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The whole ballroom moves around us as though oblivious to the trap he’s wound in me.
They burst in puffs of smoke and the candles burn low….
When the Devil finally releases me, I struggle to breathe.
Struggle to not ask for more.
“So easily distracted, little fool.”
“Distracted from what?” I manage to raise my gaze from his furred lips.
The smile he bears is brighter now. The darkness of night is gone.
“Sunrise,” he says, nightmarish eyes locked on mine. “You didn’t get away… and now you belong to me.”
The ceiling overhead snaps closed like the jaws of a bear trap. Rock hitting rock in a cacophonous crunch.
Debris flutters down around us as the sinners freed of their disguises fall, screaming in anguish, through the dance floor and into the flames.
“We both know…” I look up at him and lick the lingering taste of him from my lips. “I had no intention of getting away.”
Give the Devil his Due
The night is over, the dance ended, and yet, still we twirl.
Flames lick at me, charring the hem of my dress and burning up my shoes, but their kiss leaves no marks on my skin
The Devil doesn’t let me go, as the obsidian floor disappears beneath us. His cheek presses against mine, his lips move at my ear. “No one wants to go to Hell, little fool. So, what is it that you came for?”
I whisper back, “I came to tell you how to do your job right.”
He chuckles as he steps onto the sweeping black steps that lead up and away from the pit. He doesn’t set me down on my feet until we reach the top.
“That’s not how this works.” He brushes my hair over my ear. “You fell into my trap. It doesn’t matter that you did it on purpose. You lost the game, and now, you will serve me until the Hellmouth opens again.”
I wait as he trails a clawed finger over my breast. But he doesn’t offer me the other caveat. I’ve read the accounts of those few saints who had fallen victim to this fate and made it out the other side.
“Aren’t you supposed to offer to commute my sentence?”
“I’m not supposed to do anything. And you came looking for me. Why would you wish to leave before your time is up?”
“I wouldn’t.”
“So why ask?”
I’ve spent my whole life tricking the Devil into believing I’m a saint.
It’s time he learns the truth.
“Because I have a counter offer.”
Again, he laughs, but this time, he turns and walks away from me, down the long, dark hallway into what I can only call a cathedral as I follow him.
Sharp lines, jagged staircases, and ceilings arched so high above I can barely see them.
If the walls weren’t charred and blackened, it would almost look opulent.
He stops at a window that overlooks a hellscape too similar to the imagery I’ve seen in ornate bibles. “What would you offer me? And what would you require in exchange?”
