This is the story of how the trickster, Mephistopheles, made his own bargain with the devil. The story is told in Mephi’s own words, transcribed and translated here for the first time by Necro.
Portrait of a Dead Man by Damien Mammoliti
ONE-two-three-FOUR. ONE-two-three-FOUR.
The signal always came like music to me. This late afternoon was no different. A simple beat entered my mind innocently enough, a cadence that my steps fell in line with easily as I entered a familiar path that led to the woods on the outskirts of my village. Maybe it mimicked a song my grandmother played at tea the other afternoon but probably not. The beat acted as a compass and my body followed it. The sounds of the town and its folks and animals blended into the sounds of the forest until all that remained was the steady beat of the metronome in my head. One that became louder the closer I got to the target.
The wind blowing through the trees frosted my fingertips and chilled my bones. The lower the temperature dropped, the more I became certain that this methodic rhythm was marching me to a location where I would once again witness a horrid act. This wooded walk was typically a safe path. It had never once led me to a rotting finger or hex bag. Many, many other paths led me to those cursed things and sometimes, far worse. This path had always protected me from the macabre melodies of the occult world that frequently strummed my internal strings, dancing me to their dark ends. Since birth, I had possessed a dreadful sixth sense. My body could sense evil souls, and it insisted on taking me right to them. This usually occurred right before they were about to commit a most heinous act. As the sun began to set on this cooler than normal summer day, I felt more than certain that I was about to come face-to-face with an evil of a greater magnitude that I had ever seen before.
That was saying a great deal since I had faced astounding evil repeatedly from a very young age.
Spilling out of the forest onto the southwest corner of Edgewood Manor’s sweeping fields had me struggling for breath. You see, once I stepped on the property of a practitioner of the dark arts, the curse their evil deeds had brought to their land immediately began weighing down on my chest.
Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap.
The metronome keeping time in my head became louder with each step I took through the quince orchard leading to the large stone manor covered in green moss. A few servants scurried through the gardens, picking produce in preparation of an opulent feast for the guests slowly arriving by horse-drawn carriages at the front gates of the estate. When one servant girl glanced toward me, I slipped behind the trunk of a tree to avoid her gaze, but I was too slow. Our eyes locked, and I was lost. Hers emerald eyes were irresistible. They were all I could see. I stepped back out from behind the tree, maintaining that precious eye contact. I never wanted to look at anything else again. I nearly laughed aloud at the absurdity and intensity of that thought. I had never spoken to this young woman, yet I felt I understood everything about her as she did me. She smiled kindly, and her lightness contrasted so greatly with the dreary darkness hovering over this home that I wanted to immediately rush her away from this place. Her radiance nearly extinguished the vileness of the surrounding manor and its inhabitants. I knew I should turn back and return home, but I also knew the ticking in my head would only get more persistent as this night went on. And now that ticking would be accompanied by images of this woman which would make it impossible to sleep or focus. No, I had to continue inside, but first I wanted to speak to her. I took a few steps toward her as she did to me before the older woman in the garden spotted us. She gave me a disapproving look, and hurried my girl inside, scolding her along the way.
My girl… what a strange thing to think.
The formidable front door was crafted from sturdy oak with two large iron sconces hanging on either side of it. The sconces were not lit yet as the sun was just setting and there was still a bit of day left. Standing in front of this door made one feel insignificant as was intended. A talented artisan had carved the flowers and fruit of the quince tree intertwined with a stag’s mighty bust representing the trees that this estate was known for and the mighty hunts they hosted several times a year. Interspersed withing the foliage were arcane symbols that were meant to open up doors that should remain shut. I had seen many of them before, and their presence confirmed that this was a house of evil. As I reached for the large iron knocker, the giant door creaked open, revealing the man responsible for those symbols. I shuddered at the sight of his crooked nose and hallow cheeks. The crack of his voice felt like a whip and forced me to jump back.
“They should have been lit by now! Our guests won’t be able to find our front door in the—” The baron stopped mid-sentence when his eyes landed on me. His thin lips curved into a wicked smile as his eyes widened. He rasped, “It’s you.”
I tried to ignore those words and the acrid stench of his breath. “Apologies for trespassing. I must have gotten turned around in the woods, came out the wrong side. Hasn’t happened to me before. I was wondering if you could spare a carriage back into town.”
“You are very welcome here, always welcome in our home. You’ll join us for dinner, and we’ll return you to town after the festivities.”
I was swept inside, and the heavy door shut tight behind us. My chest caved in a bit, and I gasped. The evil intent in this room was thick and oppressive. A heavy goblet filled with a spiced wine was shoved in my hand as I was hurried into the main hall and presented to the few guests that had arrived. Each giving me the same strange and dazzled look, giddy that I had arrived, uninvited, whispering to each other as they stole conspiratorial looks at me.
ONE-two-three-FOUR. ONE-two-three-FOUR.
Again, this simple beat kept me moving through the motions of polite conversation, drinks, and dinner, but the ticking become a hammering as the baron led the guests into a candlelit side chamber. His frosty blue eyes met mine, and I desperately wanted to flee. Despite his smile and hospitable nature, there was a greedy hunger radiating from his every pore. He was going to do something unredeemable, and if I followed him into this room, I was going to be part of it. No, I did not want that. I would suffer a night of restless sleep with the tap, tap, tap of this horrible beat in my head. It would end once he finished his unredeemable act. I would know something terrible occurred, but I would not be part of it… at least not physically. Yes, that was for the best. I began to turn around but then I saw her, my girl from the garden, now dressed in a regal scarlet gown, covered in jewels like she was the lady of the house, not one of its scullery maids. Our eyes locked for the second time that day. Hers pleaded with mine. She didn’t belong in this room. She was nothing like the ravenous heathens that circled her. Her heart was pure and beating too fast like prey caught in a trap. She was too terrified to speak but her eyes told me the whole story. I would not be leaving.
I knew there was no hope of stopping the ritual once the giant wooden doors locked behind us with two large guards outside them. The others all took their seat around the black, table covered in ritualistic symbols. The carvings on the table were arcane and ancient with an ornate blade at the center. Each attendee had a role to play in the complicated and lengthy ritual. With each of the steps, I could sense the demon they were calling getting closer. They did not need to perform all of these steps. If you want to meet a demon, you don’t have to be fancy about it. You simply have to ask with just the right level of desperation and desire.
I was filled with the perfect levels that night so as the group adorned themselves in strange gowns and masks, cut themselves with ornate and ritualistic blades, and chanted old useless words from grimoires written by madmen. I whispered a very simple phrase; one I won’t write on these pages for fear some hopeless soul reading this might repeat them.
When I said those words, the people and the room froze. Not even an eyelid blinked. They were stone.
A black smoke slipped through the cracks of the giant oak doors and slowly formed a figure of a man. The figure didn’t become solid as it moved with sleek grace through the frozen occultists to stand before me.
I knew I was face-to-face with Lucifer himself, not the lower-level demon that had been heading to this room, heeding the pathetic calls of these greedy souls. No, what I wanted wasn’t greedy, not entirely. It was more complicated. I was more complicated. Or so I had thought.
“I can save her,” the smoky figure stated. His voice did not scare me; it felt smooth, lulling, comforting. I had been in rooms with pure evil in the past. This creature did not feel evil. I wasn’t frightened of him. I was relieved that he had come. “Is that what you want?”
“Please. She is innocent and does not deserve this fate,” I murmured.
“Agreed.” The smoky figure moved to surround the girl. He turned and become more solid in form. His smoky figure turned flesh, and he appeared as a man beside her. He looked from her and back to me. “Why are you here?”
“What?”
“Why are you in this room with these evil creatures who are about to sacrifice this innocent girl?”
“I was called here. It’s a curse. I was born with it.”
“It seems a gift to me. You have a power to hunt evil men down, stop them before they act.”
“It’s never worked that way. I usually just stand by, powerless to do anything about it.”
“Except for tonight. Tonight, you decided to do something about it.”
“I couldn’t let them hurt her, not if I could help it.”
I stared at her lovely face, balking at her frozen, fearful expression. The man watched me silently and stepped away from the young woman.
“I will save her… but I could do much more.”
“Saving her will do,” I answered, too quickly, my own heart racing, suddenly wanting this more he promised.
“I could make them pay for this.”
I did not reply. He slinked closer to me, placing his cool, slender fingers on my shoulder. And leaned in closer to my ear. “I could take them all with me tonight. I could take all of their power and riches and give them to you.” He squeezed my shoulder and looked back to the girl. “And to her. She could have the life she deserves; one she shares with you.”
I wanted her to have such a life. I wanted to live that life beside her.
“I would only ask that after you live that very blessed and long life, that you come work for me. Use this wonderful power of yours to help me keep the most corrupt and tainted souls out of heaven.”
“C-can’t you d-do that on your own?” I stammered.
“I can’t track them as well as you can. God put something inside of you that is very rare indeed. Something he wanted me to find. Something that we could use to prevent a lot of suffering for people like your girl over there. We could stop these types of people before they shed innocent blood. Take them before they harmed so many.”
I stared into my girl’s eyes and felt my lips carelessly agree to his terms.
The man clapped his hands together and pulled me over to this woman I had yet to speak to but had just traded my soul to spend a lifetime with. He placed my hand in hers, and his own flesh once again became smoke. He twirled around us, raising our feet from the ground until we were well above the others, cocooned safely from the brutal mayhem that unleashed below us, insulated from the gnashing of teeth, howls from hell, and the mortal screams of agony. Her eyes opened and shone brightly at me; the fear that had once been there replaced with love. Our life together started at that violent moment, and I wasn’t going to waste a minute of it for this precious time had cost me dearly.
Notes from Necro: And that is the story of why Mephi made his own Faustian bargain with the devil, told in his own words. Needless to say, this story only convinced my old, evil master that he should make his own righteous pact with the devil, sealing his own fate in hell and freeing me of his cruel bondage. Mephi doesn’t regret the lifetime he spent with the young woman from this story but many centuries later, he does grow tired of only hanging out with the worst possible people. He longs for the time when one corrupt man turns over a new leaf and refuses the deal with the devil, but he has yet to see that happen. He fears he never will!
The story kept me intrigued all the way to the end. Well written.
Oooo yes. Power to save with the damning of ones soul. Sacrifice that will not let you in heaven. Loved the imagery of what happened to the "practicers" after the deal 🤝