Chapter Four

Mariel was giving him the silent treatment.

After her last rejection of his offer, she’d refused to acknowledge him in any way. Instead, she’d marched around the house, cleaning and reorganizing things with furious intent. Considering all the clutter, it apparently wasn’t a common occurrence. Ozroth’s own den back home was minimalist and tidy; he couldn’t imagine living in this sort of chaos.

He winced as he swiped a fingertip over her bookshelf and came up with dust. “How do you live like this?”

She made an angry noise but otherwise ignored him.

“I can see the root of the problem,” Ozroth said as he followed her into the hallway, where she grabbed fresh linens from the closet. “Magic requires specificity, precision, and order. If you get a single motion, rune, or incantation syllable wrong, the entire spell falls apart. And that’s before you take into account the caster’s thoughts and intentions.”

“Can’t see what that has to do with my bookshelf,” she muttered under her breath.

“If you’re disorganized in one part of your life, you’re disorganized in another.” He followed her into the bedroom, recoiling at the sight of clothes piled high in the corner. “Are those clean or dirty?”

She ignored him while she stripped the bed. The sheets were yellow, and a puff of floral scent burst into the air as she flung them aside. Ozroth inhaled deeply, wondering if everything she touched smelled like that. He wandered over to the pile of clothes, picked up a shirt, and sniffed.

“Hey!” Apparently he’d alarmed her into speaking directly to him again. “What are you doing with my clothes?”

“Finding out if they’re clean or dirty.” These smelled clean, with a faint undertone of detergent. “What’s the point in washing your clothes if you don’t hang them up?” he grumbled as he folded a T-shirt. “They’ll get wrinkled, and you’ll have to wash them all over again.”

“I don’t care if they’re wrinkled.”

“Well, I do.” Ozroth started going through drawers, trying to figure out her organizational system. There wasn’t one, as far as he could tell. The fabrics clung together, and he winced at a blue zap of static electricity from a drawer pull. Did she even use dryer sheets? “Where do shirts go?”

“Clauseyez il pectum!” The drawer slammed shut so fast he almost lost his fingers. She glared at him, one hand on her hip and one pointing at her drawer. “You do not get to go through my things.” Then her eyes widened. “I shut the drawer.”

His brows drew together. “So?” Small magic like that was so simple, a witch didn’t need the power boost provided by physical rituals like chalking or weaving thread.

For the first time in their brief and odd acquaintance, a smile lifted the corners of her mouth. It was a nice mouth, he realized, with a precise dip at the top and a full bottom lip. It fit with the soft beauty of her other features. “It didn’t explode.”

“You normally can’t even manage a spell that simple?” Ozroth asked disbelievingly.

Her face fell. “Dick,” she muttered before turning her attention back to the bed.

A stab of guilt went through Ozroth’s chest. He winced, rubbing over his heart. Absolutely not, he told the soul that throbbed with sympathy for the girl. Quit acting up. Being an excellent soul bargainer required emotional coldness and clarity of vision: things Ozroth hadn’t struggled with before the bargain gone wrong. Now, it was a daily struggle not to become embroiled in emotional reactions more suited to the brief lives of mortals.

He shoved the sympathy down and focused on more practical matters. The stronger the witch’s soul when he took it, the more good it would do his reputation. “What went differently that time?” he asked as he carried an armful of garishly colorful dresses towards the closet. Thankfully, she at least owned hangers. “Why did it work?”

“Hecate knows.” When she turned to see him hanging up her dresses, she grimaced. “Why are you putting away my clothes?”

“Someone needs to. I’m about to break out in hives.” Mariel’s chaos made him itchy, and he’d only been here a few hours.

“Do demons get hives?” she asked.

“This one will if you leave clothes piled on the floor.”

She walked over, ripped a purple dress out of his hands, and threw it on the floor. “There,” she said, crossing her arms. “If you don’t like it, don’t stay.”

Undeterred, Ozroth picked up the dress and carried on organizing. “You can’t stop me. Unless you want to strike a bargain?”

“Ugh!” She threw up her hands, then grabbed the clean powder-blue sheets. “You are impossible.”

They worked in silence for a few minutes, and the tension slowly drained out of Ozroth. He liked things in their proper places. Without order, there was no meaning. No purpose. Astaroth had taught him that early on, when Ozroth had been an insecure demon child desperate to prove his worth. Material possessions should be as minimal as possible and meticulously organized. By taking control of the world around him, he also took control of himself.

Considering the state of the witch’s room, it was no wonder she struggled with magic. “Seriously though,” he said, “what was different about this time you used magic?”

Her movements slowed as she considered the question. “I don’t know. I didn’t think about it.”

“Do you normally think about it?”

She huffed. “Obviously. Everyone’s always yammering on about the importance of intent, and the language of magic is disgustingly complicated.”

Ozroth considered the words. “So you acted on instinct, and it worked better than when you do things more deliberately.”

She glared at him. “I was also mad at you. Normally I don’t have a pain-in-the-ass demon messing with my things.”

He wondered if he’d ever get used to her disrespect. “You know no one talks to demons like this, right?”

“Well, I do.” She returned her attention to tucking the sheet in.

Horror filled him at the sight. “Have you ever heard of hospital corners?”

“Yes,” she said, continuing to stuff the sheet under the mattress in haphazard clumps. Her head snapped up, and he was coming to recognize the expression she wore when she was about to ask a random question. “Wait, do demons have hospitals? Aren’t you immortal?”

This was too much. “Move,” he snapped, getting into her space.

“Hey!” She smacked his arm when he nudged her aside. “Stop touching my shit!”

He ignored her in favor of redoing the fold. Soon, the sheet was fitted tightly, the corners perfectly creased. He stepped back, brushing his hands with satisfaction.

When he turned, he found her gaping at him. “What?” he asked.

“A demon just made my bed.” Mariel’s nose wrinkled. “That’s . . . bizarre.”

“For the small price of your soul, I’ll clean your whole house.” It wouldn’t be the most pathetic soul bargain ever struck, though it would be close.

“Tempting,” she said, “but no.”

She headed outside, and Ozroth followed, never letting her get more than a few feet away. If she planned to try to outlast him, he planned to be as annoying as possible. By the way she kept grumbling and glowering at him, it was working.

He followed her into a small greenhouse, then stopped in the entrance. Life burst in every corner, and the air was heavy with the rich floral scent he’d smelled on her sheets. “This is surprisingly organized,” he said, noting the way she’d arranged the plants in neat lines.

In response, she flipped him off.

He watched as she wandered through the plants, whispering to them and stroking them. They stroked her back, twining in her hair and patting her shoulders as if comforting her.

A sharp pain in the back of his hand made him jump. He glared at the offender—a rosebush that was drawing its sharp thorns back. “Using your garden magic for ill?” he called over his shoulder.

She huffed. “They’re only protecting me.”

“You do realize the intention comes from you, right? They aren’t acting on their own.”

He wondered how many of her glares he would accumulate before their bargain was out. Each one sent a simmer through him, a flash of amusement mixed with outrage at her gall. “Don’t talk about my plants like that,” she snapped. A lily brushed its petals against her hand. “They do what they like.”

Another obnoxious, unwelcome pang of feeling struck him. She was clearly trying to self-soothe with the plants and had apparently convinced herself they were her friends. In reality, they cared as little for her as a stone would. She was the engine powering their movements.

“I’ll stop talking about your plants if you—”

“Nope,” she said, turning away.

The day progressed like that, with Ozroth trying to wear Mariel down and Mariel cycling between ignoring him and being outright rude. It became a strange game—how many things could he offer in exchange for her soul?

A rare orchid. A kitchen renovation. A sports car to replace her bicycle.

She rejected them all. As Ozroth followed her around, his mind churned over the question of what Mariel Spark wanted more than anything else in the world.

Normally it was a cliché answer: money, love, sex, revenge, or power. Sometimes witches and warlocks had more personal needs, like a resurrected loved one or the curing of a terminal illness. He had a feeling Mariel was more likely to be enticed by the latter category than the former.

“Has anyone you love died recently?” he asked.

She’d been poring over spell books at the kitchen table, and at the words, her head popped up. “What kind of question is that?”

“I can resurrect them.” It took a lot of effort, and reanimated corpses smelled awful at first, but if that was what it took to win Mariel’s soul for the demon plane, he’d do it gladly.

A disgusted look crossed her face. “That’s a terrible offer.”

“Is it?”

“I certainly wouldn’t want to be brought back to life. And what about decomposition?”

All right, no reanimating dead relatives. “Would you like a basket of kittens?” he asked, trying another tack. “Think what good company they’d be.”

She shook her head, making her curls bounce. “Just . . . shut up for a bit, will you?”

It was his turn to glare at her. “You are the rudest human I’ve ever encountered.”

“That’s too bad,” she said, shoulder checking him as she left the kitchen. “You deserve way worse than this.”

      *

That evening, Ozroth watched as Mariel practiced summoning. She stood in the kitchen, which seemed to be her favorite room of the house, scowling at the pentagram she’d chalked onto the countertop. The kitchen, like the greenhouse, was far more orderly than the rest of the house, and Ozroth suspected Mariel only put effort in for things she cared about deeply. Why her magic wouldn’t be in that category was a mystery he planned to solve.

“The lines aren’t straight,” he said, eyeing her pentagram.

“Very helpful,” she muttered. Then she sighed and wiped the lines clean. “How does anyone do this?”

“Practice.”

She grabbed a yardstick from the pantry, then placed it on the counter and chalked along it. “I’m a joke of a witch. Can’t even draw a straight line.”

He didn’t answer, instead leaning against the fridge with his arms crossed as he waited to see what she would do or say next.

“Mom says the stars told her I have the potential to be a ruler.” She laughed bitterly. “She must have misheard. I have the potential to use a ruler.” She punctuated the words with a whack of the yardstick against the counter.

It was clear Diantha Spark had done damage to Mariel’s self-confidence. Maybe this was the key to her soul. Ozroth couldn’t use his power to make her better at magic—that would contradict the necessary requirement of taking her magic—but maybe he could seize one of those insecurities and dig until he found her breaking point. “Do you think she loves you?” he asked.

Her entire body jerked. “Of course she does.” She blinked rapidly. “Right?” The last word was whispered so quietly, he knew it wasn’t meant for him.

“Hmm,” was all he said. He winced as an ache started in his chest. His soul was determined to have a conscience, despite the fact that Ozroth had done far worse to force a bargain in the past, from kidnapping loved ones to light torture. He ignored the emotion and focused on watching the witch work.

Mariel muttered to herself as she continued sketching the pentagram. He caught only stray words, demon and prick among them.

It was true—Ozroth was a prick. Keeping the demon plane—and his people—alive meant using any and every tactic to exploit vulnerabilities. Threats, coercion, blackmail, seduction . . .

He considered the last one, eyes tracing over her form. She was beautiful, there was no doubt about that. Curvaceous, too, with wide hips and thick thighs made for gripping. Did she have anyone to pleasure her? Diantha Spark had seemed to think not, so maybe that was another avenue he could exploit.

“Is anyone fucking you?” he asked.

The chalk snapped in half. Mariel turned, pointing the jagged piece at him. “That is none of your business.”

He could read the answer in the way her eyes met his, then darted away. “Would you like to be fucked?” It would be a new angle for Ozroth the Ruthless, who had built a reputation on more aggressive deals, but he didn’t mind the concept. In fact, he thought, as he eyed those hips, it was more than a little appealing.

“You have terrible manners,” she said, turning back to her pentagram. Her cheeks were pink.

“So you do want to be fucked.”

“What I want,” she said, scribbling aggressively, “is for you to shut up and let me work on my spellcraft!”

“I’ll shut up if you—”

“No!” She closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose. “Honestly, it’s like having a toddler.”

That was the most offensive thing she’d said yet. “I am more than two hundred years old,” he said, sounding pissy even to himself. “Hardly a toddler.”

She ignored him, chalking runes faster. Then she closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “Volupto e ayorsin!”

There was a flash of light . . .

And a giant purple dildo manifested on the counter.

They both stared at it for a long, silent moment. Ozroth eyed the veins, the glitter, the sheer size of the thing, and decided Mariel was, if not realistic, at least ambitious. Even he was no match for that monstrosity.

“Oh, no.” The words came out of Mariel’s mouth at an unnaturally high pitch. She hurriedly started erasing and reversing the symbols. “No, no, no.”

Ozroth’s lips twitched. “That answers the question of whether or not you want to be fucked.”

Chalk scraped over the counter. “We are not discussing this.” Mariel closed her eyes. “Aufrasen e volupto!”

The dildo vanished in a puff of smoke.

Mariel stared at the empty spot on the counter. “It worked,” she said, sounding shocked. “That never works.”

“Never?”

She shook her head.

“So what went differently this time?” Ozroth pressed. Dildo aside, he was fascinated by the witch’s vast magic and seeming inability to manage it.

“I really, really wanted that thing out of here,” she muttered.

“Intent,” Ozroth said. “And focus. You only cared about one thing—demanifesting the dildo.” He tapped his fingers on his bicep, considering the puzzle of the witch. She had so much raw power—perhaps the problem was that she had no ability to use it precisely. “You need to bring structure to your magic. Once your mind and rituals are more organized, you’ll be better at this.”

“I don’t want your magic advice.” She pressed the heels of her palms into her eyes. “I don’t want anything from you.”

For some reason, the words stung. Ozroth rubbed his chest, wondering what his unwelcome soul had taken offense to now.

He hadn’t understood at the time of that fateful deal exactly what he was getting into. He’d been making deals for hundreds of years, after all, and he’d never come out the worse for one. So even if the dying warlock’s request a few months ago had been odd, he’d thought nothing of the strange wording.

My soul for a painless passing, and may it pass then to where there is pain. Solum te aufrasil.

Typical cryptic warlock bullshit. Ozroth the Ruthless had been cold as ice since he’d begun his training under Astaroth centuries ago; what did it matter what good the old fool thought he was doing with his soul? There was pain in every plane of existence. This soul would light the demon realm like all the rest.

Except it hadn’t.

After the old warlock had breathed his final, painless breath, the soul had risen out of the corpse, a golden orb visible only to demon eyes. And then, to Ozroth’s shock, it had sunk into his own chest, filling him with warmth and an entire encyclopedia’s worth of feelings he had no idea what to do with.

A demon with a human soul. There had never been such a thing in recorded history.

Mariel was rummaging in the refrigerator now, pulling out meat and vegetables. She poured olive oil into a cast-iron skillet and turned on the burner before beginning to chop onions and peel garlic. The onion made a hissing sound as it hit the hot oil.

Soon the kitchen smelled like spice and garlic, and Ozroth’s stomach grumbled. He frowned down at his abdomen. Demons ate less frequently than humans and solely for sustenance. For some reason, the warlock’s soul had enhanced his sense of taste and smell, too. Rather than eating once every two weeks to maintain his strength, now Ozroth couldn’t go more than a day without food. Similarly, he needed nightly sleep, too, which was proving to be a massive waste of time.

The meal took shape—pasta with a rich, meaty tomato sauce. As Mariel stirred, Ozroth stared, mouth watering at the thought of what that sauce would taste like. Maybe he could steal a bite when she was done . . .

“Where are you staying?” Mariel asked.

He snapped out of his intense focus on the food. “What?”

“Where are you spending the night?”

His brow furrowed. “I told you, I can’t leave until we strike a bargain.”

“Yeah, but I thought—isn’t there a hotel you can go to or something?”

Truthfully, Ozroth could probably find one close enough to be within the parameters of their new bond—he didn’t have to be in the same room, just within a few miles’ radius—but that required effort, and it would mean less time spent figuring out what Mariel’s deepest desire was. The longer it took him to strike this bargain, the worse he would look in Astaroth’s eyes. “No,” he said.

“Great,” she said with zero enthusiasm, resuming stirring. “An unwanted demonic houseguest.”

“You’re the one who summoned me,” he said, offended by the dismissal.

“And believe me, it was the worst mistake of my life.”

Ozroth’s chest was tight, and his stomach was starting to feel sour, so he turned and stalked out of the kitchen. Lucifer, why did so many human emotions feel like physical illness? It was a wonder humans didn’t visit the doctor on an hourly basis. Then again, Glimmer Falls was located in America, and news of the horrors of the American medical system had reached even the demon plane. “Admirable,” Astaroth had once said. “We could stand to learn a few things about ruthless manipulation and one-sided bargains from American healthcare insurers.”

Ozroth sat on the couch in the darkened living room, looking out the window at the occasional headlights that passed by. It was foolish to feel offended. Foolish to give one witch’s words the power to hurt him. But his soul apparently liked hurting, because the ache in his chest didn’t let up.

Had anyone ever wanted him around?

He’d never considered the question before. Bargains were transactions: he was chosen by desperate witches because of what he could do, not who he was. He socialized the normal amount for a bargainer in the demon plane—which was to say, barely at all—but the friendships there were more like alliances.

Or maybe that was just how he had seen them.

Demons weren’t entirely emotionless, of course; their range was just more limited than humans’. If he had to describe the experience, it would be like eating meat and potatoes all your life, then suddenly being exposed to a buffet filled with cuisine from around the world. New flavors, new feelings, new shades of experience.

Maybe the transformation had been especially startling because Astaroth had liked Ozroth cold, like all legendary soul collectors. For the elite few who kept their realm alive, feelings were a weakness to be rooted out through strict training and punishment. Other demons could express emotions or form relationships, but Ozroth had been trained since childhood not to acknowledge or allow any such vulnerability. Sentiment was too easily exploited by enemies—a fact bargainers knew better than anyone, since that exploitation was their bread and butter.

The creak of a floorboard drew his attention away from the window. Mariel stood in the doorway, silhouetted by warm kitchen light. She held a steaming bowl in her hand. “Dinner?” she said hesitantly.

He was confused. “Yes, you are having dinner.”

She sighed and set the bowl on the floor. “Fine, eat out here if you want.”

He stared at the bowl after she returned to the kitchen. The food was for him? Why?

The smell was too good to resist. He walked over to pick up the bowl, lifting it to his face to inhale deeply. A growl of contentment vibrated out of his throat at the sharp, spicy scent. He twirled noodles on the fork and took a bite, suppressing a moan at how good it was.

He joined her at the kitchen table, eating in silence. As much as he tried to savor the dish, it was impossible to eat slowly. It tasted incredible, and it was the first time in memory anyone had made him food.

“Wow,” she said, watching him plow through the pasta. “You must be really hungry.”

He paused, then slurped up the spaghetti dangling from his mouth. “Why did you do it?” he asked.

“Do what?”

“Cook for me.”

She toyed with her fork, not meeting his eyes. “Because you’re my guest.”

“An unwanted one,” he shot back. “The worst mistake of your life.” The words still rankled, although the pasta was going a long way towards soothing his temper.

“You’re still my guest,” she repeated. “Now shut up and eat your food.”

Ozroth did, feeling confused and grateful and some other shimmering, undefinable thing he didn’t know how to put words to. Eventually, he stopped trying. There was still a soul to claim, but for now, there was spaghetti.

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