Margot and I arrived at the job site. Without saying a word, Margot went one way, and I went another way. We were still doing the job together, but we each had a separate part to play.

I walked down a long hallway lit by flickering halogen bulbs. The hall was lined with doors. All of them were numbered. All of them were locked.

Some of the doors had the sounds of screaming and pain coming from the them, some had the sounds of arguments, some had the sounds of fighting, and more than a few had moans of pleasure emanating from within.

My door was at the end of the hall. The fourteenth door. I stepped inside and found myself in a cozy little space. A lounge. There was the smell of food, alcohol, and smoke of various kinds.

There was a table with six people sitting at it.

In the first chair, was an old man with one eye, he was dressed in that comfy way that old folk tend to dress, but his body was covered in scars, and clearly defined muscles, and he was wearing a pair of manacles as if they were a fashion accessory. He was a big man and there was a gravity to his presence.

In the second chair was a tanned, muscular, middle-aged, looking fellow with meditterean looks, and thick, wavy, white hair. He wore a polo shirt, tan chinos, and sandals and smelled of a hurricanes of water, ozone, wind and sea salt.

In the third chair, was a woman, dressed in a sweatsuit with her ink black hair done up in a bun and held in place with chopsticks. She smelled of starlight, mischief and fire, and her body gave off a cold heat. I immediately marked her as a threat.

In the fourth seat, was another woman, this one in a skirt suit. Dressed as if she’d just come in from some office somewhere. She had straight red hair, the exact color of freshly spilt blood. Her hair was cut in a severe jaw length style and her expression was grim and somewhat sinister but I decided I might go over and say hi later if situation allowed for it. She reminded me of a few of the ruddier, more agreeable, avenging angels, and the more honorable, more amiable, amongst the demons I’d known.

In the fifth chair sat a young man with a rich dark skin. Handsome but prickly looking. He smelled of sex, and blood, and cigarette smoke, and looked like every bad boy who’d ever bad boy-ed in movies and tv rolled together. We nodded when we saw each other, both of us recognizing the presence of another tempter and seducer of souls.

The sixth chair had a child sitting in it. The child’s face was partially covered by their dark silky hair, and their gender was indeterminable. There was an emptiness to them, the quiet hunger of countless spiders working together to capture their much larger prey.

Then there was the seventh chair. The chair that had been left empty for yours truly.

All six of these people, these beings, were supernaturally good looking. Attractive in a way that was dangerous for the mortal mind. Simultaneously terrifying and rapturously beautiful, Each face was perfect and utterly unique in a way that normal faces of flesh and blood could never be. Each of their aesthetics giving a clue to the true visages, and the true forms, that the beings took when they weren’t pretending to be human.

Three gods, a devil, a spirit king, and a fairy queen were seated at that table. And after finding myself in front of immortals for the first time in a long time, I took my seat amongst them without comment or invitation.

*************************************************************************************************************

“Well, I’ll be damned...You were supposed to be a human.” said the one-eyed old man.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

“Oh? Didn’t see that written anywhere on the job posting.” I said. Doing my damndest to give an “I give no shits” kind of vibe. Which was a good vibe to have when dealing with cats and persons of power, two groups of people who often responded better to disinterest than fawning and over-eagerness.

“Tch...I can bet. Sloppy work on your part, Barnabas.” said the old man.

“Oi! Throwing the blame on me, Lamont?! Well, you can fuck off right now then. I emailed that post to everyone here before I sent it to the bloody league and no one said shit!” said the child.

The gods and devils play games, but their games are not like the games mortals play. Of course, they aren’t. When you operate on a planetary, galactic, or even a cosmic scale, simple games like poker, chess, and pachisi just don’t cut it anymore.

The world becomes your board. The most preferred pieces are those with free wills, egos, and their own motivations for playing your game. And every game is played with something at stake because you’re immortal and bored, and so powerful that you need that extra thrill that having something to lose, or gain, adds to the situation.

Tonight and likely for the next twelve nights, I would be part of one such game.

Roughly a month ago, a piece of the higher realms broke and fell into our part of the cosmos. I won’t bore you with a description of the mind-breaking, awe-inspiring, architecture of the greater cosmos that lay beyond the three-dimensional realms.

Simply suffice it say that getting hold of a piece of that chunk of super-reality was something very big for this little circle I found myself in.

A big enough deal to lead to the rise of a new sovereign amongst the devils and gods. A big enough deal to shake up the myriad pantheons and cause a shift in the power balance of the entire immortal realm.

These five beings had each agreed to refine the chunk of higher-dimensional space together. Then instead of sharing the power that could be harvested from the space, they’d all decided to play a game, wagering ownership of this mass of higher-dimensional energy on the outcome of said game.

“Eh...I figure it doesn’t matter. The real question is whether he came with a proper buy-in.” said the middle-aged Meditteranean man.

I reached into thin air and brought a light bulb. A light bulb that wasn’t connected to anything but still glowed with an almost blindingly bright white light.

The one-eyed old man whistled.

I handed the bulb over and the old man placed it in a fondue pot that most certainly was NOT a fondue pot. The whole world shook as the pot received the bulb and continued to bubble and boil. Spewing smoke into the already acrid air.

“Impressive...Stefanos over there was mostly busting your chops, the requirement would have been fulfilled with something as simple as an aether battery, but damn if you haven’t earned your spot in our little game, stranger.” said One-eyed Lamont

Bacteria, insects, fire, and self-replicating machines, these were four things that exploded in population given enough fuel and time. After capturing that first star I used the power to expand my fleet, then I proceeded to collect others.

I hadn’t been sitting idle while Margot trained. I’d been preparing as well. One of those preparations was the collection of over one thousand stars from the Milky Way's more isolated regions. I’d then taken all that power and mass and placed it inside a containment device that I’d cheekily designed to make look like a lightbulb.

I’d gathered all that power because I knew that the more power that was used to refine the fragment of hyper-reality that fell into our realm the more power that would be harnessable once the shard of higher-dimensional space was fully refined.

One of the women looked me up and down with an appraising gaze. If I was stupider and younger, I might have mistaken it for flirting but I was old enough to know that the hunger I saw in her eyes was more of an ‘I might want to eat you’-look, than an ‘I might want to sleep with you’-look.

She proffered her hand and I shook it, ignoring the fierceness of her grip and the mountain crushing force she put into the shake.

“Hi, the name’s Darla. The Waltzing Nothingness Amidst the Bursting Stars. I haven’t seen you around the usual haunts.”

I smiled and tried to put as much force into the shake as she did, but not so much force that it looked like I actually cared about winning the little pissing contest we were having.

“My name is Monty. The Laughter, Weeping, and Roaring at the Edge of Causality. I’m kind of a homebody, so...Yeah, you probably wouldn’t have.” I said. Giving her one of my many epithets, since she’d given me one of hers.

“Nh...I can’t imagine why. You look, and smell, positively...irresistible. Oh and she’s my half-sister Maci. The Red and White Bones that Chill the Wind. Don’t mind her if she’s a bit anti-social, she’s kind of a bitch.” said Darla with the beautiful too-wide smiles and teeth that glinted like metal. Nodding towards the red-headed woman as she ended her words.

‘Maci’, the redhead, sucked her teeth and rolled her eyes. Grumbling beneath her breath as she proffered her hand. We briefly shook without a pissing match, and I got a sense that the only reason we shook was that Darla had called Maci out.

Stefanos with the lush white hair, Barnabas the child, Julien with rich dark skin, and Lamont the old man, also took the time to introduce themselves formally. It might have been wasting time, but hey if there was one thing the people at the table could afford to waste, it was time.