A Deal with the Devil

Print Version by M. Maharlika

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Audio Book

Blurb

Three days before October 31st, two friends set out in a 1930s Hispano-Suiza for a remote ancestral villa in the Philippine countryside—to honor a dead aunt and keep her restless spirit at peace.

Iphigeneia, pale and sorrowful, would rather be anywhere else. Maria, wild and fiercely devoted to her family’s rituals, insists that the dead must be remembered. But as the road narrows, the fog thickens, and a frightened caretaker begs Iphigeneia to turn back and never look behind her, she begins to suspect that the story Maria tells is only the beginning of the truth.

A gothic tale of haunted villas, hanging coffins, night-visions, and a bargain struck in the dark, A Deal with the Devil asks what a family owes its ghosts—and what a woman will become when she no longer needs protection.

About the Author

Maria Maharlika’s work inhabits the uneasy intersection of sexuality, violence, romance, and social injustice. Her fiction is marked by moral ambiguity and a sustained engagement with Filipina settings, where intimacy and power are inseparable.

Raised between the quiet rhythms of provincial life and the sensory intensity of Manila, Maharlika writes with acute awareness of social contradictions: innocence alongside exploitation and faith tested by survival. Her protagonists are often young women navigating political and economic power structures they did not choose—yet refusing to remain passive within them.

Edited by George McBliar · Eos Publishers 2026

A Deal with the Devil

UNO – Arriving at the Villa

“I can’t believe you’d rather travel at this ungodly hour to some forgotten corner of the countryside than have a proper party in the city,” Iphigeneia complained, her voice echoing irritably within the cavernous interior of the old Hispano-Suiza J12 as it lumbered along the narrow provincial road.

She pulled her coat tighter, the faint dashboard glow highlighting a countenance of delicate, mournful grace. In her early twenties, Iphigeneia possessed a classic Gothic beauty—her warm olive skin bearing a slight, translucent paleness, her raven-black hair framing an oval face.

If Iphigeneia was a quiet, spectral elegy, Maria was a tempest. In the driver’s seat, Maria’s beauty was striking and wild, her dark, unruly waves of hair framing eyes that were intense, coal-black, and fiercely focused on the road.

“I can’t miss my Aunt Lisa’s anibersaryo ng kamatayan,” Maria replied patiently, repeating herself for what felt like the tenth time. “And my abuelo prefers it when I arrive in his old car. It’s a solemn occasion—this car lends it the proper gravity.”

“It’s only three days before October thirty-first,” Maria added softly. “There are preparations to make. Most Filipinos only observe the first year of mourning. But in our family, those who died tragically are remembered every year. Otherwise…” She paused, her eyes fixed on the dark ribbon of asphalt ahead. “Otherwise, spirits don’t always rest.”

“Oh my God,” Iphigeneia scoffed. “Where do you dig up all these creepy stories?”

“It isn’t a story,” Maria said softly. “And it isn’t creepy. It’s what happened to my family. I’ll explain later.”

— to be continued —

Read the full story in the interactive flipbook below.

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