"Sign here, here, and..." blackened fingers traced down the page as I searched for the final signature. "Ah, yes, here."

As I looked back down to my own papers, shuffling through the patient's information and the woman's request, she hemmed and hawed.

"Is there a problem?" I asked, my eyes staying on my papers as I read through the request.

"It says here seventy-two hours, I thought we agreed on-"

"Yes, three days; twenty-four hours a day times three days is seventy-two hours." I reminded her, it was always apparent in my patient's families that wealth may buy happiness, but it could not buy them a brain. The woman remained silent as her pen glided along the lines, signing a significant sum of money over to me. When she clicked the pen, I reached out for the papers and nodded to my customer.

"I appreciate your business. The resurgere will take place tomorrow morning at eight seventeen exactly, no earlier, no later. Please have any who would like to witness the resurgere present no earlier than five minutes beforehand. Your..." I glanced down to the papers for a reminder, "husband will return for exactly seventy-two hours. It is highly recommended that he is present, here, by his regressus time. If he is not, please ensure he is in a place that is easily accessible, and as noted in the contract, an additional fee of 10% of your total will be incurred for an absentia fee." The woman nodded along as I spoke, her mind clearly elsewhere. Formailties.

I walked the woman out, and as she left, I waved. The least I could do for a woman paying me more than a year's average salary of a CEO.

The next morning, the resurgere was nearly ready. My garb, a black gown with subtle inlays of crimson Latin phrases, had been prepared the prior evening after my customer departed. The husband's body was placed on the large stone tablet in the middle of the room. The tablet was something to see, it was black. Not simply black, like soot, or smoke, but a void. Looking into the stone was almost as if looking into nothing.

Incense had been burned for the past half hour, giving the room an even more legitimate feel. I waited, hands clasped, as the family began to enter the room. My hood was down, I never liked putting it up unless the family was into the ornate, or the... eclectic arts.

This family was not. It was just the wife and who I could only assume were her children present. After they entered, and glanced uneasily over to me, I began my ritual.

"Confer nobis animam Johannis Aurifabri." I began, my words echoing through the chamber. An orange-red glow appeared around the black void of a tablet. "In loco illius sume per tres dies meam, et per tres dies ad tuum dominium redibit." The glow traveled through the stone, and into the body. As the body began to convulse, I uttered my final words. "Dum anima liberorum vagatur in regno, mea erit in tuo servitio, mi Domine."

I saw his eyes open as mine closed.

Three days later, at exactly eight seventeen in the morning, I awoke, standing just where I was when I departed in his place. His wife was there, holding onto a limp hand attached to a now lifeless corpse. She gasped in shock when I appeared in the cloud of black smoke.

When she regained her composure, she nodded and thanked me again.

After she left, I took a seat next to John. His was a life long lived, a life full of pain and suffering. Not his own, but inflicted upon others. For three long days, I took his place. For three long days, I labored, I suffered. It was worth it though... four hundred and fifty thousand dollars for three days in Hell.

It's always worth it.