“You,” the demoness Lucretia bellowed in an even tone, “who have called me,” she pointed a curved black dripping claw at Perry and Alcide, “with more tantalizing an offer than that of your kin....state your claim. What is it you desire?”

  Perry licked his lips and pushed Alcide aside, inching closer to the hellish, yet beautiful creature. “Everything...for all time.”

  The flames surrounding the beautifully malevolent creature burst up in a frenzy, dying down just as quickly, her lips evolving from a pursed bemusement to something more, slight elation perhaps.

  “And time you shall have,” she affirmed.

  The demoness stared at Perry, unblinking for quite some time, before turning her gaze upon Alcide, who sat on the ground, horrified in the dimly lit cavern.

  “And you?” The smile dissipated as a scowl returned on the succulent lips of the demoness, her robes floating in the slight breeze that drifted through the dank and earthen darkness.

  Alcide hesitated. “Power...wealth...I want to be something else...I want my family to be something else.”

  With that, the creature’s lip curled sardonically. “And that you shall.”

  The flames burst up again and curtained with the same effect as before.

  An orange light emanated from the claw of the demoness and enraptured the two men, glowing in a heavenly aura.

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  “At cost.” The demoness continued. “For you two committed the sin, you will be bound together eternally.”

  “The two of us...bound?” Perry squinted, and looked at Alcide menacingly. “Pray tell?” He beckoned the demoness.

  “Pray,” Lucretia laughed. “No...no prayers here. Iin time, you shall ascertain the price of sin.”

  Lucretia looked at Perry. “Your soul is forfeit. For you...Eternity may not last forever,” she sent a wicked smile, before gazing upon Alcide. “You will find what you desire, as will your lineage. Be witness to that change in full.”

  Alcide sat, stunned and confused.

  “What!?” Perry yelled. “This unfairness, you seek to punish me? I delivered a human body and soul, a sacrifice for you to consume. Christ went for less!”

  Lucretia laughed loudly, her guttural inflections bouncing off the cavern walls and echoing horrifically. “Punished? You made an arrangement with the Devil, child. Enjoy it.”

  With that, the demoness vanished in a flash of blackened fire, the cave illuminating in a quick show of lights that blinded and dimmed just as resolutely, revealing only the small torchlight painting the floor before the two men.

  “What did she mean?” Alcide said, puzzled and terrified at the same time.

  “YOU!” Perry screamed. “You ruined this for me!” He charged toward Alcide, who scrambled back across the floor, his palms scraping across dirt encrusted rocks abrasively, before Perry lunged at him.

  Perry flew atop Alcide, knocking Alcide's head back upon the rocks with a painful bounce and threw him further into the darkness, the flickering flame from the torch seeming so far away now.

  Alcide moaned in a daze. “Perry, why are you...” he struggled to find the words, his vision blurring.

  Perry wrapped his clenched fists around tattered cloth at Alcide's chest, and shook him violently. “You...of no value! None at all! You...you urchin!”

  “Stop, Perry,” Alcide pleaded, “I...please...”

  Suddenly, both men felt a surge of pain, twisting and contorting with their stomachs, and then a white light came before them.

  Alcide reopened his eyes to find himself lying in the tall grass outside, blades swaying in the wind and tickling his cheeks. Perry was no longer there. It was just him. Was it a dream? What happened. It couldn’t have been real? Alcide felt a pain in his hand, stinging and looked upon it to find the branding of a pentagram etched in his palm.

  “My god,” he whispered, running his fingers over it, “what have I done?”