Astaroth made an annoyed sound. He started to respond, then winced and rubbed his forehead. “Lucifer, this headache. Zero stars for amnesia.”
“There are painkillers in my truck,” Calladia said. “If it survived.”
“It’s fine. Demons heal quickly.”
Calladia wasn’t so sure. He was still sporting a shiner, and from what she knew from other hyper-regenerative species, that should have disappeared by now. Then again, as Mariel had learned with Oz, demons were very different from how they were portrayed in most literature. Maybe fast healing was conditional, or maybe the knock on the head had disrupted his abilities.
Well, if he didn’t want painkillers, that was his issue. Calladia rested her chin on her knees and planned her next steps.
First: check on Clifford the Little Red Truck. If Clifford was intact, they could drive somewhere and get help. Mariel and Themmie would gladly help with anything she needed, but she didn’t want to admit she’d helped Astaroth, so she’d need to come up with a version of the truth that wouldn’t make them ask too many questions.
Her friends would undoubtedly offer her a place to stay, but Astaroth wasn’t the only reason to avoid that. If Moloch was targeting Calladia, she’d be damned before she put her friends at risk. But if Clifford had survived, so had her tent and emergency supplies, which meant she could camp out in the woods while figuring out next steps.
Emergency supplies wouldn’t help her fight Moloch though. She needed to be ready for future battles, which meant finding thread and possibly potion ingredients, since her yarn and herbs had gone up in smoke. She should also probably review her Combat Magic 101 textbook.
Calladia’s stomach dropped as she realized there was only one option: she had to go to her parents’ house to pick up the boxes she’d been storing in their basement since college. She’d meant to clear out her belongings a long time ago, but since she avoided seeing her mom as much as possible, she’d never finished the job.
Cynthia Cunnington was a terror on the best of days, but if Calladia had to choose between facing her mother or Moloch, she’d pick her mother. Weaponized disappointment was easier to survive than a fireball.
They stayed under the bridge until the sirens cut off and the flames had been extinguished. Calladia passed the time by texting various people: her boss and clients for the next few days to let them know she couldn’t make their training sessions, her friends to let them know her house had blown up—it’s a long story—but she was okay and would stop by Mariel’s house that evening to update them. Thank goodness she’d still had her phone, wallet, and keys in her windbreaker pocket after hitting the gym, or this would have been even more of a disaster.
She kept an eye out for Moloch, but he never showed up, which hopefully meant Astaroth was right and the demon thought they were dead.
By midafternoon, Astaroth’s teeth were chattering. Deciding they’d waited long enough, Calladia stood, groaning when her knees popped. “Come on,” she said. “Let’s see if my truck survived.”
They took the long route around the park before circling toward Calladia’s house. By the time they arrived, the police and firefighters were long gone, and Moloch was thankfully nowhere to be seen.
Calladia nearly started crying with relief when she saw her truck parked at the curb, coated in ash but otherwise intact. “Clifford!” she cried out. She unlocked the truck with trembling fingers, relieved to see it was still full of her possessions. She climbed in, then traced her hands over the dusty dashboard and cracked bench seat. “Hi, baby,” she whispered.
She couldn’t stand to look at the blackened ruins of her house. She had insurance for magical mishaps and extraplanar acts of malice—any property owner in a town this steeped in magic did—but it was hard to imagine rebuilding. That little yellow house had been an extension of herself, a piece of her heart plunked down on a plot of land.
Her entire life, she’d struggled to break free from her perfectionist mother’s expectations. Too loud, too messy, too angry, too coarse, too unambitious . . . Calladia had been too much of all the things her mother despised and not enough of everything else. Cynthia Cunnington had wanted a politician for a daughter, polished and polite. Instead, she’d gotten the town’s most incorrigible tomboy, and Calladia’s rebellion against expectations had only worsened over time. Now relations between them were at an all-time low after Calladia had publicly opposed her mom’s plans to build a luxury spa in the woods—a plan Mariel had just foiled.