A PACT WITH THE DEVIL

Dark memories from his past continuing to plague him Jack Sibley was on his way to spending a lengthy vacation with Kyle Steinbeck, his flatmate during their time together at Cambridge University. Kyle had finished his studies some eighteen months prior to Jack's graduation, becoming in the meantime an accomplished flyer with his own aeroplane. When he suggested they take advantage of that facility to explore South America it was seemingly a dream come true...but the promised holiday of a lifetime was to go terribly wrong. Before setting off, they spent a few days with Kyle's family; his parents, two older brothers and a younger sister, Julie, at their home in Nevada. It was only for a few days, but long enough for the newly arrived Englishman to fall in love with the sister, who in turn suffered similar emotions. Nothing wrong nor unexpected in that. It happens all the time. The downside as far as they were concerned, Jack's permanent residnce was some six thousand miles away...hardly conducive to a blossoming romance. While dining at a restaurant in Oaxaca Kyle cajoled Jack to unburden his cares, and was on the verge of suggesting a possible way out, when they were interrupted by a stranger...a stranger who cast no shadow. The man's arrival brought back stark memories of a time Jack Sibley wished he could forget, raising in him the fear that it could happen all over again. It was more than two years since he had become inadvertently entrenched in the heinous doctrines of black magic and Satanism but, although he managed to shed the shackles before it was too late, the past refused to leave him. Kyle had earlier purchased a small statuette, from an odd little man who had approached him on one of their visits. The intruder, claiming the statue was stolen frm him, made it abundantly clear he wanted it back and that he would broach no argument to the contrary. Kyle's refusal to comply culminated in them  being suibjected to continuous physical and mental persecution; their lives constantly at risk, nerves battered beyond despair. The foul adept of the left-hand path had no choice. He had made a pact with his Master...the Devil himself.