CHAPTER 116

Watching Death ponder his empty mug, something occurred to her. "Do you see mortals as beneath you?"

"Of course I do. They are mortals, I am the Grim Reaper." He spoke with no trace of malice. "However, I no longer view them with indifference."

"But if a mortal challenged you to a competition, would you believe they could beat you?"

He scoffed. "Haven't you heard the stories about me? I used to let mortals challenge me to competitions in order to stay my hand. I did this more out of curiosity and boredom, but," he shrugged, "I'm not proud to admit this, but I can't actually stay my hand. I would often let them win and then reap them at the peak of happiness. It makes their souls shine so brightly before they cross over. I'm a force of nature, after all. Now, perhaps, maybe I could abstain, but I'm not sure."

Excited, Beth moved over to her desk. Could the horsemen be challenged to a competition? In their dealings, they had seemed pretty full of themselves, so they may see it as an easy win and accept. And if they did accept, how could she trick them? The terms would have to be something everyone agreed to.

Who was the weakest of the group? She thought back to their interaction. It had to be War. The way he had run his mouth, he would be the best one to challenge. The others seemed to follow his lead, and the angel would enforce their deal.

But what to challenge him at? It needed to be something that War would want to do, but that she could actually win. It wasn't like she could challenge him to target shooting or ripping peasants in half.

Frowning, she stared at the table. Seeing that she was deep in thought, Death wandered away into the sitting room.

Think, dammit! She put her head in her hands and pulled at her hair. There was a kernel of an idea here, and she needed the damn thing to pop already!

There was a clattering of plastic on wood out in the living room. Curious, she stood and walked to the door to see what was going on. Jenny and Reggie were at the table and at odds once more. This time they were playing The Game of Life. A few plastic cars were on the floor, and Jenny was holding her edge of the board.

"Necromancy is not a career path," Reggie told her, clutching a yellow car protectively in his paw. "You have to follow the rules, you can't just keep making things up."

Jenny scattered the board, and Reggie sighed. When he noticed Beth, he shook his head.

"I should have known better than to challenge a spirit to a game that they failed in real life!" He took his car and hurled it at Jenny. It bounced off her face, and Beth held her breath, expecting the doll to murder Reggie where he sat.

I would have won the real game of life if not for that fucking witch! Jenny replied, the walls shaking.

"That is because she cheated," Reggie told her. "She was playing by her own rules, and you got burned. That is how you make me feel when you insist on being such a child!"

"Wait!" Beth ran over to the table, her thoughts fluttering wildly like a trapped bird. "Stop fighting, I need silence!"

Reggie looked at Jenny and shrugged.

"Oh my god. Oh. My. God!" When the idea surfaced, it slammed into her like a gargoyle with a p**n addiction. She reeled and sat down on the sofa, her eyes now on the ceiling.

"Lady Beth?" Reggie's voice was full of concern.

"I know how to beat them," she said, her voice barely a whisper. It was an idea so crazy, so absolutely insane, but the horsemen would never see it coming.

"The horsemen?" Reggie sat on the edge of the table, his beady eyes shimmering. "How?"

She looked up at both of them gravely. "When the horsemen return, they are going to make demands that we can't give them. I'm going to challenge them to a game, one that we can all play together. They won't know what hit them."

Game? Jenny cackled in delight. What game?

"Risk." Beth smiled, her lips curling upward. "It's the game of strategy, after all."

Reggie frowned, then adjusted his glasses. "I don't mean to disparage, but that game is rather difficult. Do you think it wise to challenge the horseman of War to a game based on, well, war?"

"I do, and I'm going to explain exactly how we do it. But to do it, we're going to have to break a huge fucking rule." She fixed both of them with a stare.

"You don't mean..." Reggie licked his lips nervously then looked over at Jenny.

Beth nodded. "I do. It's time to talk about the Clue incident."

There was a lot of yelling, followed by the thud of stone on wood. The walls of the bedroom shook, showering dust down on Mike. After a few more thuds, the door swung open. Velvet backed in first, her hands tight on Dana's ankles. Abella was holding the zombie in a tight headlock, and they had used duct tape to cover her mouth and also to secure oven mitts to her hands. She was naked from the waist down, save for one sock on her left foot.

Dana saw Mike and growled through the tape. The whites of her eyes were now crimson, and her pupils narrowed to pinpricks.

He swallowed back anxiety as they got her to the corner of the room. Velvet moved out of the way and Abella pinned Dana into the corner. Abella's talons dug into the floor, and she used her tail to keep them upright.

"Is she..." He wasn't even sure what to ask.

"She is still getting stronger." Abella's voice was tinged with concern. "I can hold her for now, but it is getting difficult."

"How? All this because she ate Nirumbi flesh?" Mike asked.

Yuki, who stood at the base of the bed, shrugged her shoulders. "I don't pretend to understand zombie anatomy. This is why the undead pose such a threat. I know this may sound silly, but Emily once told me she thought that zombie movies were meant to be educational primers, just in case an outbreak actually occurred. Regardless, we should hurry."