“This story has been told before,” the devil rumbled, “and will be told again. You may die or you may live; defeated or bested, it shall make no difference in the steady beat of my existence. Though in the balance hangs all that you deem holy, I shall-”
“What’s with your head?” I interrupt.
The rumble trickles to a murmur and falls silent. There is a cough that carries the sound of rocks falling. “My- what?”
“Your head. In the stories you’ve got these two big curling horns, but you’ve actually got four. That’s messed, man.”
The devil blinks, wizened eyes that have seen the ages studying me as a child studies a particularly odd-looking insect, as if trying to classify it into a narrow realm of possibilities. He sniffs, nostrils flaring and contracting in his long, twisted nose, and apparently finds a place for me. “Insolence,” he declares, “will not save you, nor will your vague posturing be mistaken for courage. Know me, tiny one.”
I hold up my tiny torch, and sparks from the fire move between us like hyperactive raver kids at a dance in the deep woods. They make the devil’s shadow twist and curve behind him, creating the illusion of a second, waiting beast, even more terrifying than the one in front of me, due mostly to its hidden secrets. This beast I can see. This creature I can quantify, and what’s scary about that?
“Well, now I know that you can be defeated. Since you just told me. Thanks for that,” I say with a grin.
There is another leaden silence. The only sound is the popping of burning wood and my own calm breathing. It’s weird, to be in the presence of something you can see and hear and feel, and to realise that thing isn’t leaving a single mark on the world around you. No breath, no footprints. Just the beast and its shadow.
“Dare it, tiny thing, and put all you love in the balance. Will you reach so high? Rik so much? There are other ways. Simpler ways. Bargains can be struck and favours bought. Think on it… everything your heart desires.”
He waves his hand at the shadow, and it flickers and twists, leaving holes that create negative space pictures in the air. A smile; the curve of a cheek; a hand that almost reaches mine.
The pain is almost tangible. He meant to tempt me with these things, but they only serve to fuel my resolve, my courage, my – okay, yeah, my insolence. Insolence has gotten me far. It can get me a little farther, now.
“Is that you?” I ask, innocently, pointing at the curve of a hip so familiar that my hands long to reach out and rest on it.
The devil doesn’t react; but then, I guess I’m not the first who’s made it this far on plucky determination. We’re probably a mouthy lot, down here in the dark.
“Then die, mortal thing, and know the only freedom I will never have,” the devil says, and in a blur of motion so quick I can hardly see it he’s on me, the force of it knocking the air from my lungs, dragging the air from the room, pushing me to my knees, knobby three-fingered hands closing on my throat, on my arm, crushing the hated life from me.
I feel the torch burning in my hand, and I lift it up, struggling to see past the stars blinking in my eyes.
The devil laughs. “Fire? That’s your secret weapon, the tool you brought to defeat the devil? Fire?”
I gather my fading strength and hurl the torch – not at the devil’s smirking face, as much as I want to, but at his shadow. If I’m right, the devil is nothing. If I’m right, the unseen thing is always where the power lies, where terror lives, where the devil truly is, where no light touches. If I’m right…
If I’m wrong… I die. Either way, the story will be told, and told again.
Image by Kieran Macanulty.