"So you're the devil," I said.He shrugged. "Another name." So you bargain for souls." Are you worried about yours?" I'd have to believe in eternal dam...nation," I argued."And you don't?" Nick asked."It's rather fanciful isn't it? I mean Goethe's Faust is just an old fable retold well. And Dante's Inferno is a fable about living morally and the cost of immorality. I mean there's no possible way one can report back from the afterlife, so it's all fables and warnings to play to the concept of being. I decided that I had to buy the statue and maybe I could begin some investigation into how the artist had come up with the idea.The statue jostled my memory and resurrected some of the stories that my dad had told me when I was young. He would talk about a beautiful creature that inhabited the northern waters. It was told that she would only make herself known to those who respected the creatures of the wild.The story was told that if you released a large fish, helped an injured animal, or. The plunger she brought out to me now lying on the floor. She had a complete look of horror. Her mouth hung open and started to mouth words but nothing came out. For the first time I got a real chance to look at her. She was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. It didn’t matter that her hair was a mess or her clothes were soaked. Without any sense of caution or reserve I took two steps forward and pulled her into me and put my lips on hers. Her hand reach up to the flat of my chest and. ..Elaina said she would wear her armor because the forecast was for partly cloudy skies and she couldn't count on the clouds to protect her. She needed cover in order to get in without drawing attention to herself. She would walk in with her head down and slip off the mask once she was seated. She would leave the cloak on to maintain her anonymity.Tony had agreed to let Deidra do her part even though that left him short-handed. The take-out girl, Sarah, had come up behind the three unheard and.