The Devil's Pact Pt. 43

Hundreds dead so that billions could be free. That math had to add up, right?

Silver glinted on my father's chest. The sun was warm on my face; it was too lovely a day for such tragedy. The silver was a locket, shaped like a heart with a single, pink rose sculpted on the front. It must have spilled out from beneath Mother's armor as she fell forward, landing upon Father. I opened the locket; my parents smiled up at me. With shaking hands, I unclasped it from my mother's neck, and draped it around my own.

I realized I wasn't alone. A horde stood around me.

The shield had failed when my father died. The freed thralls who were attacking the compound had gathered in a circle to stare down at the false gods. The Tyrants. My parents. Around the world, the elements of my parents' oppression, those bureaucrats and priests not bound directly to my parents, were being captured or killed.

The Theocracy erased. Hopefully, a better government would rise from the ashes.

I stumbled away in tearful silence, the crowd parting before me. I could have ridden on the Light, flashing to wherever I wanted to go. Wherever that was. I needed to walk, to think, to wonder why I didn't die with all my family, with my parents. I was bound to them. I shouldn't have lived.

I wasn't supposed to live.

Now I had to live with the question: Could I have talked my parents into giving it all up? To free mankind from their bondage? I doubt it, but maybe... I just couldn't take the risk that they would say no. I had this one opportunity to end it. To liberate the world. I had to take it.

Now all I could do was walk, cursed like the shoemaker to wander on and on forever, guilt tearing apart my heart.

Hopefully, the world was worth it.

* * *

Mark Glassner

I was falling, falling, falling.

Into darkness.

Then darkness gave way to heat, to fire.

I opened my eyes. Oppressive heat buffeted my body. Blood-red rocks crunched beneath my feet. Anguished wails echoed through the air--the chorus of the damned. I stood on a barren hill overlooking a hellish plain. In the distance, a city of brass rose, wavering like heat in a broiling furnace. Trees made of twisted bone dotted the plain, growing next to rifts that smoked with sulfurous fumes.

Mary appeared at my side. I wrapped my arms around my wife. She stared up at me and said, her voice thick with emotion, "Together forever."

A collar bound my neck, made of rusting iron, leading off into the distance--my Pact with Lucifer. The iron looked weak, pitted. It snapped easily. I had far more power than the Devil ever had. I had stolen the power of every demon--Lucifer, Lilith, Molech, Dagon, and more--I had slain, the energy split between Mary and myself.

Mary snapped her chain with ease, the iron flaking away into rust on the searing wind.

More souls appeared around us. Chasity and Noel knelt before me, joined by 51, while the bodyguards knelt in ranks behind them. "We've awaited you for a while, Master," Chasity said, smiling, her blue eyes twinkling with joy. "It's wonderful to see you."

Karen threw her arms around me, kissing my cheek. Then April, glasses reflecting the hellish landscape, melted against me. And lastly, Xiu sauntered up, naked. I pulled her to me by her nipple piercing. "I missed you all," I told the three of them. "You were never forgotten."

"Thank you, Master," Xiu smiled, tears shining in her eyes. "We swore to serve you forever."

The other sluts joined us: Lillian, Korina, Violet, Jessica, Alison, and Desiree. Korina reunited with Xiu, hugging her with such joy. Alison and Desiree gazed into each other's eyes with love. Our families were next: my mom and her wife, Tiffany and Sean, Missy and Damien, Shannon and George, Antsy and Via. Their children and ours. Pearl and her maids, our other servants, the Cunningham twins and their Bishops, and our friends who helped us rule the Theocracy. Around us, reunions happened as those who'd passed on before us were reunited with friends, family, and lovers.

The only one missing was Chase. I concentrated and sensed my daughter walking away from the mansion, somehow alive. Guilt crushed her.

Anger flashed through me. But not at her. At myself. I failed her. I hadn't been a good enough father to her. I was too concerned with escaping Hell, of making sure that there were no threats that could harm my loved ones or me. Mary and I shackled the entire world out of selfishness.

Chase was a better person than I ever was. I hoped one day I could tell her that. Then, maybe, we could be a family again.

We will be, Mary's voice whispered in my mind. She just needs time. And we have all the time in the universe now.

"What are your commands, Master?" Violet asked, her arm around Cindy.

"We're ready to kick some ass!" shouted an eager Alison. Somehow, she had conjured a machine gun, red flames flickering across the weapon's black metal.

I could see the lesser demons and the shades of the dead hovering at the edges of our group, watching us warily. Beyond them lay the city of brass. Dis. I glanced at my wife, gave her shoulder a squeeze, then looked at our family and followers. For a moment, black chains flashed around all their necks, connecting them to Mary and myself.

I grinned, "Well, I've heard it said that it's better to rule in Hell."

Epilogue

Despair filled my heart. The Living Gods were dead. All I could do was stare blankly at the wall, my mind full of ash. They had reshaped the world, and now They were gone. What were we to do? Who would look after us and protect us? Already heretics had arisen, decrying Them as false, and putting to torch Their churches and temples. And then They appeared in my dreams. "Have faith," He spoke, His voice booming like a thousand trumpets. "We are not gone. It was time for us to leave this world, departing for a better one. But We still watch you, We still love you, and all you have to do is call upon Us and We shall answer." I made my Pact with Them that very night.

-The Epistle of Isabel to the Faithful 1:1-3

A Thousand Years Later...

I stood trembling at the crossroads, waiting.

Ever since I found a forbidden copy of the Glassnerian Gospels in my grandpa's chest and read the Epistle of Isabel, I'd been filled with a foolish desire to summon the Tyrants. The Epistle claimed it was easy. Take a box, place a lock of your hair, a lavender flower, and the foot of a white rabbit in it, then bury the box at the center of a crossroads at midnight. Supposedly, the Tyrants of Hell, the Living Gods, would appear, and they would grant three wishes in exchange for your soul.

Despite the Church Reborn's efforts, copies of the Glassnerian Bible still floated about. And I couldn't resist reading the copy I found when sorting through my grandfather's house. Who knew the old coot was a heretic? The account of the Tyrants differed so much from the Histories. They weren't brutal dictators who enslaved mankind, but loving gods who valiantly fought against the demons and tried to create a utopia before being murdered by Saint Chasity.

I shivered as I waited for midnight. It was spring, but the nights were still cold. A chill seeped into my body as doubts crept into my mind; nothing was going to happen. This wasn't going to work. The Tyrants were just a myth. Nothing more than history distorted by a thousand years of embellishment by storytellers and priests, or by mothers trying to frighten their children into behaving.

I knew all the stories, relishing them as a child: the Tyrants, Mark and Mary, who could enslave you with a single word, and who commanded the forces of nature itself; silver-tongued Alison and her demonic wife Desiree, who could suck out your soul with her kiss; April, with her eyes made of glass, who would freeze a man solid if he ever caught her deadly gaze; Violet, who strangled men with the two serpents that grew out of her hair; siren Korina, whose doll-faced innocence lured men to their deaths; and their demonic Guard, a horde of vicious women led by the icy Chasity. If I wasn't so desperate for a better life, for someone to pay attention to me, I would never have even tried this foolishness.

If I wasn't so desperate for Elisbetta.

Feeling foolish, I turned to leave. Nothing would happen; it was just a myth that you could sell your soul to the Tyrants for three wishes.

The moonlight dimmed.

I glanced up, expecting to see a dark cloud pass across its silver, pockmarked face. It was a clear sky, but the moon looked wan. I shook my head, remembering other legends that claimed men had walked across the moon, crossing the dark void. What complete--

"Hello, Ysaak," a man said.

I gasped in startlement and whipped around, heart pounding. Two figures stood in the center of the crossroads. I hadn't heard anyone approach, no footsteps crunching on the gravel or the rustle of brush. The road had been empty a moment ago.

I swallowed and studied them. One was a tall man with dark brown hair, blue eyes shining in the moonlight. His arm was wrapped around a woman who clung to his muscular frame. My breath caught--she was gorgeous--dark-red hair framed a heart-shaped, freckled face. Green eyes twinkled with mirth. A low-cut dress revealed an immodest swath of creamy bosom.

Sweat broke across my entire body. The Tyrants of Hell stood before me, and they seemed so... normal. Wme fire and the brimstone? There wasn't even a chorus of the damned. I was almost disappointed... Except... there was something in their eyes. An ancient, powerful, and inhuman presence that battered against my soul. These beings were as beyond me as I was beyond an ant.

I swallowed, taking a step back.

"You don't have to be scared," the woman purred. "You summoned us, after all."

"I want to sell my soul for three wishes," I said, trying not to let my voice crack. My heart thudded like a woodpecker against a tree.

The man smiled at the woman. "Of course. My wife and I are more than happy to make a Pact with you."

The END of The Devil's Pact