The door opens and Julie comes back into the room. She sets a deck of cards on the table between us.
“What happens now?”
“Shuffle them,” Says Mason.
I shuffle them a -couple of times. Set them back down between us.
Mason turns to Julie.
“Would you cut the cards for me, dear? I’m a bit encumbered.”
Julie glances at me. She comes over and cuts the cards. I look at Mason.
“What are we playing?”
“In my time in the dark I learned that there’s only one game worth playing and it takes many forms. One form is cards.”
“What’s the game?”
“Chaos. Entropy. Catastrophe. Infinity.”
“I don’t know how to play that.”
He sits up straight, his eyes on the cards.
“It’s your whole life, Jimmy. You’re an expert. You just don’t know it.”
I look at the time on my phone and then at Julie.
“Shouldn’t you be out looking for someone?”
“I have a team on it.”
“Ready?” says Mason.
“What are we playing?”
“Simple draw poker. You can handle that, can’t you?”
“You don’t have anything to bet.”
“We have the whole world to bet.”
“If I win you’ll tell me about Candy.”
“Everything. Deal.”
I deal out five cards, each facedown. I get two threes, a queen of diamonds, a ten of clubs, and an ace of hearts.
Mason nods at his cards to Julie.
“Would you hold my cards up for me, dear?”
“Don’t call me that again. I’m Marshal Sola.”
“Would you hold my cards for me, Marshal Sola?”
She does it.
“Higher, please.”
She raises the cards a little.
“Thank you.”
I set my cards down and pick up the deck.
“How many do you want?”
“Four,” he says.
“What’s wrong with you? That’s how a six--year--old plays.”
“I’d like four.”
I deal him out four facedown. He points to the card he wants to keep. Julie lays down the others and picks up the new cards.
“Dealer takes two.”
I get an ace of diamonds and a two of spades.
“We’re not betting, so I guess we just show our cards.”
“Yours first,” says Mason.
I lay down two pairs, threes, and aces.
Julie puts down Mason’s hand. He has a three, a six, a four, a ten, and a jack. None of the suits match.
Mason says, “Alphabet soup as dear old Dad used to say.”
“I win. You answer my question.”
“Of course.”
“Where’s Candy?”
“I honestly have no idea.”
“Stark,” says Julie, a warning tone in her voice. I don’t get up and I don’t try to hit Mason.
“You had something to do with her getting sick.”
“Me? No. Possibly some of my associates.”
“Why?”
Mason slams down his fists.
“Because fuck you, that’s why. Because you cheated, and putting a bullet in my head really hurt. And because in the Infinite Game there are no rules and there are infinite rules. That’s why it’s so fun.”
“If anything happens to her . . .”
“What? You’ll kill me? Stop it. We both know if you were going to kill me you’d have done it already. No. You’re still here because you want to play the game.”
“Why would I want to do that?”
“Because unlike that gabby mummy no doubt listening to us right now—-hello, Mr. Shonin—-I know exactly how the Qomrama works and I’ll teach you. But you have to play my games and, of course, you have to win.”
“The Vigil has all kinds of funny technology. I bet they have some kind of brain sucker around here. What’s to keep them from hooking you up and downloading you into a Tamagotchi?”
Mason’s face brightens.
“You have one of those? Neat. I’d love to see it.”
“You didn’t answer the question.”
He drums his fingers on the table a -couple of times.
“If the machine exists it wouldn’t work on me for the same reason it wouldn’t work on you. We wouldn’t let it. Do you really think these Keystone Cops have anything that could hurt -people like us? You ruled the Underworld. I escaped Tartarus. Their magic can’t touch ours.”
“You didn’t escape Tartarus. Someone broke you out. Merihim and Deumos or some of their -people.”
“They cracked open the door but I’m the one who did the heavy lifting, like when you first made it out of Hell.”
“So this is how we figure out the fate of the universe? Poker?”
“Of course not. That was nothing. That wasn’t even the appetizer before dinner. It was just to see if I should invite you for a full meal.”
“Should you?”
“Do you want to know how the Qomrama works?”
“The Shonin will figure it out.”
“Not in time.”
“How do I know you know anything?”
Mason closes his eyes. A minute later I hear the door to the cell open and the Shonin comes in.
“What did you do?” he says.
Mason laughs when he sees the Shonin.
“This is mankind’s savior? You’re like third prize at a backwoods Halloween fair.”
The Shonin says, “What did you do?”
“I proved I know how the Qomrama works.”
The Shonin starts to say something, but I hold up my hand and he quiets down.
I say, “What did he do?”
“The Qomrama opened the magnetic chamber and left it,” the Shonin says. “It’s floating in the center of the room, a ball of fire and ice. Boiling the room one minute and freezing it the next.”
I look at Mason’s beaming face. “Why should I believe you’ll teach us anything?”
“You have my word,” says Mason. “Every time you win a game I’ll tell you something about the Qomrama. I want you to learn it. I want to see you use it. And I want to see you fail so that in the end, you’ll know that I was always the better magician.”
“If I said I’d play, how would it work?”
“Simple. I call the games and we play. Every time you win, I tell you a secret.”
“And when you win?”
“I get to hurt you.”
“What does that mean?”
“Anything I want.”