Garder mon Ame

Chapter Six: A Game of Wits

"Now the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made . . . And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die: For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil." ~Genesis 3:1 - 24

Her Devil's sanctuary rested on the top floor of the tower. How ironic, she thought, that such a dark force rested in the highest location midst the shadowy hell, touching the sky. She had assumed that she would be led to the deepest recesses of Tartarus, an inky black space where only the glowing red eyes of the devil shone. It was just common knowledge that giving into evil and sin was the lowest a person could sink, and it could be safely assumed that the master of the corrupt dwelled in that depression. To think that he lived in those obscure clouds, so close to Earth, confused Ardin.

But, then again, maybe it was like the raven, who flew so close to the holy grounds of Heaven, marring the beauty with its malicious feathers. Maybe it was so easy to give into the devil because he lived so near the human heart, his influence spreading like the roots of an ancient tree. He resided close to his subjects, and gave them as much truth and wisdom as they could hold in their feeble bodies.

It was an elevator (how modern) that Greed used to lead Ardin to her fate. It was small, black, and its walls were lined with mirrors that reflected Ardin's appearance. It was strange to look at her own reflection, since, one, she was positive that the dead didn't form a picture in the revealing glass, and two, she didn't recognize herself. Her flyaway hair was still done up for the funeral, as was her make-up and attire, though blood was now caked to the right side of her face, marking her as a creature of the dead, as if the bullet hole in the side of her head didn't. But it was her eyes that made her stare into her image. They had been so dull recently, like jade stones that had lost their luster, but now they shone through the dimness with a crazy sort of determination. Ardin smiled at her image, pried her black hair away from her wound, and tucked it behind her ear. She had to look her best when she met her savior.

Greed stared at the numbered, glowing buttons of the escalator, and he twirled his index finger three times before pressing the switch with the number thirteen.

Ardin snorted as the escalator began its journey. "It seems somewhat comical to have residence on the thirteenth floor, don't you think?"

Greed stared at the button as he replied. "T, or the fear of the number thirteen, can root itself so deeply into the culture of the human population that superstition becomes a religion. It is, thus, respected, and often the thirteenth floor is omitted from human buildings. However, it is always there, just merely under a different name. The fear still creeps in through the twelfth floor and bleeds down from the bottom of the fourteenth in a steady trickle. No matter how much one tries to avoid it, terror has a funny way of slinking into the heart. So, then, wouldn't you say the number thirteen is rather appropriate?"

Ardin didn't say anything, and Greed graced her with a wicked smile.

"The fear of the number thirteen originated with the Babylonian Code of Hammurabi, in which the thirteenth law is excluded. In some translations, the law reads, 'If the seller have gone to his fate, the purchaser shall recover damages in said case fivefold from the estate of the seller.' Mildly interesting for this certain case, though most humans are, indeed, terrified of fraud.

"What is a bit more significant for the question you have posed is an example found in the Christian Bible, that holy teller of believable certain certainties. At the last supper, Jesus sat down with his loyal twelve Apostles, though some claim that the betrayer Judas joined as well, becoming the thirteenth guest. Unlucky, perhaps, although I suppose that there was a fourteenth guest that day as well: fear."