“How I should love to be immured
Where in light dreams nature matured
The angel that’s innate within her.”
~~Faust

In the beginning, before Lucifer tempted mankind to sin, Eve had a daughter, Aurora, a child of pure spirit. When Aurora became a young woman, she left Eden, God sent her a mate, and she gave birth to a nation of people with no darkness in their souls, without Original Sin – the Anabo.

In time, Lucifer discovered the Anabo and sent his minion, Mephistopheles, to insinuate darkness into the light and turn the Anabo to be like the rest of humanity, but a few held strong and scattered across the Earth. As centuries passed, they became less and less, until the Anabo were all but extinct. Still, the line of descendants of Aurora remained, and once in a great while, a child of pure spirit was born. Such was Elektra.

The dark angel of death, charged with taking the souls of the damned to Hell, Mephistopheles was lonely and bitter, as hated and feared as Lucifer. When he found Elektra, who didn’t hate him, wasn’t afraid of him, he broke all the laws of Heaven and Hell and fell in love with her.

Certain of Lucifer’s wrath if he discovered Mephistopheles had fallen for a human, he took Elektra to Kyanos, a small island in the Atlantic covered by hardwood trees and bluebells. He surrounded the tiny isle with a soft, blue mist, hiding it and his Anabo from Lucifer. Elektra bore him seven sons and, for the first time in his eternal life, Mephistopheles knew happiness.

But happiness can be fleeting. Unbeknownst to Mephistopheles or Elektra, their sons were destined for immortality, an eternity of life on Earth, without hope of Heaven. With the blood of Hell in their veins and the certainty of no chance at redemption in their hearts, they would be compelled to evil, to act out their frustration and misery, constantly torn between the light and the dark.

Mephistopheles learned the true horror of what he had done when his firstborn, Eryx, turned eighteen. In his last act of compassion, Eryx murdered Elektra so that God and Lucifer would become aware of Kyanos, of his six younger brothers, and keep them from what would be his fate. He jumped from the Kyanos cliffs and returned to life as an immortal with no light in his soul, vowing to grow more powerful than Lucifer by tricking humans into pledging their spirits to him. When he becomes strong enough, he will take the reins of Hell and abolish free will. No human will be spared.

Lucifer was furious with Mephistopheles and commanded him and his sons to fight Eryx by imprisoning the humans who pledged their souls, to prevent Eryx from taking them when they died. Mephistopheles, grieving over the death of Elektra, said no. For her memory, her honor, he would accept nothing less than a chance at redemption for his remaining six sons. Otherwise, God would be forced to destroy all of Earth in order to destroy Eryx.

Lucifer agreed, and asked God’s concession: If the sons of Mephistopheles could earn love and return it selflessly, they would be redeemed and have the same chance of Heaven as the rest of humanity. God agreed to the covenant, with the caveat that they would have to find a girl of pure spirit, an Anabo, because only an Anabo could love a son of Hell. He then blessed the brothers in immortality. They kept the light of their mother in their souls, but were still restless and angry, never at peace, relentlessly drawn to the dark side.

As centuries passed, the Mephisto captured the lost souls and imprisoned them in a dark pit far beneath the ground, surrounded by the power of Hell to keep their spirits from escaping after death. Every lost soul they captured was one less for Eryx, undermining his bid for power. Through the endless years of work, of loneliness and despair, the brothers searched for Anabo, but found none, and their frustration grew. Had God given them an empty promise? How could the Mephisto Covenant be fulfilled if there was no human on Earth capable of loving them?

Seeing his sons lose all hope, Mephistopheles once again broke the rules. Without Lucifer’s knowledge, he asked God for help, and his secret prayer was answered with the birth of six Anabo girls. Whether or not his sons will find them is up to fate. Bound by the Mephisto Covenant not to interfere, Mephistopheles knows not who they are, only that they exist.

And so begins the final chapter of the Mephisto Covenant.