A Pact with the Devil

The devil doesn’t exist, of course, so I don’t know exactly with whom I made the pact. Suffice to say, the details were clear cut. I didn’t have to give my heart — or my soul — for that matter. I just owed a certain number of years in service, and that was a pretty good deal, I felt. Initially, anyway.

It started off on a hot, humid day. The dust was in my nostrils from the dirt road I was walking on. My Chevy had broken down and I was in no mood for human company. Perhaps that’s why the whole thing started.

I’d been walking for three miles when I felt the presence of something behind me. It wasn’t a good feeling, and for the first time, it occurred to me that I was alone on a very long road with no sign of intelligent — or helpful — life around. I turned around but saw nothing.

I walked on, now more aware of my solitariness, my flesh getting that cold feeling when we know we are not quite alone but not having proof of anything else. The day seemed colder, too, the hot humidity seeming to slink away to places more accommodating.

A mile or so from that point, I knew there was something there, and I turned once more. She was behind me, walking in step with me and gazed at me mockingly. She was something. They say God is beautiful. They haven’t seen the devil yet.

“Oh,” she said, “you noticed. I was wondering how long it would take.”

“Who are you?” I asked.

“Your every desire,” she said.

She was a smoothie, all right.

The cold was going now. I guess I was getting acclimatized and I began to take an interest in the proceedings.

“Anything I can do for you?” I asked, knowing full well the outcome of that.

“I rather thought it was what I could do for you.”

“Get that heap of metal of mine working for a start,” I half asked, half said. It seems such a small thing to ask in retrospect. The price I have to pay now seems enormous.

It didn’t take a minute. Before me stood my Chevy, all new, all its working parts just the way they should be.

“Hop in,” I said, ever the gentleman.

“We need to discuss payment,” she said.

“Yeah, yeah, how much. My immortal soul?’” I asked, and for a moment, just a moment, I felt the dread. A cold and creeping dread, I might say. Why is it that when we are in the moment of a miracle, we never think about what we’re doing.

“No, just a year’s return service for each year I supply services to you.”

“Is that all?” I asked.

“Yeah, yeah,” she said and was gone.

The road seemed drearier after that. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it then, but I understand now.

The car took me to the next town where I bartered it for a battered Ferrari, then drove some miles out of town, converted it to a shiny new model, and then I continued down the road feeling like a millionaire playboy.

The next big city was Los Angeles and it wasn’t too long before I found a buyer for my red convertible. It was good money. No questions asked about licence papers, no lies told in return. Just a car for sale. Los Angeles is a city where the blurry borders between the night side and the light side make that sort of transaction easy.

I flourished.

Then, within a year and a bit, I found out there was a contract on my head, a killer taking pot shots at me. I wasn’t happy. I sought the devil and I found her.

“Hey, what’s happening here?” Once more I felt that cold come close. It’s a horrible, terrible cold. I felt the goose-flesh, but a man must be a man and take the good with the bad.

“Oh, payback time,” she said.

“Payback time? I’ve hardly started” I squawked. “What’s with the guys trying to wipe me out?”

“Oh, remember the cars you sold them? Well, car conversions only last a year, then revert to to their previous condition.”

She left it in the air, but I got the gist. Time to skip town for a while.

“So I’ve had a year of high living — and now I must pay with my life?” I paused. “That doesn’t sound like a good deal at all.” I thought it expedient then to ask what the one year’s payback would be.

“Oh, you lucky boy,” she said. “You get to be my personal companion.”

Well, I should have been happy, I guess. The devil is a beautiful woman, but there’s more to it than that. There’s the other side of her.

I’ve got another six months of my contract. I’m not renewing it.