The Getaway God (Sandman Slim 6)

The Shonin punches me in the shoulder. It’s so feeble I wouldn’t have known it happened if I hadn’t seen it.

“Put me down.”

I set him on his feet.

“I’ll finish with the book,” he says. “I’m learning great things. But you must play the game. I can’t do both.”

“Go and lie down, old man. Let me handle this.”

The guards help the Shonin out, locking the door behind him.

“That was dramatic,” says Mason. “He’s even more pathetic than you and Muninn. Always running to help the older gents. Those daddy issues run deep.”

“You know if you call the Angra, they’ll kill you too.”

“All those L.A. good vibes you’ve picked up have made you afraid of death. But death is what you and I do.”

There’s only one thing I haven’t tried.

“Forget it. I quit. You win.”

Mason cocks his head like he’s waiting for me to say something else. He sighs and pushes his cards away.

“I admit. That’s the last thing I expected from you.”

“Then I did win after all.”

He smiles.

“No, but you fooled me. And you played horribly, even for you,” he says. “I tell you what. I’ll give you something anyway.”

“You’ll give me something even though I lost? Why?”

“Because I want you to come back and play some more.”

“Okay. What will you give me?”

Mason thinks for a minute.

“You already controlled the Qomrama when you used it to remove the demon from one of my bodies. But you don’t know how you did it?”

“No.”

“The Qomrama likes you. It wants to please you. But remember that it’s transdimensional. Your desires for it must also be transdimensional.”

“What does that mean?”

He leans back in his chair.

“It means if you can’t play the game, you can’t control the Qomrama.”

“If you know how to use it why haven’t you?”

“Because you have it.”

I sit back down at the table.

“I took it so the 8 Ball is mine. Possession is the key to controlling it, isn’t it?”