Part 11

It was officially a year since Astrid's death, and she had almost forgotten until she noticed the uncomfortable amount of sexual advertisements covering the streets. She was wearing a simple hoodie with leggings and staring at the ground when she had the sudden feeling that she was being watched. She stopped in front of an ally and looked around curiously when she noticed 2 yellow pinpricks focusing on her in the ally. They grew closer and the owner of them stepped into the light, revealing it to be a familiar creature.

Astrid smiled and bent down the scratch the dark grey cat with a white face and paws. "What are you doing here, Socks?" She asked the cat. It looked exactly like how she remembered her cat, if you didn't count the fact that her cat now had small devil horns and his previously fluffy bottlebrush tail was now a thin line with a small flame on the end, or at least a tuft of fur that looked remarkably like fire. She picked Socks up off the ground and, as he used to, he crawled up around her shoulders and lay there, purring.

When she got into the office she picked her cat off her shoulders and cradled him in her arms. "Blitz I brought a cat with me!" She called up the staircase before proceeding to the staff room. "Why? There are cats all over hell, you've been here for about a year now, surely you would've noticed them?" But he relented and walked over to scratch Socks between the ears. "I've been here exactly 1 year to the date. Anyways I'm pretty sure this is my cat that I had in the living world, but he's so sweet, why would he end up here?"

"Heaven claimed all the dogs to themselves so we get the cats, no matter what they were like." Moxie said, coming from the staff room.

Astrid wondered what might've killed Socks, as she was sure it wasn't old age since he was still fairly young when she died. Maybe he was sick, or died of starvation?

Millie seemed to love Socks and Luna didn't seem to mind him as much as Astrid thought she was. They were slow on clients and could only really just sit and wait for someone to come in. They were no longer allowed to practice in the staff room so they sat making awkward idle chit chat.

Blitz suddenly opened the door, the same way he did to introduce a new client on Astrid's first day, and announced "Team, we have a new client. I want you to meet Husker!" He stepped aside to reveal... nobody. Oh wait, Husker was just shorter than he was in the living world. He now strongly resembled Socks, but with fake wings and a top hat. Astrid let out a small gasp, "Husker!?"

He looked over at her, ears pricked, and raised an eyebrow. "Do I know you?" Astrid rolled her eyes. "It's Astrid, it's been a year, so I'm not sure if you were ever sober enough to remember that I exist when I wasn't there to save my cat from your apartment." She had dropped the idea of trying to be polite to Husk, especially since he never seemed to be nicer to her in the first place. "Oh so you two know each other, great!" Blitz didn't seem to pick up on the cold air between them, or if he did he was just pretending he didn't. "He used to be my neighbor. Hey why do you look like Socks?"

Demons typically took the form of something that represented them in life, or something that relates to their death. Astrid wasn't sure what aspect she'd gotten from her form, but the casino cards that seemed to make up Husker's wings made sense, but the fact that he looked like Socks threw her off.

Husk shrugged. "It might've been cause I ran the damn cat over." Astrid stood up at this, and then became confused. "Why? Unless you got a job and a car in the past year, how did you run him over?"

"That's why I came here, I need a guy dead because he beat me up after I won a game of cards against him at a bar. Then I stole his car, accidentally ran over your stupid cat, had my car shot at from my apartment building and then swerved off the road and into a building. At least I think that's what happened, hard to tell because I was drunk and everything was blurry."

Astrid rolled her eyes. "Alright, so who do you need dead."

"Some bastard was bragging about his lumber mill business. I actually don't want you to kill him, I want you to kill the lumber jacks who work at the mill so he can watch his business burn and close down."

Astrid thought this was oddly specific, but she let it slide and went to go grab the book.

****

She stood at the end of the woods with a wet rag, cleaning the blood of some of the lumberjacks off her face, waiting for the others. She calmly stepped off to the side to avoid being crushed by a tree that Millie had just cut down.

Blitz came running up towards them with Moxie behind him. They were both laughing and Astrid allowed herself to smile. As the portal opened Blitz was loudly complimenting them all. "That was a fuck ton of lumberjacks!" Millie laughed, chainsaw still in hand. "Hey Luna, alright come on team, gather up I want to take a picture!" Blitz gestured them up around Luna at the desk. "Why?" Astrid asked, getting Behind him. "I want to commemorate some of our missions." He snapped the picture and looked around.

"Good work team, I'll text the client and tell them the work's done and we can go celebrate!" Astrid went over and hoisted herself up on the table. "Sorry Blitz, but it's Millie and I's one year anniversary today." Moxie replied, blushing furiously as he looked over at Millie. "Congratulations guys, I've officially been dead for a year today so I don't know if that's something to celebrate but I'll probably just spend the night with Socks." She looked over to see her cat sleeping on the reception desk.

"Ok cool, so where are we going tonight?" Blitz asked, turning to Millie and Moxie. "Actually we were just going to go just the two of us. Without you. Specifically not you." Moxie said, avoiding looking Blitz.

Astrid felt bad for Blitz but she didn't say anything. Honestly Millie and Moxie deserved a night where Blitz wasn't prying in their love life. "Oh, yeah. Yeah that's fine." Blitz tried to laugh it off.Millie and Moxie left a little early to "clean up" leaving Astrid with Blitz and Luna. "Alright it's close enough to closing, I'm gonna go," Astrid picked up Socks and walked to the door. "Oh and Blitz, just let them have this night to themselves, just ask them how it went tomorrow." Blitz looked dumbfounded. "Why would I pry into their personal life?" Astrid rolled her eyes and left the building to start walking home.

***It was hours later, the sky was dark and the waning crescent moon sat high in the sky. A small bottle of moon water was sitting next to Astrid on the window sill where she had Socks in her lap and was stroking him gently.

Her apartment faced the nicer side of the Pride ring, towards the Ars Goetia palace. A familiar van suddenly pulled up quickly to the front of the palace. She watched with curiosity as Stolas, Blitz fling, stepped out and turned around to talk to the driver, whom Astrid assumed was Blitz, after a second Stolas's expression went from a cute embarrassed to sad as the van quickly and recklessly away.

Thinking it through, she pieced together what happened. Millie and Moxie went to some place- Ozzies- in the lust ring. A quick online search said that it was a couples only joint, so Blitz wouldn't be able to spy on them without a date, cue Stolas, from there she assumed the date didn't go great. But at that moment she realized that it wasn't her business to poke around in her boss's feelings, but why would it have gone so bad that Stolas was now crying on the front steps of his palace.

The closer she got, she dumber she felt about this plan of hers. She wasn't going over to where Blitz lived to do what she told him not to do, but she felt bad, obviously something wasn't right so she had decided to head over with a bowl of food because she wasn't entirely sure what else to do.

Astrid stood in the musky smelling hallway, she looked at the door with peeling paint that she was sure was where Blitz lived. She knocked and called through the peephole, "Blitz, it's just Astrid," she thought a moment, "I just want to talk." Yeah real great words Astrid she thought to herself. However, she was surprised when the door opened and there stood Blitz, his flashlight like eyes were bloodshot and he looked like ha had just been crying. "I'm not in the mood to tal-"

"You don't have to tell me anything." Astrid said quickly, handing him the bowl of Jambalaya she made. "I just... I saw what happened in front of Stolas's house." Blitz looked at the bowl. "Why were you at Stolas's house?" He asked. "I wasn't... my apartment has a view of the Pride ring and I'm close enough to the palace that I can literally see into his front yard." Blitz still seemed suspicious. "Why are you here?"

"I pieced two and two together, assumed you weren't having a great day, and I know how it feels to not want to talk to anyone, trust me I have those days all the time, more than I need to honestly."

"But also when I'm sad, I have tendency to not eat, so I'm just here to make sure you do." He smiled sadly and looked anywhere but at her. "What is this?" He lifted the tin foil that she had put over the bowl. "Jambalaya, it's a family recipe." She replied awkwardly. "Uh... thanks." She nodded, "I'll be leaving now, see you tomorrow maybe, or just take a day off honestly if you need it." He laughed quietly and she heard the door shut behind her as she began walking down the apartment's stairs.