A Deal’s A Deal

This contains subjects of manipulation, unhealthy relationships, death, suicide, child loss, and religion. Please avoid this story if any of those will make you uncomfortable!

I’m almost certain she knows what I am. If she didn’t, she wouldn’t be defensively clutching a knife. Why she thinks that flimsy thing would kill a Demon like me, I’m not sure, but human reasoning, and their lack there-of, has always been fascinating to me. She flinches like she’s preparing to lunge at me. “You don’t need to do this. Baby, please.” My voice is soothing as I try to console her. Comforting her would be easier than finding another worthy surrogate.

She stands in the corner, huddled, protective, clutching the glinting blade to her chest. “You know I do. This is what we both promised,” she said. She wasn’t exactly correct in what she said.

What the two of us have is a Soul-bound Deal. When my patient searching finally paid off, she had just turned nineteen and wanted a way, any way, to get away from her family. To my credit, I did give her just that. Disguised as a human man, I fulfilled her dreams. Three weeks after she met me, she nonchalantly said she’d do anything if it meant having a future with me. She thought nothing of it when I asked if she would vow it. Being as ignorant as humans are, she agreed.

The conversation was a decently quick one, but after waiting milenia for that moment, I wish it would have been longer so I could have reveled in it more. I took her hands in mine and looked into her hopeful, gleaming eyes. My words were: “If I vow to give you a new life, will you vow to take it?” She responded as if it was a marriage proposal. She gave me tears, nods, and a “yes” without a moment’s hesitation. I said, “That’s a mighty big promise, Baby. I think I might need some collateral.” She giggled and responded “You know I don’t have anything to offer you. What do you want,Tough Guy, my soul?” Her giggle was so pure, so full of sarcasm. When I responded that her soul was exactly what I wanted, she giggled and agreed.

She now stands before me, mascara making black rivers flow across her delicate cheekbones. I say, “Be reasonable. Do you not think this is a step too far?” I watch as her hands tremble. Her fingers are white from how hard she’s gripping the knife handle. It’s like she thinks it’s a chance at salvation. She shifts her foot on the carpet.

She hesitates, and her features go soft for just a moment. Just as quickly, she rebuilds her facade of emptiness, of uncaring. Humans never want to accept that anything could be completely heartless, and being one of those things, I know we count on that naivety. She takes one hand off of the knife and gestures to her stomach. There isn’t an ounce of apology weighed on her face. She takes two jolting steps toward me. She’s close enough to try something rash. She said, “You took it too far when you did this to me. Now it’s your--”

I cut her sentence short. “Stay away, Rosemary.” I’m giving her a final warning. She knows what I am. This means there is no benefit to me retaining my disguise any longer. I allow her to see my true form. I snap my face into its usual cold expression. I unfurl my wings behind me; they’re such perfect mockeries of the angelic versions she must be used to as a girl who grew up around religion. I reveal my talons, horns, and barbed tail. I am death, pain, and Hell incarnate.

She now knows that her knife is worthless. No matter how many times she’d stab me, that paring knife would do nothing. She knows better than to defy me, and she’s smarter than thinking that she’d be able to escape me. I let my forked tongue flick, tasting the human fear in the air.

“You should never have--” she said. I hear a stutter in her voice. Such a good little actress she is. If I were human, I might not have known she was terrified. The delectable scent of her fear fills the room, and I revel in the frantic drumbeat of her heart pounding in her chest.

I cut her off early. She’s raised the knife. It now hovers by her shoulder. My voice rumbles as I speak. “This will hurt both of us. Baby, don’t.”

Her eyes flash. “I’m not your baby, but this monster was.” Her face is set. Her mind is made. I realize she never intended to try killing me. I realize too late.

“Rosemary! No!” I see the arc of the blade. I see it racing toward her. She gives me a dead-eyed grin as she sinks the blade into her abdomen.

“I’m taking my new life. I’ve fulfilled my end of our deal,” She said. She began dragging the knife, embedded to the hilt, up to the base of her ribcage. Her smile becomes a grimace.

“Rosemary, what have you done?” I speak down to her like a child. If we weren’t here, now, it wouldn’t be hard to picture me like a father, shaking my head at crayon drawings on the wall. Instead, here we are, and I’m shaking my head at all the blood she’s losing, the blood falling to the floor, soaking the cream carpet.

Such ungrateful creatures humans are. She chose death over what I had given her. Growing up in the church, she knows the reverence given to the woman who carried the Son of God, so she’d understand the respect and fear she’d receive for carrying my spawn. I have surpassed my end of our Deal, giving her not one, but two new lives: our Son’s, growing inside her, and hers, her future with me into eternity, standing obediently by my side. Such gifts, alongside the eternal respect and fear she would have from her fellow human-kind, are better than anything a human should receive.

She says nothing in response. She falls to her knees. Her skin begins to pale from blood loss. She collapses to the ground and now only has a few shallow, rattling gasps left.

I sigh disappointedly as I see her chest labor a last time. Her eyes go wide and then defocus, empty of life. She had been so willing to give me her soul, even more-so with her future. She discarded the opportunities I gave her. Her body lays crumpled at my feet.

What she said was true. Just as I had, she spun her words to ensure she had exactly what she wanted. She repaid our Deal when she took her life, and the life of my spawn inside her. She was the first human to fulfill a Deal with me. Her repayment is in order.

As I prepare to release her soul from our bargain, I realize freeing it would do her no favors. She is dead and cannot ask God for the forgiveness of her suicide. Releasing her soul from our bargain now would damn her to an eternity entrapped in Hell with me. To allow my first worthy adversary the honor she deserves, I avoid her damnation by throwing her soul to the ground and destroying it beneath my heel, an action that a human like her might consider merciful.