Chapter Four

Considering all the bad weather they had been having, it was a nice night outside. Customers filled the bar. BarCat had been quite successful at scoring drinks and food tidbits.

He was pretty buzzed, and his tummy was full. He was perched in his usual spotwhen in came this guy who plopped down on the stool next to BarCat.
You get all sorts of magical folks in the Zodiac Bistro. This man reeked of chaos magic. You could smell it on those guys; it smelled like rotten eggs met Axe. That sulfur smell is a constant. The body spray is them trying to cover the sulfur smell. Axe does the job, as it smells almost as bad as the rotten eggs.

So, the chaos magician sits down and starts drinking and talking to no one. Heis a young man, and he keeps mumbling to himself. Low, deep mutterings. He is working on something to get rich. He wants to be rich. He would do anything to be rich. He wishes, somehow, he could make a deal to be rich. He had too many drinks even before getting to the Bistro, and the only person fit to discuss with him was himself.

By now, BarCat, feeling rather content when the dude walked in, is getting pretty annoyed. He had a lovely buzz on, but this dude was stepping all over it. Even Pete had avoided this guy. The nerve of this stinking excuse for a person to sit down next to him and ruin his mellow. So BarCat did what BarCat always does: he granted the guy his wish.

A few minutes later, an ancient old man, relatively small in stature, wanders in the door and settles down next to the chaos magician. BarCat smiled as the old man turned, looked at the mumbling man, and sniffed him. And the old man smiled and ordered a whiskey with a beer chaser.

Next thing you know, the two of them are talking. The old man talks about howhe became very successful, while the young man talks about getting rich. BarCat was not listening all that closely, but the old man suggested that an exchange could be made for the rich life he so desires. Maybe the young man's body. The young man raised an eyebrow and said. Is that like possession? The old man nodded. The chaos magician knew what possession was, so he said he would consider it. The young man kept drinking, and the old man kept ordering drinks while nursing his beer.

After a while, the old man and the young man came to some kind of agreement, and the young man staggered towards the door. The old man peeled off four fifty-dollar bills to pay both tabs. He paid Pete and told him to buy himself and the cat a drink. And he followed the drunk young man out the door.

Pete poured shots for himself and BarCat. Before he downed his drink, he said something to BarCat: Isn't the old man one of the Fey that lives a few blocks away? BarCat smiled.

Pete said, ya know, it's not really smart to try to make a deal with a faery. The Good Folks are well-known for not being that good to people.