Remember, dearest. Wherever you go, the stars are watching over you!” Louella paused after saying her last line of dialogue, eyes glittering with tears, then took a deep bow as the auditorium exploded in applause.
Louella and the rest of the cast did two more curtain calls before their adoring public would let them go. I waited in the shadows, as I always did when it was time to settle a debt. I saw Louella glance sideways in my direction as she took her final bow, but I knew the glare of the footlights prevented her from seeing me.
Alas, in the end everyone must pay the piper and the piper, in this case, was me. I was waiting for her outside the stage door, sitting on top of a trash can, grooming my sleek black tail.
Naturally, Louella didn’t recognize me at first. She might have been expecting an imp, not a regular old alley cat. But I wanted her to realize I could be anywhere, at any time, waiting for my pound of flesh.
Louella had made the same mistake they all, trading something for fame and fortune hoping I wouldn’t collect. She begged me the day of the auditions, “I’d give anything, absolutely anything, to get this role!” She explained how she’d had to sneak out of the house to escape her religious fundamentalist parents just to audition—as if I’d care! But she had a steel will and fire in her eyes, so I gave her what she asked for.
They all think they can outsmart me, but it never works. I always get what I am due. Louella would be like all the others, groveling and begging to be released from their promise.
I yawned, then kicked over the trash can with a resounding crash as I leapt to the ground. I sauntered over to Louella, purring with anticipation. She glanced down, then did a double take. My glowing eyes staring into her soul revealed my identity.
Louella stopped in her tracks, “For heaven’s sake. Really? You could give someone a heart attack doing that.” She rolled her eyes and folded her arms, one hip cocked, as she met my stare with a glare of her own.
Well, now. That was different. “I’ve come to collect.” My voice came out in more of a high pitched screech than a sepulchral boom, but oh well. I was an alley cat, not a tiger.
Louella glanced in both directions, making sure we were alone in the alley before she squatted down on her heels, the hem of her dress trailing on the ground.
“Lucifer,” she purred, “Don’t you know what I gave up?” She clutched my chin in her hand and looked me straight in the eye, an amused expression on her face.
I struggled to get free of her grip, but she abruptly grabbed me by the scruff with her other hand. Before I knew it, she had thrust me into a basket I hadn’t noticed and slammed the top shut.
“Silly kitty. I gave up my self-doubt and reliance on supernatural creatures.” She chuckled. “I got that role because I’m good and I deserved it, and you and the other one upstairs have no power over me anymore.”
I hissed and scratched madly at the basket, trying to shape-shift into something more terrifying, to no avail. Dammit! Her lack of belief in me had made me irrelevant!
“Where are you taking me?” I sputtered. There was an unmistakable smile in her voice as she said, “To the vet, of course. Snip, snip!”
#Flashfiction
#Fantasy
#FaustianBargain
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