Through Countless Reincarnations

They say if you go down a certain street at midnight you will find a demon. If you ask for something that demon will fulfill it. But it will be to your peril. Is the prize worth the price? - Lucian took a long sip of his wine and swilled it around in the glass. It was looking to be a quiet night tonight. He hadn’t consumed a soul in a while and was beginning to get rather ravenous. He arose from his chair and began to pace the room. It was a fine room filled with his collection of prized antiques and some from far flung travels. When you had an eternal life it was easy to become a hoarder. His personal favourite was a jade vase from a stint in Asia in the last century. Now he was playing a Victorian gentleman. A very rich one who held dinner parties by day and made contracts for souls at night. He accepted most contracts and always honoured his side of the bargain. He was a gentleman after all. “Master, you have a visitor,” his butler informed him quietly from the open doorway. Finally. “Did they give you a calling card?” he asked softly. The butler walked forward and handed him a card. Lucian raised an eyebrow. This visitor did have to have some social class. The card read ‘Genevieve Edwards’. It was a lady. He was highly intrigued. “Show the lady in and bring in some tea,” he requested. “One must offer tea even if it’s midnight.” There was a minute before his visitor was shown in. In this time Lucian had sat down and put on his black top hat and a mask to hide his face. The lady would be exceptionally pretty if it wasn’t for her furrowed brow, red rimmed eyes and constant frown. She was well dressed in a travelling coat and a well fitted dress with black hair pulled up into a neat hairstyle.  Lucian estimated her to be around 15 and from a well to do family. He was very interested to know why such a high class young lady would come to see him. “Are you the demon?” she asked and squinted at him. “I am,” he replied from behind his mask. “Sit down please.” He gestured to the chair opposite him and she sat down after a moment of hesitation. “What does a young lady of class want from a demon like me?” he asked. “Please enlighten me.” Genevieve sat up straighter and stared down at the table. “My parents died last month. I am now in the care of my aunt and uncle. They want me to marry someone they have arranged for me. I do not want to. I want to marry on my own terms not to some random lord with lots of money just so they can live off me for the rest of their lives.” Lucian didn’t quite know what to make of her. Surely she had realised her parents would have eventually arranged a marriage for her? “Did your parents not have someone lined up for you?” he enquired. “No,” she said tartly. “They said I could marry who I wanted when the time came.” Her parents must have doted on her. He sighed internally. “What would you require me to do? You must have come here to ask something. I’m not an agony aunt newspaper column. I’m a demon.” Genevieve tightened her jaw.  “I was coming round to the subject. Do you not have a lot of spare time? You are a demon after all.” She was certainly a lady who knew what she wanted. “I want to have no more arranged marriages, interference from my aunt and uncle and to not marry the person they have lined up for me.” Lucian saw an easy solution there. It was a blunt and direct one. “You require me to kill your aunt and uncle?” Genevieve shivered and he knew he’d repulsed her. For some reason he felt ashamed of himself. “No, I do not want that. I just want them to not sponge off me and try to run my life. I know I am a woman, but I want to live life on my own terms.” This young lady was certainly ahead of her time. A majority of rich young ladies had their lives determined and mapped out by their parents before the age of two. That hadn't changed much over the past few centuries either. “I see. I can arrange that,” he answered eventually. “Now, do you know I require p*****t?” Genevieve nodded slowly and Lucian wondered if she knew what it actually was. “....A soul?” “Your soul,” he pointed at her mouth. Her mouth was very nice actually. He blinked when he realised that he’d been quietly staring at it. “However, it’s no good to either of us if the moment I have dealt with your troubles, you have to die. No human can live without their soul,” he explained. “Therefore…” Most people coming to him required large amounts of money and the moment he handed it to them, he took their souls. He had fulfilled his end of the contract and that was normally how he went with his transactions. Now he was openly admitting the fatal flaw and giving her a way out. What was he doing? Should he pretend he hadn’t said anything? Genevieve spotted the problem immediately. “You can give me 20 years to live when you have… disposed of my troubles,” she demanded ferociously and made eye contact with him. “I absolutely demand that.” That had made up his mind for him. He was going to enjoy this contract. This young lady was an enigma. “I agree to those terms,” he announced formally. “Please hold out your arm.” Genevieve held out a delicate arm and he ran his hand down it before scratching a small cut. “That hurt,” she complained.  “I apologise,” he said and wiped off the blood with his handkerchief.  He scratched another cut in his own arm and drew a pentagram on the table in his blood.  Genevieve was watching him closely with veiled interest. He placed a candle in the centre of the pentagram and dropped the bloodied handkerchief into the flame. The candle shot out a tall column of fire. “I hereby enter a contract with Genevieve Edwards and will stand by my terms and when the time comes, I will collect her soul.” He watched her face closely for any sign of fear at hearing the contract finalised, but there was none.  The flame turned black and the pentagram burned into the table. When the contract was over, the pentagram would disappear. Lucian approached her and stroked her chin softly with his hand. “Next time I see you Genevieve, I will be giving you favours.”