"Will!" Wilde cried. "We were going to write--"
"It's true," Will said quietly. "I've said all I had to say. Let others write the play."
"Oh, that's fine coming from you, you great gas-bag," Emilia said.
"I will not write with this woman," Poe said, casting his eyes down and folding his arms.
"Nor I," Wilde said.
"So the deal's off," Beelzebub said. "I expected nothing better from you cretins. It's been five hours; you're already at each other's throats." And Beelzebub lifted his head from the roof of the cave, letting the red light of Hell in, and he laughed. The floor of the cave rocked; bits of nitre and great hunks of rock fell about everyone's head and shoulders.
"However," Beelzebub said, sticking his giant claw-hand through the gaping hole in the roof of the cave, "I still have the three cards."
The Get Out of Hell Free cards gleamed golden. The writers uncovered their heads and gasped in wonder.
"Let us all try on our own," Emilia said. "You choose which is best, and which of us will get the cards."
Beelzebub withdrew his hand, then put his eye to the hole once more. "And you expect me to go through that great mass of crap? What do you take me for," he said. "An editor?"
)
