Valiant: The Covenant Chronicles

[Covenant #1: The Devil]

Log Date: 9/5/12763

Data Sources: Jayta Jaskolka

The devil never asks for your soul on the first date.

People always imagine they would recognize him. They think they would know him on sight because of the many stories to portray him — surely you would recognize the red skin and horns, if you believe in the traditional interpretation. Or if you prefer the modern interpretation, you would know the man that offers a profane contract with the terms obscured. And if you’re a progressive thinker, you may abide by the ism that the devil is not a person, but something that we carry within each of us in the form of our own flaws and perverse wrongs.

All of these have a seed of truth — but they’re only seeds. These are the basic, obvious interpretations of the devil, images of him that are comfortable and easy to deal with. They’re black and white pictures that make him simple and straightforward, that give form to the monster. Because a monster, whether literal or metaphorical, is easy to recognize, and we want to believe we would know him when we saw him.

And as a result, people never recognize the devil when they meet him.

Event Log: Jayta Jaskolka

Coreolis: Hapsburn Park

10:30am SGT

“Do you need a friend?”

The words break through my uneven breathing, break through the sounds of the city. The distant sirens, honking that echoes between skyscrapers, the faint clang and clatter of construction in another area of the city. Those five words lift my eyes up from the lid of my disposable cup to see a young man with crimson hair and green eyes standing in front of me, offering out a handkerchief.

“I’m fine.” I say a little breathlessly, reaching up to wipe my eyes with my sleeve. I hiccup a nervous little laugh afterwards, not because I find it funny, but because it’s a defense mechanism, an effort to hide my pain and pretend I’m okay. “Thank you for offering. I don’t want to ruin your handkerchief, though.”

“Well, that’s what they’re for.” he says, still holding it out. “I certainly don’t carry it around for show.”

“No, it’s fine. I don’t need it.” I say, waving it away again and avoiding his eyes.

“That may be a matter of opinion, but we’ll agree to disagree.” he says as it retreats back into his pocket. “Do you mind if I sit with you?”

I look back up at him. I realize, now that I’m looking again, how well-dressed he is. Donned in black slacks, with a slim-fit, buttoned fall coat; the edge of a whitecollar shirt visible beneath the jacket’s collar, accompanied by a maroon tie knotted at his neck. He’s clean-shaven, with thin-rimmed glasses; his hair matching the autumn leaves in the park, and charmingly cowlicked in the back. There’s a faint shade of concern in the way his brows are tilted.

But no girl in her right mind hangs out with strange men she doesn’t know. No matter how kind or concerned they are.

I clear my throat a little, taking a deep breath and trying to compose myself. “I barely know you.” I point out, squaring my shoulders into a defensive posture.

He nods. “Fair enough. Would you like me to leave? I didn’t mean to intrude; you just seemed like you needed a friend.”

I give a general gesture to my face. “Does it look like I’d be good company right now?”

That earns a tilt of his head as he looks at me, and he doesn’t answer right away. “No, you don’t.” he says at length. “But I’d feel bad if I just kept walking and pretended like I didn’t see you.”

“Well, I wish you didn’t see me.” I say, looking down and wiping my nose, wishing I’d accepted the handkerchief now.

“I can leave if you want me to.” he offers. “I figured you’d feel better if you had someone to vent to, but if you’d rather me go, I’ll go.”

“Vent to?” I say, looking back up at him. “You barely know me.”

He tilts his head, shoving his hands in the pockets of his coat. “Well, if I must be blunt, I am prone to going out of my way to speak with people that would otherwise prefer to be left alone. Nobody ever said it was the smartest thing to do, but I have a propensity for doing it anyways. And you seemed like you needed a friend, so…”

“You can’t fix it.” I interrupt him. Because I’m pretty sure I know where he’s going with this. Setting himself up to be the crying shoulder.

“No, I can’t.” he agrees mildly. “You would have to do that.”

I don’t know what it is, but something about that just clicks. The way he says it — without sarcasm, without judgement, as if he was talking about the weather — cuts through the haze of hurt and loneliness I’d been wallowing in for the last two months. Just a simple statement of fact:

I needed to be the one to save myself, not someone else.

“I can’t fix it, though.” I say, after a while spent thinking about that. “He made his choice and he left me. I can’t force him to change his mind.”

“Alright.” he concedes. “If you can’t get him back, what about getting even?”

And that’s something that clicks as well. An idea that’s so simple, and yet it’s something I had never even considered. “How do you mean?”

“He hurt you.” he says simply. “So why don’t you hurt him back?”

Coming from anyone else, there’d be a wild refusal. I would’ve shook my head, rejected the idea, answered the question by saying it was wrong to do something like that. Answering one wrong with another wrong wasn’t the answer, and it wouldn’t make things right. At least, that’s what I would’ve told myself. And that’s what I would’ve told anyone else.

But the way he asks it, his head tilted to one side and his bright green eyes curious, makes it feel like the natural order. The seasons come and go; the sun rises and falls; and when someone hurts you, you hurt them back. The fulfillment of an ancient balance; that for every action, there must be a reaction. A natural law, unspoken but true; an instinctive equation that nobody was taught, but everybody knew by heart.

The buzz of my phone’s timer jolts me out of my reverie, and I break my gaze away from the stranger to look down at it. It’s the alarm that lets me know the shift at my first job starts in ten minutes; rubbing hastily at my eyes again, I stand up. “I have to go; my shift starts in ten minutes. I can’t be late; I need this job…”

He nods, stepping back as if to give me to space to walk off. “I’ll let you go, then. Here’s to hoping that the rest of your day goes better.”

“Thank you.” It’s hurried, rushed, just a formality of manners as I start back along the path leading through the park. I don’t look back because I don’t want him to think I’m interested in him, but his suggestion stays with me.

The fulfillment of an ancient balance…

That for every action, there must be a reaction.

Jayta’s Journal

What the devil looks like often depends on what culture you were born into, and what you believe in.

For the Christlings, he is commonly depicted as an angel disfigured by his fall. There is a visual metaphor in this: an ugly exterior correlates with a corrupt interior, a willful disobedience against their deity and savior. Defiance against the divine chain of command is punished with disfigurement and dethronement.

For the Aurescurans — of which I am one — our demons are primordial things, ill-formed and representative of our most primal instincts. They are the oldest creatures of our world, for they were our goddess’s first attempts at creating life. They are not evil as such — but they do represent the subconscious forces that motivate us, and what we would regress to if we lacked a higher intelligence, or self-restraint.

For the wereckanan, the devil is a thing that lives within each of them. A ghost of sorts, an echo; a seed of darkness, and the decisions that they make either keep it dormant, or nourish it and prompt it to grow. While they are not intrinsically atheistic, their belief system prompts them to look inwards for an explanation of evil, rather than casting the blame outwards.

But no matter what face the devil wears, whether he lives beneath us or within us, there are some things about him that are the same across cultures and religions. He craves power, and the ability to exert that power. He takes perverse pleasure in the hardship and suffering of others. He understands, perhaps better than anyone else, the darker emotions and struggles of mortal souls.

And most importantly, he does not want to be alone.

Event Log: Jayta Jaskolka

Coreolis: Maroon Monday’s

9/8/12763 8:49pm SGT

I didn’t think I’d see him again after that day, but his words stayed with me. They haunted me, kept me up at night, staring at the ceiling for hours after I’d gotten into bed. And over the next few days, they haunted me in the quiet moments at work. I found my mind wandering back to his suggestion whenever I was doing mindless tasks, like stocking the shelves or washing the dishes.

He hurt you. So why don’t you hurt him back?

He’d said it so simply, like cause and effect. Touch a hot stove, get burned. Drop a glass, watch it break. You hurt me, so I’ll hurt you. It was simple, natural logic, and I’d dismissed it a dozen times.

And yet in the quiet moments, my mind would always wander back to it.

There was something that just felt right about the idea. It was an idea that formed the foundation of retribution, of justice. It felt equal; it felt fair; and the more I thought about it, the more it started to make sense to me. I had been wronged, and that had created an imbalance on some cosmic scale of justice. And the only way to balance those scales would be to return, in equal measure, the hurt that had been done to me.

I knew those were dangerous thoughts, but they comforted me, and soothed some of the pain that I had carried with me for almost two months now.

But at the end of the day, I wouldn’t act on them, because I’d never been that kind of girl. That’d require a sort of boldness that I didn’t have. All I’d ever do was daydream about it, use those fantasies as a psychological morphine that would eventually wear off when I was jerked back to reality by my actual responsibilities.

Which, tonight, involved waitressing for someone that’d taken a table minutes before we closed.

Even if I hadn’t seen him yet, I already hated him. The entire night crew did, because we’d be here another forty minutes if he ordered anything substantial. It would slow down our closing routine, and everyone would get home later than they’d planned on. And since he was seated in my section, the pressure was on me to find a way to encourage him to get something the cook could whip up in five minutes. Or perhaps even convince him to get it as a to-go plate.

But then I round the corner to the booth tucked away in the little windowed nook, and I see the hair, crimson like the autumn leaves. The eyes, green like spring leaves. And the brusque words die in my throat as I freeze on the spot.

“Hallo.” he says softly. “I hope this isn’t too much of a bother.”

I’m speechless for a moment. When I’m finally able to get my voice unstuck, I ask “How did you find me?”

He blinks owlishly behind those thin-rimmed glasses. “Find you? I wasn’t looking for you.”

For a second I think he’s pulling a prank on me. Then I realize that I look nothing like what I looked like that day, especially with my hair pulled back into a ponytail and dressed in my waitress’s uniform now. It’s entirely possible that he doesn’t recognize me. “Oh, sorry. I just thought I recognized you.” I say quickly, pulling out my tablet. “Are you ready to order?”

“Oh yes.” he says, setting down his menu and lacing his fingers together over it. “One dish of revenge, best served cold, with a side of spite, if you would.”

My fingers hover over the tablet’s surface as I stare at him, my mouth slightly open. The words are spoken with the same casual cadence as ordering an actual dish, and it’s whiplash as I go from thinking he doesn’t recognize me to realizing that he remembers exactly who I am.

“Have you gotten even yet?” he eventually asks when I can’t find my voice.

“Wh— I, I, no!” I stammer. “Is there something I can get for you, Mr…?”

“Syntaritov.” he answers, his eyes still fixed on me. “If I order, will you stay and talk with me?”

“I— I, I can’t.” I stutter, motioning over my shoulder. “I have to wait your table, and it’s almost closing time, and— and I need to take care of the closing routine…”

“Of course.” he nods thoughtfully. “This is your place of employ, after all.” Looking aside, he takes a deep breath, the one where you can see his chest and shoulders visibly rise and fall. “We will need someone to take care of your responsibilities, then. Danya?”

I stare, wondering if he’s talking to himself, then jump when someone answers “Yes?” from behind me. I twist around to see a tall, thin brunette that hadn’t been there before, dressed in a red-and-black pinstripe suit; I stagger away from her, backing up against the table as I clutch my tablet to my chest.

“I need you to mind this lady’s responsibilities while we talk.” Mr. Syntaritov says with a nod to me. “Convincingly. Her coworkers cannot know she’s gone.”

Danya exhales a breath through her nose in a clear sign that her patience is being tested. “That’s a tall ask when you’re asking me to impersonate someone I’ve never met before.”

“You have her image. That should be enough.” Mr. Syntaritov says. “Besides, you’ve worked foodservice before. Keep your head down, pretend to be busy, and you should be fine.”

Danya doesn’t look pleased, but she also doesn’t talk back. Turning her gaze back on me, she studies me for a moment, then starts to morph before my eyes, shrinking down into a petite little blonde in a waitress’s uniform.

I let out a choked little sound as I realize I’m staring at myself.

“I’m going to need that.” my copy says, reaching out and taking the tablet from my frozen fingers. “What order should I take back to the cook, Lord Syntaritov?”

“Surprise me.” Mr. Syntaritov says. My copy rolls her eyes, turning about and walking off as she pokes at the tablet. The crimson-haired man then looks back to me. “Please, sit.”

I don’t sit. Mostly because I’m still watching the copy of myself walk away, trying to process what I just saw. Rather than pushing me, the man with crimson hair simply follows my gaze and watches along with me.

“Fascinating, isn’t it?” he remarks after a moment. “You’re never more self-conscious than when you see yourself the way others must see you. And you realize at that moment that you’re nothing like what you imagine yourself to be.”

“What— what is she?” I pant, clutching my empty hands to my chest when I realize my heart’s racing and I can’t catch my breath.

“Danya is a succubus.” he answers simply, as if he was stating someone’s nationality. “She works for me. But we are not here to discuss her.” He motions to the seat across from him. “Please, sit.”

For a moment I consider refusing. Saying no, backing away, running off. It would be the smart thing to do, because even if he’s not acting like it, I know this man is a predator. And if he’s interested in me, that means I’m prey.

But the person I would’ve run to is holding someone else now.

Reaching over, I pull out the chair and sit down in it, taking a deep breath. “Alright. What do you want to talk about?”

“Let’s start with names.” he says, sliding the menu off to the side. “We’ve met before, but we’ve never introduced ourselves. I am Raikaron Syntaritov; I know even the last name is a bit of a mouthful, so if it’s easier for you, you can just call me Rai. And you?”

I start to say something, but my voice cracks, so I clear my throat and try again. “Jayta Jaskolka. Most people call me Jay, though.”

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Jay.” he says with a smile, reaching up to corral one of his crimson locks behind his ear once more. “So. This is the part where one of us starts asking questions. Would you like to begin, or…?”

“What do you want with me?” I say, almost interrupting him. I don’t want him to play games; I just want to know, so I can figure out whether I want to bolt from this table and shout for help. Run back to the kitchen, where I can probably hide behind the cook.

“I’m in a line of business that often involves helping people that are cast aside or abandoned.” he says, reaching up with a single hand and taking his glasses off. “I like to consider myself an altruist of sorts, as I specialize in helping the weak and vulnerable overcome their difficulties and reach their maximum potential. It is not without price, of course, but… I take my dues in resources that most every individual has access to, regardless of their station in life.”

“That doesn’t answer my question.” Perhaps it’s a mistake to be this aggressive, but I’m small, not stupid. I know when someone’s dodging or deflecting a question.

He smiles as he neatly folds his glasses and sets them to the side. “Very well, then. You just want me to come right out and say it?”

“Yes. Please.” I’m fighting the urge to fidget, keeping my hands folded in my lap. “I don’t want to play games.”

“Alright.” he says, lacing his fingers together on the table once more. “I’m here to offer you revenge.”

Even if I’d suspected it, I don’t know what to say to that. “So… you… want to help me hurt him?”

“In as many words, yes.” he says. “And while I am not necessarily a revenge specialist, I am something of an expert in the art of inflicting pain. Of many kinds.”

“Wait, stop.” I say, holding up a hand as I start to think more about this. “How did you know? Have you been stalking me?”

He raises an eyebrow. “Suffering souls are my business, dear. I can see pain like you see stars on a dark night. Pinpricks of light crying out for consolation, recourse, and relief.”

“And you saw me.” I surmise.

“Not until two months ago.” he admits. “Your star flared to life in a nova of grief and loneliness. Which, if I’m being honest, is not uncommon. Heartbreak is a common occurrence; there are dozens such novas every day. What sets you apart is that your star continues to burn. It has not faded, which means that you have not moved on. You continue to carry your grief and loneliness with you, unresolved.” He lets that sink in before he tilts his head to one side, studying me with a distanced sort of curiosity. “Either you don’t know how to let go and move on… or you don’t want to let go quite yet.”

My chest tightens at his words, and more at that fact that I’m thinking about it now, when I’d been trying so hard to not think about it for weeks. That tight feeling hurts, and makes it hard to breathe. “I’ve tried. But we were together for four years, and you can’t just wash away four years in two months.”

“Hardly.” he agrees. “And it wouldn’t have been so bad if it was just a breakup, but he left you for someone else. In fact…” Unlacing his fingers, he taps on the table’s surface, which ripples and turns translucent like glass, posts and pictures from social media services starting to scroll across the surface. “He cheated on you for a while before the breakup. With someone that, I will admit, looks like you, except taller and a little more sportsy.”

My fingers curl into fists beneath the table as pictures of my ex and his new flame continue scrolling across the table. “Is there a point to this, or are you just doing this to torment me?”

“There is actually a point to it.” he says, his eyes scanning the images and posts as they scroll by. “These images are evidence of how you were wronged. Living proof of why you deserve revenge. In this court, you are the judge and jury. You may consider me the prosecutor. I am laying out the case before you, so you can render a verdict.” He looks back up to me. “Is he guilty, or innocent?”

I glare at him. “That’s a stupid question.”

He smiles. “Very well, then. Since he’s guilty, what is his sentence?”

I stare at the scrolling pictures. “I couldn’t think of anything that would make him feel what I would feel. That’s the part that sucks. I could key his car, slash the tires, break all his stuff… it would make him mad, but it wouldn’t make him feel the pain I felt. In order for him to feel that, he’d have to feel something for me, and he obviously doesn’t… anymore.”

“Mm. Yes, the classic issue of the unrepentant cheater.” he agrees, picking up his glasses and putting them on again. “It’s hard to punish them in a way that will actually make them feel penitent for what they’ve done. Financial and physical retribution don’t inflict the emotional damage that’s often desired as recompense. But there are ways; you merely have to be creative and determined.” Tapping the table again, it turns opaque once more as he stands up. “Would you walk with me? I think this next part is best discussed with a breath of fresh autumn air.”

I blink at him. “But I’m still on the clock—”

“Indeed you are. And Danya will ensure you’re clocked out when your shift is over.” he says, straightening his slim-fit vest and buttoning the cuffs of his shirt. “And I promise, you’ll be safe with me. I am not the sort of individual that others like to trouble after the sun has gone down.” Stepping around the table, he holds a hand out to me. “You can stay here if you want, and forget that you ever met me. Or, you could come with me, and I can tell you exactly what you need to do to make him hurt the way he hurt you.”

I look at that hand, then up at him. Those green eyes behind the glasses are honest, clear and bright; they don’t hold any of the lies that my ex’s eyes held when I asked him where he’d been.

Reaching out, I take his hand, surprised at how soft his slender fingers are.

He smiles, tugging me up and looping his arm through mine as he drapes his fall coat over his other arm. “That’s a courage I can admire. So, Ms. Jaskolka, how does a stroll down by the river sound to you?”

I know I should be scared. But after the last two months, and the pain I’ve been through, I don’t care anymore. I don’t have anything to lose.

“It sounds good.” I answer, winding my arm around his as we head for the door.

Jayta’s Journal

No, the devil does not want to be alone.

This is the foundation of that great truth, that misery loves company. It is the common thread of all stories that involve the devil. His persistent search for souls; his propensity for brokering deals of power and privilege; his dogged insistence on trying to corrupt mortals. Undergirding each of these habits is that simple truth that misery loves company, and that the devil does not want to suffer alone.

This is the devil’s triumph at the end of these parables. His savage delight in pulling a soul down into the pit is not a product of a game well-played, or the result of a plan going as expected. It is the relief of a creature always on the inside looking at the world outside, but never able to be a part of it. It is the relief of a creature that would leave the pit if it could, but it cannot; and because it cannot, it pulls others into the pit so it is not alone.

This is the devil’s delight whenever a mortal falls, or succumbs to their temptations, or when the time comes to collect on the contract writ and bound in blood. It is not winning which brings him joy, though he has won. It is not that he feels a vicious pleasure in the struggle and pain of another, though he does. It is not that he has once again proved the divine wrong, though he has.

No, the devil’s joy comes from knowing that he is no longer alone.

Event Log: Jayta Jaskolka

Coreolis: Hapsburn Park

9:22pm SGT

“I imagine this must be more pleasant in the summer.” Raikaron remarks as we walk along the path running beside the stream in the park. “It’s a little chilly for late-night walks down by the water, isn’t it?”

“It’s always colder by the water.” I say, feeling a little nervous. I’m out here alone with him, and if I need to shout for help, it’s going to take longer for someone to get here. I don’t think he’s going to try anything — he’s been mild and pleasant the whole time — but you can never be sure.

“That’s true.” he concurs. “We can thank evaporative cooling for that. Natural temperature regulation, of sorts.” After another few strides in pondering silence, he looks aside at me. “So, you want to make him feel the pain you felt.”

I pull my coat a little tighter as I look at him. “It’s what he deserves.”

The corner of his mouth tugs up slightly. “One ill turn deserves another.” Unfolding his own coat from where it’s draped over his arm, he begins putting it on. “Let me ask you — what are the most painful emotions?”

I don’t spend too long thinking about it. “Betrayal. Regret.”

“Almost.” He finishes tugging his coat on, settling it comfortably on his shoulders and straightening it out. “Betrayal and regret hurt, but they are emotions that allow for action and resolution. They let people move forward. The emotions that really hurt are the ones that don’t allow that. There are three of them: loss, abandonment, and helplessness. Do you know why these emotions hurt so much, Jay?”

I hug my arms around myself to ward off the chill. “…they’re all similar. I guess.”

“It’s because they’re three different faces of another emotion.” he says, clasping his hands behind his back as we walk side by side. I can tell, from how attentive he is, that he’s enjoying the role of being teacher. “Loneliness.”

“I suppose that makes sense.” I admit softly. More than I’d like to admit.

“It should.” he says as our feet shuffle through stray leaves littering the path. “Let me ask you, what did you feel after he broke up with you and started dating someone else?”

It only takes me a few seconds, but I know where he’s going with this. And though I don’t want to play along, I also know he’s not wrong. I don’t reply, and when I don’t, he continues on anyway.

“Did you, perchance, feel like you’d been abandoned?” he asks mildly, leaves crackling between his shoes and the pavement. “Did you feel loss as four years of your life suddenly slipped through your fingers? Did you feel helpless when you realized there was nothing you could do to get it back, that it was already all gone?”

“Stop.” I order before he can go on. “The answer’s yes. Are you happy? I felt all of those things. I still feel those things, and they hurt. They hurt a lot.”

“I just wanted to make sure.” he says, smiling. “Just needed to feel my way around it. To know exactly what it is you wanted him to suffer.” He goes back to watching the flaking trees as we walk, silent and thoughtful, before speaking again. “You lost someone you love, and that is the pain that you feel most keenly. The absence. The loss of a future you thought you’d have. That was your happily ever after, and he took it from you, and didn’t even bother to ask you, or give you fair warning.”

My jaw clenches. I can feel my chest tightening up again, and I could swear that he’s doing this just to torment me. The way he draws the discussion out, and spreads it wide as if he was marveling at the tapestry of my pain.

“Yes, that’s what it is.” he muses softly. “Then I think we have our answer. Do unto him as he did unto you.” He looks aside to me, and I can see myself faintly reflected in the lenses of his glasses. “Take away his happily ever after.”

He stops walking, turning fully to face me, and I stop as well. Leaning down a little, he lifts a hand towards my face; I flinch and take a step back on instinct. Though he pauses, he doesn’t lower his hand, one brow raised as if asking me if I’d recoil; it’s an unspoken challenge, one that has me glaring at him. Far from scaring him off, it prompts a small grin from him as if he found it amusing; moving his hand again, he places the knuckle of his forefinger under my chin, tilting it up slightly, then leans in — not trying for a kiss as I’d expected, but to instead whisper in my ear.

“Kill his girlfriend.”

The words paralyze me. And while I understand them perfectly, their meaning is so shocking that it’s a moment before it fully sinks in, and I do recoil, staring at him in horror.

“What?!” I demand. “You’re telling me to kill her? Are you insane?!”

“Quite.” he answers with ease, straightening up. Clasping his wrists behind his back once more, he begins walking along the path again. “You wanted to know what you needed to do to make him hurt the way he hurt you. What he took from you was love, companionship, a relationship. That is the loss you feel. If you want to make him suffer the way you are suffering, you have to take from him what he took from you: the person he loves, the relationship he has, the companionship she affords him.”

I follow after him, though my stride’s broken and distraught now, rather than relaxed and matching his. “There has to be another way to make him pay. I can’t—” The word struggles in my throat. “—kill someone. That’s going too far.”

“Well, there are other ways to achieve the same effect.” he says thoughtfully. “You could instead kill a member of his family. That would cut much deeper, as the relationship there is far more established and powerfully defined.”

“Wh— no! He’s got a good family! I’m not going to hurt them because of something he did! His mum was always nice to me, she treated me like part of the family!”

“This squeamishness is leaving us with fewer and fewer options.” he laments, tilting his head back to look at the sky. “If his family is out of the question, then all options revolve around the girlfriend. If you don’t want to kill her, you could instead do to her what she did to him, but I very much doubt that is within your repertoire.”

“What did she do to him?” I demand, doing my best to keep up with his long stride.

“She seduced him, of course.” Raikaron explains, looking at me as if he was surprised I didn’t know this. “She presented him with a path that appealed to him more than the one that he was presently on, a temptation he couldn’t turn down. That’s why he broke up with you.” He holds up a finger. “Now, if you truly wanted to; if you are really invested in this, and if you have the patience for the long game, then you can set yourself up to do the same thing to her, and get her to cheat on him — with you. It’ll take a couple months, at minimum, but it’s doable, it has a certain sort of delicious irony to it, and most importantly, you won’t have to kill anyone — which you seem to be terribly averse to.”

“I—” I have to take a moment to steady myself as I almost trip over the uneven seam in one of the slabs of concrete that makes up the park’s path. “…I can’t. I’m not that way.”

He clasps his wrists behind his back once more, smiling to himself. “So you say, but there was a moment of hesitation there, as if you weren’t quite sure.”

A rush of heat rises to my face. “It won’t work.” I say firmly. “I can’t pretend to be something I’m not. Besides, I wouldn’t want to do anything with her. She ruined my relationship and my life, and took him away from me.”

“Oh?” he asks archly, raising an eyebrow at me. “Is that a hint of jealousy I hear?”

“Are you really asking me that?” I demand in return. “The guy I spent four years with is rolling in bed with some other girl now, of course I’m jealous. Just thinking about it makes me furious. It’s why I try to avoid thinking about it, because it just burns me up.”

“Mm.” is his soft reply. “And when you lie alone at night, do you scroll over their social pages, seeing what they’re posting about each other or posting together? Tormenting yourself with watching them build their lives, while yours remains a smoldering wreck?”

I look away, watching the dark water of the stream. That’s exactly what I do, and I know I shouldn’t, and I know it doesn’t help me heal, but I still do it. I can’t help myself. Knowing what they’re doing, and feeling the pain, is more endurable than not knowing.

“Do you ever imagine to yourself, in your dark and silent room, how he looks at her and touches her?” he says, holding up a hand to catch one of the crimson leaves drifting down from the dying trees arched above us. “How he must trace the curve of her body, hold her close and kiss her, how he must look at her… and do you ever ask yourself why he never touched you like that, looked at you like that.” He stops, studying the dying leaf in his hand. “And do you ask yourself what it matters anymore?”

We remain stopped there. I stare at the bridge over the stream, not far from us, drenched in my silent pain as Raikaron describes how I’ve spent my last two months. It’s a step back as I see how miserable I’ve been in the big picture, and how it’s unlikely to get any better.

“Things are never going to be the way they were before, but you’ve resisted moving on because you don’t want to let go of what you once had.” he says, closing his fingers around the fallen leaf. “But we both know you’re never getting him back, and you can’t stay this way forever.” Reaching down, he takes my hand, lifting it up and placing his fist in my palm. When he opens his fingers, I feel something dense drop into my hand; it’s definitely not the leaf he was holding a moment ago. “It’s time to move on. Take what you can salvage from this moment in your life, then turn your back on it and move onto the next moment. Nobody will do it for you, so you have to do it for yourself.”

His hands pull away from mine; resting in my hand is a small dagger with a blade that’s the same hue as the autumn leaf that was clutched in his fist. Stepping back, he tucks his hands in the pockets of his coat and turns, starting to walk off.

“If you think I’m going to use this, you’re crazy!” I call after him.

He pauses and looks around. “Oh, I’m sorry. Would you prefer a hatchet instead?”

“Why did you give this to me?” I demand.

“It’s an offer.” he says. “Put that blade in her, and it’ll kill her. No questions asked. And moreover, nobody will ever know it was you.”

“You’re just going to give me a weapon that’ll let me get away with murder?” I ask. “No. There’s a catch somewhere. What happens to me if I use this thing?”

“There’s no catch.” he shrugs innocently. “If you can muster up the courage to use it, though, I’ll consider giving you access to some of the… other privileges of hell.”

“You’re a demon, aren’t you.” It sounds stupid even as I say it, because it’s obvious by now that he is, but also because nobody would believe me if I said I took a walk with one.

“By birth, no. By occupation, certainly.” he answers, turning and starting to walk away again. “I’ll leave the choice to you, little flowerbud. I’d love to see you bloom out of this phase in your life, though.”

With that, he’s crossing the bridge over the stream, leaving me alone beneath the dying trees. I remain where I am, watching as his crimson hair bobs and blends among the trunks on the other side of the stream, until it entirely disappears from view. At that point I’m truly alone, standing in the dark with a dagger in hand. For a long moment, I consider chucking it in the river and forgetting this ever happened.

But I don’t. I tuck it into my coat instead, and after some more time spent staring at the dark water, I turn and start walking along the path, making my way home in the autumn chill.

Jayta’s Journal

The curious thing about the devil’s deals is that in many instances, he is not offering something that is beyond your reach.

It’s that he offers you shortcuts to things you could attain on your own.

And it is not apparent why this is. Perhaps his power is finite, and he can only offer so much. Perhaps he is stingy, and only offers what he needs to offer and nothing more. Perhaps it is simply cruelty, giving someone something they could’ve gotten on their own, with time and effort. Whatever the case, the devil’s offers are often substantial, but not anything that would be impossible to attain on your own.

Money and possessions? Things that can be attained with work.

Friends and fame? Things that can be attained by self-improvement and skill-building.

Power and influence? Things that can be attained making connections and doing the ground work.

All of them require time and resources, and are interlinked to some extent, but they are not impossible ambitions. Yet the devil offers shortcuts to them, and all too often, people take the shortcut, trading away their soul for a fleeting, ephemeral gain. Having heard these stories time and again, we like to think that we would be wiser and more clever when the devil makes his offer; we never think that we would be so easily taken in by the offer made.

But the devil’s deals are never offered in a vacuum, and the circumstances in which he makes his offers are rarely so simple as the ones we hear about in the myths.

Event Log: Jayta Jaskolka

Coreolis: Grant’s Hardware

9/11/12763 8:57am SGT

When I got home that night, I’d set the dagger on my dresser. It stayed there for all of thirty minutes, and when I found that I couldn’t stop looking at it, I’d opened up one of my drawers and threw it inside. It was only when I’d shut it out of view that I was able to get some sleep.

But that didn’t stop me from thinking about it.

I tried to put it from my mind over the next couple of days. While it hadn’t fixed anything, speaking with Raikaron had been cathartic. He hadn’t tried to calm me down with empty platitudes, or tell me that everything would get better with enough time. Instead, he told me my feelings were valid, then gave me a knife and told me to go kill the girl that had stolen my ex from me.

And yes, that’s the sort of thing that puts up a thousand red flags, but his mild, unapologetic candor was refreshing, almost… comforting, in a dark way.

The same way they did after our first meeting, his words stuck with me. They kept on coming back to me at different times throughout the day. About how it was time to move on; about how I should salvage what I could from this point in my life and move onto the next. And though he hadn’t said it directly, I could read between the lines, knew what was implied: there was nothing left for me in this period of my life. I had lost this battle, and it was time to move onto the next one.

Knowing that truth changed the way I looked at everything.

It felt like for the first time in months, I could look up and see the sky, watch the clouds. Although the trees had changed colors weeks ago, it felt like I was seeing their colors anew; I could pay attention to the smell of the cafes and bakeries that I passed. I could hear the city more clearly now, though I didn’t really appreciate the clamor. But at least I could hear it, instead of slogging through day by day in a numb haze, and that was perhaps the biggest difference.

The numbness was gone.

Instead of going to my jobs on autopilot, I was actually able to focus on my work. It was easier to pay attention, and I started looking forward to the end of the day once more. Every time I got home, I’d open that drawer when I was changing clothes, and I would see that dagger. Only a brief glimpse, but its autumn gleam was reminder of the promise that Raikaron had made: all I had to do was use the dagger to kill her, and nobody would ever know or find out. I could have my revenge, taking from my ex what he’d taken from me.

There were several times I almost picked it up and grabbed my jacket.

But I never followed through. I would usually catch myself at the last second, remember that it was murder I was thinking about. It wasn’t just a prank, or a fistfight; I would be killing someone. Spilling blood. Ending a person and taking their life.

Yet the more and more I thought about it, the more comfortable the idea felt. I visualized it more than once, how I would grab and stab; I told myself that I’d have to put force into it, since it’d be flesh and bone, nothing like slicing a loaf of bread. There would be blood, probably slippery and hot and warm and all over the place; there would be struggling, because she wouldn’t die right away.

I spent time poking at my own body as I laid in bed, my fingers pressing against my soft, pale skin, imagining what it would be like to be stabbed in various places. How much it would hurt. I came to the conclusion that going for the heart would be poetic, but difficult, and it would be easy to miss if it didn’t go right. A stab or slash to the neck, on the other hand, could easily kill her even if it didn’t hit dead-on. Just a glancing hit to the throat could prompt a bleed-out, if the knife was sharp enough.

And yet despite all the thinking I did about it, I could never bring myself to commit to it.

Part of it was the dagger itself. Every time I opened the drawer and saw it, I remembered its promise. That it would let me get my revenge without anyone knowing; that it would let me close this chapter of my life and move onto the next. It was the answer to the threads that I was currently tangled in, and instead of taking time to pull out the knots and extricate myself from the ruined web of my life, I could just cut my way free.

But I could never bring myself to do it because I knew there had to be a price tied to it, even if Raikaron insisted that there wasn’t one. It was a shortcut, a fast track to exactly what I craved, and if I used it, there would be a price to pay. I wasn’t so desperate that I would take a shortcut to something I could do on my own.

Besides, the devil had given me something far more important than the dagger. It was something I was just now realizing as I set a coil of barbed wire and a pack of three-inch tacking nails on the counter, watching as the cashier rings them through.

“Will this be all?” he asks as he bags them up.

“Yeah.” I say, tapping my bracelet against the scanner and taking the bag.

“Have a good day.” he drones, pulling out his phone again.

“I think I will.” I say, smiling as I turn and head for the door. Making sure my scarf’s looped around my neck a couple times, I step out onto the sidewalk, exhaling and watching as my breath crystallizes into a white cloud in the autumn air. Marveling at how blue the sky was today.

Raikaron Syntaritov had given me more than a dagger.

He’d given me clarity and purpose.

Jayta’s Journal

I’ve never seen a story about spiting the devil.

There are plenty of stories about spurning him, about turning down his offers and choosing the righteous path instead. Plenty of stories about people who, when offered one of his deals, find their better angels and turn him down. They are quite common, a religious genre known as ‘get thee hence’ stories: the devil comes and he tempts, offers a deal that’s too good to pass up. The mortal’s resolve wavers, but after an examination of conscience, they turn him down. The devil, unable to force his will, departs disgruntled and dissatisfied. Anyone with a decent amount of exposure to religion will recognize the format.

But I’ve never seen a story where the devil tempts, and the mortal succumbs to the temptation, but decides they’ll go about it on their own terms, rather than with the devil’s help.

This would be spiting the devil. To listen to his arguments, to find them compelling, to be convinced by them, but determined to put them into practice without the devil’s assistance. In a way, it deprives the devil of the benefit he’d otherwise derive from one that accepts his deal, because when you go to hell, you’ll go on the merits of your own decisions, rather than as one of his soul-sold trophies. A victory of sorts, even if it pales next to the overall condemnation.

But it is the small things which grate the worst, like the lingering pain of a papercut — small, and yet maddening. Being able to hold your head high in hell, even as you burn, is one of those things. Petty, irrelevant, but irritating and hard to ignore.

All the better to spite the devil with.

Event Log: Jayta Jaskolka

Coreolis: Residential District, 439 Cadenza Avenue

9/11/12763 10:32pm SGT

In the end, the dagger never left my drawer.

It had been tempting to use it. It would’ve made things so easy, perhaps so easy that it would’ve been without effort, and therefore without meaning. It wouldn’t have been earned. Even if I didn’t plan on using it, I was tempted to take it as a backup, just in case things didn’t go as planned. But if I did that, it’d be like admitting I wasn’t sure I could do this on my own.

Standing in front of the new girl’s house, with a spaceball bat that was tightly wrapped in barbed wire and studded with the tacking nails that were holding it in place, I had everything I needed.

Starting up the driveway, I rest the bat on the leather pad strapped to my shoulder. It’s dark out, and midnight will be here in an hour and a half; with the weather turning colder and days getting shorter, people are inside their houses and going to bed earlier and earlier. The fact that it was this late at night, with the air starting to bite with its chill, meant that practically no one was outside. As a result, I was able to make my way through the neighborhood without interference. And as for the house itself…

Tonight, it’s just going to be me and the new girl.

I come up the stairs to the porch without hesitation, heading to the front door. Because yes, while this was her parents’ house, and she lived at home, her parents were away on vacation. One of the benefits of stalking her social media for the last two months was that I knew her friend web almost as well as my own.

A single click was all I’d needed to get to her parents’ page, scroll their feed, and find a stream of picture posts from a warmer clime.

A single click was all I’d needed to check her profile page, and see that she didn’t have any siblings listed.

A single click was all I’d needed to check her feed, and see that she was posting about pulling an all-nighter to finish a paper she’d put off the entire semester.

A single click was all I’d needed to check my ex’s page, and see that he was spending the night out with the boys.

Resting a hand on the front door’s handle, I give a twist and a gentle push. There’s a faint rasp as it pushes inward, cracked open slightly, a rush of warm air escaping from inside. Typical of someone that lives in a neighborhood like this — never a thought given to what might happen if they leave the door unlocked, as if theft and break-ins were the sort of thing that only happened in other parts of town.

Stepping in, I quietly close the door behind me, unzip my jacket because of how warm it is in here, and take a look around. It’s a painfully mundane middle-class homestead; beige walls, picture frames on the walls with revolving montages of places the family’s been and things they’ve done. Shoes sitting in the hallway up against the baseboards, the floor scuffed and dirty where they were always taken off and stationed. Across one of the walls, the words Live — Laugh — Love are stenciled large in garish red print. My eyes linger on the words, soaking in their trite and anemic sentiment.

Living had been miserable recently, I haven’t laughed in the past two months, and love is a joke right now.

But I’m not here to grind an axe with motivational quotes plastered across walls, so I start straight for the stairs. Most of the lights downstairs are off, while the hall lights from the second floor are on, and this time of night, I’m pretty sure I know where I’ll find her. Not many people hang out downstairs by themselves this late at night. I know I’d prefer to be in my own room, if I had to be alone in a big house.

I keep expecting my pulse to quicken as I ascend the stairs, but it never does. It remains steady and even; my breathing doesn’t pick up. I don’t have the shakes; there’s a feeling of certainty that’s filled me, and a definite kind of calm has come with it. If anything, I find myself thinking back to one of the relaxed summer songs that I used to listen to with my ex, and I begin humming the notes to it as I crest the stairs and start down the hall. I think about the good times as door after door passes me by on either side; I think about all those little quiet moments we shared, whether it was rolling with laughter or teasing each other or sitting and talking to each other for hours at a time.

Moments that, for all intents and purposes, meant nothing now. Little more than wasted time, collected memories which served no purpose but to fuel the ache in my chest.

Reaching the door at the end of the hall on the right, I nudge it open a crack. Within is her bedroom, a little messy both otherwise unremarkable; the lights are off but the desk lamp is on, and she’s sitting at her desk, typing out that essay she posted about. It’s hard to make out from here, but it looks like she’s got her earbuds in, which probably explains why she never heard me coming, and still hasn’t noticed me.

Stepping inside, I walk up behind her. It’s not until I’m right behind her that she notices my shadow falling across her desk, and she turns in her chair, reaching up to pull an earbud out. She starts to say something, her expression harsh and hostile, then pauses as if she recognizes me. “Wait, you’re—”

“Hi.” I say softly, then reach up to grip the bat with both hands, swinging it off my shoulder with as much force as I can.

The blow catches her in the side of the head with enough force to snap her head to the side and throw her clear out of the chair, sprawling across the floor. I pull the bat back up and follow, taking a stance over her; she’s still moving, and from what I can see of her face, the barbed wire’s torn wide, long gashes in the left side of her face. Blood’s already pooling on the floor, spilling profusely from where the bat made contact with her skull, and the one eye I can see is wide with shock. This came so suddenly to her that fear and pain haven’t even had time to set in.

In that brief nanosecond, a twinge of guilt breaks through the calm, a whisper of regret, a murmur of sympathy. And in that instant, I make a decision to end this before the shock wears off, before she has a chance to fully comprehend what’s happening. It’s a decision made out of pity. A mercy kill.

Slinging the bat off my shoulder again, I whip it down, slamming her head against the hardwood floor.

The crack is audible, and a quiver runs through her body, but I can see her fingers relax. That single shocked eye slowly unfocuses and grows dull, staring listlessly across the floor. Blood continues to pool around her, but there’s no more movement; I remain standing over her, the bat half-raised for a followup swing at any sign of life. The twinge of guilt doesn’t go away, though. The whisper of regret sounds a little louder.

And it makes me angry.

Why was it this way? Why did I feel sorry for her, after what she’d done to me? All the emotions I’d felt over the past months come trickling back, the jealousy at seeing all the pictures of her so happy with her friends, the selfies of her in daring date-night dresses that I couldn’t pull off because I wasn’t as tall or athletic as her. Poor little waifish Jay, stuck in hoodies and jeans to hide her small chest and anemic constitution; it was no wonder my ex didn’t look at me the same way as her.

My fingers tighten around the bat, and I draw my lips back in a snarl as I swing it down on her unmoving body again.

And again.

And again.

And with each swing, it rips open the back of her shirt, the barbed wire tearing gashes in the flawless skin, drawing a tapestry of blood across her body. With each swing, I fume and boil, my rage building as I think about what I lost, but also what I never had. Four years I’d given to my ex and he’d never looked at me with that kind of wordless wonder, and yet two months with her and she’d gotten that look from him day and night. She’d taken from me the thing that I’d always wanted, but never had.

And though the rage keeps me going, my stamina finally runs out. The floor beneath my shoes is drenched in blood, and I’m panting for breath as I stare down at the mutilated back of this girl I hated so much, and yet, and yet…

“Why do I feel sorry for you?” I gasp, my voice cracking.

Because she didn’t do anything.

I don’t know if I’m hearing Raikaron’s voice, or imagining it. I can feel my heart pounding in my chest, and now my hands are quivering, struggling to hold the bat; it drops from my hands, clattering to the floor as I stagger and rip my eyes away from the new girl’s body. They swing wildly around the room, then catch on the floor-to-ceiling mirror across the room, and I see myself for the first time.

My front is splattered with blood, the hue rich and dark, especially where it’s soaked into my clothes. I’d taken time to curl and style my hair before I came out here; it still mostly has its shape, spilling over my shoulders in waves and halfway down my back, some of the front part wilted and almost hiding my left eye from view. Eyes that are wide with desperation and fury and confusion, starting to tear up.

She may have seduced him, but he was the one that let her seduce him. The obligation to be loyal was on your ex, not on her. Of course you feel sorry for her — you’re punishing her for something he did.

My breath catches in my throat and gets stuck there as shoe-shined steps echo over the hardwood floor, slow and deliberate. I can’t take my eyes off the mirror as Raikaron walks into view in the glass, circling around behind me; he’s dressed in a dark red, collared shirt with a black, slim-fit vest to match his black slacks.

Crouching beside me, he runs the tips of his fingers through the pool of blood seeping past my shoes, and stands once more, his arms coming up on either side of me. Though I’d been hunched over before, I straighten up on reflex, going rigid as a board as he touches those bloody fingers to my mouth, slowly painting my pink lips red. My shoulders stiffen, and I can’t help but whimper and tilt my head back a little at the sensation of warm blood against my lips; I’d recoil, back away if I could, but I’d just be backing up into Raikaron. Tears well up in my eyes as his fingers gently trace to the corners of my mouth, and then beyond it, trailing blood in an upwards curve across both of my cheeks.

I’ll never forget that moment, watching us in the mirror as he painted a bloody grin on my face, my eyes wide with horror while he smiled a gentle little smile.

The soft-lit room, the way his halflidded eyes glowed a poisonous green in the shadows cast across his face, the chill of blood drying on my skin.

My trembling hands, half-raised as if to grab his arms and pull them away from my face, but unable to bring myself to touch him.

The way he looked at our reflected images in the mirror, the tips of his fingers lingering on my cheeks and on the corners of that bloody smile, as he leaned a little lower to whisper in my ear.

“You’ve finally blossomed, little flowerbud.”