“Ahahahahaha! Oh Walter, you and your jokes never get old.”
Lucile almost immediately burst into laughter upon hearing his ‘joke.’ However, that cheerful expression on her face quickly disappeared before she spoke up in a more serious tone.
“But you should learn when to take things seriously.”
On the other hand, Walter could only shake his head in slight disappointment.
“Here’s the thing though: I am taking this seriously.”
He paused for a moment to stare right into the devil’s scarlet eyes before he continued.
“I. Will not. Spend another day. Down here in this hell.”
Like before, Lucile broke into laughter, except this time, it sounded dry and forced.
“Do not waste my time and do not play games with me boy. I’ve outlived you countless times over and I’ll make you aware that you’re not the only jester that I had to endure.”
The more she spoke, the deeper and more threatening her voice became. There was even some slight echo to her voice that Walter could only explain as ‘magic.’
A few seconds later, a clear sound echoed within the office.
Snap!
With a snap of her fingers, a flat ‘sheet’ of flame appeared in front of Lucile before she grabbed it. Within seconds, those flames transformed into what appeared to be a piece of paper.
In particular, a paper detailing the contents of a business contract.
With a spiteful smirk on her face, the Devil presented that contract to Walter before she proceeded to explain in a patronising tone.
“This is the soul contract that you signed. You can very clearly see your signature at the very bottom.”
However, to her apparent irritation, he was not affected by her words at all. In fact, a faint smile remained on his face as he maintained his calm and questioned the contract.
“Tell me, in exchange for what you gave me. What did I have to give to you in exchange?”
She would only scoff when she replied.
“A soul willingly given of course. Everyone who signed the contract knew what they were getting themselves into. The contract itself is binding. You can even call it ‘magically binding’ if you want to.”
Likewise, Walter also scoffed as he replied.
“Really now? Then why don’t you show me?”
The sneer on her face turned into a frown upon hearing his words. When she responded, her words no longer carried the same patronising tone as before.
“Impetuous little mortal. You would dare test the ruler of hell?”
Once again, he remained unmoved in the face of her threats, answering back in a calm yet mocking tone.
“Oh I dare alright. I’m only waiting on you.”
“Ahaha! Now you forced my hand! I could have done this at any point in time, before you even entered my office but the fact that I found you mildly entertaining prevented me from doing so.”
A sort of forced smile found its way onto her face as she spoke while her voice only continued to sound more ‘demonic.’
“But I have my own limit as well. Now allow me to demonstrate the consequences of pissing me off.”
When she said that, the whites of her eyes suddenly turned pitch black in colour while the air itself suddenly felt as if they were oppressively confining Walter.
Soon after, Walter felt beads of sweat drop down the back of his neck while his faint smile gradually got replaced by a nervous frown. At the same time Lucile slowly lifted her right hand forward as if to present it to him.
Her mouth twisted upwards into a contemptuous sneer when she spoke.
“Your soul is forfeit. It belongs to me.”
Before she snapped her fingers.
Snap!
“...”
“...”
And nothing happened.
The two of them exchanged confused looks at each other as they reacted to this anti-climatic result.
Out of the two, Lucile’s face expressed the most confusion.
She once again tried to snap her fingers.
Snap!
“...”
“...”
And yet, nothing still happened.
“That’s weird… This… This usually works.”
Soon, the expression on her face turned grim as she again snapped her fingers.
Snap!
“You called for me my Lady?”
This time, her snap appeared to have summoned a demon who walked through a portal that was to Walter’s right. Other than his typical black coloured demon horns, the rest of his appearance was concealed under his bright blue suit with white pinstripe stripes and the odd looking dark blue mask on his face.
However, Lucile didn’t respond to the demon despite apparently being the one to summon him. After a few seconds of awkward silence, the demon tilted his head as he questioned her.
“My Lady? Is there somethi—”
Snap!
“Guuuaaaahhh!”
Suddenly, a bright flash of light exploded out of the demons head as he screamed, which forced Walter to cover his eyes with his forearm.
When he later removed his arm, he found that the demon had completely disappeared, with no trace of him remaining except for the circular scorch mark on the floor. Before Walter could even register what happened, his ears were subjected to a repetitive sound which occurred at a very quick yet irregular rhythm.
Snap!
Snap!
Snap!
Snap!
Snap!
“I don’t understand!”
Before long, Lucile completely gave up on whatever it was she was attempting with snapping her fingers and instead loudly vented out her frustrations.
“Why is it not working! My magic works! And it can’t be possible that you are dispelling them!”
The Devil abruptly stood up as she shouted, knocking the chair which she sat on backwards. Not long after, she forcefully slammed both of her open palms onto her tables, knocking over a few of her utensils as she did so.
“What the hell did you do!”
Evidently, she was not used to losing like this.
Especially to a mere ‘mortal’ like Walter.
Seeing the literal devil have a breakdown like this and undermine her previously friendly yet patronising demeanour was actually quite amusing for him.
He could even say that it was his greatest ‘achievement’ to date.
With the situation now well within his grasp, he responded with a mocking remark.
“The question should actually be, ‘what the hell did we do.’”
A look of confusion mixed with the contemptful expression on her face as she listened to his words. However, he also decisively gave her a disclaimer before he continued.
“I will have to warn you in advance though. It is a rather long winded story.”
Lucile responded in her typical cynical tone, her disposition once more appearing calm yet condescending.
“Is that so? Well, it should still be fine. Besides...”
Snap!
With another snap of a finger, the walls and even the ceiling itself was consumed by fire. In an instant, the office walls and even ceiling were all replaced with walls of flame. Said flames were reflected in the black ‘whites’ of her eyes as she sat back down onto her chair which somehow stood back up by itself. Soon after, she opened her mouth to speak.
“It’s not like either of us are going to be leaving this room any time soon anyway.”
In the face of her threat, Walter could only force himself to maintain his cool. A few seconds later, a faint smile returned to his face as he spoke.
“It all began after I had a few friendly ‘chats’ with other scumbags that you scammed out of their souls. Based on the evidence I collected from them, I came up with a rather interesting hypothesis about the nature of your power.”
Although a look of disbelief appeared on her face, she still held poison in her words when she replied.
“Oh really now? What is it?”
“That while your power is nigh omnipotent, it is also paradoxically limited by contracts.”
He remained silent for a few short moments to let what he said sink in before he continued speaking. During those moments of silence, he was able to spot a tinge of surprise and even unease within her eyes.
“You can’t exercise much of your power beyond your realm without the aid of contracts, and even then it would seem that you can’t exercise powers on those who aren’t ‘official residents’ of hell. The fact that I am having this conversation with you at this very moment is proof of my hypothesis.
Without a contract, you are basically powerless.”
A long moment of silence occurred once Walter concluded his short speech.
The two of them silent started into the eyes of the other as the flames raged on in the background.
But the silence was eventually broken by Lucile’s sarcastic laughter which heralded her response.
“So what if you discovered the nature of my powers? That shouldn’t mean that you aren’t considered a resident of hell. You signed that soul contract! Your soul belongs to me!”
In response to her shout, Walter gave a short explanation.
“But you see, the contract that you made and I signed specifically stated that it required a soul ‘willingly given’ as the term of payment. It never specified that I had to willingly give up my own. So obviously, being the selfish bastard that I am, I never willingly gave up my own soul. Instead, I offered you someone else’s.
In other words, you have no claim to my soul.”
“No that can’t be right. When you filled in the contract, you pledged your soul to me.”
As her skeptical voice echoed through the room, she took the soul contract and read it before speaking up.
“It says right here ‘I willingly pledge the soul of…’”
But her voice would soon trail off when a realisation seemingly crossed through her mind.
“You sly bastard… You only wrote your initials. In every single part of the contract that requested for your name. You only wrote your initials…”
In reply, Walter could only confirm her suspicions.
“Yes, but for certain clauses of that contract, I wasn’t referring to myself with those initials.”
With a casual shrug, he explained himself.
“I gave you the soul of some douche named ‘Walder Ferdinans.’ Oh and don’t worry if he doesn’t belong here, I went the extra mile to ensure that he is a career criminal so there shouldn’t be any fuck ups during the process.”
Halfway through his words, he leaned forward and rested his forearms on the table, edging him closer to Lucile.
“But most importantly, the soul contract also states that should anyone ever have their soul wrongfully claimed, they are entitled via the ‘Law of the Universe’ to the privilege of a true resurrection.”
Walter paused to chuckle to himself before he resumed speaking.
“Actually, that promise of resurrection and the mention of the ‘Law of the Universe’ was one of the pieces of evidence that your power is actually quite limited but I digress.”
With nothing else to say, Lucile could only pose a question towards him. Surprisingly though, she held a calm and even welcoming demeanour when she spoke.
“So I take it that you want to be resurrected?
“But of course. I didn’t go through all this trouble to not be resurrected.”
A sort of faint but friendly smile grew on her face as she replied.
“Alright. I’ll grant you your privilege. Just before I do though… I wonder… Walter… are you aware that there exists other worlds apart from your own in reality?”
He almost immediately sensed that something was wrong upon hearing her last sentence. While he had a hunch when she abruptly became friendly, that final sentence raised all sorts of flags within his head.
“Well, not until now… why would you tell me… such a… thing…”
Similarly to Lucille before him, his voice trailed off as a revelation revealed itself within his mind. The expression on his face probably gave him away as the Devil soon spoke up with a chuckle.
“Ahaha yes. I’m going to do exactly what you think I’m going to do Walter.”
When she said that, she lifted her right hand upwards. Her fingers in position to snap.
“But I still do hope that you enjoy your ‘new life’ asshole.”
On instinct, Walter blurted out whatever words were within his mind.
“Wait. Wait! Nononon—”
Snap!
