Part 1
When Dante’s boss knocked on our door, saying he wanted to show me something, I thought he meant the water filtration system I had offered to improve. Being led to the basement was not a surprise.
But when I was ogling the filter rumbling inside a locked metal cage, he asked, “Do you ever wonder why I cursed your boyfriend?”
During my years in the city we called the bubble, the devil in front of me had cursed my childhood crush, Dante. The same one I was now in a relationship with, after coming back to the outer city. When triggered, Dante’s curse had him turn into a beast. He had told me how it happened without many details.
“He lost a bargain,” I replied simply. It was easy to understand. “What I wonder is why a devil is running an apartment building outside the bubble?”
Paradise Dome was where the money was. I knew that well having lived there for five years in an academic sponsorship. The bubble was always looking for engineers to fix up all of the city’s many filtration centres. I happened to be the best around, in and out of the dome.
“The name is Mephisto. I’m not just any devil,” he corrected me. “You never wonder why the bargain in the first place?”
“Easy. You needed somebody with that curse to work for you. You are a business man.”
He sighed, rolling his eyes, “Do you want to see what kind of work he does for me?”
“Why do you want to show me?” I narrowed my eyes at him. “I apologize for the profiling. I know better than to trust you, Mephisto the devil. Doesn’t he work as a bouncer at your bar?”
“Do you know better?” He quirked a brow. “Not even curious about what other things your dear lover does when he is away from you?”
Of course I was. Mephisto knew that.
“Will he know I am watching? I would not want to distract him,” I said with crossed arms.
“You don’t want him to know you know?” He smirked. “You sneaky cat.”
“He must have been keeping it a secret for a reason,” I bit my tongue at my admission.
Mephisto took a pitiful expression.
“He probably doesn’t want to worry you,” he said with a smile because he knew damn well, he had won the argument.
He hooked me with his words.
“You haven’t answered my question.” I did my best to sound assertive. “Will he know I am watching?”
“He won’t, as long as you stay in my booth.”
“Booth?”
He had my Dante participate in glorified dog fights.
Mephisto gestured towards the one-way mirror from which he monitored the fight and boasted, “I’m rather pleased to have found such a perfect specimen to amplify the strength of a curse of lycanthropy. He must be a direct descendant of those ancient lycans.”
The one with the grey fur. My Dante, sinking his teeth into his opponent’s neck. That other one was smaller and had light-brown fur and appeared to be affected by the same curse. They both fought in a cage down six rows of half-full seats.
“He hasn’t lost a fight,” the devil complained. “Not that his opponents are varied these days.”
“Why are you showing me this?” I kept my eyes on the ring or caged pit.
As he had implied, it was not much of an equal fight. Dante was faster and larger.
The room had an air purifier purring in the corner with a vent pipe leading up and out of the room. Despite that, the window was ill insulated, letting in sounds and smells. I transformed my ears and nose leaning closer to the edge of the glass. Blood, sweat, alcohol, and…potato wedges? I looked back at Mephisto eating finger food, amused at the sight of my frown.
He had a smug smile, swallowed his mouthful and asked a rhetorical question, “You love him, don’t you?”
I sighed, turning back to watch the fight. Mephisto was getting predictable the more we conversed together.
“Why do you want me to ask you to stop this?” I questioned him.
“A bargain.”
“I expected no less.” I said, watching Dante circling the other curse holder. “How do the fights end?”
“They are not to-the-death. Most of the time.” He let out a breath. “Until incapacitated or forfeit.”
That was only slightly better.
“What’s the bargain?” I worried, noticing Dante’s fatigued panting. His opponent was barely standing up.
“I’m intrigued by something. You are a cat, aren’t you?”
“Yes,” I answered as I pointed an ear at Mephisto.
“If you were to have a child with him. What would it be?”
“Are you about to ask for our first-born child?!” I glared at this devil.
“Tempting,” he admitted. “No. I only want to give this hypothetical child a chance to exist. Out of curiosity, mainly.”
“You haven’t told me what the bargain was.”
Dante looked glorious as he threw his opponent against a wall. Worry still gnawed at my insides. What if the next time he fights somebody stronger than him? Would he be able to heal from that?
“I won’t require him to participate in these anymore. The fun has run its course anyway. Everyone knows to bet on him, and he doesn’t really have a fan following. He refuses to show his human face to the cameras. He thinks too much like a beast in that form. It comes with his strength and inability to work the crowd.”
And what a small crowd it was, less than twenty in a room that could hold fifty at the least.
I was glad he didn’t force Dante to divulge his identity. Mephisto’s deal must have brought something to himself or else… “In exchange for what?”
“I want you to turn this building into its own bubble. And the subsequent ones I will purchase.”
The fact he was after my skills was reassuring. That was in the realm of possibilities. My engineering prowess was the reason why the Bubble’s leaders had offered me a job. I turned it down. Weeks after my refusal, they tried to force my hand into coming back by paying my father, whom I had estranged beforehand. They held me responsible for getting scammed by him. I settled the issue by selling them the patterns for the new and improved filtration systems I had been designing during my studies over years of visits to the old facilities.
“Filters or architecture?” I joked. For the latter, he would have needed to demolish and rebuild the whole thing. “You’ll need better insulation.”
“Filters,” he winked and kept going. “You two will have steady employment from yours truly. You design machinery to rival the bubble. Dante keeps hotheaded idiots from wrecking my bar. You form your little family. I get to possess the most prized habitations outside the bubble. And lastly, my curiosity about your pairing will be fulfilled.”
“What’s the trap?” I wondered out loud.
“There is none. Unless you still have a chance to go back to the bubble without him.”
“That will never happen. Not without him.” I glanced at Dante trying to get one last rile out of his opponent. “Why are you so curious?”
“I’ve met cats who could talk, throw minor spells, or revive. None could quite shapeshift fully. Illusions, yes, but they could not sustain them to live as a human as you have.”
“What do you want with this hypothetical child?”
“I want them to be raised here, where they will be safe. I can’t have such a unique specimen roaming around where they could be snatched away by a competitor.”
“Are you offering your protection?”
“It will be included.”
“I want a contract written down. I want to be paid for my work. And for you to be that child’s godfather, binding you to fulfill their best interest. Even if Dante and I die.”
“Perfect!” He waved a potato with a loose enough grip for it to fly across the room. “Oops.” He teleported to it still too late to catch it.
“Dante needs to agree to it,” I added.
He picked it up off the floor, inspecting it. “It may be a clause.” He ate it. “Want some?” He held the basket in my face. They looked tasty.
“Is there a deadline?” I grabbed one.
That was a divine amount of garlic and paprika. Best not take my full-cat form until that was out of my system.
“I’ll give you a month,” he said that rubbing his hands like a villain in need of hand cream. “Until the next full moon and he is summoned for his next fight.”
“We’ll see then.”
There was a pained snarl. Dante got clawed across the chest. I closed my fists with a growl.
“If you cannot watch calmly. You may wait in his chamber.”
“Chamber?”
“Usually, he turns back human if we get him to empty his ball into something, or someone. That or we chain him to the wall until the moon passes.” That was crude.
“Your intent on breeding us already?” I accused.
“You want me to send someone else? It’s either fight or fuck in the state he’s in. I’m afraid it will be fight if it’s not you these days.”
“Fine, show me the way.”
