This is my entry to @hollyblackauthor's Flash Fiction contest - a short piece inspired by the prompt 'a deal with the devil' and to be no more than 150 words long. Go check out the other entrants on Holly's page and maybe post your own entry. Good luck!

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It had started as many business deals do, with a coffee.

Our fingers touched as we both grabbed for the latte grande with the name Nik scrawled barely legibly on the red cardboard cup in black marker.

Mine was Nikola. His was Nikolai.

Of course, that was not his real name, only I didn't know that then. Now I know he goes by many names, just as I know he never ordered a coffee that day.

He'd known way more than me. Everything, actually. All the nasty, dark little secrets that crawled and slithered under my skin. I might as well have scrawled them on my flesh in black marker.

Or carved them. I was always good with a knife, you see.

'Confess', he said. And I did.

After all, if you're going to sell your soul to the Devil, you might as well do it over a coffee, right?