Larghetto Affettuoso

Challenging mortals for their eternal souls is some real bullshit. You get why it’s necessary; you’re in the middle of a war, every soul counts, and some people are too fuckin’ Dudley Do-Right to willingly do the shit that will get them condemned to your realm. It just strikes you as needlessly roundabout to do things this way.

You’ve spoken up, of course. “Why not start up a propaganda campaign that points out how fun drugs and partying and pre-marital sex are?” you’ve suggested. “Heaven has free wi-fi, we need to step up our game,” you’ve pointed out.” “Seriously, whose god damn idea, no pun intended, was it to challenge Yuri Shabanov to a game of chess? You’re all a bunch of fucking idiots,” you’ve expostulated. But does anybody listen to a low-level grunt like you? Of course they don’t.

Their loss.

As a lowly footsoldier of the army of the damned, all you’re expected to do is go out and collect souls. You’re not that bad at it. You’ve got this shit down pat. Chess? Hell yeah. Checkers? Juvenile, but you’ve used it to snag a few middle schoolers. Fiddle competitions? Okay, you’re not too hot at the violin, so you never offer that as an option unless they specifically ask for it. Rapping is where your musical skill lies, but the dude you’ve currently got your eyes on doesn’t seem the type to agree to a rap-off for his soul. You’ll have to be more creative.

He’s kind of a doofus. More intelligent than he lets on, you’ve gathered from the brief you were given, but fairly oblivious nonetheless. A simple chess game should be more than sufficient. Getting him to agree to it will be easy.

Once the plan is solidified, you appear in front of him one evening as he sits in his bedroom doing his homework. Puff of smoke, demonic horns and tail, glowing orange eyes, the whole nine yards. (You don’t really need to go to those lengths, but they look cool and add to the image, okay?) He’s barely paying attention to his calculus or whatever homework he’s doing, so he notices you right away. It’s kind of hilarious how he topples his chair over and grabs for a blunt object to defend himself with. Sort of cute, actually.

Yeah, he’s definitely cute.

“Chill out, dude. I’m not going to hurt you or jack your shit or whatever you’re thinking.” With a quick glimpse around the room you can’t see anything you’d really care to steal, anyway. The walls are covered in posters for lame movies, and also posters of blue alien chicks. Strewn around the room are a bunch of lousy comic books. Nothing worth taking.

Your target’s — Jake’s — eyes narrow and he steps forward to get a closer look at you, hands tightening around the blunt object (a lamp) he’s holding. “What trickery is this?” he demands in his weird and almost certainly fake-as-shit unplaceable accent.

“No trickery. Name’s Dirk.” You pull out a business card and flick it over toward him. Dirk Strider, Collections Agent, Realm of the Damned and Forsaken, it reads, followed by your cell phone number. “I’m here to make a deal with you, Jake English.”

“Ohhh no, I don’t think so.” He looks up from the card. He’s still glaring at you. “If you mean to imply that you’re here to offer me a nefarious trade like all the demons and devils in the movies, then I say nay. I like my soul right where it is, thank you very much!”

“Hey, hey, don’t be so hasty. Hear me out, you don’t have to agree or anything. I’m not a bad guy.” All very rote. Exactly to the script. You’d like to be more creative, but hey, the script works more often than not.

When he doesn’t speak up, you continue. “Yeah, I want your soul. But,” you add before he can interject, “I have to challenge you for it. If you win, you get to keep it. Sounds fair, right?”

“And what incentive do I have to even go along with this?”

“You get one wish granted — anything your heart desires, and I’ll go by not only your literal words but also your intent. No monkey’s paw bullshit here. And that’s whether you win or lose. So you get a hundred percent chance of getting a trillion dollars or obtaining sweet superpowers or whatever, and only a fifty percent chance of being damned for all eternity. What do you say?”

From the concentrated furrow of his brow, you can tell you’ve got him.

“How does this challenge work?” he asks.

“We play a game. What’re your thoughts on chess?” With a wave of your hand, a chess board appears on his desk. His extremely cluttered desk. It falls over, pieces scattering on the floor, and you sigh.

“Oh, er, let me— sorry about that.” Jake scrambles to clean his desk off. “And, um, chess? Does it have to be chess?”

“Afraid you couldn’t beat me at chess?”

He huffs. “I could very well so beat you at chess! I’m just… wondering.” The lie is obvious as hell. He could not beat you at chess.

“You got anything else in mind?”

A nervous chuckle. “Um… how are you at Chutes and Ladders?”

A luck-based game. You hate luck-based games. But the contract gets to pick the game, that’s always how it’s been. You shrug and reply, “I’m okay with that.”

“Wonderful! Let’s get this started, then.”

You set the board up and you even let him go first, which turns out to be a mistake. He’s a klutz and a loser, but he also has incredible luck. Before long he’s exploiting the “rolling a six gives you another turn” rule and climbing up all the ladders.

He’s like fifty spaces ahead of you after only a few turns. Fuck those ladders, and fuck the chutes you keep running into.

He rolls a six and grins giddily as he moves ahead and rolls again. Another six, and… fuck. Wow, he’s literally almost at the end. No way this is happening. You have a quota. You’re going to have to work double-time this week if you don’t get this soul.

He rolls a third six, and starts laughing hysterically. But you chuckle with relief. “Back to the start, English.”

“Don’t be a sore loser,” he says as he moves to the final square. He grins up at you triumphantly.

“No, really. Three sixes in a row means you have to go back to the start.”

“Since when?”

“Since always. Look it up if you don’t believe me.”

Jake’s grin fades. “Is that really a rule?”

“Yeah. It’s meant to discourage using fake dice, or just having really fuckin’ absurd luck like you do.”

“Oh.” He frowns and dutifully moves his piece back to the first square. What with how quickly he believed you, you figure you could probably get away with making up all sorts of fake rules, but that’s not how you roll. That’s an actual legitimate rule, and not just in Demon Chutes and Ladders either.

Jake’s lucky streak fades after that. His heart just isn’t in it. You reach the finish far ahead of him.

He stares down at the board in disbelief. “No way.” His voice is quiet.

“Time to pay up.” You stand, grinning down at him. “So what’ll it be — money? Fame?”

Jake is frowning. He doesn’t answer for a good, long while. You’re about to ask again when he finally speaks up. “I, er, I guess I just don’t see much of a point in wishing for what I was going to wish for, when I won’t be able to enjoy it.”

You raise an eyebrow. “Meaning?”

“I’m only saying, what’s the point of wishing for true love if I won’t have my soul around to appreciate it with?!”

Oh, that. You sigh and roll your eyes. “I never said I’d take your soul right away. You couldn’t actually live without it and the deal was never that I get to kill you. You can keep it until the end of your natural life span. People wish for true love all the time, welcome to the club.”

“Oh.” He looks sort of sheepish. “Well, um. If I’m really damned for eternity, then I suppose I might as well get the most out of it. True love, please.”

He’s not arguing, which is a miracle. Most people throw fits or demand rematches. You haven’t run into anyone yet who’s just accepted the terms of the bargain without at least a little fuss. Perhaps chivalry isn’t dead after all.

“Okay. You are now guaranteed true love. And don’t worry, it’ll be of the romantic sort even though you didn’t specify. Can’t promise when it’ll happen, or with who, but it’s definitely in your future. Enjoy.”

“Just like that, eh?” He laughs, but the sound is a hollow one. The poor sap. The poor, doomed sap. “I, er, appreciate it. Thank you…” He pulls your business card back out of his pocket and glances at it. “Strider.”

“Any time. See you around.”

He frowns when you say that. You vanish in a puff of smoke.

It’s not like your intent is to check up on him. You just happen to be in the area at some hipster internet cafe taking a break after solidifying another deal, because while humans may be totally lame in a number of ways they are pretty neat when it comes to technology.

You like the internet, okay? You like human technology as a whole. They’ve come a long way since the boss tricked them into getting cast out of the garden.

So, no, you didn’t mean to run into him again.

It happens anyway.

You’re just sitting on the couch near the window, fiddling around with the colorful apple-themed machine bolted to the table in front of you (humans love apples, the suckers), sipping some drink that doesn’t taste very good but hey, you may as well fit in, when he plops down beside you with a drawn-out sigh.

You glance over.

He doesn’t seem to notice you.

Sure, you’re not wearing the horns and tail since you’re in public, and there’s now a pair of sweet sunglasses covering your demonic orange eyes, but come on. Same rad pointy hair, and there ain’t too many blondes with your skin tone.

Does he really not notice?

Well, he at least seems to notice that you’re staring. He turns his head your way, blinks, stares for a second with a look on his face like he’s trying to place you. And then, yep, he notices.

“You! You tortfeasor!”

You let out a chuckle and turn your attention back to the computer. “Took you long enough.”

“Why are you stalking me?! You have my soul, what else could you possibly have need of?!”

“Pfft.” You glance back over. “You give yourself too much credit, English.”

“What?”

“I’m here on unrelated business. We are the victims of a little circumstance called ‘coincidence’. Perhaps you’ve heard of it?”

He’s still bristling, but he calms down a bit. Which is good since people are staring. “I find that highly unlikely.”

“It’s not that uncommon for a proficient receiver to run into a consigner by happenstance. Happens to me all the time.” Which is why you aren’t all that surprised by Jake’s reaction to this situation. It’s one of the more common ones.

“…oh.” He twiddles his thumbs and stares down at his feet for all of ten seconds before the barista calls out his name. “Er, one moment. That’s mine.”

“Take your time.”

He retrieves his drink, some kind of smoothie, and returns to sit by your side.

“So what brings you around these parts, Beelzebub?”

“Dirk. Dirk Strider. Beelzebub is a cool guy, though, so thanks.”

“Whatever.”

You shrug. “Just taking a break. You?”

He doesn’t answer for a long moment, long enough that you wonder if he even heard you. He shifts uncomfortably, though, and finally responds, “Figured I should get a jump start on that whole true love business. My time is limited, after all, so…”

“So what’s that got to do with you bein’ at a place like this?”

Jake lets out a sigh that’s so dramatic you’re sure he did it on purpose. “It’s unsurprising that a—a hoodlum like you is unaware of the finer nuances of human culture. Coffee shops are where true love blossoms!”

“According to?”

“Why, movies, of course. And TV shows. Not to mention fanfiction.”

“Oh my god.” You lean back and you have to cover your face with one hand to stifle yourself. The little mortal dork got a genuine laugh out of you. “I can’t believe you.”

“What?!” he demands.

“Nothing. Just nothing.” Getting your laughter under control, you flash him a grin. “Good luck, bro. Not that you’ll need it. Like I said, that shit’s guaranteed.”

“Yes, well, it can’t hurt to be a bit proactive.” He stands with a bit of a hmph. “Anywho, I’m off to make my true love happen. Er, take care, Strider.”

“No problem.”

He looks as though he’s kicking himself for something — probably for telling you to take care — as he saunters off to a table on the other side of the room. A young woman is sitting there alone. He takes a seat across from her and begins chatting up a storm. Even from way over here you can tell she’s not interested, but hey, it’s none of your business.

You finish your drink, log off of the computer, and head out. Time to get back to work.

Just out of curiosity, you peek into his room that night. You’re invisible this time so there’s no risk of getting caught; you’re not here to chat. You just want to see how things went.

He’s lying flopped on his bed, face buried in a pillow, cursing at himself for being so stupid. Sounds like he blew it.

Oh, well. He’s got plenty of time.

You weren’t expecting to run into Jake English after that last encounter, but now here you are weeks later, all the way across the country in freaking Barrow, Alaska, and here he is just walking down Ahkovak Street without a care in the world. He’s wearing big, clunky hiking boots and a parka despite it being the middle of summer, and there’s a gigantic backpack strapped to his back.

You’re only here to strike a bargain with a down-on-her-luck housewife, but hey, you can take a detour. Jake is weird and you’re curious. You poof into visibility while walking beside him.

He just about leaps out of his skin, shrieking like a banshee. Luckily, there’s no one around right now to stare.

“Y-you!” he exclaims. “Now I know for certain you’re stalking me. There’s no way this is merely a coincidence!”

“Actually it is, but you can believe what you want. What are you doing around here?”

“Why don’t you tell me what you’re doing around here first?!”

“Work.”

“Are you sure? This town is rather on the bumfuck-nowhere side of things…”

“Definitely. Your turn.”

“Oh. Well…” He shifts his backpack on his back. “You know how I’m promised true love and all that?”

“Yeah, I was there.”

“Well, I got to thinking, if it’s really guaranteed then there’s no need to seek it out this soon. If I’m assured to find it before I die then that means I can’t die before I find it!” He grins toothily. “So why not get some other things out of the way first, eh? I’ve always wanted to go adventuring.”

“In Barrow.”

“Alaska is the last frontier! Hundreds of miles of pristine wilderness just waiting for me to claim it!”

“Okay, Chris McCandless, but you will note there’s nothing in the terms of our agreement preventing you from falling deeply and truly in love with the helivac medic who arrives on the scene when you’re dying of starvation out in the tundra. The two of you lock eyes immediately before you snuff it, never able to confess your feelings.”

Jake scoffs. “Oh, come off it. How likely is that to happen?”

“Depending on how much of an idiot you are out there? Pretty dang likely.”

“You sound concerned,” he says with a slight chuckle.

“What? No. I mean, it’s no skin off my back if you get yourself killed. I get your soul either way. I’m just saying.”

He stops walking. As you follow suit he turns to face you. “Since that’s the way things are, Dirk, I promise to take my sweet time in shuffling off this mortal coil just so as to deprive you for as long as possible.”

“Rude.”

He shrugs. “I mean, that’s hardly the only reason. Another would be that I don’t particularly fancy biting the big one just yet. I’m also not keen on my impending damnation, nor do I want to leave my dear grandmother all by her lonesome.”

“Which is why you’re in fucking Barrow, about to go on a ridiculous adventure.”

“She knows where I am! Sheesh. Have some faith.” Apparently realizing he accidentally said something funny, he snickers. “Well, I’m off! I’ll be seeing you sooner or later, I suppose.”

“Yeah. I suppose.” You wave to him as he starts back down the sidewalk. You don’t stop watching until he turns a corner and is out of sight.

Somehow you can’t get him out of your head. He’s unlike anyone you’ve ever bargained with before. Upbeat and chipper despite how doomed he is. Eager to live his life to the fullest. He’d been angry at first, and you get the feeling he still kind of is, but he’s not letting it get in the way of the things he wants to get done. Even if those things are incredibly fucking stupid.

It’s not like you’re out to to make anyone depressed. It happens a lot, and you understand why, but you’re just doing your job. You’ve seen what happens to your coworkers who don’t make their quota, and it’s enough to give you the shivers. It’s either you or your targets — but for once there’s someone who’s forcing himself to smile through the dread you’ve instilled in him. It’s inspiring, really.

About a month after Alaska, a contract of yours breaks down sobbing after you beat her at backgammon. You tell her all about Jake English’s undying optimism and she actually perks up a bit.

Which is maybe not such a good thing, since then she has the strength to punch you in the face.

One could be forgiven for assuming that your subsequent meetings with Jake are coincidences. Some of them are; you travel around the world for work, and he’s traveling around the world for his bucket list or whatever, and it’s a small small world so maybe it’s inevitable that you cross paths every so often. But sometimes you check in on him deliberately as he’s climbing Mount Everest or trekking to the south pole or running with the bulls in Spain, just to see how he’s doing.

You meet him one evening in Paris. Specifically, you meet him hiking up the stairs of the Eiffel Tower.

“You know there’s an elevator,” you say from behind him.

He shouts, loses his balance, and stumbles backward. Luckily you’re there to catch him.

“Whoa, easy there. Our contract hasn’t been fulfilled yet.” You chuckle.

Huffing and puffing, he rights himself and glares down at you. “For your information, I’m taking the scenic route.”

“Cute.”

He starts back up the stairs and you follow along beside him.

“City of love, huh? I think I see what you’re angling for,” you remark.

“Don’t jump to any conclusions. I’m just here to sightsee, that’s all.” But he looks away from you as he says so, his cheeks turning reddish.

To sightsee. Clearly.

“Did you just stop by to check up on the status of my love life?”

You shrug. “I was wondering how you were doing, that’s all. Ain’t every contract that packs up and goes traveling around the world after they damn themself. You’re interesting.”

“Gosh. I’m almost flattered.”

He stops walking to stare out over the railing at the city. When you stand beside him, you can tell he’s breathing heavily. “Feeling tired?”

“Just a bit winded, that’s all.”

“I warned you about stairs, bro. I told you. You should have taken the elevator.”

“Well, it’s a bit late for that now.” He rolls his eyes. “Suppose I’ll head back down once I’ve caught my breath.” A growl fills the night air, and he cringes. “I’ll have to find someplace to stop for a bite, as well. Don’t suppose you know where a fellow could get something cheap to eat around here?”

A thought occurs to you. “Cheap? No. But there is a place I’ve been meaning to go again.”

Jake makes a quizzical little sound and glances over at you.

“Do you have the courage to dine with the devil?”

Because you’re kind of an asshole, you make Jake walk all the way back down to the ground. You poof yourself there with demon teleportation magic and he looks kind of irritated when he sees you there at the bottom, but he’s hungry and you’re providing so he’s not saying anything.

“So, where to?” he asks.

You lead him to the entrance to Le Jules Verne at the base of the tower. He gapes like a beached fish. “There’s a restaurant here?”

“There’s two, actually, but I like this one better.” You lead him in to the elevator. No one stops you, even though ostensibly you should have a reservation. Mind-control is a wonderful thing. “Came here with a contract a while back. Her wish was to eat at every critically-acclaimed restaurant in the world.”

“Was it a decent trade?” There’s a tone of bitterness there.

“Oh, she didn’t lose her soul. We had a cook-off. She was a pro chef.” You shrug. “You win some, you lose some.”

After a couple of minutes the elevator deposits you on the second floor, more than four hundred feet above ground, and you bedazzle the hostess into leading you to a table by the floor-to-ceiling glass window.

“Holy shit.” Jake doesn’t sit down at first. He’s too busy staring in awe at the city lights spread out beneath you.

“Take a seat.” You pull his chair out for him.

“Gosh, what a gentleman.” He sits, continuing to look out the window as you push his chair in. “I’d almost suspect you wanted something from me, but it’s not as though there’s much left for you to take.”

“Honestly? I have the day off, I’m hungry too, and I might as well take advantage of my supernatural abilities and get high-class shit for free. There’s not much else to it.”

“Way to ruin the magic.” He only appears disgruntled for a second, though, and then he seems confused. “Do you actually have to eat?”

“Not really, but it’s fun.”

He turns his attention to his menu. “Erm, Dirk? There are no prices on this menu.”

“I know.” You peruse your own.

“Was this your doing?”

“Not even.”

“But then—”

“Shit, man, don’t you know anything? If a menu doesn’t have prices on it, it means the prices would make you want to jump right out that window and plummet one hundred twenty-five meters to your death amidst hundreds of shards of broken glass.”

His eyebrows scrunch together nervously. “And you promise I won’t be stuck footing the bill?”

“You have my word.”

“Well, if you say so…”

You order something fancy and French with champagne on the side, and Jake just asks for “Whatever he’s having” with a wave of the hand at you. You figure he can’t make heads or tails of the menu.

“You’re in France but you don’t know French?” You shake your head sadly once the server has walked off to relay your orders to the kitchen.

“It’s not the first country I’ve been to without knowing the language,” he replies indignantly. “I don’t have time for that bookish malarkey. I’m on an adventure!”

“You’d probably enjoy yourself more if you could understand what was going on.”

Jake rolls his eyes. “Okay then, Lucifer, why don’t you use your demonic majyyks to make me a polyglot? Oh, I forgot, I’ve nothing to trade in return. Thanks for that.”

“Pfft.”

You continue to make small talk as you wait for your dinner. Once it arrives you fall silent so you can eat, but Jake keeps babbling even with his mouth full. He regales you with tales of what he’s been up to since the last time you saw him, which was in Spain. Turns out he backpacked to Portugal, then turned around and made his way to Paris on foot.

After a sip of champagne you inquire, “Didn’t have the money to take a vehicle? Or was that part of your ‘adventure’?”

“The latter, of course!”

“Uh-huh. So where to after this?”

“I haven’t decided.” He frowns down at his empty plate. “Golly but these serving sizes are small.”

“It’s that kind of restaurant, bro. There’s another course coming.”

“Oh!”

He proceeds to chatter about the possibility of moving on to Switzerland and then Germany or maybe Italy, or heck, buster, why not both! You sit in silence, sipping champagne and starting in on the second course once it arrives, content to let him ramble. He really is a weirdly unique kind of guy.

“And then perhaps Siberia, what do you think, Dirk? …Dirk?”

“Bwuh?” It takes a moment to register that he asked you a question.

“You were staring.”

Were you? You think, and you can’t recall looking anywhere for the past few minutes but right at Jake. That probably counts as staring.

“Oh. Right, Siberia. Gets cold there, you know.”

“Well, if I fall in love with some helivac medic immediately prior to freezing to death I’m sure you’ll be thrilled.” He grins a silly little grin and pops a forkful into his mouth.

You feel something akin to queasiness, but it’s unpleasant in a wholly different way.

Dinner wraps up and you share a dessert, staring out at the Parisian lights.

“You know, this was nice,” Jake remarks. “You have my gratitude.”

“Not that I need it.” You glance in his direction. “But you’re welcome.”

He holds a hand out in your direction, and after a moment’s surprise you take it and shake. Somehow you don’t feel the need to let go. He frowns.

You release his hand and hastily look back out the window.

The server returns to pick up your plates, asks if the two of you had a good time, and Jake grins and replies, “Oui, merci beaucoup!” A look of confusion crosses his face. Once the server has taken off he leans across the table to eye you in suspicion. “Uh, Dirk? What just happened?”

“Consider it a gift. Free of charge.” You grin, but somehow you can’t bring yourself to put your usual smirkiness into it.

“Somehow that doesn’t alleviate my suspicions.”

“Live a little, adventurer.” You pat his cheek.

He shrieks and accidentally knocks his champagne glass to the floor.

“Nice job.” You get to your feet and make your way back to the elevator before anyone can notice. Jake follows hurriedly.

“Erm, couldn’t you just glamour the staff into not caring, or whatever you did before?” he asks in a hushed tone.

“That ability’s pretty heavily monitored by the guys downstairs. I was able to use it to get in without a reservation, but I was planning on evil-porting out when they brought the check.”

“Are you serious?!”

You hear your server shouting in French, so you grab Jake’s arm and split. The next thing you know you’re standing in some idyllic French countryside.

For a second you worry Jake will yell, but instead he bursts into laughter.

You send him on his way with a full stomach and the gift of language, unable to pinpoint the precise nature of the funny feeling in your chest.

You keep a close eye on him from then on. He never does find his true love, but somehow, you’re okay with that.

He spends a grand total of five years on the move, eventually returning to his hometown. You’re just intrigued enough to step out of the shadows and take a seat next to him on the bench outside the airport where he’s waiting for his taxi. He doesn’t even look surprised.

“Oh, hello there, Dirk.” After Paris, his constant suspicion of you had metamorphosed into friendly recognition. “Fancy meeting you here, huh? Ha ha, just kidding. Have you come to say hello?”

“Something like that. You done globetrotting?”

“For now.” His smile fades into something more wistful. “Gran’s not doing so well. I wanted to see her before, well…”

“Oh.”

You don’t know what to say. People die and that’s it. Well, that’s really not it — people die and then they wind up in either heaven or hell, and then they keep on existing forever. But from the limited temporal vantage of a human, it must feel like everything ends in the instant that a life flickers out.

“Yeah. So… I’m back, for a while. Not that it makes a difference for you, I’m sure. Hey, who knows? Maybe I’ll meet that special someone while I’m here,” he teases. He’s teased at the possibility every time you met him for the past couple of years. Something about it irritates you.

Not that you show it. You shrug. “Here’s hoping.”

The two of you lapse into silence.

He drums his fingers along his suitcase.

Finally, he speaks up again. “Say, Dirk?”

“Yeah?”

“Er, could you do me a favor?”

You wait for him to continue. He’s smart enough to know it depends on what kind of favor he’s after.

“Gran’s not much longer for this world. Do you have any way of knowing, well… which station she’ll be getting off at?”

You can access that information, but you’re not really supposed to share it with mortals. But he just looks so pitiful hunched over beside you, eyes downcast and sad and… damn it. You sigh and run a hand through your hair. “Yeah, sure. I can get that for you.”

He perks up instantly. Even though you know for a fact that reincarnation isn’t a thing you are so sure he must have been a puppy in a past life, because you can almost see the tail wagging. “You mean it?”

“Sure. I’ll get back to you tonight, okay?”

“Splendid! Thank you so much, Dirk. This means the dickens to me, I’ll have you know.”

“I can tell,” you reply, the corners of your mouth unwittingly turning upward. You’ve long since given up trying to figure out the cause of the swelling fondness that makes you smile at him.

His cab arrives and you part ways.

That evening you find him drowning his sorrows in a seedy bar downtown. “She’s gone,” he slurs.

“She’s knocking on the pearly gates,” you correct him.

His quiet tears of anguish give way to big, blubbery sobs of relief. You carry him home and put him to bed, calling in on your assignments for the night so you won’t have to leave his side.

You leave before he wakes in the morning, but not before brewing a pot of coffee to ease his hangover.

You head straight from Jake’s place to work. As you clock in your supervisor, Rose, taps you on the shoulder and informs you, “You’re on intake today, Strider.”

“Wait, intake? Receptionist duty? Isn’t Roxy doing that shit today?”

“Roxy is out handling the contracts you failed to attend to last night. You’re on intake.”

There’s no point in arguing, especially not with Rose Lalonde. Intake duty isn’t difficult, it’s just… stressful. You sit at a fucking desk for hours on end and process all the incoming souls and listen to them whine about how it’s not their time, they had things to do, they went to church every Sunday, there must be some mistake, wah wah wah.

There never are any mistakes. People are just supremely unwilling to accept that they fucked up somewhere along the line.

You sigh as you step into the waiting room. The coworker you’re here to relieve is currently hurling obscenities at the young woman he’s processing.

“No. You stupid, whiny bitch. There is no mistake. Just sign the damn paperwork. And get a move on.”

You clear your throat. “Caliborn.”

He looks up. The irritated glower on his face turns to glee. “Strider! There you are. It’s about fucking time. If I had to spend another minute dealing. With these annoying pieces of shit…”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever. Go clock out.”

You’re glad to see him poof out of the room. Caliborn is not your favorite coworker. He has some weird obsession with you, and with rules, and with his sister who works in heaven, and with… a lot of things, really. He’s just kind of a creep. Thankfully, he hasn’t been allowed on Earth since the incident at the Nestle factory. You wonder what he was doing in intake. He’s usually on torture duty or something more fitting.

Then your eyes catch sight of the ticker on the wall that lists each new soul as it arrives along with the expected processing time. Saeko Yamada: 87,910 minutes. It changes over to Justin Upkirk: 87,917 minutes in the blink of an eye. No wonder he was in intake. He takes so long to process arrivals that it might as well be torture.

“Hey,” you say to the woman he was failing to process as you take your seat behind the reception desk. “Sorry about that douchebag, but it’d be really helpful if you could just sign these papers.”

Her eyes are tired and resigned as she grabs the pen chained to the desk and signs.

“Through that door.” You gesture. “Enjoy your stay.”

“Fuck you, too.”

You’ve heard that heaven has enough receptionists to make processing fast and efficient. The supervisors down here probably choose to only have one on duty at a time to add to that “Welcome to Hell” atmosphere.

Humans die every second, so it’s a nonstop job. The line moves faster or slower depending on how cooperative people are, but it’s still pretty obvious from the instant someone kicks the bucket and finds themself standing at the end of a line thousands-deep in a dingy room lit by flickering fluorescent lights that they’re in hell.

The processing time on the ticker quickly recalculates itself to account for your being more efficient than Caliborn. Your eyes flick up to it every so often. Henry Wright: 9,432 minutes. Hyejin Kim: 9,433 minutes. Jake English: 9,434 minutes. Chelsea Granger: 9,435 minutes.

Wait. What?

The ticker doesn’t rewind (well, in theory it’s supposed to loop back to the beginning of the list if it reaches the end, but it hasn’t had the chance for centuries) so for a second you wonder if you were just seeing things.

“Um, excuse me? Can I go now?” The man you’re in the middle of processing sounds impatient. You spaced out there for a second.

“Uh— yeah. Through that door over there.”

He walks off, and before the next damned soul can approach the desk you put up the Be Right Back sign and bolt.

The people at the front of the line groan in exasperation. A couple of them shout at you. You don’t even care.

You have to see for yourself.

You demon-poof to the back of the line and there, tens of thousands of places from the front and maybe ten from the back — eleven now — is Jake. He’s looking around himself with eyes wide, goosebumps visible on his arms. And then he sees you and he goes to pieces.

“Dirk? What is this, where— am I in—?”

He’s so disoriented you can’t answer right away. The others in line stare at him, and at you.

“Dirk!”

“…yeah.”

“But I can’t be! Our contract was never fulfilled, I can’t be dead already! I had so much to do, I—”

“Shut up already,” grumps the woman in front of him. “None of us want to be here any more than you do.”

“But—!”

The wait time on the ticker keeps growing the longer you stand here. So you grab Jake’s arm and drag him out of line.

“Are you letting him cut?” someone asks.

“Shh,” someone else replies. “Trust me, I don’t think you want to get to the front of this line.”

“C’mon,” you tell Jake, and you return to the reception desk. You sit back down and pull out another chair for him. “I’m working, but we’ll sort this out once my relief shows up.”

“Okay,” he mumbles. He sits beside you, looking uncharacteristically small and pitiful, as you return to processing the arrivals.

A few of the intakes glance curiously at the miserable guy sitting next to you, but you keep the talk focused on the forms they need to sign. The upside to menial tasks like this is the time flies by pretty quickly; before you know it, your shift is over and Feferi is coming in to relieve you.

She does a double-take. “Is this a friend of yours, Dirk? What’s he doing here?”

“Long story. I’m not really sure myself.” You get to your feet and gesture for Jake to follow you. He does, fiddling with a paperclip he picked up off the desk. It’s bent into some completely unrecognizable shape by now so you figure he can just keep it. “Let’s get this sorted out, okay?”

“Sure. Thanks, Dirk.”

“Good luck!” Feferi calls after you.

You lead Jake down the hall toward Rose’s office.

“So… what happened?” you ask.

He keeps fiddling with the paperclip and stares at the floor. In lieu of an answer he says, “I, uh… This is really not what I expected hell to look like.”

“This is the corporate side. Human resources is where you go after you get processed back in the office.”

“Human resources?”

“That’s what we call the fire-and-brimstone part.”

“Ah.” He swallows heavily. After a long pause, he finally answers you. “Turns out driving while hungover isn’t the smartest choice in the world.”

“I see.”

“Thank you for the coffee. I presume that was your doing?” You nod and he continues. “I’m such a dunderhead. I thought I was flipping invincible. Have you ever bargained with anyone stupider than me?”

“No.” You offer him a smile, though, and pat his shoulder. The two of you come to a stop just outside your supervisor’s office. “Still, something went wrong if my end of the contract fell through. That’s never happened before.”

“So… what, you’ll send me back?”

“Uh, probably not. I’ll see what we can do?”

He nods miserably. It hurts just to look at him when he’s like this.

“Wait out here, okay?” You place your hand on the doorknob. “Best case scenario, the contract’s void and we send you upstairs.”

His eyes light up, but there’s an undercurrent of worry there, too. “What will that mean for you?”

“Not sure. Like I said, we’ve never had this happen before.” You’ve got some ideas about what will happen. If you’re lucky you’ll just get a warning. If you’re not so lucky, well, things will suck. But you force yourself to keep smiling for him. “You sound concerned.”

“I suppose I am.”

“I’m the one who’s responsible for you being down here in the first place, Jake,” you point out.

“Yes, well… yes, but. You were just doing your job, weren’t you? You’ve always been so affable off the clock.”

Your sad excuse for a heart does a somersault.

“Well, like I said. I’ll see what we can do.” You turn the doorknob.

“Wait!”

You let go and turn to face him.

“Er… in the event that, um… the contract is deemed valid, what then? What happens to me after that?” He’s wringing his hands and trembling oh-so-slightly.

You aren’t pleased to respond, “Eternal torment.”

“Oh. So… no way around that, then?”

“Why do you ask? It clearly wasn’t fulfilled.” But you think you know what he’s getting at, and your mind is screaming No, no, no!

“It…” He swallows. Pauses, presumably to think. Then looks like he regrets thinking. The poor guy looks terrified. “Might have been?”

Fuck.

You stare at each other for what feels like an eternity, and down here it very well might be.

“This wasn’t supposed to happen.” Your voice is weaker than you would like it to be.

“I didn’t think it was. Dirk, what are we going to—”

Rose chooses that moment to open her office door and peek out. Tendrils of black smoke waft into the hallway. “Can I help you?”

“Oh, uh.” You step back, unconsciously positioning yourself in front of Jake. “Hey. Just, um, have a little problem.”

She raises an eyebrow. “That’s a mortal.”

“Yes, he is. He’s kind of the problem.”

“Dirk!” Jake hisses.

“He’s a contract, but he died without our end of the bargain being held up.”

One of Rose’s eyebrows just about lifts itself halfway to heaven. “Is that so.”

“Well, er, the thing of the matter is—”

“Yes,” you insist.

She beckons the two of you in. You have no choice but to follow.

Jake takes your hand and squeezes desperately.

You’ve only been in Rose’s office once before, and it’s just as creepy now as you remember. It’s pitch black save for the glow coming from an orb sitting on Rose’s desk and about half a dozen others lining a shelf. The lack of light is no trouble for you, but Jake redoubles his grip on your hand with a panicked squeak. And there’s a pervasive aura of sorrow, of despair, also emanating from those orbs.

You’re pretty sure they have souls inside them, but you’ve never asked.

You and Jake take seats in the chairs in front of Rose’s desk. She peers across at you. “Jake English, correct?”

“Um— yes.” He’s still squeaking. Without thinking, you rub your thumb over his knuckles.

“In return for your soul, you were to obtain…” And though it’s dark, you can almost see her rolling her eyes. “True love.”

“That’s right.” You answer now, because Jake is shaking like a leaf. “It didn’t happen. Now he’s dead. Contract null and void.”

“You’re oddly invested in this, Strider,” Rose remarks lightly, and you shut your mouth. “So you haven’t found true love. Is that your assertion?”

“Y-yes, ma’am,” Jake mumbles.

“Jake, I am a demon.” She folds her hands and leans forward. “A being of utmost darkness. Malevolence incarnate.”

If you weren’t absolutely terrified of Rose, you would snicker. She always did like to play up the dramatic parts of her job.

“In other words, I know sin. And lying is a sin.” Her eerily-lit face takes on a twinge of boredom. “Although I would think even a human could tell when you’re lying.”

“…um.” He tugs his hand free from yours and wipes his palm on his shorts.

Rose’s eyes turn toward you. “Strider. You know he’s lying, but you’re covering for him. I could ask you why, but the answer is obvious.”

Damn.

With a flick of her wrist, she conjures a sheet of parchment into her hand. She slides it across the desk, moving the glowing probably-a-soul orb into place so you and Jake can lean forward to read it. It’s the paper version of his contract.

You always knew those existed, but you’ve never actually had to consult one.

I, the undersigned, avail myself to this game’s jurisdiction and if I am the losing party consent to the relinquishment of my soul as damages. Regardless of the outcome, I understand that I am guaranteed romantic love with another party, henceforth “my soulmate”, who will reciprocate said love. Upon the fulfillment of this contract my soulmate’s name will be recorded along with the date of our love’s inception.
—Jake English
4/13/08

The whole thing is in a nigh-illegible chicken scratch that you can only assume is Jake’s handwriting. Jake’s name is signed on a line labeled “Consignor”, and the date on a line labeled “Date of Agreement.” Underneath that, in your handwriting, is your name on a line labeled “Receiver”.

Further down the page you can see your handwriting again. Dirk Strider, 7/22/10. The date you had dinner with him in Paris.

“Um,” is all you can think to say.

Rose rolls the contract back up. It vanishes in a puff of smoke. “Don’t lie to me, Strider. I really don’t appreciate it.”

“…sorry.” You shoot Jake a helpless glance. “I tried, Jake.”

“I know,” he mumbles after a hesitant pause. “I… I appreciate it. But I’d really rather you didn’t cause trouble for yourself over my folly.”

Rose clears her throat. “Now that that’s settled.”

Jake clenches his hands into fists and looks up at Rose. He’s still shaking, but his gaze is resolute. “Let’s get this over with, shall we? What’s to become of me?”

“Well, that’s up to him.” She waves a hand in your direction. “He’s the one who owns your soul.”

“He is?!” Jake blurts out.

You are?

“You think you could have mentioned that a little sooner?!” Jake shrieks. “I just about had a heart attack and died again!”

“Jeez, cut me some slack. It’s not like I ever do anything with my contracts after they die.” You also weren’t aware that your contracts’ souls actually belonged to you and not to hell itself. That part was never mentioned to you, not once in the hundreds of years you’ve been in this line of work. You fold your arms and hope really, really hard that that it’s too dark for Rose and Jake to see how hot your cheeks are. “I apparently own thousands of souls. You’re not special.”

“According to that little piece of paper, he’s fairly special, Strider. At least to you.” A smirk plays on Rose’s lips.

“So… do I still have to undergo an eternity of torment?”

“Not if Strider doesn’t want you to.”

“So, for example… he could let me go to, er, heaven?” Jake glances at Rose in worry.

She shrugs. “He could. Although that would be willingly conceding ground to the enemy, and I couldn’t let an offense like that go unpunished.” She picks the orb up off her desk and eyes it. “I could use some more light in here…”

“You can stay at my place,” you tell Jake hurriedly. “Until I figure something else out, I mean. It’s still in hell but it’s not that bad. No torture, at least.”

“I think I’d like that.”

“Great. It looks like you have that settled, so…” Rose waves a hand at you. “I have work to do, lovebirds. Come see me if there’s anything else you need.”

“Gladly! It’s been a pleasure.” Jake stands and he looks far more relaxed than he had been going into this meeting. “Thank you so much, the both of you!”

Rose nods to each of you in turn as you retreat from her office.

Once you’re out in the hall, you can’t help laughing, and you can’t stop yourself for a good, long while.

“So, this is the place. It’s nothing fancy. Bathroom’s through there, microwave’s over there, mini-fridge is there, and here’s the bed.” You gesture to each item in turn.

“Gosh,” Jake says, taking a seat on the bed. He bounces up and down lightly. “It’s not much different down here, is it?”

“Well, some places are. Not so much the corporate district. It’s supposed to be ironic or something.”

“Heh.” He glances around, but then he frowns at something. “I… can’t help but notice you’ve only one bed in here.”

“I do live alone,” you point out. “Or did. We can share, you know. We’re soulmates.” You punctuate your words with a smirk.

“Argh!” He grabs a pillow and throws it at you.

There’s a knock on the door. You throw the pillow back and gesture for him to remain where he is while you go and answer it.

“Oh. Hey, Roxy.”

“Heyyy, Dirk, just got off work! Ha ha, that was a good one.” She leans on the doorway and tilts her head to glance over your shoulder. You shift your stance to block Jake from her sight. “Who’s your friend?”

“No one.”

“Don’t ‘no one’ me, Dirk, I saw you bringin’ someone in. And unless I missed my guess, which I’m pre’ sure I did not, it’s a human.” She stands on her toes. Her pink eyes light up when she sees him. “Hey there, lil guy! Gee, you’re a cute one.”

“I, um—”

“Quiet, Jake.” Well, Roxy’s a friend. There’s no harm in her knowing you’re harboring a mortal. Not that you’d be in trouble either way, what with the contract and all; you just don’t trust a lot of your fellow demons, for various reasons. Roxy’s fine. Dave is cool. Feferi and Nepeta would be okay, if it came to that. But for the most part… no. Just no. “Yeah, he’s a human. His name’s Jake. Try to keep this on the down-low?”

“Well, duh. You are gonna get in such hot water for this.”

“Huh?”

“He’s supposed to be all, y’know, suffering and stuff!”

“He’s one of my contracts.”

“And?”

“And so I get to do what I want with him?”

“Pfffft. Who told you that?” Roxy looks about to double over, and for once it’s not from drinking too hard. “Seriously, if that was true I would have a total harem of studly hunks at my beck and call. Trust me, I have triiied.”

“…okay, I’m gonna need you to keep quiet about this for an entirely different reason now, Roxy. You think you can do that for me?”

“Sure thing, Dork.” She ruffles your cool pointy hair, much to your chagrin. “I’ll let you take care of this now ’cause if you don’t, you are in some tough shit.”

She eases the door shut. You turn to see a look of bewildered horror on Jake’s face.

“Um, Dirk?” he manages.

“I got this.” You fumble in your pocket for your cell phone. A text message pops up at the exact instant you unlock it and this time you’re the one who almost has a heart attack.

“Shit, it’s the coppers!” Jake bolts toward the bathroom.

“Chill, the cops don’t send text messages. It’s from Rose.”

If anybody asks, you have authorization from me. But do try to stay out of trouble.

“What does it say?”

You manage to make your way to the bed just in time to collapse, weak-kneed from relief. “Jake, you and I have a guardian devil.”

It would be nice to say you have a happily-ever-after, but the thing about “forever” is it lasts too long to make any definitive statements about. It would be outside the scope of a tidy ending such as this one to go into the details of what happens when you’re found to be harboring the soul of a human; what happens when Jake eventually develops cabin fever, shut up in your tiny apartment as he is; or what happens when his grandmother in heaven discovers what’s happened to him.

Those are stories for another day.

For the present, at least, things look all right.