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I make the same moves as Mason, or as close I can imitate him. I pick cards. I toss stones and dice. I move my pieces forward, or backward when Mason says I lost a round. After an hour I get bored and knock one of his pieces off the board like we’re playing marbles.
He applauds.
“Bravo! That’s the first original thing you’ve done since we started. It’s good to see you getting into the spirit of the game. I was getting worried.”
We play a couple of more rounds. Dice. Stones. Sometimes rock-paper-scissors.
The game goes on for another two hours. I know that somewhere Wells and the Shonin are watching us. I’d love to know what they’re thinking right now. Especially the Shonin. Does he have any more of a clue about the game than I do?
Mason says, “Feel free to keep imitating my moves if it makes you feel better. With the rules changing, the move that hurts me might bring you luck.”
He deserves a “fuck you,” but I give him a “power to you” instead and he gives it right back to me.
The things we do to stay alive for another year. Another day. Another hour. The deals we make with the universe and ourselves. You start to feel dirty. I made plenty of deals Downtown. Found tricks to kill my way out of most of them. Why not? What’s a deal with a Hellion worth? It’s like a joke the Irish used to tell.
“What do you call a dead Englishman?”
“What?”
“A good start.”
Where has all the killing and all the deals left me? Worse off than ever. I stopped Mason’s Hellion war with Heaven, but looking back, maybe I should have let them go ahead with their attack. Let Ruach and his angels slaughter the legions from their golden fortress. The Hellions would have satisfied their suicide fetish and maybe that would have been enough to stop this apocalyptic freak show before it got rolling.
But I also stopped the war for my own selfish reasons. I wanted to get hold of Mason and kill him myself. Then I abandoned Hell to come home when I could have stayed and maybe stopped Merihim and Deumos and their Angra games before they came to Earth. When I left, I made a deal with myself. I didn’t want to die Downtown. I’d go to Earth and see Candy. Restart my life, then go back to rescue all the lost souls from the big bad Angra cult. Only I never did it. The moment I set foot in L.A. I knew I’d never go back. And it gave Merihim and Deumos all the time they needed to invent Saint Nick and bring dead-as-a-doornail Mason back to life. That means I’m the one responsible for Mason coming home so he could goad me into replaying our Russian roulette game by his rules.
It would make me laugh if it wasn’t all so pathetic. I’ve wasted this whole year. I even started thinking I was some kind of good guy. A one-man Seven Samurai out to save the innocent rice farmers from the marauding bandits. I should have stayed in Hell and done my job. My father, Doc Kinski, laid it out for me one night, simple and clear. I’m a natural-born killer and nothing more. If I’d have killed everyone in Hell that needed killing, this Angra horror show wouldn’t be happening. I won’t make that mistake again. Mason coughs up the information we need or he dies and I follow him Downtown. Babysit him at the entrance to Tartarus and personally make sure he never gets out until the end of time. Maybe I’ll see if Candy wants a summer home on the River Styx. The weather isn’t any worse than L.A. these days. Maybe she and Cindil can work at Wild Bill’s bar. I’ve heard worse retirement plans.
But first there’s the game. I walked away from Mason before, but not again.
“Earth to Jimbo. You in there somewhere?” says Mason.
Beautiful. I got lost in my head and he saw. Not a good start to my dramatic comeback.
“Is it my turn?”
“There’s just the two of us.”
“I don’t know what to do.”
“It’s an easy round. Draw a card. Move that many spaces. Eleven for a face card. Twelve for an ace.”
I draw a five. I move a white checker across five countries on a Risk board. I don’t know if the move is legit, but Mason doesn’t say anything.
“Don’t forget,” he says.
I growl, “Power to you.”
“Good boy,” he says, eyeing his next move.
He spins the number wheel and moves a Go stone.
“Now that we’ve been playing for a while, are you figuring out the game?”
“I’ve got it down. I’m going to write a goddamn book about it.”
“I’m not sure I entirely believe you.”
“Why’s that?”
