The silver coin twirled in the air, glinting as it caught the faint starlight. The Coinbearer's gaze followed its arc, his every sense attuned to this pivotal moment. He had performed the ritual countless times over the ages, and the outcome was always one of two certainties.
Not tonight.
With a delicate chime, the coin struck the ground near the unconscious woman's bloody hand. It bounced once on the hard earth and began to fall... only to stop at a precarious angle. The coin teetered, spinning in place on its edge. One heartbeat passed, then another. Instead of tipping over to reveal heads or tiles, it settled upright on its rim, perfectly balanced like a tiny monolith.
The Coinbearer stared, unblinking. For a moment, his mind registered nothing but disbelief. This couldn't be. The coin never failed to choose. Yet there it was, shimmering quietly on its edge, defying fate itself.
At his side, the tattered cloak quivered in shock. "That… that isn't possible," the cloak hissed under its breath, the usual sarcasm absent. A rare tremor ran through its fabric as it hovered closer to the coin. "Flip it again. It must be a mistake," it blurted, sounding almost panicked.
The Coinbearer dropped to one knee, leaning in to scrutinize the coin without touching it. The coin stood upright amidst the dirt and roots, neither face visible. Tiny motes of pale light crackled around its circumference, as if the very magic that governed it was straining under contradiction. He felt a jolt of something through his being like a discordant note plucked on the cosmic Loom of fate. The tug of the woman's life-thread was there, uncut, yet not fully intact either. She hovered between life and death, held in limbo by this impossible balance.
Slowly, the Coinbearer reached out a hand. He hesitated, gloved fingers hovering an inch from the coin. Should he tip it? Was that allowed? There were no guidelines for this; in all his years bound to Hell's contract, the coin had never disobeyed the simple binary of fate. An uneasy feeling coiled in his chest—something perilously close to dread.
Before he could decide, the night air split with the sound of tearing fabric and a rush of hot wind. The Coinbearer sprang to his feet, instinctively positioning himself between the fallen woman and this new threat. The cloak whipped around him defensively.
Just beyond the ring of trees, a vertical gash of glowing red light sliced through the darkness like a door opening in mid-air. The scent of brimstone flooded the clearing. From that burning scar in reality stepped a tall, spindly figure draped in ash-gray robes. The portal snapped shut behind him with a crackle of infernal energy.
The newcomer's skin was a lustrous charcoal black, etched with glowing crimson sigils that pulsed like embers. Horns curved back from his temples, and his eyes were flickers of fire in sunken sockets. A devil, summoned by the disturbance, had arrived.
He swept a gaze over the scene, taking in the woman's prone form, the Coinbearer standing guard, and finally the coin still balanced impossibly on its edge. The devil's lips pulled back in a grin that was all malice and sharp teeth. "Well, well," he purred, voice oily and resonant. "It seems there's a problem with your toss, Coinbearer."
The Coinbearer felt the cloak tighten around his shoulders, as if bristling. "Stay back," he said quietly, his tone polite but edged with warning. His hand hovered near the coin on the ground.
The devil ignored the warning, stepping forward with an exaggerated curiosity. "I must say, I never thought I'd see the day," he mused. He crouched to peer at the upright coin, careful not to cross too close to the Coinbearer. "Heads or tails? Neither, it seems. Hell's algorithms will have a fit when they hear about this." A low chuckle rattled in his throat.
"State your purpose," the Coinbearer said evenly, though he knew full well why a devil had come so fast. Hell undoubtedly sensed a breach in the usual soul collection protocol.
The horned devil rose to his full, gangly height. He flicked a gaze at the unconscious woman and sniffed at the air in her direction, and for a split second a perplexed look flickered across his face—as though he sensed something unexpected about the prone mortal. It vanished a moment later, replaced by a toothy grin. "By Infernal Decree 66-B, Section 3," he recited with smug delight, "in the event of an indeterminate collection, an agent of Hell is to intervene and resolve the anomaly." His fiery eyes narrowed. "In simpler terms: you botched the job, and I'm here to finish it."
A tendril of dread curled in the Coinbearer's stomach. He stepped back as the devil took another step forward, moving now toward the woman on the ground. "Her fate is not yet decided," the Coinbearer said, voice low. "The terms of the ritual..."
"...are voided by this unprecedented failure," the devil interrupted sharply. "Do not lecture me on terms, Collector. You serve Hell, as do I, and Hell cannot abide ambiguity." He sneered, revealing needle-like teeth. "Stand aside. I will claim the soul and clear this little… glitch."
The Coinbearer's hands curled into fists at his sides. His mind raced. The devil was right in one sense there was no precedent, and Hell's solution would be to take the soul by force. But everything in him rebelled against that outcome. It felt...wrong. Deeply wrong, in a way he couldn't articulate. The coin had not spoken. Fate itself was uncertain here.
"I will not allow it," the Coinbearer said quietly, taking a defensive stance. The silver mask betrayed nothing of the turmoil in his heart, but his posture spoke volumes.
The devil paused, forked tongue flicking over his lips in surprise. "No? Did you just refuse me?" He sounded genuinely incredulous. "This is not a request, Coinbearer. Your contract does not permit..."
"My contract binds me to the coin's decree," the Coinbearer cut in. He kept his tone measured, even as a boldness coursed through him that verged on rebellion. "Until the coin falls heads or tiles, I cannot relinquish her soul."
The cloak fluttered at his back as if to say, Careful...
The devil's fiery eyes flared brighter. "Don't play semantics with Hell, pawn." He jabbed a clawed finger toward the floating coin. "The coin is stuck. It isn't going to fall either way. Therefore, procedure dictates we choose for it." He cracked his knuckles, each joint popping with small flames. "She dies, she goes to Hell. Done and done. Now move aside."
The Coinbearer's jaw tightened beneath his mask. The devil's eyes narrowed incredulity at this simple refusal. "So the pawn thinks to rewrite the rules? After ages of obedience, now you defy us for a single soul?"
He planted himself firmly between the devil and the woman. "No."
The single word was soft, but it echoed in the clearing.
The devil's initial surprise hardened into rage. "Defiant now, are we? After all these centuries fetching souls like a loyal hound, you choose now to grow a spine?" He shook his head in mock pity, then his voice turned to ice. "Fine. Have it your way."
In a blur of motion, the devil lunged. One spindly arm shot forward, not at the Coinbearer but toward the unconscious woman's throat, aiming to crush life and claim her soul in one swift move.
But the Coinbearer was faster. He swept out his arm, and his living cloak unfurled with lightning speed, intercepting the devil's limb. The cloak's fabric coiled around the devil's wrist like a vise, halting the killing strike inches from the woman's neck.
The devil snarled, taken aback by the cloak's strength. Wisps of smoke curled where the cloak's dark material touched the devil's burning sigils. "Unhand me, you rag!" he spat, yanking back. The cloak was flung off, retreating to billow protectively around the Coinbearer once more. The devil's attempt foiled, his face contorted with venomous annoyance.
"You dare raise a hand against Hell's emissary?" he hissed. He drew himself up, and a shimmering spear of red-hot flame burst into existence in his right hand. The undergrowth around his feet withered from the heat. "I will tear you apart, contract be damned, and drag your ashes back to the Pit!"