[ WP ] You made a deal with the Devil , and now he 's come to collect .

I bit my fingernails again. Stop it. I have to stop doing this. By now my fingernails had gone straight past the point where they were a rough looking nub and all the way to the point where the finger beneath was bleeding and yet I could n't stop. He'd said that I should expect him to show up today. 
 
 I ca n't take this any longer. There's no use in cooping myself up in this dirty apartment for any longer than was necessary. Too many bad memories. Memories of Leslie. Besides, if he really is as powerful as he claims to be then it wo n't matter where the hell I am. Ha. Hell. The puns seem to come more often when I'm nervous. 
 
 My fingers were twitching and my throat felt like the sand in the Saharan desert at noon. I could really go for a drink right now, or a smoke, or maybe both. At the same time. 
 
 Man what a time to succumb to all of the Irish stereotypes. The thought flitted across my mind in the brief time that it took me to jump up and grab my ragged coat and cross the three foot gap between my couch and the door. Not much room in here. I'll have to see about getting a new apartment. I stopped with my hand on the doorknob. Did I really just think that I might have to look into getting a new apartment? The devil himself is on his way to take my soul and that's what I'm thinking about? 
 
 Shaking my head at my own idiocy, I step out into the grungy hallway of my tenement building. New York hallways. They are their own special breed of hallways I thought to myself. 
 
 Downstairs, I walked across the street to the pub. Oh yeah that's right, it's Saint Patrick's Day. I'm just stepping willy-nilly into stereotypes left and right. 
 
 I stepped across the threshold to the bar and everyone froze in place. My first instinct was to think I had done something wrong. Did I forget to wear my pants and underwear outside again? 
 
 And then I saw him. Out of all the forms the devil could take, he had to look like her today. Today of all days. 
 
 Maneuvering carefully around the frozen bodies of the normal bar-goers, I casually slid onto the stool next to him at the bar. Turning slowly, I looked into the eyes of my three year old daughter. 
 
 `` Why her.'' I managed to rasp out past the block in my throat. 
 
 `` Because you lost her too. I thought it was particularly fitting given the terms of our agreement.'' said the Devil. The words coming out of the mouth of a three year old girl, MY three your old girl, cut especially deep. She was n't supposed to be saying things like that. She was supposed to be saying things like `` play with me Dadda!'' 
 
 `` Promise me that they'll be safe.'' I choked out. 
 
 The Devil looked me in the eye. `` I would say that that is not my particular area of expertise. You might want to take it up with the man upstairs. Except I will be keeping you rather busy down there.'' The Devil chuckled as he gestured towards the dirty wood planks of the bar floor. 
 
 `` Are you ready now?'' he said with those dark tortured eyes staring at me out of the face of my beautiful daughter. A daughter who was n't mine anymore. 
 
 `` Does it really have to end this way? This was n't what I wanted at all!'' I pleaded. 
 
 `` We had ourselves a deal did n't we?'' roared the Devil. `` I promised you eternity with her and riches in exchange for your soul. And then you went and got left by her did n't you. You were weak and pathetic! How I loved watching you on your knees begging her to stay when she found the contract! Hahahaha. Pitiful.'' The manic look in his eyes faded. `` I'm doing you a favor you know. Letting you see your daughter for one last time. Well I'll see you down below I suppose.'' 
 
 `` Wait just give me a little more time to call them and say goodbye'' The words ripped themselves from my throat with the desperation that a drowning man who does n't know how to swim thrashes in the water. 
 
 The floor beneath my feet began to ripple and the boards burst loose in the shape a gaping maw wrapping around me. Not a sound escaped my locked lips. My last sight was the face of my baby girl staring back at me with the convoluted horror of His eyes peering at me. 
 
 `` Sorry Tim. It's too late.'' 
 
 The worst part about it was that he actually seemed genuinely regretful.
