A Demon's Guide to Wooing a Witch (Glimmer Falls #2)

by Sarah Hawley

Frustrated after centuries of deadlock with his main rival on the council, an aggressive demon fundamentalist named Moloch, and with the council muttering about Ozroth’s fitness to continue as a soul bargainer, Astaroth had rolled the dice. If Ozroth succeeded in his next bargain within the allotted time, Astaroth would win whatever prize or punishment he wanted from Moloch. If Ozroth failed, Moloch could decide the prize or punishment.

He’d been investigating Moloch for years, looking for a weak spot to target, and he’d finally discovered the evidence he needed to take out his greatest enemy on the council. Moloch might win this bet, but he would soon lose everything else.

Appearances mattered more than substance in his world. Reality was crafted from lies on top of lies, and Astaroth had long been the best liar of all.

Baphomet was the most important person in the room. He was the council’s nominal head, having committed to a centrist position, and he served as tiebreaker whenever the four conservative and four liberal demons failed to come to an agreement. He also played dictator as needed. It was his position both Moloch and Astaroth had their eyes on.

Unlike the other demons, his accent was crisply British, thanks to centuries spent living mostly in London on the mortal plane, rather than here on the demon plane. To better understand and manipulate mortals, he’d told the council. They didn’t need to know his reason for spending time with humans was more complicated than that.

They’d been born around the same time, and their fierce rivalry had intensified over the centuries as Moloch had become the preeminent demon warrior and Astaroth the preeminent soul bargainer.

“I did some research,” Moloch said, ignoring the barb. “The records around your birth are surprisingly sparse. With a mother like Lilith, one would think she’d trumpet the immediate arrival of an heir, rather than wait forty years to claim you as her son.”

There was a reason his wonderful, exasperating mother hadn’t publicly claimed him right away, and if it was revealed, the high council would never see Astaroth the same way again. Which would be a death sentence for his ambitions. Ambition—power—was everything. It was the only thing.

He was one of the few voices on the high council in favor of protecting the rights of the hybrids and nondemons who lived on-plane. It was a tricky balancing act, and without his input, more conservative voices would prevail. If Baphomet didn’t intervene—and he wouldn’t if the majority were in favor of Moloch’s plans—the council would swerve in a fundamentalist direction it would take centuries to course-correct.

Calladia agreed wholeheartedly. Every day, she felt worse and worse about . . . well, most things. Her dating prospects, her mother’s reign of terror as the mayor of Glimmer Falls, and all the ways life had gradually ground her down until she was more sharp edges than anything else.

That had been one of her kickboxing instructor’s biggest tips: people remembered what they heard, so if she needed to tussle, she should make it clear the other person had instigated it.

She’d always been a rough-and-tumble sort and had gotten in a variety of scrapes over the course of her life, but she couldn’t deny things had gotten worse over the last few years. Anger simmered in her gut on a frequent basis, an ember that blazed into violence with the slightest encouragement.

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.

Why had his past self chosen to make an enemy of her rather than seizing the opportunity to use those thighs as earmuffs?

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.

“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.”

Working out had been her drug of choice for years. She’d always enjoyed sports, and exercise was a helpful coping tool to survive life’s stresses—not least of which was the pressure exerted by her mother. The older Calladia got and the more she’d struggled with her place in the world and an identity outside of “Cynthia Cunnington’s daughter,” the more she’d hit the gym. Calladia’s mother wouldn’t be caught dead sweating or performing any kind of manual labor, and it felt good to have a hobby separate from her mom’s polished, fake world.

Her mother despised Calladia’s job, but Calladia loved it. Helping other people feel strong and confident was a reward beyond the paycheck.

“Lovely bedside demeanor you have,” he said. “Do you offer inspirational speeches as well?” “I prefer inspirational butt-kickings,” Calladia said.

Astaroth hadn’t glared at her in the woods when Calladia had come to help Mariel. No, he’d sneered, as if she were no better than a bug beneath his boot. With his suit, cane, and that absurd fedora, he’d looked like a Hollywood version of an over-the-top villain. Swaggering and threatening, puffed up on his own importance.

He might have the patience of an immortal, but she had the kind of patience that came from pure spite.

It was a cheerful setting for someone who had threatened to obliterate his testicles, but humans were odd like that. One thing on the outside, another within. They might not be able to alter their physical forms the way werewolves or shape-shifters could, but they were shifters of a different sort, adapting themselves to new environments with ease.

Astaroth found all sorts of bodies attractive. Each person was unique, with their own topography to explore.

There were few things as appealing as a woman who was comfortable in her power.

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. In the midst of that never-ending family drama, finally being able to buy a house with her own money had been a bright spot. A way to set herself apart and start building something of her own, untouched by her mother’s judgments.

The fact she was still moving, still planning, was awe-inspiring. Where someone else might have curled up in a ball and given up, Calladia had decided to fight.

This was definitely not a ridiculous urge to play the hero if Calladia needed saving. He positioned himself in the bushes below the window, straining his ears for female voices within. A strategy, yes. Some good, old-fashioned demon plotting. And if his fingers still itched to hack apart whatever had upset his unpredictable, cantankerous enemy/savior? Chalk that up to the brain damage.

Ambition could twist easily into ruthlessness, and if her mother had ever struggled to fit the Cunnington family mold the way Calladia did, there was no sign of it now. Cunningtons had always been socialites and politicians, as judgmental as they were influential.

Calladia hadn’t stayed in the guest room since college. The sanitized version of her childhood bedroom only reminded her that her mother would sanitize her if she could.

She liked her bulky shoulders and muscled thighs, adored seeing the lines of strength in the mirror, but even if she knew her mother’s idea of what a woman could be was outdated and reductive, the words stung.

Mushrooms do quite well in the dark, Mariel would say. They clean up waste and toxins in the soil, and they build complex networks underground. They offer a lot more to the world than just looking pretty. Calladia could be a mushroom. Better that than a delicate flower slowly dying in a vase.

“I know you don’t believe me,” Cynthia said, “but I’ve only ever wanted the best for you.” The worst part was, Calladia knew her mother was being, for once, entirely sincere. There was just one problem. “Your idea of what’s best and mine don’t match, Mom.” Calladia’s voice sounded as tired as her mother looked. “I just wish you could understand that.”

Did Calladia’s mother truly not see her daughter’s worth? Where Astaroth saw passion and fire, a willingness to fight for what was right, and an indomitable spirit and clever wit, Calladia’s mother saw . . . A disappointment.

“Why’d you break it off?” he asked, undeterred. “Did you castrate and disembowel him and then have to make up a story to explain his absence?” “I wish.” Calladia grimaced. “He tried to make me small.” She didn’t elaborate, but it was enough for Astaroth to start forming a picture. The kind of man Calladia’s mother would have found “high-value” was probably some snooty fuck with strict expectations of female behavior. There were far too many men like that, on Earth and other planes, and Astaroth despised them. Not that he wasn’t a snooty fuck—he was, and proudly—but he couldn’t imagine trying or wanting to shape someone like Calladia into another form.

“As your sworn enemy, I can reliably inform you he did not succeed. It would take magic beyond the most powerful witch’s abilities to turn you into anyone but exactly who you are.”

“I can see your soul if I engage my demon senses. All souls glow, but yours is particularly bright.” When he focused on it, it was like a miniature star centered behind her breastbone.

Hers would be one of the brightest, rejuvenating the demons who passed by and making flowers bloom in its wake. It would be nice to see that soul floating about, but the Calladia left behind on Earth wouldn’t be the one goggling at him now. Her combativeness and passion would fade, leaving an emotionless echo of the vibrant woman she’d been. She’d walk, talk, and act like a human being, but a crucial part would be missing. That shouldn’t bother Astaroth. An ache started behind his sternum, and he rubbed his chest. Why did that bother him?

It struck Astaroth that Calladia had a rather poor opinion of herself. Sure, she was a bitch—and he meant that as a compliment of the highest order, just as he was a proud bastard—but it was obvious she had a strong sense of fairness, and the way she spoke of Mariel indicated a deep level of feeling for her loved ones. Nice was too tepid a word for her. But loyal, protective, and determined to do the right thing? Those were traits to admire.

Calladia smiled at the people gathered in the kitchen. Themmie, of course, who was zooming toward her, but also the werewolf Ben Rosewood, a good friend and Mariel’s boss at the garden shop he owned.

The group was completed by Alzapraz, Mariel’s great-great-great-times-a-lot grandfather. When Mariel had heard there were demon issues afoot, she’d offered to invite the ancient warlock, who had more knowledge than the rest of them combined. No one knew what century he’d been born in, but he looked as old as he was, since he’d mastered enough life magic to extend his life span indefinitely, but not enough to preserve his health.

She’d mistrusted the big, serious demon at first, but she’d come to realize that behind his reserved exterior was a tender heart and a strong sense of loyalty. What he lacked in fancy words he made up for in actions, and his solid, protective presence was exactly the anchor flighty, dreamy Mariel needed.

“It’s an odd situation. They’re around the same age—Moloch was born in the late fourteenth century, Astaroth in the early fifteenth—and they’ve always been rivals. Astaroth has long been our most successful bargainer, and Moloch our most powerful warrior.”

“There are other strains of magic, though they’re just as rare as bargaining magic. For warriors, that’s the ability to summon fire.” Thanks to Oz, the group had gotten a crash course in demonology, including the disturbing fact that children were separated from their parents and put into brutal, isolating training to develop whatever skills would benefit demon society. Oz and Astaroth had the power to harvest human souls—the combination of magic and emotion—and send them to the demon plane, and Oz would have continued in that career if he hadn’t become an anomaly some months back. He’d accidentally gained a human soul during a bargain gone wrong, and it had given the previously stoic demon messy emotions, magic, and a human life span.

Moloch was clever and charming, with a legendary knack for brutality that made him a figure out of nightmares for opponents. Most demons enjoyed scheming, but Moloch was especially conniving. He’d built a web of allies across demon society, and it was an open secret that the conservative half of the high council followed his lead. He sought to collect as much power as possible while eliminating his enemies along the way.

Demons weren’t entirely emotionless—just less so compared to humans—but Astaroth had attempted to stamp out any weakness in his protégé. “He always spoke of the value of being cold,” Oz said. “With coldness comes clarity, which means you can strike even the cruelest bargains without succumbing to guilt.”

I would still rather see Astaroth in power than Moloch. Astaroth has an interest in human culture and supports protections for part-demon hybrids. Moloch despises anything other than pure demonkind and has long spoken of demonic supremacy over inferior life forms.”

“You like experiencing humanity?” Calladia asked as she drove out of the neighborhood. “That seems odd for a demon.” “Mortals live such colorful lives. It’s fascinating.” Humans were bright but fleeting, like flowers that opened at dawn and perished at dusk. He outlived them all, yet they still managed to surprise him.

The witch was mean. Oddly, Astaroth didn’t find it upsetting. He eyed her profile, amused that someone with the bone structure of a storybook princess had the manners of a feral cat. She was full of contradictions, which made Astaroth want to learn everything about her.

“Well, enemies base their actions on how they perceive you, so you can dress and accessorize to intimidate them or make them underestimate you. Or you can craft a persona that’s wealthy or chaotic or violent.” He shrugged. “Simple tactics, but so few people think of a personal brand as a weapon.”

“What else did she warn you about?” “She said they can never find out what I am, or I won’t be able to claim my legacy.”