• It started with a woman. Wasn’t that always the way? He tempted her, she fell. Then, turnabout being fair play, one tempted him, he fell.

    Stabbing his cigarette out in the overflowing ashtray on the bar in front of him, Mephistopheles wondered if he’d ever loved her, either of them. The memories were dim and hazy now, but he remembered what had happened after. Just as the gate to Eden had been shut to her, so were the gates of Heaven shut to him. Shut to all of them who had decided that watching wasn’t enough. It must have been love, Mephistopheles decided, rising from his stool and picking up his coat; if not with the first one, then with the second. He had known what God would do, in that small mean way that anyone could know anything about the plans of God. So, yes, he must have loved her.

    To risk so much. To lose so much. To hurt so much.

    Now, she only existed in labyrinthine twists of failing memory. The bare crescent of a hip. The glitter of dark laughing eyes. He had lusted after her, naturally, as they had all lusted after their wives, but it must have been more than that. One detail he remembered perfectly: she hadn’t been pretty. Not in the way that humans viewed things, then or now.

    Outside, his coat draped over his arm despite the hard winter setting in around him, Mephistopheles gazed up at a night sky made flat and empty by light pollution.

    She had been forgettable, even ugly, but her soul had shone like something fine, something invaluable. Lying in the cradle of her mortal body, he’d thought her peerless, beautiful beyond even the majesty of Heaven. And wasn’t humanity meant to be God’s masterwork? And so, he’d willingly fallen, their son growing within her.

    It had been enough, their simple little life. For a while, it had been enough.

    But then she’d died, as humans were born to do, and so had their son. So had all their sons, once the floodwaters came and washed them away.

    Not everything could be washed away, however. Even now, his legacy was hard at work in the hearts and minds of men. He’d taught them to build weapons: swords and spears and shields and mail. He’d taught them the simple joys of frivolousness: jewelry and dyes and cosmetics and fashion.

    War and vanity. The secrets of Heaven. What a crock.

    Mephistopheles slowly made his way down the snow-dusted street, shoulders hunched and gaze faraway. His long stride left no footprints.