Chapter 20

Chapter 20

God had a pretty simple command, in the beginning. Well, not exactly in the beginning, but a little bit later, after the business with the apple and garden. Which, incidentally wasn’t as big a deal as a lot of people thought. The story had gotten way overblown after the Archangel Michael got drunk once in a bar and claimed to be the one to actually throw out two deadbeats from God’s Garden. He wasn’t even head Archangel as most texts said, he was just in the right place at the right time, and someone wrote it down.

The command, handed down from Metatron, the voice of God to all Angels, was pretty simple: Protect Earth. The “how” was pretty vague but the “from whom” was pretty standard: they had to protect Earth from anything that God didn’t originally put there, such as demons, goblins, or anything that was unnatural. That’s why it was so important that Gabe and Raph work so hard to save the day from someone like Nicolas Cage, the Demon Jacob Whelan, and whatever other creepy demon they managed to raise from whatever Hell Dimension they were dabbling in, and people tended to do when they were attempting to bring about some kind of wish. Wishing from Demons tended to be a little bit more popular than wishing from genies, as Demons tended to give you what you wanted from the beginning rather than giving you only one test wish, followed by an ironic wish based on something you worded incorrectly, followed by a third wish that undid the second. 

Of course, there was still the mystery of what Nicolas Cage asked for following his raising of the Demon Jacob Whelan, as he did so as part of research for a part in a movie... he was already a big star with millions of dollars by the time he raised the demon.

That’s why currently being tied up in Nicolas Cage’s storage room staring at some old Christmas Decorations was pretty much the opposite of that original command. It was also somewhat humiliating. The last time a group of Angels failed this badly an entire month was destroyed from the Calendar. As a result, February was born. 

Also, as of last night they were joined by and unconscious David Mars. One-half of the Chosen Ones that they sent to find this very compound, and stop the end of the world. So not only was it humiliating, it also reeked of failure. And despair. A February type failure. 

It was 13 hours, but Mars woke up thankful that he no longer had a bag over his head, but still freaked out that he was now staring into the dead eyes of a plastic Santa Claus. He screamed a little when he saw it. Then he screamed again when he saw the two angels tied up next to him.

“Calm down,” Gabe replied.

“Am I dead?” Mars asked.

“No, you just failed,” Raph responded, “Get the list.”

“My hands are tied up,” Gabe said.

“Kaplan’s still out there,” Mars said, trying to help.

Gabe and Raph looked at each other. Then back at Mars.

“Never mind, maybe we can make the list if I can get my shoe off,” Gabe said.

“So little faith,” A new voice said behind them. Mars, Gabe, and Raph did their best to turn around. “Stop... stop trying.. no, stop trying to turn around, I’ll just... fine.”

With that, Demon Jacob Whelan came into view. He seemed different this time. He had large bags under his eyes, his black plastic slick backed hair was starting to show signs of grey. Also, he had a large bandage that went up the length of his right arm.

“So, this is this the great David Mars, it is a pleasure to meet you,” Jacob Whelan said, “I’d shake your hand, but you’re all sorts of tied up right now. It’s ok, you are forgiven.”

“Thanks,” Mars replied, not really sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing that he couldn’t touch a demon. On the one hand, he would probably be the first of his friends to touch a demon. On the other hand, it was a demon, and he probably wasn’t going to live long enough to tell anyone.

“Hey, listen, I was wondering if you would like to go ahead and tell me where your friend Kaplan is. He seems to have fallen off the Earth,” he let off a quick, fake, strained laugh.

“What happened to you?” Mars asked.

“Your concern for my safety is more than admirable,” Demon Jacob Whelan smacked Mars on the back. “Where’s David Kaplan.”

“I really don’t know. I sent him to go get food just before your men broke in.”

“So he’s close by?”

“He doesn’t know!” Gabe replied, “You can keep talking in circles, but that doesn’t change the fact that he still doesn’t know!”

“This is a private conversation, and you’re being extremely rude,” Jacob Whelan started to growl. It was a deep, vicious growl, something that came from an animal. He took a moment, reflattened his hair, and began speaking again in his frighteningly calm manner.

“You know, Mr. Mars,” he replied, “there are two ways we can go about this. You can tell me like a good friend, or I can make you tell me.”

Mars thought about it for a moment. This was the part of the movie where someone would say something defiant, then end up being led to some slow-moving torture machine. As Nicolas Cage’s lair didn’t even have a prison - the scariest thing in the room prior to the Demon entering was a box of unused Halloween Decorations and four rejected Nicolas Cage heads from a wax museum (no one knew why he kept these) he feared that he would not be led to a slow moving death machine, but instead would probably be killed on sight.

It quickly became evident that he was weighing his options and hadn’t said anything in quite some time, as Demon Jacob Whelan looked at his watch despite knowing, at all times, what time it actually was.

“Look, enough. Where is he?” Jacob Whelan said, “You have three seconds or I cut your heart out as painfully as possible and hand it to the Angels.”

“You can’t!” Gabe said.

“What?”

“You can’t,” Raph seemed bored, “We earmarked him as the Chosen One.”

“One half of the Chosen Ones.”

“One Half, one full, one whatever. you can’t touch him unless it’s in fair battle,” Gabe responded.

“I’ll give him a knife.”

“You can’t do that until he’s free,” Raph responded, still bored.

There was another visceral grown from the man’s throat, “Who made the dumb rules?”

“You did. Following your arrival onto Earth,” Gabe said.

Mars had no idea what was going on, but at this moment he was not getting killed so he approved of the situation. 

That was, until one of the robed men entered the room. He walked over to Jacob Whelan and whispered in his ear. An unnatural smile eked it’s way across the Demon’s face.

“Well, Mr. Mars, I do apologize for this intrusion. It seems that you are no longer needed. We found your cohorot.”

“Look, we really only pick up about half of what you say,” Gabe responded.

“We found Mr. Kaplan. And we aren’t repeating mistakes.” Two large men in robes entered the room.

“Kill Mr. Mars. We’ll bring in Mr. Kaplan as soon as possible.”