The movie, once Meph quiets his snark, is compelling, and Perse takes quiet satisfaction that even Meph can shut it for about two hours. They thought for sure the demon would at least scoff at all the romantic parts.

  About halfway through the film, Perse looks over out of the corner of their eye at their demon companion.

  Meph is fully leaning into the back of his seat, his back ramrod straight. He stares at the screen, not with his usual flat or sardonic expression. In fact, Perse can’t say they forgot what emotion looks like on his face because they don’t think they’ve seen anything but the brief hint of glee when he set a murder of crows on a guy who was bothering Perse.

  The whoosh in their head becomes a fog spilling through their entire brain, and a piercing ring, and they see—

  Crashing ocean waves.

  Lightning.

  A group of winged men laughing in a grove.

  An angel’s face melting its one-hundred eyes all over Perse’s bloody palm, a grimace swirling like wax.

  brother.

  what have I done?

  what have i done whathaveidone w h a t h a v e i d o n e

  his face is melting on my hands. i can’t scrub it away

  it’s still there, his eyes his eyes his eyes

  he can’t feel. he can’t let doubt in. he can’t feel. he’s a follower of Lucifer, he’s a monster, and everywhere is Hell. that’s all, and he doesn’t care.

  nothing matters god will scrub the world clean destroy all the demons and that’s it no salvation no hope no love. heinrich will watch him die in the lake of fire and no no no not even he cares enough.

  [an ocean shore, an old man’s dead body caressed by seafoam as rose petals fall from the bleary sky; he falls, they always fall]

  he’s my grace i can’t get him back i’m alone again

  fade to black.

  Perse leans down with their head in their hands and starts to cry. Cry for their lost life, all the years they’ve dressed or acted a certain way to make everyone else but themselves happy. Swallowed their deadname like poisoned gum.

  it wasn’t my fault i’ve had to spend all these years surviving, and only surviving. but i should be free and happy. i could shave half my head again, buy a tux, burn all my old dresses and replace them with turtlenecks and button-up shirts

  But the universe is so big; angels have fought wars in cosmic spheres they can’t even fully visualize—just nudging the blurry image splits their migraine into a thousand new migraines.

  And angels died. The universe is so big, and they’ve lived their life based on the opinions of small-minded people.

  Their throat convulses, and they wobble to their feet and clumsily rush down the carpeted theater steps and lurch out into the hall to flee to the nearest stark white bathroom stall.

  Their knees hit the tiles, and what spills out of their mouth reeks and tastes of salty tears and phlegm and popcorn butter.

  To make things even better, their nose prickles, and blood droplets fall into the toilet. What’s most surprising is that someone has pushed the hair from their face. They aren’t sure how Meph was able to fit into the stall with them.

  When the demon helps them rise, their knees pop.

  “I’m sorry.” Soft as a calm breeze. Perse has never heard Meph apologize. They’re even more unsure what to do when Meph takes a handkerchief—lined with gold thread, naturally—out of his breast pocket and dabs the blood off their mouth and chin. His expression is drawn, devoid of its usual sharp hint of snark. But Perse swears the skin under his eyes is damp.

  With a wet sniff, Perse replies, “It’s okay.” No, it’s not, but it is. Things aren’t okay, but that’s okay. “Were they...”

  Were those real memories of when you were in Heaven?

  Not just Heaven. The war. They see Meph alone, on the periphery of an immense garden, under a pomegranate tree. Lonely. Furious. Seething. His shimmering wings darkly red like blood. Pale nails dig into bark.

  They can’t complete the question, feeling its wrongness, its weight on both of their hearts.

  ***

  That night, as the last of the late summer crickets scream before dying, Perse pulls the covers on their bed now. It’s still warm enough to not need a quilt. And if Meph is in bed, he’s like a self-sustaining heater.

  They don’t even need to ask Meph to come; he slips into bed with them, and they rest their head on his shoulder. His heat spreads against their cheek like wings, and Perse dozes, thinking about an old, distant shore.

  Misery in Company

  Morgan Dante

  Content Warnings: death, mention of offscreen violence

  It’s about ten years before the demon Mephistopheles burns an elderly couple alive for his lover, and before said lover collapses on the rheumy ocean’s edge and dies.

  Mephisto doesn’t know this, and if he were to know now, he wouldn’t care. He will win his bet against God and secure his prideful scholar’s soul. That’s all. There are no other stakes.

  And he and Heinrich Faust aren’t lovers yet.

  He thinks about that last soul ripped to shreds by demons, the man’s tongue in the fountain, twinkling teeth wriggling amid the ripples, an untethered eye rolling between softening crabapples.

  The memory doesn’t make him laugh; no, he doesn’t feel anything. Feelings are for Heaven, with the demure but beautiful legions of curly-haired men idling by orange and pomegranate trees, strumming their harps and lazing about, conversing about nothing of importance in a way that, to them, has utmost importance.

  The smiles, the held hands, the blushes, the kisses amid beds of roses, carnations and poppies pouring forth like torrents of blood, reeking of flower-musk and spicy cloves and cosmic tears.

  Stern Gabriel writing down notes, fidgeting Raphael looping his fingers around his flute, flaxen-haired Lucifer opening his pretty pink mouth to sing.

  And then right there by the persimmon tree was always nervous, stupid, insipid Mephisto wringing his hands because all he wanted to do was join his brothers, but if he failed, if he fumbled, it might ruin him. They’d laugh at him.

  No, he didn’t care, and it didn’t matter. It doesn’t matter, and it never does. Not when one of his younger brothers crumpled into cinders beneath his burning hands (i don’t care), and not when his beautiful vermillion wings molted away (i don’t care). The pain in his bones never truly departed after his fall (idon’tcare).

  It doesn’t matter.

  If all is ordained, he would never care because it would do nothing. All he could do was approach the universe as a cosmic joke and take delight in human fumbling.

  Leave the caring to God, who loves all, except for him.

  That evening, Heinrich asks his devil to walk with him by the sea. Sand crunches under their boots.

  The wind disturbs their dark overcoats, acrylic streaks in the gray haze before a storm. The water is eerily calm, its foam lightly tumbling over crushed seashells that glint like glass.

  Heinrich stands a foot and a half shorter than Mephisto, and where Mephisto is thin as a rake, the former scholar has a small pouch of a belly under his white tunic. Though he still has a head of dark brown hair, there are thinning gray strands at the crown of his skull. The demon slides his hands into his trouser pockets while Heinrich, closest to the ocean, dreamily gazes out into the horizon with those watery blue eyes.

  You are getting old, my little scholar. It’s pathetic, but Mephisto can’t explain how forlorn the idea of their time on the mortal coil coming to an end makes him. What will he do back in Hell, listen to Asmodeus boast about the latest palace orgy, watch Leviathan wriggle their tentacles around, sigh as the Minotaur gores another soul?

  Boring, as usual.

  Heinrich rubs his hands together as cold breath plumes from his nose and mouth. “Does the sight of the ocean at twilight rouse nothing in you?”

  “No. It’s a phenomenon that happens every day.”

  “Does the devil truly care about nothing?” Heinrich asks him. “Some might say the opposite of creation is destruction; I never thought destruction would be dispassionate. Even Hell doesn’t sound devoid of feeling.”

  How to describe Hell? Absence of Heaven. Absence of God. In his more dramatic moments, he might even say that his existence right now is Hell by virtue of not being Heaven.

  “The opposite of God’s will is the lack of action. He cared enough to create. I don’t. He created sin, suffering, and Hell, eventually. If we use an art metaphor, art often requires passion.”

  “Not always,” Heinrich replies simply, “much of the greatest art created was done on commission. But what if you did make something? What does a damned creature have the urge to create?”

  Mephisto says haughtily, “I’ve made you a lord. I think that suffices.”

  Then, they stop walking as Heinrich faces him. The man’s disposition is unusually calm. “Is that what I am, your art to make? I don’t seem to recall you crafting me with your strokes. If you’ve changed me from what I was, the melancholic professor and doctor, I’d say you’ve unmade me, instead.”

  “Perhaps. Most of creation has, in many areas, unraveling and unmaking. Decomposition to enrich the soil.”

  “If we follow your devil-logic, you’ve created me like God created everything, even the damned angels like you. And He did it out of love.”

  “I suppose. It’s been so long since I was connected to God, even when I’ve spoken to Him in Heaven, that I’ve forgotten. I remember all else, except His love.” All that remains is smoke, ashes, screams. The sizzling hollows where dead angels’ ruined faces used to be.

  Loving and being loved. Mephisto remembers an all-consuming jealousy and possessiveness, but not love in Heaven. Maybe it’s this mental barrier where he cannot entirely recall God’s voice, even if he remembers His words. Or perhaps the demon never understood, never acted like the other angels because he might end up looking stupid and insipid if he indulged in kisses.

  Heinrich flashes a strangely soft smile that makes the demon, for the first time since he saw his companion disappear into the crowd at Walpurgisnacht, curious about the man’s intentions. “Come, Mephisto, I want to see the ruins on the hill.”

  With that, Heinrich reaches out for him, a silent invitation, and without thinking about it, Mephisto grasps his cool hand.

  They are up on the hill in an instant in the center of the long-crumbled temple with its decapitated pillars, which jut around them toward the swollen harvest moon like pearlescent bones. The moon, the stars, and the lazy penduluming of fireflies illuminate the stretch of ancient ruins. They are still facing one another, Mephisto elegant pianist’s hands wrapped around Heinrich’s.

  Eternally, proudly nonplussed Mephisto startles when Heinrich takes his free hand and grazes a warm thumb against his cheekbone.

  Mephisto tastes Heinrich’s pulse in his wrist, his soul: salt; smoke; copper; grief; stubborn wonder.

  “I’ve been wanting to mention something to you,” the mortal man tells him.

  The demon can only reply with his usual sardonicism. “Was the beach not discreet enough? Go on, then.”

  “When I was going to overdose on opium, you were the only one there for me.” Mephisto remembers the tall glass of brown laudanum. A bitter solution indeed in that dim vaulted tomb Heinrich deemed a study. Dusty leatherbound texts and a skull. “And in the form of a massive poodle, no less.” A huff before Heinrich’s features soften. “You stayed with me. If you hadn’t, I wouldn’t be here. I wouldn’t have seen all the grand sights you’ve shown me. With all the shadows that clouded my mind, you’ve been like sunshine to me.”

  The fool. If you hadn’t let me in, you wouldn’t be doomed to go to Hell. I only follow you to wait for the moment your soul is ripe.

  Mephisto scowls. “I didn’t do it for charity, darling.”

  Somberly, Heinrich replies, gaze half-lidded, “I know.” With that, they both drop their hands to their sides as a thoughtful frown crosses the man’s features. “Funny, I think that’s the only time I’ve seen you annoyed. Bothered. I never thought I’d take it as an accomplishment to bother anyone.”

  He despises that Heinrich thinks that he helped him.

  I’ve helped you into eternal damnation. I’ve proven God wrong. I haven’t saved you. The devil doesn’t save. I’ve made you mine, and through contract alone, I’m yours.

  Is that true? After all, didn’t the torments of Job, rotting with ruptured welts and crying out his dead children’s names, offer him salvation and a deeper understanding of God?

  The force that in doing evil does good. How remarkably droll. God could really be so predictable.

  This time is different. Heinrich shows no signs of regretting his path or lamenting his future. There certainly isn’t any regret when he rises on his toes and brushes his lips against the demon’s. His mouth tastes of tartly sweet wine and potato soup with chives, mingling with sea salt and brimstone, all clashing with that constant undercurrent of blood.

  When Mephisto pushes back, his tail lashing back and forth behind him, it feels like an act of violence, of claiming. Heinrich returns his shove, their tongues colliding, by reaching up to the back of Mephisto’s head and taking fistfuls of Mephisto’ long, silvery curls in a delightfully forceful gesture.

  All Mephisto had wanted Heinrich to do was embrace seizing what he wanted and, in turn, falling into indulgent sin. He meant more creative ambitions like their romp in the Underworld and less becoming entangled like this. Sex, too, could become boring when faced with the repetitive futility of the cosmos. That really killed arousal.

  Not that he’s complaining about present events.

  When they pull apart, the man’s lips are already swollen.

  Breathily heavily, Heinrich rasps against his ear, “Take us back to the house. To the bed.”

  Within a second, they’re by the bed, and Heinrich shoves them on to it, and they tumble on the linen sheets. The room smells of tallow and old books.

  Mephisto spreads his legs while, above him, Heinrich cradles his jaw—he seems to like doing that—and presses his open mouth to the demon’s brow.

  In good humor, Heinrich says, “You did make fun of my fumbling when I first met. God of Flies, I’m curious how much you watched me with my former lovers before you strutted into my life.”

  Biting back, the demon replies, “Oh, I don’t know what you mean, but you realize that it takes a certain amount of stamina to be with an immortal lover. Eternity is a long time to perform.”

  Not dissuaded, Heinrich’s hip grinds against his.

  “I hate you sometimes,” the man says, and their next kiss has teeth.

  All of Heinrich’s past lovers have died, so it might be some solace to share a bed with an immortal creature.

  There won’t be salvation. He must make sure of it.

  He must prove to God that he will win Heinrich’s soul.

  He won’t be in Heaven, kissing his old lovers. He must remain with me. In Hell, together.

  That’s the good thing about Hell: If misery loves company, you’re never truly alone.

  ***

  Predictably, the mortal man grows older.

  Heinrich complains about his back aching and hip locking when he sits on the sofa or at his writing desk, and then he complains about being a lord because he must answer to so many when he once stayed locked inside. Mephisto crafts a silver, opal-studded staff and complains about a rube in the village stumbling while pants-pissingly drunk and vomiting on his fine boots, the ones with the ornate gold buckles.

  The man thrashes in bed more often, enraptured by nightmares. More than once, Mephisto frowns when he sees the name that begins to form on Heinrich’s lips, and he sets a slender hand on the man’s cheek and whispers softly. The man releases a soft sob but seems to relax as the demon comes closer.

  Do you know that you purr like a cat in your sleep? Heinrich asked him once, like he once asked if Mephisto knew that, besides brimstone, he also smelled of carnations. It can be quite relaxing.

  I don’t know what you mean, the demon replied. I don’t sleep.

  One clear morning, Heinrich frowns as, standing outside on the grass, Mephisto idly tosses a human skull in the air, the one Heinrich kept on the bookshelf in his old study.

  “Whose skull is this?” Mephisto asks. “Poor Yorick the gravedigger?”

  Dryly, Heinrich replies, shadows from poor sleep under his eyes, “Yes, that was his name.”

  With his fingers grooved into the eye sockets, Mephisto gives a mock gasp, presses the skull to his heart, and falls to the ground. Soon, with a shake of his head, Heinrich joins him to stare at the blue sky.

  He’s close. So close to proving God wrong, and then, he can retire to Hell with Heinrich. Despite everything, despite the brimstone and drama and cosmic implications, it sounds rather romantic.

  The first spring of their love affair is the easiest. Mephisto grows to like the quaint little seaside cottage.

  A year becomes two, and then a decade, and then another. Mephisto is always there, following Heinrich. And then, the man rubs the crust out of his eyes and complains that he can no longer read by candlelight because his vision is poorer. Then, with each passing month, he can see less and less.

  Over the passing years, Mephisto cannot believe himself when he makes plans in his head of where Heinrich will stay in Hell; he’ll ask Asmodeus if there’s a spare room in his spacious golden palace. Before, he told himself that he didn’t care about the ultimate fate of the soul in question post-damnation. All he cared about—all he had—was Heinrich’s damnation because it meant he’d win his wager with God.