Moloch’s grin faltered. Then he recovered his oily smile. “Not if you’re dead.”
The demon held his hands palm-up before him.
Dread seized Astaroth by the breastbone. “Run!” he shouted, lunging for Calladia.
Calladia stopped in the middle of tying knots, her brown eyes wide with alarm. “What?”
Two fireballs appeared in Moloch’s upraised hands.
Moving on instinct, Astaroth grabbed Calladia by the waist and threw her over his shoulder. He sprinted toward the connected kitchen, where he’d spied a back door leading to the yard.
Calladia hammered his back, screeching protests, but there was no time to argue. Those fireballs were the trademark of the warrior class of demons, and they would do a tremendous amount of damage.
Astaroth reached the door and yanked it open. Her backyard was small, with a low fence separating it from what looked like a public park. “Cover your ears,” Astaroth ordered as he ran for the fence. He hurdled over it, wincing when the landing jarred his sore leg. There was no time to waste . . .
The air erupted behind them.
SIX
A roaring noise filled Calladia’s ears, followed by a cacophony of explosions and shattering glass. A wave of hot air smacked into them like a train, sending them flying. She screamed as she tumbled across the grass, shielding her head with her arms. A bush stopped her forward momentum, and she lay dazed in a cradle of broken branches.
When she looked back at her house, she cried out in horror. A plume of fire reached toward the sky, and black smoke roiled around it like a many-limbed monster. Ashes rained down, and the wind blew an acrid scent into her nostrils.
Astaroth staggered into view through the smoke, looking as battered as Calladia felt. “Come on,” he said. “We’ve got to hide before he realizes we’re alive.”
Calladia couldn’t tear her eyes away from the destruction. “My house.” Her beautiful yellow house. Grief tightened her throat and burned her eyes.
Astaroth grabbed her hand and tugged her to her feet. “Later,” he said. “We need to get away right now.”
Calladia was in too much shock to argue. She let him drag her down a slope toward a copse of trees. Astaroth was muttering as he patted himself all over with his free hand. When his fingers quested behind his ear, he snarled and tugged at something.
“Bespelled tracking device,” he said, showing it to Calladia. It was a small gold disk with miniature spikes covering one side. “Hunters use it on the demon plane; he must have applied it when we first fought.”
She couldn’t make sense of the words. My house, my house, my house. The mantra beat like a hammer, sending nails of grief deep inside her brain. Her eyes stung, but she couldn’t seem to blink.
Astaroth released Calladia once they were under the shadow of the trees. “Can you cast a spell to put the tracker back in the wreckage?” he asked. When she didn’t reply, he gripped her shoulders. “Calladia,” he said urgently. “The tracker. We’ve got to get rid of it.”
Right. She needed to send the bug back to the wreckage, aka all that remained of Calladia’s home. She’d dropped her string when Astaroth picked her up, so she yanked out a strand of hair. A few knots and a whispered spell later, and the tiny golden disk was flying toward the burning house.
The magic sapped the rest of her energy. Calladia sank to her knees, staring at the flames. She’d only moved in a few months ago. A lot of her stuff was still in storage, thankfully, but still . . . That house was her pride and joy, the evidence that she’d made a life for herself separate from her family. No need to ask her mother for a loan, no obligation to fulfill any expectations but her own. She’d renovated the neglected building carefully, then painted it yellow like a daffodil, her favorite flower, imagining she was helping it bloom.
In that house, Calladia had hoped to bloom, too.
Now it was gone . . . and she had demons to blame for it.
She turned on Astaroth, fury burning hot as the flames. “This is your fault!”
Astaroth’s eyebrows soared. “How is it mine? I wasn’t the one throwing fireballs.”
“You brought him here,” she said, poking him in the chest. “My house is gone because of you.”
“How was I supposed to know he’d put a tracker on me?” Astaroth asked. “You’re welcome for saving your life, by the way.”
Sanctimonious, despicable demon. “Ugh!” She threw up her hands. “I should have left you in that alley.”