‘It’s a special one I think, might not be able to get it at the pet shop. I put it under the sink.’ He gestured in the general direction of the kitchen, his eyes on the smug looking cat.
‘Oh, you can get this most anywhere,’ Joy said. ‘Be back soon.’
She gave the cat a last scratch under the chin and left.
‘I guess she likes having a cat. But don’t get any ideas okay? That’s my girlfriend and we sleep in the bed, no cats allowed.’ He could have sworn he heard the cat snigger.
CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE: ABADDON
‘That was close!’ T.G. Master said when they met in the old ones’ reception area.
‘Tell me about it.’ Stan shrugged. ‘But I did what was needed.’
‘Good, they’ll be pleased.’ T.G. Master gestured toward the wide imposing doors.
‘Not as pleased as when they hear the rest of what I’ve got to tell them.’
‘If you two gentlemen would please follow me,’ said the dark-haired beauty the old men had serve as their receptionist, and security.
‘Hello Leilah, I thought we were in the main meeting room,’ T.G. Master said.
They followed her down a corridor, Stan studying the narrow line down the back of her silk tights.
‘The old ones didn’t think they all needed to be there. You’re seeing Master Miller.’ She smiled over her shoulder, her blue eyes intense, and frowned warningly at Stan, who looked up at her face and gave her a huge innocent grin.
‘We expected to see them all with this news,’ T.G. Master continued.
‘They don’t think it warrants that kind of attention.’
‘It’s just that…’ T.G. Master began.
She rounded on them and stopped dead, making them stagger as they pulled up short, trying not to collide with her.
‘Look, it’s a minor thing you’ve done, small by comparison. Yes, we appreciate your hard work, but calling all of the old ones to the table about a death they told you to make happen seems excessive don’t you think.’ She smiled despite the tone.
T.G. Master scowled, he’d been assured he was very important given the number of souls he collected with his book. He had gone to them with his idea, he’d given them the method through which they could change the way Hell was run. It was the only way he knew to climb the ladder, both in his career and personal life.
Stan continued grinning at her. He was sure she’d captured his heart and wasn’t about to let it go. She opened the door at the end of the corridor and ushered them into a tiny reception area, instructing them to be seated. She had a brief conversation with the washed-out redhead covering the narrow reception desk. And then, with a final wicked grin in Stan’s direction, exited the room.
‘You should be careful you know; she eats her lovers,’ the washed-out redhead told him. ‘Please come through.’
Stan gulped and got up, straightening his suit. T.G. Master looked like he wanted to laugh, a lot. They took seats in front of the empty office desk. It was beginning to feel like they’d undertaken a trek across the globe to find an underwhelming signpost.
They heard a toilet flush, taps running, and a side door opened to an older man with greying hair and huge black eyes. Wiping his hands down the front of his suit.
‘Stupid dryer never works, no matter how many times maintenance comes to fix it,’ Master Miller said. ‘Now, you have news for me.’
He took the large leather seat opposite and poured himself a drink from the decanter on his desk. He didn’t offer them one.
‘The job is done.’ T.G. Master began. ‘And book sales are through the roof, we’re on the cusp of a New York Times bestseller.’
‘Great news,’ Master Miller said, tipping his glass in T.G. Master’s direction. A small salute. ‘Keep up the good work.’
‘Thank you,’ T.G. Master said.
‘And Stan, the job you were asked to do, anything to tell?’ he topped up his drink. ‘Went as planned, did it?’
‘Yes, it went as planned. He’d left a stack of books for Mike. One was the Soul Game, the others were Demon interest books that it wouldn’t hurt Mike to read, might keep him occupied. One was the Demonicon though, I took that one, wouldn’t want him figuring out what kind of Demon his father is,’ Stan said ‘And the letter he’d tucked inside. Seems he didn’t think Mike should continue to work for us selling the books.’
‘I don’t think he’ll keep working for you,’ said Master Miller. ‘Although he has managed to prevent the watcher from seeing into the apartment, he’s beginning to grow suspicious of the book’s abilities. You will likely receive his resignation in a few days. Accept it.’
‘Yes, sir,’ T.G. Master said, confused but compliant. He thought they needed to keep Mike as part of the sales team, moving him up to a more senior, and yet controlled, position. A pawn for them to manipulate.
‘Now, the letter you found?’ he turned back to Stan with a raised eyebrow.
Stan pulled the thick letter out of his inside jacket pocket and handed it over.
‘Turns out Sparky was a distant relative of Mike’s mother, he was giving him all the details of their inherited abilities and who he could contact if he needed assistance. Somehow Sparky knew his days were numbered.’
‘It’s one of their abilities, the foresight. Never gamble with a Faroe Demon, you rarely win.’ Master Miller chuckled. ‘Well done for grabbing the letter and the book.’
They sat in silence for a moment as Master Miller seemed to think through what he’d learned. When he began speaking it was as if many voices spoke through him.
‘Continue to sell and promote your book Mr. Master. Recruit more Demons, collect more souls, only with vast numbers can we be taken seriously. And we must be taken seriously if we’re to take over Hell.’ He paused, turning to Stan. ‘Contact the girlfriend, tell her how worried you are about Mike, how you think he’s about to make a huge mistake handing in his notice. Be worried but not overly worried, you need to plant some seeds of doubt, make her want to put things right. We need her to play the game.’
‘Why do you need her to play?’ Stan asked puzzled. She was just another human with a soul, nothing special.
‘For leverage. We can offer to return her soul for his compliance.’ There was a low chuckle from Master Miller. ‘If he won’t come to our side willingly we’ll force him to play the game. We can gain the same results if we own his soul.’
‘I see,’ said Stan. T.G. Master nodded in agreement.
‘So!’ Master Miller clapped his hands. ‘I think that’s all for today. Send a report at the end of the month.’
And just like that, they were dismissed. T.G. Master began to wonder whether they thought he was important at all, and not just another minion, he had his doubts. Up until that meeting he’d been included in the higher up decisions, had secret meetings Stan knew nothing about, privy to their private conversations. But it looked like he’d just been shunted to a backseat, now they had him doing what they wanted him to. But he wanted the prestige they could give him when they took over hell, he wanted the riches and fame they’d promised, and so he kept his mouth shut.
CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO: BLACK
Task: You must be both spiritually lazy and physically lazy today. No religion except half-heartedly and no doing anything that could be considered an unnecessary movement. Don’t get out of bed unless you absolutely must, like, to use the bathroom or get a packet of biscuits from the kitchen. Phone in sick and have a duvet day.
This task wasn’t going to be hard at all. The way her head was banging she wouldn’t be getting out of bed before tea time. The furthest she went was the toilet and to get a glass of water. Before falling asleep again.
It was full dark before she bothered getting up and only then because the caravan felt freezing and her stomach was suggesting rather loudly that she put something in it. She dragged the duvet into the main part of the caravan and sat huddled in it as she lit the fire. It was weird sitting there in the middle of the
freezing cold caravan, on the floor, wrapped in a duvet with no lights on except the fire. She didn’t move for a while, just sat staring into the flames and wondering what her life gift would be. The book had said it would be the thing she most needed and the author suggested she let instinct decide.
Who was the author? They said they were the ultimate gamer now. That they’d played over ten times, that they had all the gifts, and yet she’d never heard of them before. The name wasn’t familiar. Surely someone who had all the gifts would be famous for something. The name on everyone’s lips – richest, most loved, lucky, awesome.
After a while she got up and made herself some food, her stomach could be ignored no longer. She would have to go back to the food bank to restock soon. She realised she rather liked living on the farm in her little caravan. Of course, it could do with some improvements, but it wasn’t hers. Maybe if she won money she would buy her own caravan or a little cottage somewhere remote with a few animals to keep her company. And pass her driving test so she could go to the nearest town to buy groceries. She wasn’t a gardener, there was no way she would ever be able to grow her own food and survive away from civilization. A thought flickered through her mind. A thought about Conner. About how he might fit into her new life.
Task: Get into an argument with someone, it should be over something silly but end up with unnecessary shouting. You are right, not them!
She was going to go visit her ex, at his workplace, and ask for her Guns’n’Roses CD back. She’d always liked that CD. She hadn’t been in the store since their breakup so there were more than a few strange looks. But she ignored them and went to the outdoor section. That’s pretty much where they always had him working. There was a chance he wasn’t even there but she had to do the task today and this was the best place to start looking for him.
‘Hey,’ she said when she saw him chatting with another member of staff. A pretty girl she was sure was his new girlfriend.
‘What do you want?’ he asked, and gestured to the girl, Holly it said on her name tag, to go somewhere else.
‘I want my Guns’n’Roses CD back.’ She was calm and it sounded like a reasonable request.
‘I don’t have it with me, I’m at work.’
‘Isn’t it still in your car? You were always listening to it after all,’ she said.
‘No, Holly doesn’t like rock music, we don’t listen to that.’
‘So what did you do with it?’
‘I gave it to my brother. I’ll have to get it back off him and post it to you or something.’
‘Post it to me? Why don’t you just drop it round?’ she frowned. He lived about twenty minutes away by car.
‘Because I don’t want to be seen anywhere near you.’
‘After you ruined my reputation you mean?’ okay, not so reasonable.
‘Holly doesn’t want me anywhere near you. She says you’re a bad influence.’
Holly was going to get a smack in the face if he mentioned her again.
‘You’re the bad influence!’ she snapped. ‘You’re the asshole who took pictures of me sleeping and posted them all over the web with your stupid fantasies. Only you made out they were things we’d done. Not the stuff you’d asked to do but I’d said no to.’
‘Kelly not here.’ He was glancing around, trying to act like she was the one in the wrong, but there were too many people watching.
‘You ruined my reputation, you turned my own parents against me, and now you’re telling me you can’t bring me my CD because Holly said I was a bad influence?’ Well, there was the raised voices part. ‘Does she know what you really like? What you’ll end up doing to her whether she likes it or not? How you’ll twist everything up to suit your own needs and your own purposes.’
‘Look, it was a mistake, I just made that stuff up to get back at you.’ He was pleading.
‘You posted online as if you were me. You pretended to be me.’ There were a few red faces in the growing crowd of spectators. ‘You are the biggest dickhead I have ever met, EVER!’
‘And you are a frigid bitch! You would never try anything I wanted to do!’ he screamed back at her.
She didn’t answer, just smiled and walked away. Only it wasn’t that easy to walk away. Holly caught up with her in the car park.
‘What do you think you’re doing coming in here and telling all those lies about my boyfriend?’
‘They’re not lies, and if you have any sense you’ll dump him now and move on,’ Kelly told her tiredly. If love was blind…she shouldn’t judge, she’d been blind to his ways too until it had got out of hand and the fights had started.
‘You need to leave him alone and never come near him again or I’ll rip your head off.’ Oh, more unnecessary shouting, excellent. Kelly wondered if she could have extra points for managing two arguments.
‘I don’t want to go anywhere near him, I don’t want to be in the same building as him, but I do want my stuff back, I think he’s had it long, enough don’t you? You’re probably sleeping in the duvet sets I bought, sitting on the sofa my wages paid for before he lost me my job.’ Kelly smirked at the girls deflating anger. ‘You probably even eat out of my bowls with my spoons.’
Holly just stood there, not sure who to believe, disgusted.
‘I thought it was a forever thing once. I thought we’d never break up and that we were perfectly matched. Funny how things turn out right?’ she turned and walked out to the street. The next bus would be along any minute.
CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE: PINK
Stan waited at the door, noting the protection spells that surrounded and covered it. Mike had been careful. He could hear movement and wondered what was taking so long.
‘Hi,’ said the bleary-faced woman when the door opened.
‘Oh, sorry did I wake you?’ Stan asked, noting the rumpled clothes and hair stuck to the side of her creased face.
‘I had a hard shift at work, thought I’d take a nap. What can I do for you?’ she asked.
‘You’re Joy, right?’ he paused whilst she nodded. ‘I’m Stan, Mike’s best friend.’
‘We’ve never met before?’ it was more of a question.
‘No, sorry. I took a job in the city and moved away, but I bumped into Mike the other day.’ Stan smiled his warmest, friendliest, I’m not a mass murderer smile. ‘We’ve been chatting a bit, haven’t had the catch up yet but, er…’
Stan looked at his shoes, a sort of boyish I did something wrong but don’t want to tell mum kinda look.
‘I wanted to talk to you about him,’ he gushed all at once as if that was the only way he could say it.
‘Oh, he went away to a work thing; he’s been super stressed.’ She glanced back into the apartment, deciding. ‘Look, why don’t you come in and have a cuppa. Maybe we can get to the bottom of what’s wrong?’
‘That would be amazing if you don’t mind that is?’ Stan said. He was still going for the shy boy aura; these human girls often fell for it and she seemed like the type.
‘Not at all. It’ll help wake me up.’ She gestured him in and went to the kitchen. Stan took a seat at the breakfast bar.
‘It’s just, he seemed so excited about the job when I first bumped into him. But when I saw him last he was on edge and cagey. I’ve never known him be like that.’ Stan said, messing with an unopened cat toy.
‘It didn’t go well. There was an argument and he left early. He won’t say much but he doesn’t think everything they’re doing is above board you know?’ she smiled and poured boiling water into two mugs. ‘Something about not being behind what they’re selling.’
‘I haven’t read the book yet myself, I bought a copy when Mike said he was selling them. Haven’t found the time to get started, though,’ he said accepting a mug of tea. He hated tea, especially this herbal crap. ‘I’ve heard it’s changing lives. Seems strange that one company meet up would set him so completely against it.’
‘I know,’ she sighed. ‘I don’t think he’s been sleeping w
ell either, maybe that has something to do with it. He hasn’t said anything about quitting so I don’t think we need to worry about it too much. Maybe he just needs to take a few days off.’
‘Could be, maybe suggest phoning in sick.’ He grinned like he was joking. ‘It’s not unreasonable to take sick days due to stress. He could say it was because of the death of his friend.’
‘I’ll suggest it to him.’ She smiled. ‘So, tell me what you do and how you met Mike.’
For the next hour, they chatted about less important things, or so Joy thought. With every tale he told, Stan added things she hadn’t known about Mike, and hinted at personality traits he wouldn’t show if he was keeping his darkness on lockdown.
By the end of their conversation, she was looking way more concerned than she had when he’d first sat down. He hoped it would be enough, he couldn’t bear the thought of having to come back and suffer more of this tea. Joy was about to have her world turned upside down. She was going to need the book.
CHAPTER SIXTY-FOUR: MAËL
Mike had told Joy he had a work thing. He would be gone all day he said. In reality, he went to the old house. The estate his mother died in. The house that had been left to him but he’d never lived in, not wanting to remember the pain of those last days. But that morning he’d woken with a need to be close to her and away from the rest of the world. She was buried on the land that surrounded the property and it was here he sat, against her gravestone, his books surrounding him, a flask of coffee beside him. Trying to make sense of what he knew.
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