Infinite Games

4. Something Good

The Game Master's voice was lost in Simon's vortex of elation. He was, in the most literal sense, walking on cloud nine. His hooves swam through the clouds on the floor, stroking him all the way to the Master Table. With a satisfaction that numbed him to the groans and jeers of the angels, Simon slapped his Bingo card down. The green row of five dots stood out proudly from the other smatterings of incomplete attempts.

Thwack!

"It's settled. Celine Aldrin goes below."

Celine, Simon smiled dumbly to himself as he glided across the cloud-floor. He missed the aisle seat high fives and sat down, caught in the trance of winning. As the next number was called, he didn't notice a new Bingo card regenerating on his table. Because then, what he had done fell on him like a grand piano pushed out of a seventh-story window.

Celine was about to spend eternity on the losing team. Simon hadn't even met her, and already he was destined to be her enemy. As the game tent curtains flapped open, he shoved his head down until his pointed ears touched his shoulders, nibbling the inner flesh of his cheek with razor-sharp teeth.

But no one came through. The two escort demons stood and departed momentarily. A screaming, crying demon-ette was dragged back inside. Celine was forced into the empty chair beside a hunched over Simon, and the two brutes who had done the dirty work cast him flaming glares.

God, he was horrible. She was probably a pretty thing before she came here. Her demon body made her look as monstrous as the rest of them, though. Everything was as ugly as his own form. Only her size and the narrowness of her face suggested any form of femininity. Simon gagged to himself and kept focus on the game.

Celine cried nonstop, and her immortal body let her. Black, inky blotches stained her bingo card. That was the equivalent of burning a hundred dollars in front of the White House here. The Lord of the Underworld had his mirrored eyes on her, and his chest swelled as he made to intervene. Simon saw the movement.

"Hey. Get ahold of yourself," he gripped her shoulder with his talons, excavating five little dugouts in her skin which bore the same sludgy blood he was made of.

Celine turned to look at him, the flaming wells of her eyes currently simmering coals of misery. He retracted his hand from her, forgetting she couldn't feel the pain of the inflicted wounds.

"You'll die if you don't play, so..." he grabbed her marker and dotted a number that had been called not a moment ago.

"What is this place? Why am I here?"

"I don't really know where we are. But you're dead now, and this is the price we all pay for gaining immortality. So play, or they'll kill you."

"But you just told me I'm immort--"

"They kill you again!"

"B Sixty," the Lord of the Heavens spewed.

"Mark it, Celine. Right there," Simon stuck his pointer-claw on the spot. Her marker followed. "That's it. Nothing fancy. Just play."

"Are you the devil?" she looked at him.

He had to think for a moment. Her question struck the guilt he harbored.

"I just might be."

Her pointed ears flattened against her head. They both turned back to their cards and played in silence with the rest of the room.

After an immeasurable amount of time, Simon talked. Not because he disliked the silence. He didn't mind it, since before Celine arrived in Demimonde, he barely exchanged more than grunts with the other players. What he did mind was the cold led blanket that had settled in the air between them. It sent shivers skittering down the nerves of his spine.

"What I should have said was... this place changes you. I don't feel human anymore, and I don't think I could care less. But I remember everything vividly about my old life."

Celine continued to play. Her shoulder wounds had healed. Simon could see two lumps on her forehead now, which would soon emerge as the beginnings of horns. Reaching up to touch his own little goat antlers, a tsunami of dread washed through his gut.