wants there to be a show,” Gabriel said. “He wants to take on your best wrestler. He wants to pound the crud out of them in the ring. On live TV. That way there will be no doubt that our takeover of Hell is totally and completely legitimate.”
“Don’t be so sure of yourself,” Mary said.
“The little nun speaks,” Gabriel said.“Might I add a belated ‘thank you?’ We wouldn’t all be standing here if you hadn’t killed yourself so predictably. Offing Satan’s baby was exactly what we needed to get God on our side for this invasion. You people. You will do anything to get into Heaven. It’s sad, really. I mean, look at you. You could never afford it.”
Mary’s face turned red and she stared at the soiled carpet in shame. She felt like a fool.
“So go forth,” Gabriel said. “Train a wrestler. Give us some kind of a fight. It’ll be cute. And don’t worry about holding back. There’s not one of you who could possibly hurt us now. Not one.”
The Minotaur was playing Solitaire, but he wasn’t having much fun. All the souls had been reassigned to more traditional punishments when the angels came, and the demons had all been rounded up and sent to the Retraining and Attitude Adjustment Facility. A squad of angels had come to force the Minotaur to attend Training Workshops but they had mysteriously disappeared. The Heavenly Host had sent another squad and they had surrounded the Minotaur, who was doing a Word Scramble.
“Where are the angels we sent here to bring you into the light.” one of the angels, Mehumet, demanded.
The Minotaur had leaned to one side and farted out a fistful of feathers. The angels backed off and, after that, the Host had decided to simply leave the Minotaur alone.
But still, the Minotaur was not having very much fun playing Solitaire.
A shadow crept over the rock where his cards were spread.
“Minotaur,” a familiar voice said. “You are needed.”
“You just need to accept the fact that I am never coming back,” Death said.
He sat in his Rascal in the middle of the frozen field where lines of radioactive trucks and helicopters marched off into the distance. They were all ugly and utilitarian and all undeniably Soviet, broken down and abandoned. Around him stood hundreds of his ex-minions, men and women in sensible shoes and business casual attire. They all wore white gloves. Their meeting was taking place in the middle of the Rassoha Dump in the Zone of Alienation that surrounded Chernobyl. They wouldn’t be disturbed here. After they had stopped work and gone on strike, most of Death’s minions had retreated here where there was peace and quiet and zero chance of encountering any living beings. They passed their time playing chess, which Death thought was very pretentious but he wasn’t going to call them on it because right now he needed their help.
“We made a vow,” the head minion said. “And we’re as serious about our vows as you are about yours.”
“I am asking you to break your vow,” Death said.
“We couldn’t possibly do that,” the minion said. “Not even for you.”
“Look,” Death said. “I understand that you’re serious about your vows. So let me make you a deal. You won’t do the killing. You’ll just do the gathering and the training. I’ll be the one who actually extinguishes their lives.”
The minions pondered this for a long time. Finally, one spoke.
“And this would only be in Brooklyn?” she asked.
“Brooklyn, Portland, Austin and San Francisco,” Death said. “And maybe Berlin. But that’s all.”
“We’ll have to think it over,” the elected spokesminion said. But Death could see in his eyes that this was just an attempt to make it look good. His minions had already made up their minds. Death and Company would ride together one last time.
“It’s absolutely impossible,” Johnn Sharp, the executive director of the Satan Prince of Darkness Defense Fund said to his shadowy visitor, who was seated in the interview chair of Sharp’s well-appointed office done up in deceptively expensive Danish Moderne.
“Even for me?” the shadowy visitor asked.
“Even if you are who you claim to be, I cannot disperse these monies,” Johnn Sharp said. “We are barely staying afloat as it is.”
“I heard you’re taking in close to twenty million dollars per day,” the visitor said. “It’s been almost a week. You’ve got money.”
“I only wish that were the case,” Johnn Sharp said. “First, you have to factor in our overhead. This office and this staff do not