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.