A Dance and a Deal

[This and the previous four stories are all linked…]

An audience with the devil himself.

My father uttered these unexpected words and they failed to land in the immediacy of my conscious mind. Despite that, I knew. Deep down I knew and perhaps I had always known. 

I was different and I had taken a path less trodden. I put this path down to my own priggish and stubborn nature. That way I could claim agency when it came to my life journey. I was never going to be comfortable with the notion of my being a pawn of destiny. That smacks of arrogance, I know. Perhaps a person needs a certain amount of arrogance to make things stick. 

My arrogance made itself known now, “is this some sort of joke?”

Marcus, my maker, gave me a stern look, “since when have you known me to make a joke of something of this magnitude.”

“I have not,” I said, “but you have to forgive me for struggling with this.”

Marcus nodded, “especially for someone who struggled with the existence of God.”

“Struggles,” I corrected him.

“Even now?” his eyebrow was raised, “you are both strange and fascinating William. It seems to me that you would rather struggle than lighten your burden.”

“That’s a polite way of telling me that I am stubborn,” I told him.

He chuckled, “we are all of us stubborn. But tell me, do you not wonder at what else the universe contains if it can hold such as you and I?”

I shook my head, “I have seen much evil.”

“Oh,” he said simply, “and this has blinded you to all the good in the world?”

“It is necessary for me to be blind to at least some of it,” I told him, “I am a danger to all that is good.”

“You do yourself a disserve,” Marcus says, “all men are monsters, yet they are also angels.”

“But I am no longer a man,” I replied.

“And yet the devil would have an audience with you,” he said.

“Because I am different?” I asked my maker.

“I suspect so,” he said.

“What could the devil possibly want with me?” I asked him.

“There’s only one way to find out,” Marcus said, “unless of course you wish to remain here.”

“The devil cannot venture here?” I guessed.

“Let’s just say that it may be unwise for him to do so,” Marcus smiled.

“Fools rush in where the devil fears to tread,” I quipped, bastardising a well-worn saying.

“You are nobody’s fool,” Marcus smiled again.

“And so I must see the devil and find out what he wants with me,” I replied.

“You must do more than that,” Marcus said.

“I will be tested?” I asked.

Marcus nodded, “the devil does have some form on that front.”

“I’m not exactly Jesus,” I said.

“No one said you were,” Marcus chuckled, “but we all have our habits, and the devil does like to present a person with temptation.”

“Two questions,” I said.

“Yes?” Marcus said, inviting me to ask them both.

“Did he make us?” I asked my first question. A question I had toyed with a number of times.

“I think not,” Marcus said, stroking his chin in thought, “I do not think it was ever his place to do such a thing. He is the Great Deceiver. He does not make. He destroys.”

I nodded, this made a kind of sense to me and it emboldened me. Meeting my ultimate maker was too daunting a prospect. The Prince of Lies, I might just about be able to deal with.

“Your other question?” Marcus said.

“Where do I meet him?” I asked.

“I wouldn’t worry about that,” smiled Marcus. There was something like mischief playing across his face.

“You think he’ll be waiting for me when I leave here?” I ventured.

“I’d put money on it.”

*

Marcus was right of course. Marcus makes a habit of being right. He puts this down to his perspective on the world and his willingness to fail and accept that failure. I am sure he could be quite annoying in the wrong company. Not that he would care about any annoyance caused. That’s all part of that perspective of his.

I took my leave of the Temple of The Elders and walked back through the maze. Daylight and the promise of the outside world greeted me two hours later. Half the time it took to pass through the maze when I had arrived.

He was waiting for me a short way from the secret entrance. I’m sure he wanted me to know that he knew where it was. It was, I thought, the sort of thing the devil would do.

“You don’t look like I thought you would,” I said to the smartly dressed man with the vulpine features. Truth be told, he looked like an insurance salesman. Or a lawyer. The kind of lawyer that represents the guilty and gets off on getting their clients off. Thwarting justice, whilst earning obscene fees.

“No horns or hooves?” he smiled his cunning smile, “I could wear them for you if you’d like?”

“No thanks,” I said, “no theatre needed.”

“Shame,” he sighed, “but what else would I expect with a father like yours?”

He nodded towards the entrance to make his point. I did not take the bait. Of course he knew Marcus, or at least knew of him.

“Anyway…” I said pointedly.

“Down to business, eh?” he nodded, “shall we?”

I nodded, and we walked. We walked just the same as billions of people walk each day. The only difference being that he was the devil and I was a vampire that had caught his eye. That and the fact that we did not encounter another living soul. Nice touch that, it kept our meeting confidential and ensured we were not interrupted.

I’d expected to be dragged through a hellish portal to the fiery place itself. But then, that might not have been conducive to the sort of deal the devil had in mind for me. I doubted he was going to sell hell itself to me. That wasn’t how these things went. Hell was the debt you paid to underwrite the deal. The devil sold dreams that turned into nightmares at some point. He was adept at giving you what you wanted, but never what you needed. I’d been around long enough to know this, and also long enough to know that I was far from immune to his charm. Afterall, I still lied to myself and more often than not, I fell for those lies. If I could do that to myself, then just how far could the devil take me into the fires of hell?

I don’t know why we insist on hell being this subterranean place filled with fire and brimstone. To me, hell is a soup of darkness that crushes the soul. There may be burning sensations. I imagine that will be how it feels as the black acid of the abyss takes everything of value from a person.

I have seen hell on Earth and there is no fire there. Even the spark is gone. Instead there is only ice. An ice cold hatred for the love and happiness that resides in others. 

That the devil seemed warm and friendly, and quite unlike any of the treacherous evil creatures I had dispatched from this world, was almost confusing. It threatened to disarm me. Which was of course what the devil was very much about.

He used silence very well. We walked and walked and he left me to my thoughts. He was using me. Softening me up. My imagination doing some of his work for him. Clever bugger.

And of course he was clever, so very clever. He had to be. For in order to lie effectively, he had to know the truth. He had to understand a great many things in order to dress his lies up to look like truth. What he said had to seem like it made sense. He had to be consistent and compelling and he also had to tailor all of this to me.

This was not just my arrogance talking. I knew I was different. That was why he was here. My difference had caught his eye. I just didn’t know why or what it was that he wanted from me.

“Are you going to tell me why we are doing this?” I asked eventually. I was glad of the silence and the time. I had used it to calm myself after the initial fluttering of myriad thoughts across my fevered mind. I was as ready as I was ever going to be. If that is, you are ever ready to be tested by the devil himself.

“Yes, of course,” he stopped walking and turned towards me, but his eyes were downcast, “it’s a bit embarrassing really…”

“What is?” I asked.

“You…” he said almost coquettishly, “you and your penchant for hunting down and killing my would-be disciples.”

“That’s why we’re here?” I asked in disbelief.

“Yes!” he cried, “I need you to stop!”

“Stop?” I asked, “I can’t. You know I have to feed.”

“Couldn’t you change your diet?” he suggested.

Then he raised a finger. He raised a finger and in the next moment we were in something like a boudoir. There was always going to be theatre. Of course there was. The devil wanted to turn my head. He also wanted to show off, and whilst he pulled out the stops, he’d be reading me. Testing my defences and looking for a weak point through which he would undo me.

The devil walked up to a semi-clad woman and pulled her to her feet. Then he twirled her around, “she’s appetising isn’t she? Couldn’t you just eat her up!?”

I shook my head.

“No?” he asked.

Then, his eyes remaining on mine, he drew his finger nail across her neck. The cut was not deep, but it did not need to be. It beaded at the wound. I could smell it and in smelling it, I could almost taste it. My fangs extended and my mouth watered in anticipation of the taste of her.

“Do it!” her voice, not his. A look of naked lust in her eyes, “take me! Take me now!”

I was trembling with desire. The Dark Urge rising up within me and threatening to break through. I grit my teeth and retracted my fangs.

“No,” I hissed, “I expected better from you!”

“Better?” he grinned at me, “I’m the devil, my dear!”

“You are,” I said, “and this is beneath you. This is a cheap trick unworthy of the devil himself. I cannot believe that I have wasted my time entertaining a snake oil salesman masquerading as the Dark Lord.”

I turned to leave, but a powerful fist grabbed my shoulder, claws digging into my flesh as I was turned back to face a far more fearsome version of the devil. He stared at me with eyes raging with fire. The symbolism was fine, but I wasn’t impressed. I’d seen worse in the eyes of man.

“How dare you!” he roared in my face.

I shook my head sadly, “you’d resort to shouting?”

I watched as he morphed back to his salesman form, “you know, I really thought I could tempt you to try her. She’s got the best blood going you know.”

I raised my eyebrow, “you’ve done this before?”

“Tempted a vampire?” he chuckled, “of course I have! It’s what I do! We all have our hobbies, don’t we?”

I shrugged. 

“Besides, we’ve got a fair few of your kind back at my place. They’re the ones who sampled her blood and gave it the thumbs up,” he grinned again, then cocked his head in what was probably supposed to be an endearing manner.

I sighed.

“No?” he snapped his fingers and we were back on the pavement, taking a leisurely walk for all the world looking like two colleagues having a lunch time walk and talk meeting, “look, you’re a problem, OK? You’re a problem that I want to address, so how about I give you something you want in return for me getting a solution to my problem?”

So here we were. This was it.

“You want to do a deal?” I asked him. I wanted to state the obvious. Overlooking the obvious can lead to all sorts of problems in the normal course of a day, so to miss out something important when the tricksy devil is putting forward a deal is never going to end well.

“Yeah,” he said, “why not?”

“Because you’re the devil and you’re notorious for doing the worst deals imaginable,” I told him.

He looked hurt. He actually looked hurt, “now that is so unfair!” he almost squeaked these words, “I get a really bad rap at times.”

“I’d imagine that goes with the territory,” I said.

“How do you mean?” he asked.

“What with being evil incarnate,” I explained.

“That’s a bit much actually!” he stopped and gave me a look, “you know I’m an angel, right?”

“A fallen one,” I said.

“Still an angel!” he said, “if I wasn’t doing this job, then another of my brother or sister angels would be here right now, trying to clear up the mess you’re making of the cosmic balance.”

“Mess?” I asked.

“Yes!” he performed a charade mime as he spoke, “hoovering up all that evil. It’s just not on!”

“So what do you propose to do about it?” I asked.

“Well, I think we’ve established that you don’t intend to stop, haven’t we?” he said, hands now on his hips.

I nodded.

“There is a solution,” he told me.

“Really?” I feigned something like boredom, but I wanted to hear what he had to offer. This was the devil after all, and this was a big deal. The biggest of deals.

“How old were you when you were turned?” he asked me.

He asked me this question and I knew what his proposal was going to be. I just knew and it hurt me in a way I did not know I could be hurt. Fire and ice cut me deeply. I felt like I could drown in an inexplicable sadness. 

Somehow I kept it together.

“It was four days before my twenty eighth birthday,” I told him with a voice stronger than I was inside.

“Sixty more years should be enough, shouldn’t it?” he asked me.

“I don’t think I follow…” I said.

He chuckled, “oh you do!” he playfully punched my arm, “don’t kid a kidder!”

“Human years?” I asked, in order to clarify what he was offering me and also to move things along, as inside I was still a maelstrom of confusion and pain. He was offering me my impossible dream. He was going to give me another chance.

“Yes!” he chirruped, “that would work well for me, don’t you think? I mean, as a human, I doubt you’d go around bumping off all my followers!”

“There is that,” I agreed.

“An elegant solution for both of our problems,” he enthused.

“Almost too good to be true,” I said dryly.

“How do you mean?” he said slightly defensively.

“Well, as my dear Ma used to say ‘if something looks too good to be true, it probably is.’” I shook my head and smiled, despite what I was feeling inside, “good try though.”

The devil gave me a look like thunder and he probably could have mustered something of the sort there and then, “you’d pass up the chance to be human again?”

I matched his look then. I matched it with a stern look that made it clear that I meant business right now, “you know something… Correction, you knew something that I didn’t and you sought to leverage that to tempt me and stop me from being me.”

“And what’s that?” he asked me slyly.

“I already am human,” I told him.

“No, you’re a vampire!” he said firmly, trying to assert his words as truth.

And it was a truth. Of sorts.

“I’m a vampire with humanity,” I told him, “and you fear that. You fear it and what it is that I bring to the world.”

“Lies!” hissed the devil, and I knew I had him on the back foot then.

“When the devil calls you a liar, you know you’re speaking the truth,” I told him, “you’ve made a big mistake here today.”

“The only mistake I made was offering that which you desired the most,” and with that the devil disappeared.

I know he knew his mistake then. 

The devil himself alerted me to my calling and my destiny. He showed me that I had been on the right track all along. Now it was time for me to go out into the world and convert my fellow vampires. Time for us to push back the tide of evil by ending those who would corrupt all that is good. 

I saw it then. The potential for an exponential growth of evil if it was left unchecked. This was why we were created. To stem that flow. To fight. To fight in a way only we could. To provide a justice that humankind was incapable of. 

Maybe we were angels after all.

Whatever we were, we had free will. We reasoned and we could make choices, just as I had done as the devil tried to tempt me into being something I could never again be. You could never go back, only ever forwards.

I saw what must be done and I laughed. I laughed at the strange simplicity of it, but mostly I laughed at my father’s unerring ability to always be right.

“You bugger,” I muttered as I left that place, and I imagined him winking at me by way of a reply.