When the Nines Roll Over by David Benioff

he wasn’t good at it. He pictured Nikolai’s face and Leksi knew he could never trick the older soldier. And he could not go back to the mansion and admit that he had disobeyed a direct order.
    â€œFinally Aminah could hear the ice beginning to crack beneath her skates. The Devil was right behind her, reaching out for her, his fingernails inches from her hair. Just as he was about to grab her the ice beneath him gave way and he fell with a cry into the freezing water. ‘Aminah!’ he yelled. ‘Help me!’ But Aminah skated away as fast as she could. She reached the edge of the lake, took off her skates, put her boots on, and left the town, never to return.”
    She kept the diamonds, thought Leksi. Maybe they turned back into eyeballs. He remembered being disappointed, as a child, that the Devil could be so easily trapped. Why couldn’t he just breathe fire and melt all the ice?
    The runoff from the melting snow had created a shallow stream in the gully that rose halfway up Leksi’s boots. He worried about falling and twisting an ankle—how could he climb back uphill with a sprained ankle? Still, it was less exhausting than trudging through the wet snow. He remembered waking early on summer mornings with his brother, searching under rocks in the woods for slugs and beetles, pinning them on fishhooks, wading into the polluted river and casting their lines. They never caught anything, the waste from the nearby paper plant had poisoned the fish, but Leksi’s brother would tell jokes all morning and then they would lie on the riverbank and talk about hockey stars who played in America and actresses on television.
    â€œWhat happened next?” Leksi asked the old woman. He couldn’t remember if there had been an epilogue.
    The old woman stopped walking and looked skyward. A blackbird squawked on a pine branch above them. “Nobody knows. Some say the Devil swam under the ice and back to Hell. They say that every winter he returns, looking for Aminah, calling out her name.”
    The Devil really loved her, decided Leksi. He always rooted for the bad men in fairy tales and movies, not because he admired them but because they had no chance. The bad men were the true underdogs. They never won.
    Leksi and the old woman stood motionless, their breath curling about their heads like genies. Leksi heard growls and turned to see where they came from. In the shadow of a great boulder twenty meters away three dogs feasted on a deer’s still-steaming intestines. Each dog seemed to sense Leksi’s gaze at the same time; they lifted their heads and stared at him until he averted his eyes.
    Leksi looked uphill and realized they were no longer standing on a hill. Panicked, he searched for footprints, but there were none on the gully’s wet stones. How long had they walked in the stream? Where had they entered it? All the tall pine trees looked identical to him; they stretched on for as far as the eye could see. Nothing but trees and melting snow littered with broken twigs and pinecones. The dogs watched him and the blackbird squawked and Leksi knew he was lost. He strapped the rifle over his shoulder, pulled off a glove, and began fumbling in his parka’s pockets for his compass. The old woman turned to look at him and Leksi tried to remain as calm as possible. He pulled out the compass and peered at it. He determined true north and then closed his eyes. It didn’t matter. He had no idea in which direction the house lay. Knowing true north meant nothing.
    The old woman smiled at him when he opened his eyes. “It’s an old story. Of course,” she said, letting the shovel’s long handle fall onto the wet rocks, “some people say there is no Devil.”
    Leksi sat on the bank of the now bustling stream. If he could organize his thoughts, he believed, everything would be all right. Unless he organized his thoughts he would die here in the nighttime, the snow