Act I

The graveyard dirt was wet this time of night, which made our line of work a lot easier. Unfortunately for us, this was not some normal unearth and grab.

“Be careful not to make too much noise,” Waldeck murmured. I shushed him, ear pressed against the lock to the gated entrance of the crypt. With one more twist of the lockpick in my hand, I heard the telltale metallic click. “Growing up in Rat’s End has its perks,” I chirped and pushed the gate open.

“Tell that to my children,” Waldeck retorted and led the way into the crypt. “Suppose they’d disagree.”

I waved his comment off with my hand, as we descended underground. “Lucky for them, after their father gets paid for this job, there’ll be plenty of food on the table.”
Waldeck ignited the torch in his hands and the flickering light fell on a stone sarcophagus in the centre of the room. “There he is,” he stated and I walked up to the youngest Jacquemet’s resting place.

“Evening, Clément.” I tapped the brim of my imaginary hat. “We’ve come to resurrect you, as agreed upon in the contract.”

Waldeck, the muscle of our operation since day one, used the edge of a shovel to pry open the sarcophagus. He grunted under the force, but the stone slid over enough to fit a set of hands in between. I rushed to his side and the two of us pushed the lid off until it landed on the tiles with a loud crack. I wiped the sweat off my forehead. “I’m surprised they wouldn’t use marble. Less fragile.”

Waldeck shrugged, rubbing his dirty hands together, surely fantasizing about what we would find inside. Aside from the body of course. Jewellery? A couple of those fancy stones maybe? The contract said, it was all ours, as long as we gave Clément the antidote in time and he could go back to walk amongst the living. Helping him out of his debt this way was one of our more honorable gigs in this unhonorable line of work. The noble folk had a proper term for it. Archaeology. But that only counted when they exhumed bodies from overseas. If the likes of me and Waldeck did it, it was plain grave robbery. When Clément approached us and said he would rig his own assassination to clear his family name, we jumped at the chance. The only thing we had to do was show up in time.

Waldeck and I both leaned forward to examine the riches that were soon to be ours. But a pile of dirt was all it was. Clément was not in the coffin and nothing else alongside him. I coughed, waving my hand in front of my face to get rid of dust. “Do you think he made a run for it?”

Waldeck shook his head and flaunted the fancy glass bottle of antidote. “No, he couldn’t have. Where the hell is his body?” His forehead wrinkled, as he ran his hands all along the edges of the resting place meant for Clément Jacquemet. I groaned in annoyance. “This is the second time this week that we show up and the body is already gone. I have had it with those damned body snatchers coming in before us.”

Waldeck clicked his tongue. “Hold on.” He half climbed into the sarcophagus, creating little walkways for the vermin crawling about now that we had disturbed their slumber. He popped something open in the coffin and felt for something heavy. My eyes turned as wide as saucers when he unearthed a crested metal box. Although it was hard to tell what kind in the faint glint of the torchlight – the entire thing was covered in a black substance.

“What’s that? A family heirloom, maybe?” I suggested. Waldeck examined his find. “Looks like a wind up music box. Looks like silver underneath all that gunk, so it must be worth something.“

“Give that here,” I ordered and Waldeck dropped it into my hands. It was heavy, beautiful and shiny, despite the dark layer of dirt covering most of it. I ran a hand over it and  rubbed the dark substance between my finger pads. It was soot. All houses in Rat’s End were covered in it from the factory chimneys. I turned the box over and found a delicate silver lever.

“Will I wind it up?” I asked and Waldeck‘s lazy eye turned in my direction.

“You were never able to leave shiny playthings be.”

“You know me too well,” I replied and turned the lever. One, two, three times.

A melody echoed through the crypt in d-flat like it was an eerie concert hall. Waldeck and I observed our surroundings. The sarcophagus, the crypt walls – neither one of us believed in witchcraft, but we would be a lot better off if we did, so we liked to keep the option open.

A tongue clicked disapprovingly behind me. “Waldeck,” I hissed, but my childhood friend’s lazy eye found mine across the room and a hundred tiny needles pricked into my neck, sending shivers down my spine.

“I can‘t believe he never cleaned it,” the smooth voice behind me sounded and came into view as an impeccably dressed young gentleman. His slender hands took the music box from me and started wiping it clean with a snow white sleeve of his. He was wearing a waistcoat, a pocket watch chain peeking out and his dark hair was slicked back a little, a single rogue curl escaping onto his forehead. If he weren’t so ghostly pale behind the spectacles sitting on his nose, he would have been the most beautiful man I had ever seen.

“You‘re not Clément Jacquemet,” Waldeck stammered.

“I‘m not,” the man replied without looking up from the silver. “Are you looking for him?”

“No,” I lied, shooting Waldeck a stern look. “Why would we look for someone who’s died? We’re sextons, making sure everything is in order.” Not leaving shiny playthings alone and coming up with white lies on the spot were two things I was very good at.

The man looked up at me, the dark eyes behind his spectacles glinting with amusement, as they wandered over to ugly Waldeck and his scarred face. “You don’t look particularly clerical to me.”

I cleared my throat and stood a little straighter like I imagined a true woman of the church would. “Who are you to speak such blasphemy?”

“Mephistopheles,” the man said and placed the music box on the edge of the sarcophagus. Waldeck slid in next to me. “Mephistopheles as in the devil?”
The man gently wagged his head. “I got a terrible portrayal in that one drama.” My throat ran dry. Everybody knew the play he was talking about. 

“And I know where Clément Jacquemet is. But since you’re not looking for him…,” he trailed off, turning on his heel.

“We have business with him,” I blurted out, ignoring Waldeck shaking his head. “Where is he?”

“I can take you to him,” Mephistopheles offered but I shook my head.

“Just tell us where he is and we can meet him there.”

Mephistopheles sighed and started walking in circles around us. “He had enough brains to make sure he was buried with that heirloom of his. He called for me with it when you didn’t show up in time.” He pointed at the silver toy. “I‘m afraid he came with me instead.”

Waldeck cursed and buried his face in his hands. He had three hungry mouths to feed at home. He could not take the pay cut if Jacquemet did not pay up.

“Can’t he come back?” I asked and Mephistopheles turned his head to me, slowly.

“Since I’m sure it was all a misunderstanding, I would be able to be swayed to take you to him.”

“Agreed.” I nodded, but Waldeck grabbed my arm with pleading eyes.

“Have you lost your mind?” he asked.

I ignored him and turned to Mephistopheles. “You would just take me to him, right? And bring me back? No funny business.”

Mephistopheles crossed his fingers over his heart. “Cross my heart and hope to die.”

Waldeck tugged on my waistcoat. “Helgard, he‘s the devil.”

“Helgard,” Mephistopheles chimed. “It has a ring to it, I like it.”

I straightened my waistcoat so Waldeck would let go of it. “Devils can’t break their word, Waldeck. He has to let me leave again if he said so,” I whispered.

“You might be right. But they don’t make deals that aren’t benefitting them either.” Waldeck tried to keep me from casting so much as an eye at the devil in front of us, but Mephistopheles reached out a hand for me to shake.

“You need the money,” I said and grabbed Mephistopheles’ hand. He smiled, a very polite smile showing off pearly whites and we shook on it before Waldeck could protest. As the shadows whirled around me to take me to wherever Clément Jacquemet had gone before, the last I saw of Waldeck was him with the little music box in his hand, looking all forlorn in the Jacquemet family crypt.

Act II

Mephistopheles and I landed on warm ground. In fact, everything that surrounded us was warmth. Not like a fire that leaves you cold on one side and too hot on the other. It was warm all around like a bath in a tub the size of Rat’s End.

“Welcome to hell.” Mephistopheles extended his arms in a grand gesture and the waist coat stretched taut over his chest. Moments later, he unbuttoned it and carelessly tossed it to the side, followed by loosening the tie around his neck. When his fingers moved down to his shirt, I turned away and covered my eyes.

“What are you doing?”

“It‘s about to get hot as, well, hell in here so you better start doing the same.” Another rustle of fabric told me he had lost his crisp white shirt as well. There was not much in hell to look at. Only various shades of the colour red biting into my irises: vast planes stretching to every side, bordered by a chunky stream of lava. On the far end of my vision I spotted an iron cage, the bars covered in soot like the music box from before. In it, there was something moving. A person. Clément Jacquemet, it just had to be him. Before I could figure out a plan on how to get Mephistopheles to free him, something nudged my foot softly. I looked down and squealed, falling back a step.

“Never seen a rat before?” At his words I looked up and cursed myself for it. Even Mephistopheles’ skin looked red in the firelight and there was a lot of skin on show. But not only that, he no longer looked like the distinguished gentleman whose skin he had slipped into at the crypt. He was sporting horns that curled skyward from the crown of his head and his whole body was covered in ridges and plates that protruded from underneath his skin.

“Of course I have seen a rat before. They don’t call it Rat’s End for nothing,” I whispered, my gaze now plastered on the skeletal remains of what had once been a rodent crawling across the floor. Mephistopheles made a dismissive hand gesture. “You’ll get used to them.”

Naked, he prowled across the planes toward the cage and I tried my best to keep up. I wiped a drop of sweat off my forehead, but to no use. The lava surrounding us radiated an unearthly heat. Despite the chunks in it, it still flowed consistently and I risked a glimpse in passing. I gasped, jerking forward and colliding with Mephistopheles’ back.

“I pass the souls on to my brother. But the bodies need to go somewhere, too,” he explained in a calm voice.

By the time we reached the cage, I was drenched in my own juices of fear and physical exercise, but I would be damned to take off my clothes in front of the devil. Mephistopheles reached for a strand of my hair and flipped it over my shoulder. I flinched. His hands were tipped in claws on all fingers but the pointer and middle finger of his right hand.

“I want to speak to Clément,” I said, avoiding eye contact with the devil who looked a lot more like one than he initially had me believe. Mephistopheles retreated and stepped aside so I had a full view of a pitiful looking man inside the cage, stripped down to his undergarments. I rushed forward.

“Clément, I‘m here to give you the antidote and complete the deal.”

Clement raised his head and looked at me with tired eyes. “You followed him here?”

I nodded, but froze when I saw the desperation in his gaze. His head fell back and he let out a gut wrenching laugh. At that moment, I knew I had made the wrong choice.

“We‘ll go back. He said I could leave whenever I wanted,” I said, pressing my face against the bars.

“You can,” Mephistopheles grinned, “but he can’t. That wasn’t part of his deal.” When he spoke, I noticed he had grown fangs that were glinting with evil. Another thing more hellish than human and I was wondering if he would grow wings next. His clawed hand lifted up a key chain around his neck. I narrowed my eyes on him and reached for it but Mephistopheles clicked his tongue and wagged his finger. “Not for you.” The devil made himself comfortable on a chaiselongue right by the cage – a first row seat to watch whatever spectacle was going on inside.

Heat crept into my cheeks. I felt it under my clothes too, the whalebone in my corset pinching my skin like a blacksmith’s tongs. Was this my punishment for wearing expensive clothing I had stolen from a noblewoman’s grave? I hissed and started unbuttoning the outer layer of my clothes, working my way down to my corset. When it was all removed, I stood in front of the devil in my sheer undergarments. I tried to pull the fabric down to cover my ankles but to no avail. When I realised there was no way of being decent, I lifted up my chin in defiance and walked straight, like I had seen the high born ladies do when they had to cross over a street in Rat’s End that was filled with muck and pretended they didn’t see any of it. Just like I pretended I did not see red.

Lifting the corset off the ground, I tore the fabric to reveal the delicate bones giving it shape. They were far from lockpicks, but in need they would do. Mephistopheles grinned, sprawled out on the chaiselongue. “Can’t wait to watch that.”

***

He fell asleep after I had broken the fourth whalebone in a row trying to pick the lock to Clément’s cage. I was watching the devil at first, but when I realised he did not move in his sleep, I observed the cadavers swimming in the molten lava instead.

“Why did you make a deal with him in the first place?” I asked Clément, hugging my knees to my chest.

“You and Waldeck were late,” he scoffed. “I took my grandfather’s music box with me just in case. Turns out, I ended up needing it.”

“We showed up,” I said “Had you just waited a little longer…”

“Had I waited a little longer, I would have been dead,” he concluded and crossed his arms in front of his bare chest that was covered in sweaty hair. I sighed.

“I wish there was a way to get a hold of that key,” I groaned. Mephistopheles was still sprawled out on the daybed, not moving an inch. I blinked and sat up a little straighter.

“He’s asleep,” I mumbled and started crawling toward his unmoving form. “The key around his neck, I could just take it.”

I moved forward slowly until I stood over him. He was still a handsome devil, even with the bright red skin and ridges all over his body. But the softness in his features remained, horns and all. My gaze wandered down to his neck and right there, moving in sync with his pulse, was the string holding the key to Clément’s and my freedom. Careful, not to wake the devil, I stretched out a hand. Mephistopheles shifted and mumbled in his sleep, before turning over on his side slightly. I stilled, holding my breath.

When I heard his deep breaths again, I slipped a finger under the string and tried to find the knot holding it all together. Mephistopheles shifted once more and I went ramrod straight. His breath touched the back of my hand, but he was still asleep. With shaking hands, I made quick work of the knot, loosening it slightly.

A hand covered mine and I flinched. “You don’t think I’m that stupid, do you?” The devil’s smug voice cut through the sounds of hell and I met his gaze. But he looked like he had found a stray kitten somewhere, not in any way threatened.

“How would you even leave if you got him free, huh?”

I looked around, scrambling for some sort of plan. But I was not that type of person. Which was why I worked so well with Waldeck. The thought of him made my chest ache. The longer I dillydallied around here, the longer his children went without a proper meal.

“I would have come up with that on the go,” I explained and Mephistopheles stood, pulling me up with him, his grip like a vice around my arms.

“You’re funny,” he smiled, his fangs glinting in the light reflecting off the glistening body parts in the lava stream. For a moment, I thought he was going to say something else, but he pushed me back, my behind landing on the floor in the most ungraceful fashion. My skirt rode up way past what would be deemed chaste, but I had given up on that entirely. The fabric itself was mostly see-through at this stage anyway.

The devil produced a notepad and scribbled on it with one of his claws. He turned the paper around so I could see the tally list he had made. Lines over lines over lines covered the whole paper. I could only imagine what it was for.

“I tend to keep the funny ones around, it gets dull down here pretty quick.”

He held out a hand to help me up. When I reached out to take it, his hand closed around my jaw and he lifted me up by my neck.

“You’re pretty, too, I give you that. The desperate ones usually aren't.”

“You think you’re the first one to call me pretty?” I said, laughing in his face, but his claws restricted my air flow. “I know what I look like.”

He reciprocated my smile. “Pride was always my favourite sin, too.”

“I thought it was greed.” I jutted out my jaw toward the paper with the tally list. Mephistopheles shook his head. “No.” He turned my head toward the stream of lava all around us. “Greed repulses me. As does its sister, envy. The greedy and envious go in there, as they are the lowest pursuits. Even for me. The proud however…” He brushed his knuckles over my cheek, the ridges in his flesh a cool caress on my overheated skin. “They fascinate me. They’re so close to wrath.”

“So even the devil sins selectively,” I concluded and closed my hands over his. He flinched at the touch.

“I don’t take the key off, ever. In any situation. Unless I want to. So don’t get any ideas.” His nostrils flared and his dark eyes were fixated on mine.

“Understood,” I whispered, trying to pry his hands from my neck. He let loose and I dropped to the floor like a sack of potatoes.

“What about the lazy?” Clément called from his cage. “Her and Waldeck didn’t come to my rescue like they promised. That’s a sin, too.”

I scoffed, but so did Mephistopheles. “I told you I don’t like the greedy, Clément. And your kind has more than enough of those.”

A skeletal rat made its way into Cléments cage and he kicked at it, sending it flying out with an awful squeal. Mephistopheles crouched down to pick up the vermin, carefully cupping it in the palm of his hands. “Greed extends to exerting power over the weak,” he said and sat the rat down on the chaiselongue with him. The fingers with his clipped claws carefully ran over its delicate head and the skeletal rodent leaned into the touch. It cooed softly and more rats came running from the planes of hell and moved toward the daybed. Within a few moments, Mephistopheles was surrounded by an army of dead rats.

I approached him and his army warily. “Why are they down here?”

Mephistopheles sighed and lifted another up on the upholstery with him. “Humans have damned them, thinking they carry disease. So they land down here. With me.” He held one of the rats close to his face and the rat tipped its little boney snout against his nose.

I watched him gently press the rodent to his chest. All of a sudden, the devil didn’t seem all that invincible or fear evoking anymore. He almost seemed … lonely to me.

“How did you end up down here, Mephistopheles?” I asked and he set the rat back down.

“A bad deal I made. A long long time ago.”

“And now you’re the one making the deals,” I concluded. “The devil.”  Mephistopheles shook his horned head. “Lucifer is the one you’re thinking of. I am but a humble messenger. I make the deals with the mortals and send the best ones to him.”

“Clément has never been the best at anything.” I crouched down by the chaiselongue, a rat curiously sniffing at my leg. “I don’t think Lucifer would have much use for him. He’s not even good at being rich.”

Mephistopheles chuckled and the rats filed through his legs with excitement. “Even more reason to damn him.”

“But you never sent the rats to him. Lucifer, I mean.” I extended a finger and softly rubbed it along one of their skulls. The rat squeaked softly.

“They don’t deserve to be here in the first place.” He let one of them nibble on his claws.

“Sounds like you don’t either,” I whispered and crouched down, letting the rats sniff at my hands. I felt Mephistopheles’ eyes on me when I said that. “What’s your sin, Mephistopheles?”

“Isolation,” he confessed. “That’s my biggest sin.”

“I think you could use a friend.”

“A friend?”

“Yes. Like Waldeck is my friend.” I stepped closer to him. “The friend I need to get and bring Clément back to. Otherwise his family will starve.”

“If I let you go will you ever come back?”

Mephistopheles’ dark eyes were filled to the brim with grief and sorrow.

“I don’t know,” I whispered.

Mephistopheles sighed and set the rat back down. “If I let you go regardless, does that make me a good friend?” I nodded. He reached for the key chain around his neck.

“Then I shall be a friend to you, Helgard.”

The Final Act

Waldeck still sat in front of the sarcophagus like he had not moved an inch since I was gone. When me and Clément landed back in the crypt, his eyes widened and a smile lit up his face. He called out my name and then his gaze trailed down, no doubt seeing how both Clément and I were in our undergarments that nobody else was supposed to see. Waldeck approached us and pulled me into a hug regardless. “You’re back,” he sobbed.

“And I brought Clément with me,” I explained. “Who owes us our payment.”

Clément pursed his lips and tried to cover his indecency. “You were late.”

Waldeck tossed him the glass vial containing the antidote, and he reluctantly swallowed the bitter liquid.

“A deal’s a deal, where’s our payment?” Waldeck pressed.

Clément sighed and reached into a pocket sewed into his undergarments, producing a leather pouch heavy with coin. When he started counting out the gold, I cleared my throat.

“Without me, you’d be rotting in hell right now,” I reminded him.

His shoulders sank and he tossed the entire thing toward me. “We’re even,” Clément concluded and searched the crypt for any fabric that would cover his body while walking back to his part of town. His silken ensemble would no doubt cause quite the stir in the streets, even in the benevolent embrace of night.

“What are we doing with the music box?” Waldeck whispered. I snatched it from where it sat on the sarcophagus before Clément could reach for it. He shot me a scandalised look.

Waldeck slipped out of his coat and tossed it to our skint patron. “We’ll trade it for this. You really wouldn’t want to be seen like that after people think you’re dead.” Clément opened his mouth but closed it again without another word. He left the crypt murmuring a word that sounded suspiciously like “cut throats” but that was not true. Waldeck and I were grave robbers and we took great pride in our profession.

“We could sell it on the market. Should go for decent price,” Waldeck suggested, but I ripped a strip of fabric off my already too short to be decent underskirt. I wrapped the box in it carefully.

“No,” I said, my mind wandering to Mephistopheles and his rats. “I’m keeping it.” My finger hovered over the lever on the music box. “The devil hates greed, Waldeck.”

The silver was cold against my skin, as we climbed the stairs out of the crypt. A rat rushed out through the gate before the lock snapped back into place. I watched as it disappeared into the shrubbery surrounding the cemetery. The devil was never far if I ever needed him. And I, Helgard, was his friend. That had to be good for something.

Eileen is a non-binary writer who made their creative debut with a heartfelt apology to spiders and has since branched out to tell stories about gods on leashes, talking pigs, necromancers and holiday covers for the Grim Reaper. Their work has been awarded by Listowel Writer’s Week, the Irish Writer’s Centre and won Reader’s Choice twice in The Dark Corner magazine. Most recently one of their short stories was published in Metamorphosis Anthology. Eileen is currently working on their debut novel while wandering the Thin Place between Dublin and Berlin. Follow Eileen on Instagram @eileenstelter.writer and find more of her work on Linktr.ee: https://linktr.ee/eileenstelter.writer.