Authors: Grady Hendrix
“I challenge you to a board game.” Satan said.
“Yeah, I’ll – what?”
Throughout Madison Square Garden the feeling rippled out. The sensation spread through the stands, it crept into skulls and raced up and down spines. The demons stirred. They lifted their heads, they began to look a little less defeated, they began to rustle with meaning. Because all through the Garden there was the feeling that Michael had just walked into something. A flicker of fear fluttered across faces of the Heavenly Host.
“What just happened,” Barachiel said, from the Sky Box. “What has he done?”
Down in the ring, Michael shook it off.
“Fine. Fine!”
“And my champion,” Satan said, like a showman, like PT Barnum, like conmen and pool hall hustlers and grifters and card sharps all down through the ages, “Is the Minotaur.”
A bovine bellow tore through the air. Follow spots whirled wildly as they sought its source and then they caught movement by the curtains from Hell’s locker room and by the time they had pinned it down the Minotaur was halfway up the aisle, rushing the ring.
It’s easy to forget how mighty and terrifying the Minotaur is when you’ve only seen him in Hell. On a rocky plain, surrounded by the bleached bones of the damned and with a river of boiling blood gently burbling nearby the Minotaur just seems like one more terrifying object in a blasted landscape of despair. But on Earth, in Madison Square Garden, surrounded by handicapped seating and beer vendors and OSHA-mandated “No Smoking” signs, he was a bizarre, snorting, screaming, blood-soaked vision of pure horror.
The Minotaur snapped the ropes around the ring and they whipped through the air and slapped the mat. He tipped back his bull’s head and roared, his wiry mane dangling down his back, his bony horns trembling with rage. And then he reached one massive, horned hand into his loincloth and he pulled out a familiar deck of cards and lifted them up above his head.
“Me challenge you...to UNO!!!” the Minotaur roared, and the blood of the Archangel Michael ran cold.
Just outside the Gates of Hell, stacked in Hell’s Vestibule, there was a mountain of tractor-trailer containers. They towered over the mostly-empty Vestibule, silent and inscrutable. No wheels, no undercarriages, just enormous, corrugated metal boxes stacked up almost to the ceiling. They were as mighty and mysterious as the monuments of Easter Island. Like suitcases left unattended at an airport they were full of secrets and potentially dangerous. And down at the base of this mountain of cargo containers, Death sat on his Rascal. Next to him stood one of his minions.
“Thanks for this,” Death said.
“It was fun,” his minion said. “But I have to get back to Chernobyl now.”
“I understand,” Death said. “It was one last ride. But we did good. All of us. We paid our debt to him.”
And the two of them left, one walking and one rolling, going off into the great unknown.
Behind them, the tower of cargo containers sat and the wind howled around them. Softly, faintly, quietly, something inside of them rustled.
“Uno!” the Minotaur roared.
Michael threw down his cards in disgust. A rickety bridge table had been dragged out from some forgotten store room and dropped into the middle of the ring. Folding chairs were set up on either side and in one hunched the Minotaur, snuffling with delight over his victory. In the other sat a miserable Michael.
“Look,” he said to Satan. “I didn’t mean that I could beat you in board games. I meant in close personal combat.”
“So you’re giving up?” Satan asked from his corner. “You’re admitting defeat?”
“No, but – ”
“You said you could beat me in anything. Well, this is anything. You changed the rules, not me.”
“This is ridiculous,” Michael snapped. “Fight me in something else.”
“Minotaur?” Satan asked.
The Minotaur reached into his loincloth and pulled out a blue plastic box.
“Minotaur fight you in Battleship!” it roared.
Forty-five minutes later:
“D-14!” the Minotaur bellowed.
“You sunk my battleship,” Michael grumbled.
“Ha ha! Minotaur is best!” the Minotaur roared, standing up and raising his burly arms over his head. “Minotaur beat you in everything!”
The angels in the stands were getting bored. Board games were no fun to watch, especially when their champion had been winning up until he started playing them. But on the opposite side of the arena, in the stands where the demons huddled, something was stirring. Prince Vassago, who had always been known for his good nature and razor sharp claws, wrapped one talon around the “Blessed Michael!” placard that had been duct taped to his paw and he pulled. With the sound of a thousand hair follicles being torn out by the roots, it came free and he threw it to the ground. Then he rose to his full height of two feet tall, climbed up onto his chair and screamed:
“Satan rules!”
His voice was high and reedy but it carried across the massive arena. Angels patrolling the aisles heard it and they began to converge on him, whips in hand. They would brook no dissent. And then, from another part of the demonic seating section, there came another voice shouting:
“Satan rules!”
The angels stopped and turned their mighty, gleaming heads trying to determine where this latest rabble rouser was seated. Two of them continued to converge on Prince Vassago, and three started off in the other direction looking for this new rebellious demon.
“Yeah, Satan rules!”
A third demon, now. More angels were in the aisles, more whips were unfurled, more celestial eyes scanned the cheap seats trying to determine the location of this minor uprising and crush it.
Down in the ring, Satan stood in his corner with Nero and Minos and he heard the voices. He couldn’t smile, not yet, but it was what he had hoped for.
“Did you hear that?” he said to the Minotaur. “They’re cheering for you.”
“Cheer for Satan,” the Minotaur said.
“And who do you think Satan’s champion is.” Satan asked. “Who do you think is mighty enough to defend all of Hell without having to use physical violence? Only the Minotaur.”
The Minotaur drew his black lips back and bared his yellow teeth in something that approximated a grin.
“Satan rules!” came a fourth voice.
The Minotaur reached into his loincloth again.
“You no admit defeat to Minotaur?” he asked Michael.
“I’m hardly defeated, you overgrown cow,” Michael said.
“Then me challenge you...to Monopoly!”
The Minotaur slammed a Monopoly board onto the tiny bridge table and the blood drained out of Michael’s face.
“No, not Monopoly,” he said. “ Anything but Monopoly. It’s a terrible game. It’s horrible. It takes forever and everyone plays with different rules and it...it brings out the worst in anyone who touches it. No Monopoly.”
“You say you beat Minotaur in anything!” the Minotaur hooted. “Now you beat Minotaur in Monopoly or you a dum-dum fathead!”
“He’s got you there,” Satan said, from the sidelines. “Is Heaven’s champion a dum-dum fathead?”
Michael didn’t move.
“Minotaur let you be car,” the Minotaur said. “Minotaur be doggie. Pope be banker”
And he set up the board.
The second it was evident that Monopoly was going to be played the demons began to cheer in earnest. One stood up, and said, “Yay.” And then others and then more and more and more until the hideous sound of their hopeful cheers issued from every deformed mouth, from every face-hole and noise organ, every trunk and snout. From every multi-mouthed horror and flatulent, Hellish sphincter came the roar and bellow of Hell’s cheerleading squad as every awful demon cheered the Minotaur. Because there is no game more demonic, more torturous, more beneficial to Hell’s interests than Monopoly.
The angels tried to control the demonic side of Madison Square Garden, laying about them with their whips but then the growling, screeching, cawing, hooting, hollering, ululating swarm of demons made them step back and soon, like rich white people abandoning the inner cities for the suburbs, they fled to their side of the stadium for their own safety and protection. Among the demons a new feeling was spreading. The demons were feeling it for the first time in months. Years. Maybe even centuries. They rolled on the ground, they jumped up and down, they pumped their appendages and sprayed their victory stenches. They were drunk on hope. And the Minotaur wasn’t going to let them down.
In the first round, he rolled double sixes, bought the power company and then rolled a four, landing on St. James Place. He bought both of them, snuffling to himself in delight at having bought some of the most commonly landed on properties in his first move. Michael ignored the Minotaur’s chuckles of triumph and rolled a four: Income Tax. He paid two hundred dollars into Community Chest. On his next move, the Minotaur rolled a four and landed on Free Parking, scooping up the money Michael had just put down. Throughout the stands, the demons cheered. The angels booed, but their booing had a nervous quality to it that hadn’t been there before.
“That’s not fair,” Michael said.“You can’t land on Free Parking the first time around. That’s not how it’s played.”
The Pope checked the rule book. Nothing there about not landing on Free Parking the first time around.
“The move stands,” he pontificated.
The Minotaur grinned. The demons cheered louder. Michael sulked.
The game was afoot.
Inside the Sky Box, Barachiel was stress-eating kettle corn.
“How do we win?” Raphael asked. “I mean, what’s the plan? Can someone get Gabriel up here? Or Michael? They’ve got a plan for this, right.”
“I think we are outside the plan now,” Jegudiel said.
“Outside the plan? That’s not good. That’s really, really, really not good,” Raphael gibbered.
“I fear that our brothers have overreached,” Jegudiel said. “It is what I warned you all of.”
“Shut your mouth!” Barachiel screamed, bits of kettle corn spraying from his lips. “Just shut it, you smug, thirty-six-winged twit! We’re not beaten yet. We’re at war. This just means the fight is going to go harder.”
“I am only stating the obvious,” Jegudiel said. “All along, you have chosen to be blind to the flaws in Michael’s plan. After all, we are fighting the Deceitful One. He is as cunning and resourceful as we are. Maybe even more so.”
Barachiel grabbed Jegudiel by the collar and pulled him forward until their noses were touching.
“If you want me to rip off your wings and feed them to you, then you just keep talking,” he snarled.
“Violence is the first resort of tiny minds,” Metatron said. “This is an interesting position in which we find ourselves but it is still one in which Satan has only the appearance of a chance. Not an actual chance.”
“You shut up, too,” Barachiel said, dropping Jegudiel to the floor.
“I am merely agreeing with you in my own way, brother,” Metatron said. “Satan cannot win this simply because he cannot oppose the will of God. It is impossible.”
In the corner of the Sky Box, Phanuel spun and his flames blazed higher. A series of distressed crystalline chimes filled the glass-walled room.
“Phanuel makes a good point,” Jegudiel said from where he lay on the floor. “Have any of you considered that perhaps our defeat is the will of God? Has anyone discussed this with God himself, or have we just been taking Michael’s word for it? Remember, pride has always been our greatest sin.”
There was silence for a moment.
“Uh, guys,” Raphael said. “Is he right? Seriously? Did we just screw up?”
In the ring, Michael’s car landed on Park Place. Which was owned by the Minotaur. And had two hotels on it.
“You owe Minotaur one thousand, two hundred dollar,” the Minotaur said.
“I don’t have it,” Michael said, grumpily.
“Can mortgage properties,” the Minotaur said.
“The game is over,” Michael huffed.
“As long as you have properties to mortgage, the game continues,” the Pope said.
Michael looked at his properties and began checking the mortgage prices. The Minotaur controlled all the orange and light blue properties, as well as all four railroads, both utilities and Boardwalk and Park Place. If Michael mortgaged everything he could raise enough to keep his car spinning around the board for another hour while the Minotaur drained him of his cash. Soon he’d be making stupid deals and trading properties just to stay in the game. There was no way for him to win.
He had planned. He had plotted. He had walked through The Room and spoken to God himself. And now this. A part of his mind whispered, “It’s your own fault,” but he quickly shut up that part of his mind. That part of his mind was stupid and ignorant and not fair, it wasn’t fair, this wasn’t fair, he was Michael the Archangel, the Right Arm of the Heavenly Host, the Sword of the Lord.
“Arrrgghhh!!!!!” he screamed, standing up and flipping the table.
It flew into the air and exploded into flames.
“I may lose at board games but I will always win at physical violence,” he screamed and with a mighty flap of his wings he took to the air.
“To Hell! To Hell, my brothers! What we cannot win here, we will win by main force.”
Chaos exploded in Madison Square Gardens.
“To arms, my brothers! To arms!”
Golden trumpets sounded, and throughout the stadium the Heavenly Host took to the air in a flapping of wings. Heaven’s armory was opened and swords of fire, golden armor and holy hand grenades poured out.
In the Sky Box, Jegudiel was aghast. Phanuel spun rapidly in a panic.
“What’s going on?” Raphael gibbered.
“Possession is nine-tenths of the law,” Barachiel sneered. “Maybe Michael never shared his plan with all of you weak-livered Frenchmen, but I always knew that if we were defeated in the ring we would take Hell by main force. The Ultimate Death Match is only a formality. It may have hastened the legitimacy of our occupation, but it was never necessary.”
“You are making a grave mistake,” Jegudiel cried.
“Get stuffed,” Barachiel said and then the Sky Box windows exploded outwards at the sound of his Holy Shout and he flew into the air that was thick with feathers and gold and anger and the massed military might of Heaven’s Army streaming down to the escalators that led to the Gates of Hell.