn’t imagine having purchased a town house here, rather than in England or on the Continent, but perhaps his preferences had changed over the years.

He tried to think past the late 1700s, but it was like hitting an impenetrable wall in his mind. Even the centuries that came before that were foggy, available only in patchwork pieces. A country manor filled with blurry-faced people in formal clothes, a peaceful afternoon lying in a field while sheep ambled nearby, the glint of sunlight on bloody steel as he skewered the troll who had dented his armor. Even those images were hard to fit into a sequence, but at least something of his history had survived whatever trauma he’d endured. Hopefully more would return soon.

“Do I live in Glimmer Falls?” he asked, giving up on shaking the answer loose.

“Definitely not.” Calladia’s mouth twisted. “Moloch is going to come back, isn’t he?”

“Stands to reason, given how vehemently he dislikes me.” Astaroth’s forehead furrowed. “I seem to have a lot of enemies.”

The witch snorted. “Shocking.” Then she shook her head. “This is a terrible idea,” she muttered, “but I can’t fight you when you’re incapacitated. It wouldn’t be fair.”

The sentiment surprised Astaroth. “You care about fairness?” Moloch certainly hadn’t. Astaroth suspected he didn’t either.

Hang it, why could he remember the American War of Independence, but not the demon who wanted to kill him?

Calladia nibbled her lower lip and looked over her shoulder toward where Moloch had disappeared. “Look, whatever’s going on, I don’t want to wait for that dickhead to come back.” She pointed a stern finger at him. “But if you try anything funny, I will explode your testicles.”

Astaroth winced at the graphic threat. “Noted.”

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?”

She tossed her head back and laughed. The sound was as bright and bold as the rest of her and drew admiring stares from a nearby group of iridescent-winged pixies. Astaroth scowled at them, and their gazes darted away.

“You think you’re the victim,” Calladia said, turning to face him. They were blocking the path, but other late-night pedestrians wisely gave them a wide berth. “You, who tried to take Mariel’s soul. Who threatened Oz with a sword. Who tried to ruin their lives to win a bet.”

Astaroth perked up. “I have a sword?” Amnesia would feel a lot more comfortable if he was armed.

Calladia threw her hands up. “That’s what you care about?”

“What kind of sword?” He’d gone through a variety in centuries past—broadsword, rapier, saber, cutlass—and it was a relief to know some things hadn’t changed.

“Hopeless. You are absolutely hopeless.” Calladia started walking away.

Astaroth followed, pondering the likelihood she would tell him where to find said sword. He gave it approximately a zero percent chance, but might as well make an attempt. “Any idea where it is?”

“Up your ass,” she shot back.

“How unsafe.” Apparently she wouldn’t be much help in locating it, but something else she’d said caught his attention. “Wait, what bet did I try to win? What were the terms?”

“How should I know?” Calladia increased her pace, striding down the pavement like she could power walk him into the dust. “I’m not your nurse, your secretary, or your emotional support animal. Once I drop you off at the hospital, that’s it.”

He grimaced, trying to match her aggressive pace. Besides the splitting pain in his head, his leg still throbbed, and his ribs weren’t feeling great after receiving Moloch’s boot several times. “The hospital?” he asked.

“That’s where injured people go.”

Panic abruptly swamped him, and the same mysterious woman’s voice echoed in his head. Don’t trust doctors. They might figure it out. He still couldn’t place the voice with a face or an identity, nor did he know what doctors were at risk of finding out, but he knew—he knew—that bad things would happen if he went to a hospital. “Wait,” he said. When Calladia kept striding ahead, he halted, bracing himself against a lamppost. “Stop!”

She turned on him with an annoyed look that seemed to be her default expression. “What?”

“I can’t go to hospital.” He pressed a hand to his chest, feeling the race of his heart.

“Why not?”

“I don’t know.”

Calladia rolled her eyes. “Let’s just get this over with.” She started walking again but stopped when she realized he wasn’t following. “Are you serious?”

Astaroth’s breaths were coming too fast. Anxiety buzzed beneath his skin and coiled around his lungs and stomach, squeezing hard. Hot pain stabbed his temple, and all at once, it was too much to handle. His knees buckled, and he sagged against the pole.

“Whoa,” Calladia said, hurrying over. She lifted her hands as if to steady him, then balled them into fists and dropped them to her sides. “What’s going on?”

“I don’t know!” Astaroth shouted, losing the grip on his temper. “Is it not obvious that I have no bloody idea what’s happening or where I am or where to go?”

For once, she looked uneasy rather than simply pissed off. “If you go to the hospital . . .”

Astaroth smacked his fist against his thigh, instantly regretting it when the pain echoed in his bones. “Will you listen to me for a second? Or would you rather start speechifying about how horrible I am again, instead?”

Calladia planted her hands on her hips, not backing down. “Look, I’m being nice to you—”

Astaroth laughed. “This is nice? I’d love to see what you consider mean.” He should stop talking, but damn it, his head hurt like the dickens and his body wasn’t much better, and it was infuriating and terrifying to be faced with a black hole in the place of his memories. “Other than a few nonsensical snippets from centuries ago, the only things I remember are getting kicked in the ribs and you lecturing me about what a horrible demon I am. And Halloween candy, for some bloody reason. And now I’ve remembered one other thing, and it’s that I should never see a doctor, yet you are determined to drag me to some mortal hospital where Lucifer knows what will happen, just because you’re so eager to be rid of me.” He paused to take a deep breath, as if that might help him wrestle his emotions into submission. It didn’t, and shame fermented in his gut at his lack of control. “Look,” he said, digging his knuckles into his closed eyes, “just leave me here. Go home and forget about my horrible, evil presence. Soon enough, Moloch or someone else will find me, and you can rest easy knowing I’m no longer your problem.”

Calladia’s eyes had widened over the course of his diatribe. They were a lovely shade of chestnut brown, he noticed for no reason whatsoever. Nice eyes for a very not-nice woman. “That was quite a speech,” she said.

Astaroth bared his teeth at her.

Her eyes flicked to his mouth. “Point taken. But I can’t just leave you here to die.”

“Why not?” Astaroth asked. “Surely it would be a relief, considering how much you hate me. Why did you even help me to begin with?”

“I didn’t know it was you. I thought it was a stranger in trouble.” She tightened her ponytail aggressively, and Astaroth briefly imagined yanking on her hair instead. Maybe wrapping it around his fist so he could force her to stay still and listen to him. “And once I realized it was you . . .” She sighed. “Look, I’m not a bad person. Fair to middling, maybe, but not bad. I wouldn’t feel right leaving you alone and hurt with Moloch nearby.”

“But you do feel right belittling an injured amnesiac? Your morality seems to have a sliding scale.”

She shrugged. “I said fair to middling, not good.”

Well, at least she was honest. “My head hurts and I just want to sleep,” Astaroth said. “Can you direct me to a hotel?”

“Do you have money for a room?”

Right. Demons bartered, bargained, and traded favors, but money was the main currency of the human plane. Astaroth patted his pockets and pulled out a smartphone but nothing else. When he pressed a button, a passcode entry screen popped up, but he had no idea what that code might be. “Apparently not.”

“Right.” Calladia looked up at the moon, then checked a band around her wrist that held a digital display. Astaroth racked his useless brain. It wasn’t just a watch, but a . . . curses, what were those things called? The ones that tracked heart rate and whatnot, because humans loved to take any activity and suck the joy out of it.

Calladia made a face. “It’s really late.” She bit her lip, looking between the wrist thing, him, and the now-deserted street. “This is a dumb idea,” she muttered before squaring her shoulders and taking a deep breath. “You can stay in my spare room. For one night only.”

Astaroth perked up. She was taking him home? That was an improvement on You’re an evil, despicable monster with no heart. “Oh, lovely, thank—”

Calladia talked over him. “But there will be no funny business or mischief or acts of evil while under my roof. I’m going to weave so many wards, your testicles will be obliterated if you so much as sneeze wrong.”

So much for an improvement. “That seems excessive.”

“Yeah, well, sue me for being paranoid when letting a demon who just tried to steal my friend’s soul crash at my place.” Calladia started walking away. “Hurry up.”

Hostile or not, she hadn’t tried to murder him yet, and maybe she’d have more answers to help fill in the missing pieces of his identity. “I would never pass up the opportunity to bask in more of your radiant company,” he said, following her.

She raised a hand, showing the string that dangled from her fingertips. “Testicles. Exploded.”

He winced. “I shall be on my least abominable behavior.”