Damien was walking back to his hotel when he heard the voice behind his back.

"The Damien Thorn!"

He turned around and couldn't believe his eyes.

"The Carmine Zuigiber."

"You protected Christians!" she said and suddenly burst into laughter, throwing her head back. "Bloody witty."

"And now they're expelling me. A great birthday gift."

Carmine stopped and looked at him again, with immense surprise.

"So you want to stay here? Well. Consider it my gift."

She fished out her phone and pushed a button.

"Hey. Do you know Damien Thorn? An American photoreporter. If his expulsion isn't canceled right now I'll move into your house forever. Ciao!"

"I can't believe someone doesn't want to see you in their house," Damien admitted. "If you moved into my house forever I'd be only too happy."

She started laughing again. He was ready to listen to her laughter forever.

"Then take me to your place. I don't mind getting to know you better."

She didn't finish speaking when he realized that he had wanted to be with her his whole life.

Even when he hadn't heard anything about her. Probably even when he hadn't been born yet.

She was lying in his bed and watching him strip. Her gaze was like a telescopic sight, but it was a very gentle telescopic sight. Damien took a pack of condoms out of his wallet and she snorted, "Why do you need them? You're clean and sterile, I'm clean and sterile. Just throw them away and come to me."

"You know this only about yourself," Damien objected. "You don't know anything for sure about me, so…"

He didn't finish because she gasped loudly and propped herself up on her elbows, looking more closely at him.

"Didn't they tell you when you were thirteen?"

"Tell me what? About contraception? Of course, they did. There were even special lessons."

She exhaled, flabbergasted.

"The Christians you stood up for. It wasn't a joke. You did it sincerely!"

He honestly didn't understand what was so funny about this morning's incident in the Christian Quarter. Besides, religion played no role here; if soldiers attacked Muslims he'd stand for Muslims. Or atheists. Whatever.

"Damien," she asked suddenly, her voice tight, "why are you even here? Why are you taking pictures of victims in Syria? Why aren't you sitting in the White House, sending troops here?"

Damien winced. Talk of the White House was the last thing he needed.

There is nothing worse than telling a beautiful woman about your failures. Especially when this beautiful woman is lying in bed and looking at you like that.

"I just wanted to fight war as I can," he said honestly.

He thought she would laugh again and they would be able to leave all this talk 'til the morning. But she did a much better thing.

"So you want to destroy war?" Carmine asked incredulously. "Is that what you want?" She bit her lip, drawing blood, and added, "Let's play. I will be war and you try to defeat me."

It was an excellent suggestion. Damien's mood skyrocketed again.

"If you're war then who am I?" he asked. "Mahatma Gandhi? Martin Luther King?"

"The Antichrist," she said.

He didn't ask again. His breath hitched and his pulse was thundering in his ears so deafeningly that asking more questions was pointless. War and the Antichrist. Great.

She was surprisingly easy to defeat; she made a show of resistance, laughing, and when he twisted her arms behind her back she was still laughing, and then he was beside himself. Something dark rose from the depths of his soul as if someone had broken the seal; he pushed into her all the way without noticing drops of blood running down her legs. He was screaming, scratching and biting her and she was moaning loudly, trying to break free again, and then he hit her, and again, and again.

"Strangle me," she whispered.

He grabbed her by the neck with both hands and squeezed so hard that her cries gave way to wheezing. When he came and collapsed on top of her, exhausted, she didn't move.

Damien was the first one to come round.

"Carmine!"

She didn't move.

"God, Carmine! Are you alive?"

The response he received was a raspy gasp.

"Sorry, I'll call a doctor, sorry, I…"

"My beast," she said slowly and turned to him. "I love you."

"I could've killed you," he said, terrified. "I don't even know what possessed me!"

"But you didn't kill me." She smiled and her smile was dazzling like an atomic explosion.

Then she put two knives on the bed. He didn't even ask her where she'd got them. Then again, there had been more difficult mysteries in his life.

"If you really want to destroy war," she said and ran the knife over his shoulder blade, carving a word on him, "then we can play other games."

He could feel the blood rise on his slashed skin. These sensations were fabulous. His fear faded. He could do everything he wanted with her and she stayed alive and unspoiled, except purple bruises blooming on her skin and bloodstains on the bedsheet. Probably she'd be so strong she'd be able to be with him and not die. He wouldn't have to avoid her to protect her from accidents.

"I won't be war," she suggested. "Let me be your Whore of Babylon and you'll be my Antichrist, and we'll write names of blasphemy on each other."

"It's not like I know a lot of blasphemies," Damien admitted. "Well, porca madonna of course, but that's all."

She started carving Hebrew letters – which seemed to be Tetragrammaton – on his chest.

"There's only one thing I can't get," he said, pressing the blade against her stomach and carving first p, then o, "why am I always the Antichrist in our games?"

THE END