had taken hundreds of years before things got back on track. Nero didn’t want to see that happen again.
“We have no choice, sir,” he said. “We’ll have to unleash that hipster unless we can find an alternate Death today.”
“I will not have a Death who has a tattoo on his chest that says, ‘Strength & Respect’.”
“I don’t know if we have a choice, sir. Look around you. People are trickling in, but without any big disasters we’re going to fall behind. Death is an ever-unfolding mystery. It can’t just stop unfolding.”
“Can you do it?” Satan asked. “Just until we find someone permanent?”
“I was going to suggest you,” Nero said. “I can’t leave Hell.”
“I’ll get you a waiver.”
“But you’re the boss.”
“I have a strong belief in delegating.”
“You are the Lord of All Evil, Father of Lies, Bel, Behemoth, The Fallen One, the Prince of Darkness. Leviathan.”
“Okay, okay. Fine. Way to pass the buck. I’ll do it just like I do everything else around here.”
“Personally, I thought Nic Cage would have made for a compelling Death.”
“Who told you that?”
“I saw it on his Twitter feed. He thought it was a new Jerry Bruckheimer movie. Unfortunately, we’ve only just touched on the tip of the Problem Iceberg.”
“Do we have to touch on the rest? You do realize that was a Cherubim Summoning, right?”
“It’s about the Ultimate Death Match, sir. Without Death, we only have War and he won’t be wrestling for us this year. He’s decided to go on a biking tour of Iran. They’ve got some human rights violations that he’s really excited about.”
“What about Famine and Pestilence? They’ve got moves.”
“Famine is doing a walking tour of Somalia to work on her book about Central African cuisine and Pestilence has three months of vacation time due and she’s using it to go on a package tour of some of the most infectious cities in Canada. That’s all four Horsepeople of the Apocalypse, sir. Our entire first string.”
“But...” Satan wasn’t quite putting it together yet. “But who’s going to wrestle for Hell?”
“We should talk to the Minotaur.”
“There has to be someone else.”
“I don’t think there is, sir.”
“But everyone says he’s gone funny in the head,” Satan said. “I don’t know if I can handle that right now.”
“Sir, do you really think that avoiding your problems is a way to solve them?”
“Yes?”
“Sir, you have to confront this problem head on.”
“Fine,” Satan said. “Let’s go see the Minotaur.”
The Minotaur roared. It was a blood-chilling sound, as big as the Appalachian Mountains and as inhuman as a shark. The roar was one word, loud enough to burst your eardrums, powerful enough to vibrate your blood. And that word was:
“Uno!”
The centaurs threw down their cards in disgust as the Minotaur played his last card (a Wild Draw Four) and snuffled in delight.
“Me out!” the Minotaur crowed, and the centaurs drifted off, grumbling.
Satan and Nero approached.
“Hail, Minotaur,” Nero said.
“Hail, Minotaur,” Satan said.
“Hi,” the Minotaur said.
When Hell first opened for business the demons were already there, but some creatures came of their own volition, attracted by its dark energies. The Minotaur was one of them. By the time the deformed, bull-headed giant arrived in Hell he was already an object of so much fear and veneration that a black aura surrounded him. He was a nexus of power, made strong by the swirling force of the prayers of his uncountable victims. The Minotaur had stopped being a monster long ago and was now something like a demi-god, and demi-gods were not to be taken lightly. Unlike Death or the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, the Minotaur was not an employee. The Minotaur merely Was.
“We need to talk,” Satan said. “About the Ultimate Death Match.”
“Is wrestling,” the Minotaur said.
“It is wrestling,” Satan agreed. This was delicate. He’d never tried to compel one of Hell’s freeloading residents into action. His attitude had always been very Latin American in regard to inhabitants like the Minotaur: expect nothing, and you won’t be disappointed. But now he needed the Minotaur. This required diplomacy, and Satan was a terrible diplomat. That was more Nero’s realm.
“Did you know that you’ve never volunteered?” Nero asked. “Thousands of years you’ve been here, but you’ve never gone into the ring to fight against Heaven. War’s done it, Pestilence’s done it, Death’s done it for years. But you, the most terrifying and savage denizen of Hell, the Custodian of the Seventh Circle, have never entered the ring.”
“Hate violence,” the Minotaur said.
“But you’re in charge of the violent,” Satan pointed out.