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The Devil May Care

Part 41

for DuskCypher

by Draconicon

The realm of Greed shifted with the sudden opening of the portal, almost as if the entire realm was aware that something had changed, that there was something different about it in that moment. Dusk allowed the portal to remain open for a total of five seconds, just enough for Hellsmith to tell that it was real, to understand that there were endless riches just waiting on the other side of the portal, and then closed it again. The badger had been just about to try and step through it, after all, and there was no reason to let him pass through without something for him.

Hellsmith jumped back, his eyes wider than before and a snarl of greed upon his face, but he managed to collect himself quickly. The badger cleared his throat, shook his head, and composed himself as he met Dusk's eyes.

"Obviously, you have a solution, then."

"I'd say that counts as one, yes."

"Then let's start talking price."

"Heh..."

Selene was there before he could say a thing, and the lioness smiled genteelly around his shoulder. The way that she slunk around him almost made him feel like he had taken the place of a stripper pole with her general ease with it, and he tried not to think of it that way for long. His interests did not lie in that direction.

"Of course, it will be a taxed fee, Hellsmith," Selene said.

"That is expected, of course, though a toll would have been greater desired."

"Ah, but that would be bad business on our part. You cannot expect Dusk to have so little pride in his work that he sells it for a pittance of its use."

"I would say that he owes me for the gift."

"A gift cannot have an obligation attached, as we both know, demon of Greed."

"...Such is true, and I apologize," the badger said, bowing almost flamboyantly.

The back and forth negotiation had started faster than Dusk had expected, but there was something else in the air. Something was moving, something shifting in his understanding of the realm of Greed, and there was power moving through the air. At first, it was just a vague presence, but then it was concentrating, growing, building just outside the hotel. He turned to the door, and then back to Selene.

"I think that there might be more than just Hellsmith that are interested in this," he said.

"More than me? Boy, the whole damn realm will have felt that," the badger said. "You want to deal with me, though. Trust me, you want to deal with me."

"I do not know that this is necessarily true," Selene said, shaking her head slowly. "After all, a bidding war can favor the seller as much as the buyer."

"Fuck that." Hellsmith shook his head. "I'm the one that invited you here. I'm the one paying to host you."

"In minimal accommodations."

"Then say I fix that. Does that get me a private offer before the rest get here?"

"I would say that would be a start."

Dusk was about to open his mouth, but stopped himself. There was something going on, and for once, the deal-making seemed to be going about as well as it could. Selene knew how the Greed demons operated, and he realized that she was playing Hellsmith like a fiddle. There was something here that he could learn from, if he just took a moment to step back and let her work.

So, he did. Hellsmith glared at the both of them, and then snapped his fingers.

Gone was the hotel, at least for now. After being informed that they were being shifted to a better, far more upscale hotel and were merely being kept at the badger's manorial estate until that could happen, Dusk and Selene sat down on the far side of a large table. They had gone from the hotel to Hellsmith's private offices, where the walls were lined with enchanted, soul-bound items and the walls themselves were made of some kind of glittering crimson stone. Dusk didn't recognize the sheen and shine that came from the walls, but he told himself that was probably for the best, and that he could learn to appreciate whatever value it had later.

Hellsmith sat down on the far side of the rounded table, his hands folded as he stared the two of them down. He kept his head cocked to the side, his eyes flicking in minute movements, almost like he was trying to find a chink in their metaphorical armor. Dusk didn't know what that would have been, but he affected a confidence that he mostly felt, leaning back at ease and waiting for Selene and the badger to get back to hashing out the details. In this case, he was the provider and the beneficiary, and he was better off learning rather than dictating.

"I want to have premium access to whatever portals we set up," Hellsmith said. "That point is non-negotiable. And I want a good price for it."

"You'll have a taxed rate, of course, given in tribute to Dusk for the purposes of maintaining himself and the portal."

"Yes, you said that. Of course, Lucifer had the same sort of deal, and that was hardly something beneficial to our realm in the grand scheme of things."

In other words, did Dusk want to look like that sort of previous ruler? He knew what was being said and unsaid, and the black cat narrowed his eyes. The lioness, on the other hand, kept plowing forward.

"Lucifer did not open portals on a more permanent basis to Purgatory, nor did he do it as often as you would have liked. There were, I believe, monthly excursions there in the past? Enough to allow you to miss one or two gatherings at this point, perhaps three at the most."

Three gatherings lost, which meant that they were probably even further behind and under quota than he thought if they were relying on the Purgatory souls that much. As far as the damned souls, they would have gotten some from them, he was sure, but not nearly enough if they were also supplementing that with runs to both the mortal world and to Purgatory. Dusk could do the mental math; if they were losing sales and losing materials, then...oh, they were well past weak at this point. All the shows of strength that he had seen had been just that: shows, meant to keep their position in Hell from becoming any weaker than it already had, keeping the others from realizing that they were getting to be one of the weaker realms and one of the more easily conquered ones.

They might have the artifacts to fight with, but that doesn't mean that they know how to use them. They built all those weapons of war and pain and destruction for the Wrath demons, not for themselves...

Which also meant that any realm that was capable of capturing Greed would be able to take all those weapons for themselves. That was a civil war that he really couldn't afford to let happen, considering the sheer amount of power dispersion that would cause. If Wrath were to break their pacifism and come here, taking all that Greed had managed to warehouse, or worse, something like Envy taking all the power that they had never been allowed to have...

Oh, yes, Greed was the powder keg of Hell right now, and the minute that it went up, it would take at least one realm with it. That was something that he needed to stop before it happened.

"I will ensure that you have regular access to Purgatory," Dusk promised. "And I believe that we can throw in emergency portals if there is an excessive order that needs an immediate resupply, wouldn't you say, Selene?"

"Yes, I think that would be easy enough to promise, provided that such a visit was also paid for in addition to the tax."

The cat had been watching the badger's face as he made that offer, and he saw the grin that popped up and was instantly pushed off again. That, obviously, had not been part of the contract with Lucifer, and that meant that there was a big boost to whatever he was offering the demons of Greed at that point. They would be eager, beyond eager, to take that offer and get up there regularly, particularly if that meant that they would also be able to take emergency trips there when their supplies were running low. It would mean that there never needed to be a contract that they had to turn down because they just didn't have the supplies.

Dusk was getting exactly what he wanted; Hellsmith was getting something better than he ever had, and the sheer glee that was filling the demon was almost palpable.

Now to come in for the kill...

The tax rate would be the important part. He knew that there were many possible rates that he could set, but he imagined that Selene would aim for something a little bit lower, a gross tax on the full product that was taken from Purgatory on any one trip. That would be something that the Greed demons would most likely try and find loopholes around, setting up various little mini-companies that did the harvesting for them and paid the taxes rather than going themselves, but if they charged the tax on souls that were leaving Purgatory right at the portal, that would mean that it would be much harder to dodge. Any goods coming out of the realm would be hit before they could be used or distributed to different people, which meant that it was more of a goods-seizure than a taxation thing.

Probably something like twenty-percent, he thought. More than sufficient to feed the coffers, and enough to feel fairly nominal to -

"We'll take 35% of all souls that come through the gate, plus an additional 10% if you go through it on an emergency visit," Selene said.

It was only the many years of working with the eldritch that kept Dusk from showing a stronger reaction than he did. One quickly learned how to hide those kinds of reactions when you were dealing with face-stealers and worse, but the very idea felt like it was doomed to break the contract before it could begin. Over a third of the raw souls that were being harvested? Hellsmith would just walk out on -

"Done."

And just like that, the badger offered his hand. Selene gave him a look, and Dusk slowly reached out to take the badger's offered grip. He squeezed the demon's hand, gave it a slow shake, and then Hellsmith was off, running through his house and muttering something about getting things in line, setting up priority orders, and more. The black cat shook his head, slowly turning back to Selene.

"Would you be so kind as to tell me what in the hell just happened?"

"You just snared the loyalty of Hellsmith. That's all."

"At 35% payments? That's a lot."

"Not nearly as much as they were paying in the past."

"Really? What was Lucifer taxing them?"

"70%. 80% on a bad day."

"..."

"My former consort had little in the way of business-sense."

"Obviously," Dusk muttered, shaking his head slowly. Once you took more than half of a business's earnings, it was all but a death sentence to most of them. He would have imagined that the demons of Greed had been finding any and all ways to get around those restrictions, to find little bits and pieces where they could get their souls without sending them on to the dark throne and its treasury.

Selene’s established tax felt too high to him by far, but for now, it was something he could get away with. Once the treasury was full, once he’d milked that monopoly as far as he dared, he would lower it for further political gain, and the economy could, hopefully, start growing again. For now, Dusk had every reason to believe that the various demon powers would be eager to expand after their sudden contraction, and with these tax breaks on top of a new supply, the various Guilds were probably going to be more powerful than ever before. That said...

For the moment, at least, they would owe it to him. They would remember who had given them this sudden bounty, and that might be integral further down the line. He tapped his chin, looking back to make sure that they were still alone, and then glanced back to Selene.

"How much do you think the demon supremacists would have charged him?" he asked.

"If they could open the portals in the first place - which would be debatable - I would imagine that the minimum that they would have charged would have been 60%."

"So, slightly less than double what we're offering."

"Precisely."

"And likely without the various amenities that we've added to the deal."

"Correct." Selene dusted off her dress, smiling slightly to herself. "I am very good at my job."

"Yes, I noticed that you didn't actually promise that he would get preferential treatment, even if he thought that the deal was implied."

"Oh, you caught that? You were paying attention."

"I believed that it was better not to interfere when I didn't know what was going on."

The demoness looked at him for a moment, her head cocked to the side in the same sort of puzzled, measuring look that he had gotten from a number of demons since taking the powers of the devil. There was something puzzled there, something that didn't expect what he was doing, something that was sure that there was a hidden barb underneath it.

No, he was wrong. That hadn't been there since he had taken the powers of the devil. That had been there since he had melded it with his own soul. Something about having a mortal soul melded with the powers of Hell and a fallen angel created something that they didn't know what to do with, something that the demons didn't know how to predict. The kindness that he occasionally felt among the pragmatism was probably something to do with the mortal side of him.

He'd have to find a way to use that rather than be used by it, he supposed. That was something that could get him killed if he wasn't paying attention.

"So, we're offering the same rate to the other Guild leaders?" he asked.

"Something akin to it. It depends on how belligerent they are, but I would say going no higher than 45%, because it still keeps the emergency services cheaper than the base services of the other candidates."

He nodded. That all made sense, and it seemed like it would be enough to keep the Greed demons on his side. That had been something that had looked slightly less likely after hearing Hellsmith's rants and getting the numbers of the situation. So far, he hadn't run into anyone in Greed that actually felt as though they were going to cause him problems or believed that he didn't belong there, but then again, he hadn't been there for very long. There were still plenty of opportunities for that to happen.

Regardless, at least they had one prestigious member of the Guild leaders on their side, and that would encourage the rest of the Greed demons to fall in line. If they were getting what they wanted, then they had every reason to stay with him over someone that was more like them. He hoped, at least.

"Do you think that we need to do anything else here?" he asked.

"I'd wait until he gets back. That man had the look of someone that wanted to open an emergency portal, and you could use as much money as you can get at the moment."

"The coffers are that dry?"

"Well, they aren't, but you're not the dark ruler, are you?"

That was a question with a barb in it, a question with a hook that was just begging him to take it. Selene was the perfect actress to keep it from being as obvious as it could have been, and she didn't make the amateur mistake of looking at him out of the corner of her eye while affecting a lack of concern, but he knew what she was doing.

You could have money if you took the throne right now...

That wasn't going to work, however. He wasn't going to take the throne right this moment, nor was he planning on taking it anytime soon. If he could just stabilize the realms of Hell, if he could get them to work without him being here, then he could enjoy himself on Earth, and he never had to think about this again. All he had to do was offer little bits and bobs to the demons from time to time, little prizes, little portals, and they would leave him the fuck alone. As long as they did what they were told without dragging him down to the lower planes, he was happy.

Before he could respond, Hellsmith returned. He had many rolls of parchment in his hands, and more than that, he had various containers, vials and more that looked like they were made of something special from down here in Hell. Some of them echoed with old voices, dead ones that were long gone, and others were silent, and the latter looked fresher than the former. Dusk arched an eyebrow, and the badger rolled his eyes.

"What do you expect when you're going soul-hunting?"

"You're going now?"

"Yes. Immediate, emergency tax rate, and payable as soon as I return to the portal opening."

"How long will you be needing the portal?" Selene asked, suddenly all-business once more.

"No more than five minutes."

"Then that will be sufficient. Your walls can withstand the sudden surge of Greed demons that will be wanting the same, yes?"

"...I'm pretty sure, but in any case, this room's shielded against that. Warded with the strongest symbols of Greed that I could buy."

"Then off you go. Dusk, if you would?"

He wondered if he should have felt slightly offended at that, but there was nothing that he could think that really hurt his feelings on that, nor anything that really lowered his worth. Selene was keeping up their business side of things, and that was all that mattered. He shrugged, pulling on his power and gathering it between his fingers once again. With a harsh, loud snap, the portal opened once more. Hellsmith leaped through without a second thought, and the pair of them were left alone in the meeting chamber.

"Do you think that he's going to be long?" he asked.

"I doubt he'll be there for five minutes. That man will have plenty of plans, and I would imagine that he'll be getting just enough to cover the tax before coming back."

"...This is a prestige thing for him, isn't it?"

"Partially. The more that he has, the more that he shows off to the rest of the demons of Greed that he has power, connections, something else that he can flaunt before them when he's in society."

Greed applied to many things, it seemed. Not just to one's possessions, but also to the various connections and networks that one had been able to put together. Hellsmith having Dusk in his personal network would be something to inspire greed from the other demons, and that would mean that he would have a greater place among them. One that inspired greed as well as lived it would be someone that would be viewed as quite powerful among these demons, indeed.

They have such a strange life down here...

Demons were surprisingly mono-focused, and that was something that was both a help and a hindrance to him when he was among them. He always felt like he was missing something obvious, but that was because they were different to mortals. They had this way of living, this way of being, that was so much more centralized around a single concept. The Lust demons focused their lives on lust for something, the Gluttony demons around a hunger for something, and the Greed demons around inspiring and feeling greed for things. It was something that he had a hard time remembering, since they were otherwise so very person-like.

I wonder if that's magical or something else, he thought, shaking his head. It's so strange...

They weren't waiting more than three minutes before the portal shimmered again and Hellsmith reached the other side. Dusk stood up, holding out his hand.

"The tax."

The badger didn't even slow. He slammed his palm against Dusk's, pressed something against his fingers, and then stepped through. Dusk looked down, half-expecting there to be nothing, but there was far more than that.

Souls ran between his fingers, at least a dozen of them. He glanced sideways at Selene, who had been watching Hellsmith, and the lioness nodded back at him. It was appropriate, as far as she was concerned.

He could feel a strange power from the way that the souls slithered through his fingers and along his palm. There was something to them, something that still echoed with the power of life, something that made him wonder what he might do with soul fragments if he decided to pull on their strength. If Greed could do that, binding them to different items that channeled the power of the soul for the wielder, what might he do with the power of the sins to bind them to his purpose? What might he draw from them to make his aura that much more powerful?

"I'll turn them to coins in a minute," Hellsmith said. "But close that. Now."

"Ah. Yes."

Dusk snapped his fingers again, and the portal closed with a hiss and a snap. It held itself shut behind them, and the world was as it had been. No more pale light, no more foggy wisps coming through the open border between the different planes. It was as if the portal had never been, and for the moment, that was probably for the best for all three of them. None of the other Greed demons had come to the room while they were waiting, so that meant that the wards around them had probably held. Probably.

Hellsmith had gathered his various souls into different jars and vials, each one held carefully. For the first time, there was something almost obsessive, almost truly greedy in the eyes of the badger. In all other occasions where they had met, Dusk had seen Hellsmith as someone that had been almost too nice to be a proper Greed demon. That moment was gone now, and he could see all the greed that the badger felt for his goods and his work right in that moment. It was a little bit disturbing, and a little bit disheartening, in a way. It reminded him that he was surrounded by demons at all times, ones that were utterly bound to the things that they were, rather than the things that they did.

Shaking his head, he cleared his throat as Hellsmith started to stare at his new possessions for longer than seemed seemly. The badger blinked, turning around, and cleared his throat.

"Yes, my apologies."

He sliced his finger through the souls in Dusk's hands, and they suddenly broke apart, falling in pieces that hardened and focused into coin shapes. They hit the ground with a tinkle of power and currency, something that felt like money, and yet more. It was the essence of money, the essence of what souls could be. Power. Power changed for power.

"There you are. That's all of the tax and the extra fee," Hellsmith said with a distracted air. "Now, if you excuse me, I have...I have a lot of work that I need to get to, and shortly."

"Yes, I'm sure you do, now that you finally have materials."

"You have no idea..."

The badger walked away, shaking his head slowly, and Dusk shook his head in turn. He hoped that he would see the other side of Hellsmith again. He didn't want this to be the badger that he remembered for the rest of his time down in Hell, but he had a horrible feeling that this would be the case. The demons were incredibly elemental creatures, bound to their functions, bound to their realms, and he needed to stop forgetting that.

"What now?" he asked Selene.

"Now, we go and give the same deal to the others."

"You think that they'll want it?"

"I think that they'll have little choice."

"One of them has it, and now all must do the same to stay competitive?"

"Yes, exactly."

"Well...I guess we might as well get going then."

The deal-making took most of the rest of the afternoon, and by the time that they had finished hashing it out with the most stubborn of them, Dusk was tired. Not yet exhausted, as that was something that he hadn't felt for some time, but certainly tired, and certainly near ready to head back to the hotel that Hellsmith had arranged for them. It was a bigger one, settled somewhere closer to the center of Guild City, and one that promised a better penthouse and a better set of lodgings for the one that might become the Dark Ruler, the Second Satan, the next commander and monarch of all of Hell.

Before he did that, however, he decided that he would take a walk through Guild City, see what the center of all of Greed had to offer, and see what he might be able to get out of it. There were many possibilities, what with all the soul currency that he now carried, and he was sure that there was something else that would occur to him as he walked through the streets. That was how he worked; the more he did, the more ideas came to him, and the more possibilities for improvement occurred to him.

His hands were busy as he walked down the streets of Guild City, one rustling through the coins in one pocket - Soulari, as he had been corrected as to what the coinage was called - and the other was going through the special order that he had put through Hellsmith and Lord Ornar Onsen. A special pack of smokes that he had been waiting for had finally come in, and he planned to indulge with both vary heavily later. The idea of picking up a demonic prostitute while he was walking the streets, flashing some of his wealth and showing off in the process, had appealed to him, but at the same time, he knew better than to show off money in a place like this. Exchanges for goods were one thing, but exchanges for services would be something more likely to lead to him getting mugged.

Shaking his head, the black cat walked down the streets, slowly pulling one of the cigarettes out of his pocket and pressing it to his lips. He didn't light it yet, just gummed at the bottom of it, tasting the bit of nicotine in there as well as some of the other Hellish compounds that were just begging to be released. There would be a burn of great potency when he started that, he was sure.

As his trench coat flared out behind him as he walked down the streets, he looked from store-front to store-front. Quite a few were opening up with the various infusions of cash that the demons of Greed were getting, as well as the souls that meant that they would be able to start making things again. He didn't expect to walk down the streets of Hell and see bakeries, admittedly, but...

At the same time, he was rather disappointed to see that most of the shops were only selling weapons and armor. He saw forges that were building up some rather fancy bits of armor, admittedly, some that were eminently impractical for actual use - or would be, without the use of a soul to start building up other qualities to the armor - but it was stil armor, still something that was meant for war.

No wonder they were losing so much business when Wrath stopped fighting all the time, he thought. They weren't making anything that wasn't useful for war.

Dusk shook his head. He seemed to recall that there was something going on between Lust and Greed, but that didn't look to be much of an industry in the realm as a whole just yet. Or, if it was, then it wasn't taking off here in Guild City. The traditional businesses seemed to have a stranglehold on the place, and that was going to cause problems further down the line. They needed to diversify.

Something that he was sure that they were going to just love being told by a half-mortal, he was sure. The demon supremacists might have had their back broken in what they could offer the Greed demons, but they would be able to say that they would allow all the traditional businesses to stay the way that they were, promise to offer the same contracts, but better, to the different heads of the Guilds. Dusk, on the other hand, was already planning on different ways to expand what they were doing, diversifying their products so that if one realm went down the way that Wrath had - at least for Greed - then they would have other clients.

And he already knew that there would be endless numbers of Greed demons that would hate that idea, what with how they were building up all their weapons already again. Their economy had completely collapsed, and they were trying to go back to the exact thing that had killed their society the first time.

All that matters is tradition. All that matters is the old ways.

More than ever, he was appreciating what Selene did for Pride, and what Ornar had done for Lust. The two of them might have had the same sort of tradition-thinking that the other demons suffered from once, but the former had broken free of that with all the pain that she had suffered under Lucifer, and the latter through the starvation that his realm had been forced to go through. They were both forward-thinkers, and that...that he needed more of.

Dusk walked down the ever-livelier streets as he passed other stores. Here and there he found little niche places, shops that sold maps, or little knick-knacks, things that might have been useful to different individuals, but certainly not broad-sellers like the weapon stores had been to Wrath. The cat found a few places that functioned as boutique-y restaurants, as well, but they were small, out of the way, and just looking at their prices, he wondered how they stayed afloat in the first place. Then again, he imagined that eating there was a mark of prestige, saying that you had the money to spend on places like that. It was a mix of Pride and Greed, that particular mentality, but he imagined that it was still enough Greed to hold the attention of some clients in this realm.

Overall, however, the trip through the city was disappointing. He had honestly been looking forward to a bit of a shopping spree, and aside from a small dagger that he purchased from an up-and-coming demon that looked like he was desperate for any sort of patronage - and the dagger was rather nice, what with the obsidian blade and the hungry feeling that came from the dagger itself - he didn't bother buying anything. He tucked his Soulari back into his pocket and finally lit up, making his way back to the hotel.

The soft puffs of the smoke into his lungs filled him with a different sensation, one that was almost similar to what he had gotten at House Onsen. The Lust that burned through the cigarette was just as powerful and potent as it had been in that realm, and he wondered if perhaps the drugs and cocktail of chemicals was a little bit stronger this time. Certainly, he didn't remember getting an erection so instantly the last time that he had used this.

"Mmmm..."

He moaned to himself as he walked down the streets, indulging in the light pleasure that the cigarette brought him, idly touching himself as he walked along. Here in Hell, there was less concern about propriety than there was in the world above, and more than that, he was still himself. He still had the power of the devil, even if he didn't hold the throne. What was anyone bothered by this going to do? Arrest him?

He rather doubted it.

Arriving at the hotel, he walked through a lobby that had a ruby floor and golden walls. The ceiling itself was mirrored, showing off every bit of glitz and glamour the hotel was capable of displaying. The demons that staffed it were dressed in silver, and their caps were made of gold. They hurried to him as he arrived, bowing in obsequious fashion.

"Sir, oh sir, your room is on the top floor," one said.

"And your entourage is kept on the floor below, sir."

"We have ensured that all the comforts of home are there, sir, and that any other desires may be fulfilled immediately, sir," a third said.

"At cost, of course," all three added in unison.

"Of course," he agreed. "This is Greed, after all."

He smiled as he walked around them, making his way to the elevator on the far side. There was nobody there to tell him to put out the cigarette, either. Then again, here in Hell, he imagined that the general concern for cancer and worse was probably pretty low on the list. The doors closed, he rode the metal box up, and then it opened on the penthouse.

He smiled at the sight of the little mini-world that was displayed before him. Every room in the penthouse offered a different clime, from the rainforest living room to the desert kitchen, from the balcony beach with a hot tub to a bedroom that was cool and humid like a vacation swamp. It was truly something that offered a little bit of everything, and in a way that only the upper echelons of Greed could ever actually afford.

Dusk closed the door behind him, huffed the last of his cigarette into his lungs, and then tossed the butt of it to the floor. It burned into nothingness before it hit the ground.

This...is probably the best place I've ever stayed, he thought. Let's see how much better I can make it...

The End

Summary: Dusk makes a deal with Hellsmith, and realizes that he's about to become a very, very rich man.

Tags: No sex, cat, badger, lioness, deal-making, hell, series, modern fantasy, magic, cigarette, drugs, disappointment, rich, wealthy,