Page 2 of Malice in e minor

Except he walked over and handed me a card. Oh, fuck me. That wasn’t some random rich guy slumming it in the subway. That was Doctor Johann Faustus, headmaster of Blackvale Academy. This was one of the best performing arts grad schools in the world. Graduating from that school pretty much guaranteed people knew your name and got you in front of the right people.

I was also dead ass broke busking in the subway to pay my rent and would never be able to afford the tuition and Mom’s treatment. I opened my mouth to say literally anything, even though I hadn’t figured out what I wanted to say, when he held up his hand to stop me.

“Harlowe Lopez, you’re formally invited to Blackvale Academy as a freshman. Your tuition, room, and board have been paid, as has your mother’s treatment. She’ll be transferred to the best hospital upstate near Blackvale to recover so you can visit, and she’ll have a health aide looking after her as long as she needs it so you can focus on music.”

Maybe I was about to ruin everything by opening my mouth again because you’d have to be an idiot to turn any of that down, but I also wasn’t stupid. Johann Faustus had no reason to know my name or any of my business, and nothing in life was free. Someone was paying for all of that.

“You have no way of knowing my name, much less any of that.”

“No, but you managed to attract the attention of a powerful man who has a thing for the Devil’s Tritone and supporting the arts. He wants you to be one of the many artists he’s a patron for.”

It had to be that intense golden man. I could be wrong, but he’d been super into my performance and he was dressed like he had money. I’d played two pieces with the Devil’s Tritone I’d written myself before I moved on to other composers. I felt him on the third piece. There was also that strange man who kicked the garbage can over to break our staring contest and shook his head like he was warning me about something.

Patrons weren’t really a thing anymore. Supporting the arts and artists had fallen out of fashion for mega-yachts and space rockets. Still, the golden man was intense, but I could tell he was more into the music than me. We never spoke. We only had a brief staring contest, but I didn’t really think he was going to show up at graduation and demand I pay him back with sex.

Also, I’d never spoken to him, and we only stared at each other for a few minutes, so he very well could show up and want repayment in sex.

“What does he want in return?”

“He’s just an eccentric with too much money and a bunch of conspiracy theories about the arts. You’ll probably never see him, and if you do, it’ll be brief. He’ll just want to talk your ear off, wanting to know if you’ve used the Devil’s Tritone again.”

Interesting. The major conspiracy theory about that was that the church banned it because it summoned demons, but that was just an urban legend. It was just not used often because it was difficult for a chorus to sing, but it was used if a composer wanted to write something spooky. It was dissonant and jarring in the hands of a bad composer, but quite beautiful in the right one. They used it in the theme song to The Simpsons.

Doctor Faustus looked like he didn’t want to spend any more time in the subway than he needed to and didn’t particularly want to be talking to me.

“Be honest, and we can both go home. What does he really want?”

“Honestly? He’s paying for you to explore the Devil’s Tritone. That’s all he wants from you. You’ll get a top-tier musical education that will open any door you want, and your mother will have someone looking after her. If you ask me, you’re getting way more out of it than he ever will. Here is a train ticket that will take you to Blackvale. Use it or don’t, but be there on Monday if you expect to attend classes.”

He wasn’t giving me much time to mull it over, but I’d be stupid to turn this down, right?

Ah, the Devil’s Tritone. The Church banned a lot of things, but it never banned that. No one ever thought it summoned demons, but it did do one carefully guarded secret. It damaged the bars of my cage and let me briefly leave Hell. The Devil’s Tritone in the right hands would free me from my prison, and I never had to rule that shithole again.

I dealt in deals, and there was always a loophole. I gave people exactly what they asked for, but I loved my loopholes. My particular Hell with the loophole I was saddled with was that the Devil’s Tritone only messed with my cage if it was played live. And while I knew there was someone who could use it to shatter the cage, I didn’t know how.

There were plenty of talented composers who could use it in a pleasing way, but the ones who could use it to free me were rare. And most of them only wanted to use it to set a mood. I always felt it when one of them used it, but I had to be careful with them.

There was that whole smear campaign that happened when I got cast to Hell and locked in a cage. No one cared about my side of the story. Everyone turned me into the ultimate boogeyman and blamed me for all their problems.

It was not my fault or my minions' fault someone did anything vile. We turned deals down if they grossed us out. If someone wanted knowledge or talent, we gave that. If someone wanted a set amount of money or food for one night, we’d subtly guide them towards making a deal for something that would keep the money and food flowing. An extra two inches of cock was popular for idiots. But we weren’t doing deals that would allow people to murder or rape with no consequences.

But people didn’t want to hear that. Tell someone you needed them to experiment with freeing the devil and they got all weird. They called me the Prince of Lies, but I never lied. I just omitted the truth sometimes.

I’d been aware of Harlowe Lopez for a while. She was gifted with the Devil’s Tritone and liked experimenting with it. I’d been subtly manipulating her where I needed her for a while now. She needed a proper instrument because she had the talent to be famous, and I made that happen.

I was out of my cage long enough to pretend to be human. Even a second-hand Joseph Curtain violin was more than her mom could afford, but she needed a violin made by a luthier, so I met with the son of the previous owner who had passed, seriously undervalued it for the exact amount her mom had saved, and then I made sure she saw the ad so she could buy it.

Things were on track to maneuver her to Blackvale when Maria got Lithium poisoning. Her mother had done everything she was supposed to. She’d been diagnosed since Harlowe was a child and had been so careful because she didn’t want to leave her child in the foster system. Maria never missed therapy, and she took her pills like she was supposed to.

I could have exploited that, but I didn’t want to. I could heal her mother of the Lithium poisoning and make a deal with her to get her to do what I wanted. But I didn’t like that loophole. I couldn’t cure her mother of the bipolar disorder, so it just didn’t seem fair.

So, during one of the times I was able to escape my cage, I did cure her of the Lithium poisoning, but I didn’t stop to make a deal with Harlowe. But things changed. She’d gotten more powerful since the last time I visited her. I could see a way to help her and have her help me in return.

She’d also gotten stunning. Her hair was raven, and her eyes were so brown they were nearly onyx. She’d taken to rimming them in thick black eyeliner and filling those luscious lips with black lipstick.

And she looked the devil right in the eye and didn’t look away until that idiot angel kicked the garbage can over.

Yes, I’d only make a deal with Harlowe Lopez if I absolutely needed to.