“Yeah. I get it.”
“Are we done here?”
“I was done five minutes ago.”
Wells takes my arm and leads me aside.
“Go in there and win today. The Shonin isn’t looking so good. He’s drinking that lousy poison book because you’re not coming up with the goods. Get something useful today.”
“I’m working on it.”
“Don’t work on it. Do it.”
He lets go and moves off with his suits. I’ll give him one thing. He’s got quite a grip.
EVERY TIME I walk into Mason’s cell I half expect to see one of the meat cathedrals. Pink light glowing off his smug face. Flayed guards hung upside down in narrow naves. It’s almost disappointing when the door opens and it’s the same flat fluorescent light as always. I think I’d prefer an Angra butcher shop. We’d be somewhere real, where the consequences of our games—the ones on the table and the ones we’re playing in each other’s head—are laid out, bare and raw, on cards made of skin and chips carved from bones. But no, we’re in a dismal cell, playing Old Maid like we have all the time in the world.
Mason is at his table, handcuffs secured to the top again. He doesn’t seem to mind. He looks up and smiles when he sees me.
Wells was telling the truth. Mason’s eye is black and the sclera is red from a broken blood vessel. He moves from his shoulders, like he has a stiff back. Well, my hand still itches a little from where I punched out the car window, so in my book we’re even.
There’s a deck of cards on the table.
“More poker?” I say. “I already beat you at that. Wait. I forgot. It’s all the Infinite Game. I’ll have to infinitely beat you again.”
“These cards aren’t exactly what we should be playing with, but we can make them work,” he says. Then his voice goes raspy and guttural. “The game is called Take and Give.”
Mason is speaking Hellion. I forgot that he could do that. Hearing it come out of his mouth brings back bad memories of him running Hell, me chasing Alice’s soul, and losing my arm.
I speak Hellion back to him. Whoever is monitoring the room is scrambling for dictionaries and flipping on supercomputers for voice analysis, but they’re going to be shit out of luck.
“A Hellion game? I never heard of it.”
“Aristocrats played it, but you killed off most of the people who might’ve taught it to you.”
“How does it work?”
Mason cuts the cards, breaks the deck, and slides half the cards to me.
“I take something from you and then I give you something. A card in this case. Hellion cards are more interesting, but we’ll just have to make do. You take something from me and give me something. The one with the most at the end wins.”
“What am I giving and taking?”
“Anything.”
“That doesn’t make sense.”
“You’ll get the hang of it. I’ll go first so you’ll see how it works.”
He lays his hand on his cards.
“I take your heart and give you . . .”
He draws a card.
“A three of spades. Your turn.”
“That’s it? That doesn’t tell me anything.”
“Just try it.”
I keep waiting for him to laugh in my face and explain the real game, but he just sits there. I draw a card.
“I take your lace doily and give you . . .”
I throw down the card.
“A two of diamonds.”
“See? It’s easy. I take your eyes and . . .”
He draws a card.
“Give you an ace of clubs.”
I take a card.
“I take your bullshit and give you a nine of hearts.”
“Fun, isn’t it?”
“It’s fucking ridiculous.”
“I take your arrogance and give you a jack of hearts.”
“How do we know who’s won? How do we add up the points?”
“I’ll show you when we get through the deck. By the way, the winner gets to take one of the loser’s fingers. Your stunt last night is what reminded me of the game.”
“The guards won’t let us have knives.”
“Then the winner will just have to gnaw off his prize.”
We play a few more hands and the game doesn’t make any more sense than when we started. I can’t find a pattern in the taking or giving. Mason is tossing out numbers, body parts, places, and animals. There’s nothing I can do but follow his lead.
“I don’t know what the hell I’m doing.”
“Did you always know what you were doing in the arena? Just keep going.”
I draw a card.
“I don’t believe you about Candy, by the way.”
“Believe what you want. You heard what she said.”
“Whatever you drugged her with, it scrambled her brain. That wasn’t truth coming out. It was paranoid hallucinations or something.”
“She’s a creature that needs shelter. Her doctor friend, Kinski, died. You were convenient. Don’t mistake refuge for love.”
“I take you trying to mind-fuck me and give you a six of clubs.”
“You should take this more seriously. Remember sweet Alice? Thinking about her let me beat you once before. All these little people you think you care about now are ruining your concentration. Don’t make the same mistake you made eleven years ago.”
We run through a few more nonsense hands. I’m not going to win. I have to salvage something from this.
“Tell me about Blackburn.”
“The late great. What about him?”
“Why did you kill him?”
“Did I?”
He takes my soul and throws a five.
“Saint Nick sure did. And I know there’s not another Saint Nick because you have too big an ego for that.”
“The reason for killing Blackburn should be obvious. Without the Augur, the Sub Rosas will panic and split into factions, attacking each other. Of course, I’ve been busy. How do you know it wasn’t my friends who killed Blackburn?”
“Der Zorn Götter? Forget it. I’ve seen their hoodoo and it would take more than that to get to the Augur.”
“If anyone needed to get to him.”
“An inside job? Ishii is an asshole, but he’s better at his job than that.”
“Play,” he says.
“I take your sense of satisfaction and give you a queen of spades.”
“Now you’re talking,” says Mason. “Of course, what if Ishii was Saint Nick? For a few minutes, I mean.”
“Possession? I don’t buy it. One of his people would have noticed if he showed up for lunch with a chain saw and twenty feet of intestines.”
“I was just throwing out hypotheticals. No. Ishii isn’t a good candidate at all. No. You’d want someone who can come and go and get as close to Blackburn as they want.”
“Tuatha?”
Mason rests his hand on his cards for a minute before moving. His heart is beating faster.
“Poor dear. Having your soul ripped out the way Aelita did to her, well, you’re never quite right in the head again.”
“You made Tuatha kill her own husband?”
“I take your disbelief and give you a four of diamonds.”
He throws down the card.
“I didn’t say Tuatha was made to do anything. We were just speculating on the best subject for a possession. Besides, the key is in Hell.”
“But you know who has it. And you could get a message to them.”
“If you say so.”
“If Tuatha did it, where’s the body?”
“You’re not playing.”
“I take your lies and give you a ten of hearts.”
“The Blackburns have a lovely mansion,” he says. “You’d be surprised how well these modern garbage disposals deal with bones.”
I look at Mason, trying to read him. The light is shitty in here and I can’t get a good look at his eyes. But his heartbeat is up and he’s not sweating. It’s not fear that’s getting him excited.
I say, “What are the chances she’d ever remember doing something like that?”
He draws a breath. Moves his wrists in the cuffs where they’re rubbing the skin raw.