enough to defend all of Hell without having to use physical violence? Only the Minotaur.”
The Minotaur drew his black lips back and bared his yellow teeth in something that approximated a grin.
“Satan rules!” came a fourth voice.
The Minotaur reached into his loincloth again.
“You no admit defeat to Minotaur?” he asked Michael.
“I’m hardly defeated, you overgrown cow,” Michael said.
“Then me challenge you...to Monopoly!”
The Minotaur slammed a Monopoly board onto the tiny bridge table and the blood drained out of Michael’s face.
“No, not Monopoly,” he said. “ Anything but Monopoly. It’s a terrible game. It’s horrible. It takes forever and everyone plays with different rules and it...it brings out the worst in anyone who touches it. No Monopoly.”
“You say you beat Minotaur in anything!” the Minotaur hooted. “Now you beat Minotaur in Monopoly or you a dum-dum fathead!”
“He’s got you there,” Satan said, from the sidelines. “Is Heaven’s champion a dum-dum fathead?”
Michael didn’t move.
“Minotaur let you be car,” the Minotaur said. “Minotaur be doggie. Pope be banker”
And he set up the board.
The second it was evident that Monopoly was going to be played the demons began to cheer in earnest. One stood up, and said, “Yay.” And then others and then more and more and more until the hideous sound of their hopeful cheers issued from every deformed mouth, from every face-hole and noise organ, every trunk and snout. From every multi-mouthed horror and flatulent, Hellish sphincter came the roar and bellow of Hell’s cheerleading squad as every awful demon cheered the Minotaur. Because there is no game more demonic, more torturous, more beneficial to Hell’s interests than Monopoly.
The angels tried to control the demonic side of Madison Square Garden, laying about them with their whips but then the growling, screeching, cawing, hooting, hollering, ululating swarm of demons made them step back and soon, like rich white people abandoning the inner cities for the suburbs, they fled to their side of the stadium for their own safety and protection. Among the demons a new feeling was spreading. The demons were feeling it for the first time in months. Years. Maybe even centuries. They rolled on the ground, they jumped up and down, they pumped their appendages and sprayed their victory stenches. They were drunk on hope. And the Minotaur wasn’t going to let them down.
In the first round, he rolled double sixes, bought the power company and then rolled a four, landing on St. James Place. He bought both of them, snuffling to himself in delight at having bought some of the most commonly landed on properties in his first move. Michael ignored the Minotaur’s chuckles of triumph and rolled a four: Income Tax. He paid two hundred dollars into Community Chest. On his next move, the Minotaur rolled a four and landed on Free Parking, scooping up the money Michael had just put down. Throughout the stands, the demons cheered. The angels booed, but their booing had a nervous quality to it that hadn’t been there before.
“That’s not fair,” Michael said.“You can’t land on Free Parking the first time around. That’s not how it’s played.”
The Pope checked the rule book. Nothing there about not landing on Free Parking the first time around.
“The move stands,” he pontificated.
The Minotaur grinned. The demons cheered louder. Michael sulked.
The game was afoot.
Inside the Sky Box, Barachiel was stress-eating kettle corn.
“How do we win?” Raphael asked. “I mean, what’s the plan? Can someone get Gabriel up here? Or Michael? They’ve got a plan for this, right.”
“I think we are outside the plan now,” Jegudiel said.
“Outside the plan? That’s not good. That’s really, really, really not good,” Raphael gibbered.
“I fear that our brothers have overreached,” Jegudiel said. “It is what I warned you all of.”
“Shut your mouth!” Barachiel screamed, bits of kettle corn spraying from his lips. “Just shut it, you smug, thirty-six-winged twit! We’re not beaten yet. We’re at war. This just means the fight is going to go harder.”
“I am only stating the obvious,” Jegudiel said. “All along, you have chosen to be blind to the flaws in Michael’s plan. After all, we are fighting the Deceitful One. He is as cunning and resourceful as we are. Maybe even more so.”
Barachiel grabbed Jegudiel by the collar and pulled him forward until their noses were touching.
“If you want me to rip off your wings and feed them to you, then you just keep talking,” he snarled.
“Violence is the first resort of tiny minds,” Metatron said. “This is an interesting position in which we find ourselves but it