Price to Pay

Author note: This story is a prequel to my upcoming novel, Anywhere But Here, which will be published through Whiskey Creek Press in April 2012.

Paula removed her large sunglasses as she stepped in the antique shop. Light filtered through narrow windows on every wall, but it couldn’t seem to penetrate the gloom that filled the old, musty building. Coming here was a last resort but despite her discomfort, she felt oddly at home.

“Can I help you?”

Paula brushed her light brown hair behind her ear and smiled at tall, blonde man that appeared from the back room. His faded jeans and flannel shirt looked very fitting for their small, mountain town. “Yes, I was referred to you by some colleagues.” She batted her eyelashes at him, trying to show off her new makeup that was supposed to accent her blue eyes. “Actually, I heard them talking about this place in the break room. I heard you have unique items that can help people,” she paused, “solve their problems.”

The man smiled. “You heard correctly,” he said, turning the sign on the door from “Open” to “Back In A Few Minutes.”

Paula adjusted her large, black purse on her shoulder. “I didn’t mean for you to close the shop.”

“I prefer to conduct sensitive business privately.” He held out his hand. “I’m Samael.”

“Paula Rainey,” she said, shaking his hand weakly.

“Pleasure to meet you,” Samael said. He pulled a rolling chair behind the counter. “Please, sit down. I hope you don’t mind the informality of the shop.”

“It’s alright. I’m not much of a neat freak.”

Samael rolled another chair across from Paula and took out a pipe. He glanced at her before lighting it. “Do you mind?”

Paula hated smoke. It reminded her of her mean old grandfather that used to yell at her for messing up his house with her toys. Oh well, she could put up with it for a few minutes. She didn’t want to offend Samael because she desperately needed his help. She shook her head. “Not at all.”

Samael smiled as he lit his pipe and puffed a few times. “So, Mrs. Rainey …”

“You can call me Paula.”

“Very well, Paula. What brings you here?”

Paula sighed, but the deep breath caused her to cough.

“Are you sure you don’t mind the pipe?” Samael asked.

“No, I’m just not around people that smoke much, that’s all.”

Samael leaned back in his chair. “Most people are uncomfortable when they come to me for assistance. It’s alright. Just tell me what your problem is and maybe I can help.”

“I’m forty-seven years old and my life is ruined. That’s my problem.”

“How is your life ruined?”

Paula pulled a pink slip of paper out of her purse and handed it to Samael. His blue eyes seemed to glow red a moment as he took the slip, but it passed so quickly that Paula dismissed it as her imagination. “I’ve been seeing a lot of these lately.”

“I teach those kids for twenty three years this is how the district thanks me!”

“I’m sorry. This economy …”

“It’s not the economy!” Paula shouted. “They fired me!”

“Why would they fire an employee that’s been with them for twenty three years?” Samael asked.

Paula rubbed her head. “It’s my sixteen year old daughter. She’s been having problems lately. She got mixed up with this boy and now she’s in trouble.”

“What kind of trouble?”

“Her grades have slipped significantly since she started dating him.” Paula stood and paced the floor. “She could be an excellent student if she’d buckle down. I’ve told her time again that if she would study more, she could get a scholarship to a good college.” Paula threw up her hands. “It was a struggle that became impossible once she met this guy online three months ago. Now she’s always out with him, and she never listens to a word I say. He’s poisoned her against me. I even heard her talking to a friend on the telephone about running away with him!”

Samael nodded. “I see.”

“I don’t trust her at the bus stop anymore, so I’ve had to readjust my work schedule so I could drive her to and from school. I was late several times because of traffic, and I cancelled several parent-teacher conferences over the past few weeks so I could pick her up from school. The few times she’s been sick, I stayed home with her because there was no way I’d leave her there by herself.” Paula waved at the pink slip in Samael’s hands. “Hence, my reprimands. I told them the situation after I was written up, but they didn’t understand. The principal’s kids are perfect angels, and the vice principle is a young snit that doesn’t have kids.”

“What about your husband?”

Paula snorted. “He’s too lazy to deal with it. He said it was normal teenage rebellion and that if I’d give her some freedom then she’d come around. What nerve!” She sighed. “When I told him I thought she needed more discipline he told me to handle it because he works long hours and doesn’t need to come home to this drama.” Paula rolled her eyes. “He drives a trolley through Gatlinburg. How stressful can that be? It’s April. This is off season for the mountains! The crowds died off two weeks ago after Easter!”

“Those trolley’s run pretty late, don’t they?” Samael puffed his pipe. “There’s a stop outside the shop and I’ve seen them out at ten and eleven o’clock at night.”

“He complains about working late, but you know what? If he had some ambition, he could have find a job that pays a lot better and has steady hours. It’s his own fault.” Paula shook her head. “Maybe if he got a better paying job and supported his family like he should, I could have been a stay at home mother and this wouldn’t have happened with our daughter. She’d be a nice, normal kid like everybody else. But no, he likes meeting people and driving them around town is so perfect for him that he can’t imagine doing anything else. So I’m left supporting the family while he lives his dream of working in tourism, such as it is. He’s so selfish …”

“I see your point,” Samael said, cutting her off. “So, what is it that you want?”

Paula looked Samael in the eye. “I want them to pay.”

“You want who to pay for what?”

“All of them. I want everybody responsible for ruining my life to pay for it.”

Samael carefully laid his pipe in an ashtray on the counter. “Revenge, eh? How will that solve your problems?”

Paula leaned forward. “I’ve tried to talk sense into these people until I’m blue in the face. I’ve tried prayers, wishes, talismans, chants, everything to bring me luck to no avail. I even visited the psychic near the parkway last week but she couldn’t help me.”

“I know Miss Molly,” Samael said. “What did she say?”

“She said I need to stop trying to change others and start changing myself.” Paula laughed. “Have you ever heard such nonsense? They need changing for their own good!” Paula sobbed. “Samael, you’re my last hope. They’re running wild. I’ve lost control and I have to get it back. Maybe if they suffer for their actions, they’ll realize I’m right and do what I say. Please help me! I’ll do anything! I’ll pay any price!”

“There, there,” Samael said, handing Paula a tissue. He sat silently and waited for the sob storm to pass. Finally, Paula quieted down and dabbed her eyes. He leaned forward. “I think I have just the thing to help you, but I need a few things from you to make it work.”

“What do you need?” Paula asked.

Samael held up the pink slip. “I’ll need this and your tissue.”

Paula handed Samael the wadded up tissue. “What are you going to do?”

Samael stood. “Give me a few moments.” He disappeared in the back room. Paula tried to listen, but it was difficult to make out what she was hearing. She heard glasses clinking and saw a flash through the cracks around door. She also thought she heard Samael talking softly, but she couldn’t make out what he was saying. Finally, he returned with a small vial of clear liquid and sat across from her. “This should do the trick.”

“What is it?”

“It’s a special potion that will reveal and punish the people responsible for ruining your life. They’ll have to ingest it, so you’ll need to mix it with food or drink and give it to the people that you believe are responsible for your misery.”

“I’m making potato salad for the town’s Spring Festival next week,” Paula said. “Will that work?”

Samael nodded. “That would be perfect. There’s only one catch. You have to take it too.”

“Why do I have to take it?”

“Because it can only work by your power. You have to take it first to activate it. Once you take it, you serve it to others and the potion will link the guilty party to you and deliver the punishment they deserve.” Samael smiled. “Don’t worry. It can only hurt the people responsible for ruining your life. It was made specifically for that purpose. If somebody takes it that isn’t responsible for your misery, they won’t be affected.”

“So there’s no way I can be hurt?”

“It can only hurt the ones that hurt you.”

Paula nodded and opened her purse. “Very well. What do I owe you?”

“I don’t want money.”

Paula laughed nervously. “Surely you must want something for this.”

Samael smiled. “The soul of the one responsible for your misery will pay the price for the potion.” He held out his hand. “Do we have a deal?”

Paula paused a moment, then shrugged. “What the heck, they did it to themselves. We have a deal!” She shook his hand but jumped when she felt a jolt. Samael’s eyes glowed red but once again, it passed in a moment so fleeting that Paula wondered if she imagined it again. She pulled her hand back quickly.

“What is it?” Samael asked.

Paula shook her head. “It’s nothing; I thought I saw something. It must have been the light.” She dropped the vial in her purse and stood. “Thank you for your help. If I need anything else, I’ll let you know.”

Samael stood and straightened his jacket. “I imagine we’ll be seeing one another again very soon.”




The first Saturday of May was a perfect spring day. The town was alive with the fragrance of flowers in full bloom. Paula smiled as she sat at a picnic table with her family, watching people dip her potato salad on their paper plates. The potion seemed to give it a special flavor, and people couldn’t get enough of it.

“This is magnificent,” Paula’s husband said as he ate his third helping. “It has to be the best you’ve ever made!”

“He’s right Mrs. Rainey,” her daughter’s boyfriend said, munching on his second helping.

“I’m glad you enjoy it,” Paula said, smiling at her family.

Her daughter’s brown ponytail bobbed as she nodded in agreement. “You really outdid yourself this time. Did you do something different with it?”

“I got a special spice from that antique store on the outskirts of Gatlinburg.”

Mr. Rainey raised an eyebrow. “From Sam Herrick? I didn’t know he sold spices.”

Paula shook her head. “The owner’s name is Samael. He’s a tall man with blonde hair.”

“That’s Sam Herrick. His shop is in the arts and crafts district at the end of my run.” Mr. Rainey shrugged as he ate another bite of potato salad. “Maybe his given name is Samael and he decided to be more formal with you. Who knows? I didn’t know he was into the culinary arts, though. I thought everything in his shop was junk that he tried to pass off as valuable.” Mr. Rainey waved his fork. “He once conned a tourist into paying fifty dollars for an old music box that he bought at a flea market in South Carolina for fifty cents. He told them it was a one of a kind item from Germany! They were so proud of their ‘find’ that I didn’t have the heart to tell them they were duped.”

“I thought he was very nice,” Paula said, finishing her potato salad. “If you want more, you better get it now. It looks like the bowl is almost empty.”

“Mom, are you alright?” Paula’s daughter asked. “Your face is red.”

Paula nodded, but the motion made her dizzy. She must be having a hot flash. “I’m fine. It must be the heat.”

“It’s not that hot,” Mr. Rainey said. He jerked. “Good grief, a rash just broke out on your neck! Are you sure you’re alright?”

Paula started to nod again, but she began shaking so violently that she fell off the picnic bench. People gathered around her as she convulsed on the ground.

“Somebody call 9-1-1!” she heard before she passed out.




Paula woke to a grey ceiling and an IV bag hanging over her. She heard monitors beeping and realized she must be in a hospital room. She tried to sit up, but a hand pushed her down. “Easy there; you’re very weak.”

Paula turned her head to see man standing beside her bed. His white coat seemed to glow next to his tan skin, dark hair, and dark eyes. She struggled to take a breath. “Doctor, what happened?”

The doctor took a clipboard from the end of the bed. “We don’t know. It could be an allergic reaction or a poison of some sort, but we can’t find any substances in your blood that would cause such a reaction. Have you taken anything in the past twenty four hours that could have caused this?”

“No!” Paula said. “I can’t think of anything …” she trailed off, remembering the potion she put in the potato salad. But no, that shouldn’t have hurt her! “My family, where are they? Where are my husband and daughter?”

“They just left. Visiting hours are over. They’re probably on their way home.”

“So they’re alright?”

The doctor nodded. “They’re fine.”

“How about the people at the picnic? Did any of them come in sick?”

“No, you’re the only person that was admitted today,” the doctor said. He smiled. “It looks like your potion worked perfectly.”

“What?” Paula asked.

The doctor leaned over her and put his hand on her shoulder, causing a jolt to run through her body. She yelped as his eyes glowed red. “It looks like the person responsible for ruining your life is you.”

“You!” Paula gasped. “But how? I thought you worked at the antique shop!”

Samael smiled. “I borrowed Sam Herrick to make the deal but the doctor is suiting my needs quite well right now.”

“You said the potion couldn’t hurt me. What happened?”

Samael sat in the chair next to Paula’s bed and pulled his pipe from the doctor’s coat pocket. “I said it would reveal and punish the person responsible for ruining your life.” Samael lit his pipe and puffed smoke over Paula’s head. “The spell that created the potion was very specific and the results are clear. The culprit was you.”

“No, it was my husband and daughter!” Paula hissed. “It was her boyfriend and my boss. They ruined my life!”

“I beg your pardon, ma’am,” Samael said. “What they did was their choice. How you reacted to them was your choice. The only life you’re responsible for is your own.” Samael puffed his pipe. “You charted your own course the whole time.”

“I was supposed to be ok with my husband having a dead end career and a defiant daughter? I was supposed to be fine with being fired?”

Samael leaned over Paula. “You could have accepted them for what they were, but instead you tried to change them. If you would have accepted your husband and daughter, perhaps they would have made different choices. Instead, they felt they had to dig in their heels and defy you to follow their own wishes.” Samael puffed his pipe. “Face it; you tried to put a leash on them and the tighter you pulled, the more they slipped away. You had to know they’d break that leash sooner or later.”

“This is nonsense!” Paula said.

Samael puffed his pipe. “If you had supported your husband, maybe he would have sought better paying job that would bring him home to you more often. If you would have trusted your daughter, she might have realized her boyfriend was bad news and left him of her own free will. If you hadn’t shirked your job to put your daughter under lock and key, you wouldn’t have lost it. So it looks like Miss Molly was right. You laid the path with a chain reaction of your own actions. You could have broken the cycle, but you didn’t. You kept fighting to hold on to a control you never had.”

“That’s not true,” Paula said. “Their decisions ruined me!”

“Their decisions were their own. Sure they impacted you, but only you could determine the extent of that influence,” Samael said. “Face it. You ruined your life by trying to control others and now you’re paying the price for it.”

Paula grabbed Samael’s hand. “There must be some spell or potion that can heal me. Please, fix this!”

Samael stood. “Paula, a spell cannot be broken. Plus, there’s still a price to pay for the last potion I sold you. We agreed on the soul of the one responsible for your misery, and it turned out to be you. Now your soul is mine.”

“I didn’t hand you my soul! It was the souls of others!”

Samael smiled, showing pointed teeth. “Do you really think you can sell another’s soul? My, you are arrogant.” Samael leaned over Paula, breathing pipe smoke in her face. “I’m going to tell you a secret. You can’t control other people. The only soul you control is your own, and you handed yours to me on a silver platter when you made the deal for the potion.”

“I hate you!” Paula screamed.

“Good, you keep that wrath to the end. It makes you nice and crunchy,” Samael said, smiling as he leaned in for his feast.

To a demon like Samael, human pride makes a great meal.

Word Count: 3,077