Part4, Devil's Pact


INTRODUCTION: The 4th and last part of my little series. It takes place on the anniversary of the attack in the first part.


"Mon, who is that?" Phoebe asked, pulling her coat tighter to avoid getting chilled by the cold November wind.

"Who's who?" Monica asked, taking Phoebe under the arm and heading away from the subway they'd just gotten off.

"That man that's been staring at us and that's followed us off the train and this far." Phoebe said, discreetly pointing him out.

"Oh..." Monica said, not too thrilled. "Him..."

It was mid November and a year to the date since Monica had been attacked. She had now almost gotten past the experience, Chandler had been right, seeing a psychiatrist had helped her out a lot. She and Chandler had married in February and gone away to Spain for a two week honeymoon. Getting married had on some level helped Monica get back on her feet again, and the joy of knowing it was her and Chandler for the rest of their lives had made her bloom. During summer she had almost completely returned to being her old self again. It was only her insecurity and fear to be alone that remained. And not a day passed by that she didn't wake up in the morning and thank god she had Chandler there to keep her feeling safe.

"So you know who he is?" Phoebe asked, casting a glance at the man following them at a distance.

"Not in so many words..." Monica said. "I've never talked to him. He's been following me around since July, though."

"July? Monica, that's four months! You need to talk to Gary about this!"

"Don't worry, I already have. He hasn't done anything, he just walks behind me every now and then. Gary says it's nothing to worry about."

*

Monica looked through the recipes in her new cookbook, wondering what Chandler would like and what she would have to try on Joey, who ate anything you put in front of him. Chandler was away this weekend, doing some field correspondent thing for the newspaper he had gotten a job with. He had felt terrible leaving her alone like that on the same date she'd been attacked, but he had talked to Joey who had promised to come and sleep in their guest room, to keep an eye on Monica. He would come over every night.

Monica looked up when she heard a knock on the door. She walked over and opened the door with the security chain on. She could see a familiar face, but it took her a few seconds to realize it was the same man who had followed her and Phoebe earlier on.

"Who are you?" she asked.

"Can I come in?" he asked.

"No."

"Please let me in. I really need to talk to you."

Monica frowned.

"Hold on, I'm on the phone" she lied.

She closed the door and went over to the phone calling Phoebe up. When Phoebe answered Monica quickly, and hushed, explained what was going on.

"Oh my GOD Monica, let me call Gary, for god's sake don't let him IN!"

"I think it's safe..." Monica objected. "After all, it's only six o'clock, and Joey's right across the hall. But I just called you up as a safety net. Call me back every ten minutes. If I tell you that everything is fine and that I'm okay, then call Gary ASAP."

"Monica I really don't like this!" Phoebe objected, sounding very worried.

"Relax, Phoebe. And if I don't answer, then go check if you can see me through the window."

"This is a STUPID idea, you have NO idea what this guy wants, or even who he is!"

"Bye Phoebe, call me back in ten!" Monica said, hanging up on her friend. She then went to open the door.

"So what is this you want to talk about?" she asked, nervously.

The man didn't answer, he just walked past her into the apartment.

"Have you done some painting in here?" he asked. "I don't remember the walls being blue."

Monica shuddered. How did he know? Had he been there before on some party? Was he one of Chandler's co-workers?

"N, no, I, I mean yes..." she nervously said. "They used to be purple. Chandler thought the colour was too girly."

"And you haven't replaced the vase..." the man said.

Monica felt a chill of fear and also anger and curiosity wash over her.

"Why would we have? How come you know so much, you've never been her before."

"I've been here before" the man said casually.

"Were you one of the police officers?" Monica asked, finding a suitable explanation. "Did, did Gary send you?"

The man turned and smiled casually at her. Monica thought he reminded of Mickey Rourke in "9½ Weeks".

"My name is Lucifer" he said.

"Lucifer? That's unusual."

"Yes, it is."

Lucifer walked around, taking a good look. The phone rang. Monica answered it and heard it was Phoebe.

"It hasn't been ten minutes" she whispered, careful not to let her visitor hear.

"I don't like how he looks" Phoebe said. "I'm watching you two from the window. He freaks me out."

"Good, call me back in five, okay?" Monica said, not listening to what Phoebs had to say, and hung up. Lucifer walked into the kitchen.

"The kitchen is the same, though."

"Listen Mr. Lucifer, I think--"

"Not mister" Lucifer interrupted her. "Just Lucifer. Like you're Monica."

"Monica would like to know what this is all about."

"I've come to collect my debt."

"Debt? What debt is that?" Monica asked, crossing her arms over her chest. She didn't like this man, that was for sure.

"You're in debt to me" Lucifer said.

"I've never met you before" Monica said. She felt nauseous, this was probably some psycho who thought she owed him something since she'd met his gaze a few times these past four months.

"That's as untrue as it is true" Lucifer said.

"And that's as confusing as the fact that someone would name their son Lucifer" Monica snapped at him.

"Monica... You owe me... Remember? Do you remember the last time we met?"

"Earlier today?" Monica suggested.

"No, Monica" Lucifer said, his voice sounding both soothing and scaring at the same time. It was as if he wanted to intimidate her and hypnotise her. Monica recoiled, unwillingly.

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"Remember the last time we met?" Lucifer asked, his voice remaining the same. "Don't you remember? Why, it was only a year ago."

"I think you're a bit drunk" Monica said with a frown. She had spent one year of her life afraid and uncomfortable, she had no intention of feeling that way again. This man couldn't scare her, he was some nutcase who'd had too much to drink and decided to come pay her a visit.

"I don't drink" Lucifer said.

"Maybe you should try it. It might have a calming effect on you."

"Come on now Monica..." Lucifer continued in his calm, mysterious voice. It reminded Monica of the way someone evil talked in a movie. It was so soothing and yet so terrifying. Monica also realized the voice reminded of a darker, softer version of the voice that had terrorised Drew Barrymore over the phone in "Scream", a movie she'd only watched the first five minutes of before she'd had enough. Lucifer stepped closer and Monica backed away.

"I wouldn't come too close if I were you" she said.

"I've already been a lot closer than this."

"Oh yeah? When?"

"Exactly one year ago tonight."

Monica felt fear wash over her, as well as a feeling that something was wrong, so terribly wrong. What was this man, this stranger, talking about? If he were a member of the police then why did he come visit her like this, and why, as it now struck Monica, had he not shown a badge? She swallowed hard.

"Oh come on now, don't tell me you can't remember." Lucifer said. "I was in here with you, remember?"

"Listen, you FREAK!" Monica began, but got interrupted by the phone. She thought for a second about giving Phoebe the signal to call for help, but she thought the better of it.

"Yeah?" she said, answering the phone.

"Are you SURE you're all right?" Phoebe asked, clearly frightened to death. "Mon this is so insane, you've GOT to let me call Gary!"

"Five" Monica said.

"Call you back in five minutes?"

"Talk to ya' then."

Monica hung up and turned to get back to Lucifer. She nearly screamed out loud when she noticed he'd gotten a lot closer. The distance between them was only 3 yards.

"I know you remember that night" Lucifer said. "How could any woman forget how a man breaks into her home and tries to rape and kill her?"

"STOP IT!" Monica cried, trying to shut out the flashbacks, the pain, the fear, the terror.

"Especially when the woman manages to kill him, even though he's superior to her physically and also has the mental upper hand since she is so afraid she barely knows her own name."

"What do you want?" Monica cried.

"What I've already asked for. I've come here to collect my debt."

"I owe you NOTHING!"

"Do you remember how that encounter ended?" Lucifer asked, driving Monica crazy with the tone of his voice. "Were you just lucky to find a Swiss army knife on your bedside, or did something else help you out that night? What was the last thing you did before you threw that knife at him?"

"How should I remember?" Monica asked, trying not to go through the possible reasons for him knowing as much as he apparently did. "I've tried my best to repress it all!"

"You asked for help, didn't you?"

"I... I asked for any power to help me out... to somehow get the strength to win the battle..." Monica said, remembering.

"Some people are lucky. Some people aren't. I got to you first."

Monica backed away from him, just a few steps.

"Leave me alone, I don't understand what you're saying."

"Monica where have you heard my name before?"

"I don't KNOW!" Monica cried. She heard a phone ring somewhere, it sounded distant. Was it Phoebe? Was it Chandler? Was it all in her head? The phone quieted.

"Then I guess I'll tell you" Lucifer said, walking closer.

"No, leave me alone!" Monica screamed, feeling a cold hand grip around her heart. "What do you WANT from me?"

"Are you really that unintelligent?" Lucifer asked, still with his calm, hypnotising voice. "I've told you several times."

Suddenly Monica heard a knock on the door, and Joey's voice calling her name.

"Joey I'm inside!" she called out, feeling grateful and safer now. She heard him trying to open the door, and then a pounding on it that got more desperate for each time he tried to break the door in. Monica looked over at the door. The security chain was hooked! She knew she hadn't hooked it! Joey was locked out! Fear came over her again with full force and she quickly turned her head to look at Lucifer. She saw something else in his eyes this time.

"No!" she gasped, backing away from him.

Over in Phoebe and Ross's apartment, Phoebe noticed that Joey couldn't get in to Monica.

"Oh my god!" she exclaimed. "Oh my god, Ross! Ross, call 911! I'm gonna go... get in by the fire escape!" She turned and ran out of the apartment, seeing in the corner of her eye how Ross threw himself at the phone.

"You asked for help from any powers out there" Lucifer said, still in his calm voice. "And you got it. Only you weren't lucky. You got the bad powers Monica. I stepped in, I gave that knife force, force enough to kill a man that normally wouldn't die from a cut by such a knife. I steered it so that it hit him in the throat. I saved your life. That kind of favour doesn't come free, Monica. In return, I got your soul."

"What?" Monica said, more and more scared with every time Joey hit the door. She knew something was more wrong than she could imagine, normally Joey should have been able to get in by now.

"You've sold your soul to the devil."

"Lucifer..." Monica whispered. "Lucifer, the name of the archangel who got thrown out of heaven and became the--"

"Master of Hell" Lucifer filled in.

"NO!" Monica screamed.

"Too late for that now" Lucifer said. "Your soul belongs to me now. I gave you one year to live your life, now it's all mine. You're my minion."

"That's not true!" Monica said, terribly afraid. "And even if it is, I am NOT going to help you."

"You have no choice" the Devil said, gleaning at her. "From now on, any good deed you try to do to someone will strike back at you, it will backfire. Your friends will turn away from you, your husband will leave you--"

"NO!" Monica cried, not bearing the thought of loosing Chandler.

"And that child you're carrying..." the Devil said.

"My child?" Monica said, looking up at him. She had only known for three hours that she was pregnant, a pregnancy test had been one of the things she and Phoebe had bought earlier that day.

"If you look at the sonograms you'll be sure to see something that looks like horns on it's precious head."

"NO, you can't DO this!" Monica shouted at the top of her lungs, tears filling her eyes. This was more than she could bare.

"You're all mine now. You're working for me. The child is just a bonus. Someone to work for me on earth for all of his or her life."

"No, not my baby, not Chandler's baby..." Monica said, starting to cry.

"All good deeds you try to do will turn bad..." Lucifer repeated. "And all BAD deeds you do will turn around and strike at YOU. And you're going to do this for me, until the day you die and in the afterlife."

"Well in that case I'm starting right now" Monica said, suddenly calm and angry, picking up a butchers knife from the rack on the sink and throwing it at the Devil.

*

Monica sat up in bed and glanced over at Chandler's empty bedside. The November night was dark and quiet. The only sound heard, was the sound that had woken her up. The sound of a vase hitting the floor and breaking.



DISCLAIMER: The basic idea for the pact with the Devil (linked to the attack in the first part of the story) is something I've read in a short story, so that part's not mine... the rest is though, I developed the idea and made something completely different from it. As for the characters, Bright, Kauffman and Crane own the "Friends" characters. Lucifer is owned by himself, or the Bible, or God or whoever... He belongs to mythology, I'll leave it at that. :) Please review!





ADDITIONAL AUTHOR COMMENT: I have gotten tons of mails from people asking me what the ending of this story is supposed to mean, and people have asked the same thing in fic.net reivews... which to me is kinda' weird, since my idea with the ending was that the reader could decide for himself/herself what really happened. If you're really interested in knowing what I thought happened, or if you didn't get the ending, you can mail me at [email protected] (that's 2 underlines). Thanks for reading the story...