The girl is young and beautiful with porcelain skin squeezed into a faded pink gown, the skirt wide and embroidered with little white roses, her breasts pushed up to her chin by the corset and falling up and down with each breath. Her blond hair piled high on top of her head, a few strands falling and framing her wide bottle green eyes. In her hand she holds a fan, wish she slowly moves in front of her face, making the few strands of hair that have come free move about as if they have a mind of their own.

She is standing in front of a mirror, watching herself as she slowly moves the fan up and down and as her chest rises in the same pattern. Outside, a storm rages so hard it shakes the manor. Thunder strikes, but the girl doesn’t even twitch. She stands in front of the mirror, moving so lightly it is almost as if she is not.

Lightning strikes, and the dark room with its faded black curtains, chewed by mice and thick with dust, quickly lights up long enough for curtain things to be seen, but only for a moment.

Flash. A golden goblet, a pool of blood, the girls dainty white shoes with the bottoms stained a rusty red. Flash.

The girl’s chest moves up and down, pale skin hiding her in the dark. The fan still being waved, the girl picks up the goblet with her other hand. She lifts it to her lips and tilts it back, swallowing as another flash of lightning briefly illuminates the room.

Flash. The hand holding the goblet is old and frail with veins showing out of sandpaper skin, the body of a man hanging from the chandelier from his feet, blood dripping from the large gash on his abdomen to the floor and pooling out along the cold marble floor. Flash.

The girl drinks the cup and places it back underneath the mirror. She takes a deep breath, chest swelling out, then falling back. She wipes the red from her lips left over from the cup and looks back to her reflection in the mirror.

But something is horribly wrong.

Her neck is sagging, much like that of a turkey, and her eyes are sagging like a basset hounds. Veins are showing up through her skin that is still pale, but no longer the beautiful pale of a china doll. The fan drops to the pool of blood below her feet, absorbing the liquid like a sponge, as she lifts her hands to look at them. They are gnarled and clawed and spotted with age.

With a cry, the girl grabs for the goblet, but with her quickly disappearing youth, she knocks it to the floor, where it rolls out of reach. She lets out another cry, but her aging body turns it into a gurgling howl. She falls to her hands and knees, the puddle of blood splashing up her arms and onto her dress and stockings as she crawls desperately towards the goblet.

Her age is disappearing faster with each raindrop and her bones creek with age as she reaches to the goblet with a trembling hand. Outside, the rain is coming faster now, the thunder and lighting closer. The young woman, now an old crone, her fingertips brush the goblet. They fall limp to the marble beside it as another crash of thunder shakes the house.

A flash of lightning lights up the room as another thunderclap hits, this time right on top of the manor.

Flash. The body hanging from the chandelier, no longer hanging but standing underneath the chandelier and rope he had been hanging from not moments ago. Flash.

The man is tall and aristocratic, dressed in a classic black suit. He has messy brown hair that matches the stubble on his chin and his eye are a radiantly toxic green that glow in the dark. He brushes himself off and fixes his jacket. The storm is still right on top of the manor. He takes long strides across the room to the womans body, the blood quickly flowing away from each place his foot lands.

The man glares down at the woman, now dead, and leans his tall, thin frame over her, taking the goblet from it’s place on the ground. He places the goblet in his pocket and straightens back up. Surrounding the house, the storm lets out another boom of thunder and strike of lightning.

Flash. The man’s shadow, two times taller than he is, with a large meaty frame. The head of the shadow, with horns coming from the sides of its head and two holes in the shadows place where his eyes are on his body. Flash.

Above the storm rages, harder and harder, in time with the man's heartbeat. Looming over the woman, he sneers.

When he speaks, it is to an empty room, but his voice is clear as glass, as radiant as the sun, and still as ravishing as it was when he was an angel. Voice, looks, some things never change.

“Cara mia,” he murmurs. “You should have known better than to try to use me to end my own contract.”

Another crash of thunder shakes the sky, followed by a strike of lightning that illuminates all the room’s sharp angles. When it is dark again, the man is gone, leaving behind nothing but the faint smell of sulfur.

It is over.