The Soul Game

by McQueen, K. T.

  ‘Can I offer you a drink sir, the weather’s awful tonight,’ the housekeeper gestured Dommiel into the room and took his coat.

  ‘I wouldn’t say no to a brandy.’ He smiled. ‘The weather is to be expected given the heart in question.’

  They nodded to each other as if they shared a secret and Mike felt left out. Once again Demons were talking about things he didn’t understand, if only his mother had taught him more.

  ‘I have been sent to assist you,’ Dommiel said as he raised his hands to the fire.

  ‘How?’ Mike asked narrowing his eyes.

  ‘First I’m going to explain what happens to the souls of Demons when they enter hell.’ Dommiel looked over at him.

  ‘To convince me not to quit playing I presume,’ Mike muttered.

  ‘To enlighten you.’ Dommiel smiled.

  ‘Right,’ Mike said.

  Dommiel waited as the housekeeper placed a large glass of brandy on the side table and then retreated.

  ‘When they first enter hell they must pass me. Their story determines where they are sent. A Demon who has lived a full and proper life, worthy of their station, goes into the higher realms where they spend the rest of their existence in comfort,’ Dommiel told him.

  ‘And what if they didn’t live a full and proper life?’ Mike asked.

  ‘Like you, you mean?’ Dommiel asked.

  ‘What?’ Mike sat forward, shocked. He hadn’t meant him. ‘What’s wrong with the life I’ve lead?’

  ‘It wasn’t the one you were meant for. You keep insisting on living like a human and denying what you are,’ Dommiel said, careful not to give away what he thought about that.

  ‘I hardly had a choice.’ Mike sniffed.

  ‘You hardly had a choice when you were growing up. After that, you had plenty of choices.’ Dommiel sighed. ‘Your mother never wanted you to deny who you are, only keep you safe from those who would kill you before you were of an age where you could take care of yourself.’

  Mike didn’t respond. He had no idea which Demons his mother knew or had been on friendly terms with, and she was no longer around to ask.

  ‘The souls who didn’t live full and proper lives end up in the deepest cells of hell. Their remaining years drawn out with torture and requests for repentance. Often they are the ones who thought God would allow them into Heaven if only they behaved themselves.’

  ‘And that’s not what happens?’ Mike hadn’t thought about what happened after death, he hadn’t seen death as an issue given how long he would live.

  ‘They’re Demons. They belong in hell. Even God agrees on that one,’ Dommiel explained. ‘Over time even the souls wither and die.’

  ‘Sounds pleasant.’

  Dommiel frowned at Mike, realising this wasn’t working. The threat of what would happen to his soul wasn’t enough to convince him to continue playing the game.

  ‘Look, I know why you came here. You want to prevent me from losing my soul and dying a horrible death. But the truth is I just don’t care anymore,’ Mike said standing up and going to the window. ‘How can I be responsible for tearing apart the love of two people when I have loved and lost myself?’

  ‘I understand,’ Dommiel said.

  ‘Do you?’ Mike muttered.

  ‘If you win the game I can help you get revenge on those who took Joy from you. And for everyone whose lives have been torn apart or ruined because of the book.’ Dommiel stood too. ‘You can get those responsible for the underhandedness that got the books into so many human hands, for the trickery they used to set you on this path.’

  Mike turned to face him, frowning, wondering.

  ‘They think their behaviour is making them rich and powerful. If they’re left to continue the whole system as we know it will collapse,’ Dommiel said passionately. ‘At the moment the cells are overflowing with the souls of humans who failed to believe they had a soul, or that it was worth more. Humans who couldn’t complete all the tasks. There are so many human souls down there I had to open the oldest of holding cells, move the lowest of Demons to better quarters, all so the human souls could be contained.’

  Mike couldn’t imagine what Dommiel was describing, he had no concept of the true size of hell.

  ‘There are Demons dying because of playing this game. The souls of the Demons are worth so much more because they know what happens if they lose. Your soul is worth Hell itself. And they want it,’ Dommiel says. ‘Joy didn’t complete the tasks by herself, she was helped by Demons.’

  ‘They tricked her into playing and then helped her to get what she wanted?’ Mike asked. ‘What would be the point of that?’

  ‘To make you play.’

  ‘To make me play,’ Mike repeated, falling back into his chair. ‘They think my soul will give them control of Hell.’

  ‘It’s what they believe, yes.’

  ‘But not true?’ Mike asked a little more hopeful.

  ‘Not entirely. They cannot influence the colour choices of Demons playing the game. You remember how it was different when you had to pick?’ Mike nodded and Dommiel continued. ‘It’s less about what you most want and more about finding who you really are. And whilst they have some say over the tasks they cannot influence the outcome.’

  ‘But I have to finish playing the game?’ Mike asked.

  ‘It’s the only way to beat them,’ Dommiel nodded.

  Mike slumped even further into the chair.

  ‘But I can’t complete the final task. I can’t break two hearts forever.’

  ‘I will help you if you will help us, those of us who live happily in Hell,’ Dommiel said.

  ‘Well, that seems like a contradiction in terms,’ Mike said.

  ‘If you’d been allowed to spend time there you would know it’s not all fire and brimstone. Whole families reside down there. I have a wife, children. If these Demons are not disrupted all that will change,’ Dommiel said.

  The future of the Demons who live happily in Hell, and the souls of mortals playing the game, were at the mercy of Mike. He alone could decide what happened next. But all he was thinking about was Joy in a cottage with a man she was tricked into meeting, tricked into loving, tricked into spending the rest of her days with. Joy living the life they’d always dreamt of together with the wrong man. Even if she didn’t want him anymore, even if they could never even be friends, she should have the right to choose freely whether that was the life she wanted. He could be her knight in shining armour one last time.

  ‘Okay, I’m in. But only if we can find an acceptable way of completing the final task.’ Mike grinned, feeling a little better for having a purpose again.

  Despite his new determination, Mike was unsure. What was being asked was an awful thing to do to two people so in love. But Dommiel had found a way. Sometimes love can be bad for people. It can be all consuming and bind them to each other, unable to escape the other’s clutches, not wanting to. But staying with that person could be harmful to both parties. Even if they themselves don’t realise it.

  Dommiel had found a couple tearing each other apart in their all-consuming need.

  ‘They’re soul mates, but that doesn’t mean they are meant to be together,’ Dommiel told Mike.

  ‘I thought that was exactly what it meant.’

  ‘Soul mates are drawn to each other, like moths to a flame, as soon as they get within range. They need to be in each other’s presence and hate being apart,’ Dommiel said. ‘But it’s more about a past life connection and unfinished business. A true relationship that can span the test of lifetimes is much subtler. Those involved can spend time away from each other content that the other will never lie, cheat, or be disloyal in any way. They’re always connected but don’t need to live in each other’s pockets.’

  ‘I thought the passion was what everyone was meant to be looking for.’ Feeling guilty all over again about his night with Ginger. He wasn’t the one for Joy after all, even fate decreed it.

  ‘Oh the passion is still ther
e, but it’s balanced. It fills both parties with a desire to be better, do more, live more fully.’ Dommiel shrugged. ‘I’m not saying the whole soul mate thing isn’t great for some people but in others what was once a desperate need to kill the other in one lifetime becomes a desperate need to rip their clothes off in this lifetime.’

  ‘You mean, in a previous life these two were enemies?’ Mike said, shocked. Peering into the worn-down building where a young couple sat either end of a faded pink sofa in front of an old TV. Microwave meals balanced wherever they could, smiling at each other in anticipation.

  ‘In their last incarnation, they spent every day plotting to kill the other. The life before that they were best friends until one stole the other’s wife.’ Dommiel stared at the pair as if seeing them in every incarnation at once.

  ‘How do you know that?’ Mike asked.

  ‘Because I meet the souls as they enter Hell.’

  ‘Surely to get reincarnated they have to go to heaven?’ Mike asked.

  ‘No.’ Dommiel shook his head. ‘You have so much to learn.’

  Mike knew it was true. For all the years, he’d lived, he knew barely anything about the rules beyond human life. He’d never cared before. But now it was important.

  ‘So how will breaking them apart, breaking their hearts affect them?’ Mike asked.

  ‘I’m hoping it will break the cycle. Each time they come to earth they have a lesson to learn to help them reach the next stage in their spiritual growth. They all come to earth to learn something and can’t move on until they do. These two have been stuck in the same cycle for lifetimes, so engrossed in the other that they can’t move on to a better lifetime, a better lesson.’

  ‘What is their lesson?’ Mike asked.

  ‘I don’t know. That is something they agreed with themselves before they came to earth in this form. I just see them repeating the same mistakes.’ Dommiel shrugged, moving closer. ‘Obviously, I can’t tell you how to do it, only that to break these two apart will be saving them, in this lifetime and the next.’

  ‘I’m still going to hate doing it,’ Mike said, taking one last look into the room.

  ‘Well, however you do it, you need to do it now or your time will run out,’ Dommiel said. ‘I will see you again though I’m sure.’

  He slapped Mike on the back and smiled.

  ‘Thanks,’ Mike managed to say before the Demon vanished. ‘Now all I’ve got to do is use my Demon charms to best effect.’

  Mike walked around to the front of the dilapidated house and knocked on the door.

  She was still screaming and clawing at him as he left. The door clattered in its frame when she relented and broke down in a heap on the porch. Letting go of the back of his coat and hair.

  ‘How could you?’ She sobbed at Mike. ‘I know what you are. I know what you did. How could you make me do that, feel that? How will I ever forget? I loved him, we were going to get married and have children.’

  ‘In this squalor? You were going to bring children into the world and make them live here?’ Mike stood staring at the pitiful heap on the porch. ‘You don’t work, you don’t clean, you don’t even take care of yourself.’

  ‘I used to, I used to work hard, I had money, I looked good. Hot even. But then he came along and none of that mattered anymore. It was just us two together forever.’

  ‘You were killing each other.’ Mike frowned. ‘When was the last time you visited family or went out with friends?’

  ‘I don’t have any other friends and my family didn’t approve of him so we stopped visiting.’ She sobbed more. ‘Why did you make him go?’

  ‘Listen to me, if you go back to him you will never have the life you dream of.’ Mike had glimpsed it in her head. ‘And he will never have the life he dreamed of. They are not the same dreams.’

  He felt dirty, disgusting for what he’d done.

  ‘I hate you!’ she screamed at him.

  He hated himself too but he said nothing more and stepped down off the porch. Further up the street he came across the guy, dishevelled looking and carrying a single bulging suitcase. Mike hadn’t realised he’d come this way; he might have avoided it if he had.

  ‘You fucking man whore!’ the guy screamed at him, flinging down his suitcase and ignoring it as it burst its seams, spilling his crumpled clothes over the pavement. He flew at Mike, who seemed frozen to the spot, and threw a wild haymaker. It hit Mike square on the jaw but he didn’t protest, just went down like a regular human and let the guy kick and punch at him. Yelling and swearing as he was, his hits had little impact, he was too angry to be effective. So, Mike just curled up in a foetal position and took it. Feeling like he deserved much worse.

  The guy wore himself out and staggered back away from Mike. Leaning against the bus shelter and shoving ineffectively at his misplaced clothes with one dirty sneaker.

  ‘I can’t believe you paid her,’ he panted at Mike. Wiping sweat and tears from his face. ‘I thought she was the one. That she really loved me.’

  Mike got up and straightened out his clothes and hair, shrugged at the guy and continued on his way.

  ‘That’s it?’ The guy was yelling from the bus stop. ‘Nothing to say?’

  The voice seemed to be getting louder but Mike didn’t bother turning to look. Which was a mistake as a second later something hit him in the back of the head and he went down to the pavement. His face connecting solidly, blood splattering from his nose. The guy had got his second wind.

  As Mike turned his head to the side, trying to avoid the sneakers pounding into his prone body, he saw a pair of bare feet beneath rolled up white trousers walking along the grass verge on the other side of the road. He glanced up at his father and the pain he felt, the mixed-up emotions, the harrowing self-doubt, grew fuzzy and dim. As if they were the background noise.

  His father nodded and walked on. Mike felt a flare of irritation, ignoring the continued battery he pushed himself to his feet, brushed down his clothes, straightened his hair and nose, before turning to the guy. The guy stopped as he caught Mike’s eye. Arm raised ready to throw another wild punch, other hand clinging to what appeared to be a brick. He just stopped stock still and stared right back into Mike’s gaze.

  ‘That’s enough,’ Mike said.

  The guy nodded. Dropping his hand and the brick as Mike walked away.

  CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED & FOUR: ABADDON

  ‘Oh my god this is amazing. Did you see that?’ Stan was yelling across the room. ‘I didn’t think he would go through with it but that was truly Demonic!’

  ‘Worthy of the darkest regions of hell,’ T.G. Master called back.

  ‘I can’t believe he just lay there and took two beatings.’ Ginger sniffed, arms folded, pouty faced.

  ‘Aw, don’t worry my little angel, you can have him all to yourself soon enough,’ Stan called to her.

  ‘Those two were so hot for each other!’ Dom was saying almost to himself. ‘How on earth did he know what to say to break them up?’

  ‘He lived as a human!’ Stan laughed. ‘He learned how they think. He might even be an asset when he understands why we’re doing what we’re doing.’

  The office was crowded with girls, Demons, and co-conspirators. The drink was flowing; the food was plentiful and the music rocked the whole room. The party seemed to be going on and on, day after day, night after night, they were nearing the finish line. Meetings were still being had, books were still being sold, but all of it had this continued party atmosphere. Very soon everything was going to change. They were getting careless.

  ‘Unlikely,’ T.G. Master said, unheard by anyone. He saw the look in Mike’s eyes too. He saw just how deep and dark Hell could be and he felt a shiver of fear run down his spine. A feeling he had never known in his very long life. It was exhilarating, and yet…

  CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED & FIVE: MAËL

  Dommiel opened the gates wide and stepped aside. His bow so low his head almost reached the floor. His assistant fol
lowed suit but couldn’t help glance up at the man walking through. Not a soul as they normally saw come through the gates but a Demon in human form. His darkness at the surface. Danger, knowing and controlled fury in every crackling surface. This was a Demon to follow. This was the one true Prince of Hell – The Maël. They said a prince could show himself in any form.

  The Prince walked past the lined pit guards, all bowing respectfully low. Dommiel following along behind.

  ‘They’re ready,’ Dommiel informed him as he reached the raised bridge above the pits.

  They gazed up at him, human souls aching to be free, to understand what happened, why it happened.

  They walked on, to the Demon soul pits. A much more intense location, the Prince gazed at their strange forms and nodded. They bowed to him. They too had been tricked out of life, they would help him for the pleasure of getting revenge on the ones that did this to them. The noise was ear-splitting as all souls began to clamber and scream. They wanted out. They wanted revenge. And so, did he.

  As he walked back to the entrance, the souls rising from the pits formed an army of human and Demon alike, and in their wake, another army began to form. Demons in their true form, those who would not have their King removed from power. A King of Hell could not raise an army against his subjects, but his son and heir could.

  ‘They’re ready my Maël,’ Dommiel said.

  Mike looked around at the army gathered. An army of millions. Ready to fight together.

  ‘Show me where they are,’ Mike told Dommiel. And with the power of the guardian of the gate, Dommiel raised them all through the levels of Hell.

  They stood on open ground, the sky dark and brooding, clouds building with urgency, lightning striking in the distance, crackling through the gathering storm. In front of them, a single black door in an expanse of black walls covered in large window panes. Faces turned behind the glass to look at the sight. Office workers, Demons in suits, and a huge gathering for a party.