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The payment for life is life, but will Estevan give his beloved as payment for his continued existence?
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Normally Estevan loved Halloween. It was his favorite holiday. He had watched it change through the centuries from a yearly cultic purification of hearth and fire as practiced by the Celts; to a harvest festival as practiced by the Romans when they took the festival back to the Mediterranean area; to a children's night of play intended to dispel our basic fear of evil magical creatures; to its current, modern-day excuse for raunchy costumes and alcohol-fueled parties.
As he thought about it, he could not help but compare the modern debauchery with the Roman fertility celebrations. The Romans combined the Celtic "dark night" rituals with their own "Feralia" practices, both of whom involved the spirits of the dead. By putting it on November first, however, the Romans removed the"public fasting" required by Feralia. The new date replaced the public fasting of those final, gray days of February with the "public celebration" of harvest time at the end of October. The result was basically a drunken orgy, and the Romans really knew how to throw an orgy - especially if you mixed in religious overtones that made alcohol and sex an acceptable part of the cultic fertility ritual.
"Just like old times," he said aloud as he remembered the wild parties he had attended last Halloween with Alicia. But then he glanced down at her picture in his hands and said softly and sadly, "Just like old times."
This year was to be a "Kalend of Kalends." Literally that meant a month of months, but it was used by the Romans to refer to a decade. Somewhere in the ancient past it may have originally meant thirty months or perhaps thirty years, but that was before Estevan's time.
Not a whole lot was before Estevan's time. Once at a dinner party, when someone had asked him how old he really was, he replied, "I wasn't around to sell the stones to Cheops for his pyramid, but my company poured the concrete for Flavius when he built the Coliseum." Everyone laughed - those who heard it because of how his outlandish answer avoided giving his true age, Estevan, because he was telling the absolute truth.
No, Estevan was not immortal. He was an ordinary, mortal man, who one Feralia - before they even called it that - just happened to have struck a deal with the keeper of the dead. Today most people call him The Devil, or Satan, but he truly has no name, just as he has no face, or for that matter just as he has no body. He can assume various forms, from bull to goat to human to god or goddess or strange combinations in between, but all such forms are just illusions.
"His promises are also illusions," thought Estevan. "Eternal life.... but at what cost?"
Then he spoke aloud to himself "Is it truly living when you know that once every ten years you must betray someone who loves you dearly to buy another ten years of life?"
How many had he betrayed over the centuries? How many had gone down into the realm of the keeper of the dead so that he could continue to walk the earth? Would this be the year that, on the festival of the dead, he would refuse, and would himself be embraced by the formless arms of the keeper of the dead?
Alicia was different. With his youthful charm and physically pleasing body, it had always been easy to get women to fall in love with him. He enjoyed their charms while it lasted, and they benefitted greatly from his extreme wealth and power. He had always justified things to himself by saying that if they had known what they were doing they would have gladly traded their lives for the ten years of absolute bliss which he bestowed upon them. Women - and men - gave up their lives for much less.
"What was it that made Alicia different?" He thought to himself. It wasn't just that she was rich - nowhere near as rich as Estevan, but wealthy enough to be rich even among the rich. And it wasn't just that she was beautiful. He remembered how her naked body had shone in the moonlight on the beach. And, when she paused and looked at Estevan, it was as if a statue from the Temple of Aphrodite had come to life.
It was not just her physical appearance that made her special. Her voice was almost musical; she knew her history and the intricacies of the arts and sciences; and she was fluent in as many languages as he was. At least, she could speak and understand all those languages which he currently used. He had never tried to speak with her in ancient Phoenician.
There had been others as beautiful. Carla had breasts that were the perfect size and shape, and her sex was perfectly formed, both for beauty and to caress and grip his cock as they thrust together. She had the perfect natural mixture of grip and lubrication so that it was like sliding through honey into that tight shaft.
There had been others as rich. Suzanne had been almost richer than he, coming as she did from royal blood in a time when royalty reigned supreme in Europe. She was born to extreme wealth, and had taught him subtleties of using your wealth to exert power over others that he would never have dreamed of on his own.
There had been others as intelligent. Veronica was the most intelligent of them all. She actually had surmised his secret, but her love for him kept her from fleeing. When her Kalendra came, she peacefully looked him in the eyes - without fear - and said "I wondered when this day would come. I knew it would. The payment for life is always life. Despite what you must do, I thank you for the nine years of your love that you have given me."
Estevan grimaced remembering those words. He had not loved her. She only thought he loved her because he had acted like he loved her. But it was, after all, an act. Love requires that you truly, faithfully and sincerely put the one you love above everything else in your life. As the old joke goes, "Once you can fake that, you have it made." Estevan could fake love very, very well.
That is why Alicia was different. This time it wasn't fake. After centuries upon the earth and after countless women chosen, used, and discarded, Estevan had finally, truly and completely fallen in love.
The deal with The Devil was that once every ten years on the festival of the dead, he had to betray someone who truly loved him and turn them over to the keeper of the dead. Could he do it this year?
Betraying someone who loved you is easy - as long as your love for them is a sham. But could he betray someone whom he truly loved? Could he send Alicia into the arms of the keeper of the dead?
The answer would come at midnight on the night of the dead. The exact day for that had varied through the centuries, but in today's world..., in this nation..., in this culture..., that would be at midnight on Halloween.
Alicia was rather quiet all day on Halloween. This year, the party would be at their estate. Perhaps she was preoccupied with the details of final planning for the festivities. They had decided on a Greek theme for the decorations. Alicia designed and had supervised the construction of a relatively accurate replica of the temple of Hestia, the Greek goddess of hearth and home.
The Romans borrowed many of the cultic practices of the Greeks, including the sacred flame of Hestia, which on the night of the dead was brought to full fire so that people could take glowing embers home to relight their hearths with "purified fire" - of course for a fee. There always had to be an offering of silver to the goddess in return for the sacred fire. Alicia's pseudo-temple was the perfect setting for a large bonfire for the party.
"Have all cultures always combined fire... and purity... and death?" thought Estevan when he saw the temple sitting in the garden. It wasn't exactly as he remembered it when he had walked between its pillars in Athens, but the differences were minor. Alicia's design looked almost more primitive... more ancient that the temple he remembered. "This will be perfect." he told Alicia. He then added silently to himself, "Now I don't have to come up with some way to create a bonfire."
The secret that Estevan had discovered so many Kalendra ago was that for everything sacred there was also the un-sacred. Perhaps both were sacred, but not on the same end of reality. There was "good" sacred and "bad" sacred. There was the "holy" fire and the "un-holy" fire. The gods came forth from the holy fire. The keeper of the dead came forth from the un-holy fire.
It was an accident when it happened.... well, not exactly an accident. Estevan was supposed to kindle the sacred fire for his household, but being a typically rebellious teenaged boy of any culture or century, he intentionally reversed the wording of the ritual. He was alone by the family sacred hearth when he began the task of building a new fire so he was free to mutilate the ritual words. Had his father or mother been there, such disrespect would have brought a severe beating, but he was alone, and so he showed his contempt for what he considered the useless and hollow words of a totally stupid ritual. He reversed all of the words as he labored to create the proper spark to ignite the dried grass and kindling that would begin the flame for the sacred fire.
But it wasn't a stupid ritual..., and they were not useless, hollow words. With his reversed ritual, he created an un-sacred fire and when the family gathered, the keeper of the dead came forth from the fire and consumed his father and his mother and all who were gathered around the fire... except Estevan. Then the keeper of the dead offered him eternal life. He could live forever, but that eternal life required a regular payment of life.
What would Estevan say when The Devil came forth from the fire this year. Would he say the proper words, "I give you life for life, love for love, that which is not mine for that which is not yours." Or would he say simply, "I withhold life for life and give you my life as your own."
