Somewhere near Sweetwater, Texas, Friday night.
Johnny left his Dad to sleep in their trailer, and headed down to the tent where they kept their stuntbikes. He wasn't sure what to think about the news. His Dad had cancer? How long had this been going on? When was he going to tell somebody? He dropped his toolbox on the ground and held his head in his hands for a minute before sitting back up.
He couldn't leave his Dad like this. Not now.
Not ever.
Mephistopheles was taking his good old time crossing the fair grounds that evening, lightbulbs flicking into darkness as he walked by. Such quaint amusements these mortals seemed to enjoy. It made his job easier, knowing how simple they were.
He glanced up at the fun house, briefly amused by the cartoon devil that was painted above the entrance.
He chuckled to himself.
"Far out."
The fair grounds seemed darker than usual tonight to Johnny. Maybe it was just his attitude. He had to figure out how to deal with his Dad's cancer and sweet Roxy and his classes at Fandom High, and no clear answers were coming to mind. Puttering around with his bike helped him think.
And as he was thinking, he felt goosebumps rise on his skin as the temperature in the tent dropped fifty degrees in a matter of seconds. He let out a deep breath and was shocked to see a white cloud of water vapour form. The heck? he thought. It can't possibly be this cold here in Texas.
"Johnny Blaze."
Mephistopheles stood inside the doorway to the tent, smirking faintly. This was the boy that his son had been spending time with, leaping out windows on the back of a stunt bike and living to tell the tale?
He didn't look like much.
Johnny turned to face the old guy in the coat. He looked like someone Johnny should probably have recognized, but he couldn't place the voice or the face. The hairs on the back of Johnny's neck stood up, but he ignored it. The old guy didn't look dangerous.
"Yeah?"
"I caught your show today," came the reply, as Mephistopheles walked into the tent, swinging his silvery cane ahead of himself with each step. "I wanted to tell you how much I enjoyed watching you ride."
There was poise in his voice, steeped clean through. But there was also a hint of a snarl. Malice. The devil hadn't come to Johnny just to pay him compliments.
"Oh," Johnny answered uneasily. He didn't know who the old man was. Maybe another one of those autograph seekers who sometimes came poking around the work tents? But there was something deeply creepy about the stranger that set him on edge.
"Thanks."
He turned back to the bikes, hoping that was all the stranger wanted.
The boy was preoccupied.
Mephistopheles barely suppressed a grin. Of course he was. There was so much going on at home, wasn't there?
"Perhaps you'll ride for me someday."
A job offer? Now he had Johnny's attention. Despite his Dad's sickness, he had no intention to keep working for Quentin Simpson his whole life.
"You run a show?" he asked, his interest showing through in his voice.
"The greatest show on Earth."
Mephistopheles paused a moment to allow the chill in the air to really sink in to the boy's bones.
"What's wrong, Johnny? Worried about your father?"
Johnny's jaw dropped, and he nearly lost his grip on the wrench in his hand.
"What do you know about that?" he asked in a tone that was half stunned and half accusing.
"Like I said, I was at the show. A blind man could see he's sick."
Mephistopheles paused a moment more.
"What is it? His heart?"
"Cancer," Johnny whispered.
It was the first time he'd ever said that dreaded word aloud.
"I'm sorry," the devil said, actually sounding the part. Momentarily. He was pacing the room again, the skull on his cane glinting in the dull light of the room.
"Of course, the worst part of cancer is the time it takes. The toll on the loved ones." That was what the boy was thinking, wasn't it? Yes, Mephistopheles would be more than happy to twist all of it to his advantage. "Lives are altered. Plans are thrown off course..."
Johnny looked down and sighed. The old man's words hit too close to home. There was so much he wanted to do. He wanted to go back to school in Fandom. He wanted to ride off to parts unknown with Roxanne. He wanted to have a life of his own.
But the right thing to do was to stay and take care of his Dad while the cancer ravaged his body. So he'd give up his own plans and stay like the good son he was.
Mephistopheles studied Johnny's face, pleased that he was getting just the reaction that he was looking for.
He was very good at getting reactions that he wanted.
"I'm moved by your devotion, Johnny."
And now for an offer the boy couldn't refuse.
"What if I could help your father?"
"Yeah?"
For a minute, Johnny had hope. Maybe the stranger was a doctor, or a specialist. Maybe he had connections to help Johnny's Dad get the medical help he'd need?
"How?"
Mephistopheles really liked this part.
"How's not important. If I could make him better, just like this," he demonstrated with a snap of his fingers, "give him back his health. Give you your freedom. Would you be willing to make a deal?"
Lightning flashed, illuminating the inside of the tent just long enough to highlight a creeping shadow on the canvas wall, hunched over and leaning heavily on a cane as well...
Johnny looked away as the lightening flashed and missed the shadow. Things would have gone differently had he seen it.
Johnny Blaze was many things. A great rider. A good son. A nice guy. But he definitely wasn't a good long term thinker. So when the old man promised him everything he wanted. Part of him thought the whole thing was like something out of a bad horror movie. But the other half of him...
"Name your price."
The words were out of his mouth before he could really think them through.
Those were the words that Mephistopheles was waiting for. He'd make a game of it. He looked around the room, bemused.
Name his price?
"I'll take..." He raised a finger and let it follow where his eyes were pointed. So much in this room. What to take? What to take? Perhaps that Harley, there, with the custom paint job? Oh, no, there must be something better. Hmm. Oh, of course. "Your soul."
Johnny looked at the old guy before letting out a disparaging laugh. His soul? Clearly, the guy was crazy. Johnny turned back to the bike he was working on, chiding himself for ever giving the old guy some of his time.
Mephistopheles either didn't notice or didn't care that he was being laughed at.
Nobody ever took it seriously, right away.
"By sunrise tomorrow, your dad will be as healthy as a horse... and you will have your whole life ahead of you." He pulled a scroll of parchment from his coat and unrolled it, holding it forward for Johnny to see. "It's your choice."
The ink scrawled across the top of the parchment read, 'Pactum Pactorum.'
Johnny turned back around to look at the parchment. He'd never seen everything like it before. There were paragraphs after paragraphs of text all written in what looked like really thick red ink. The text didn't make any sense to him, though. It had to be in Latin or something, because the parts he could read like "Johnny Blaze ita nominitus sacri" and " venio et tibi animam meam in aeternam consecra" didn't mean anything that he could recognize.
He started to wonder if maybe this guy wasn't as crazy as he seemed.
He reached out for the parchment to get a better look at it, and sliced his thumb open on something sharp hidden at the top of the document. He he let out an intake of air at the sudden pain, as a single drop of his blood dropped on to the paper.
Right on the signature line.
"That'll do just fine," Mephistopheles cooed, taking back the blood-spattered contract.
Outside the tent, the thunder rolled.
[NFI due to distance. Preplayed with way_black.]