Author's note: Not sure how many people are reading this, but I have no excuse for not posting this sooner. It's not like I don't have the story written out already. I just straight up forgot I had started posting chapters of it.
So... here you go. The aftermath of our confused protagonist's run-in with the Devil himself!
And uh... comments are awesome because they help me not forget I'm posting stuff. Also I get people really like my Metroid stuff and wish I were posting that instead, but it does make me a little sad when I post a new chapter of this series and see that I have a comment but it's about Metroid.
Like, I super appreciate the support and love the fact that I wrote stories people enjoy, but I would request that Metroid comments be reserved for the Metroid stories. Thanks!
Anyway, hope you enjoy this odd little thing I wrote to cope with lockdown
Chapter 3 The First Rule of Angel Club
By the time Bailey finally made it out of the woods, she was covered in mud, sweat, and even a bit of her own blood. In her haste, she had tripped over a couple of tree roots and faceplanted both times. She didn't care though. Her heart was racing and she was afraid to look back. She just forced herself on toward the more populated area of the town, breathlessly running in the direction of the train tracks and the old apartment buildings. She wanted to get home.
Bailey wished she could just call a cab or a ride share, but enclosed spaces like cars had become too risky given the pandemic. She just really hoped she didn't run into anyone. A mud-covered woman running for her life with a bloody gash on her forehead and a cut on her cheek would probably turn heads, and people might get too close and try to convince her to go to a hospital, which was the last place she wanted to be.
It was the worst possible time to be in the kind of distress she was in. Then again there was probably no good time to be in this situation. She didn't know what to do and she couldn't seek help, not easily anyway. Not that there would be much anyone could do against the actual Devil. Even guns probably wouldn't be very useful against a guy who could burn three humans to death in a matter of seconds using magic fire.
It had started to rain, and Bailey slowed down once the train tracks were in sight. She was afraid of slipping again and pretty sure all of the running in the world wouldn't have stopped Satan from following her if he had actually wanted to kill her.
Her hair and clothes were soaking wet by the time her apartment building came into view, and as much as she had wanted to get away from her apartment earlier, she wanted nothing more than to just get back to it and get in a nice hot shower and curl up in her bed. She was freezing. And she would have made it, too, if she hadn't stopped when she noticed the lights were on in the coffee shop again.
It was after midnight now, and curfew had been at eight. There was no way the shop should be open, and she doubted they had the same reasons for people being there as the night before.
She approached the front window slowly, the sound of the pouring rain drowning out her footsteps. Once she was there, she leaned over ever so slightly to peak into the shop. There on the couch she saw the red-haired woman and the blonde man she had seen the night before. She watched them for a minute. There was something unnerving about how formal they seemed given that they were alone. Perfect posture. Same outfits that made them look like they were about to start handing out bibles on the street. She wondered where Mike and Cici were.
Then she realized how weird it was that she hadn't seen Cici here either night given that it was apparently her relative who had been killed and she was probably the one who owned the place. There was always the chance she had been in the back or something the night before, but something still seemed off.
"Bailey?" a man's voice called from behind her, and she almost jumped out of her skin as she turned to face the speaker and hopped back.
She was ready to bolt out of there when she realized she recognized the person in front of her.
"Mike? What are you doing out in the rain at this hour?" she asked.
"I could ask the same of you," he said, giving her a concerned look. "You're bleeding and soaking wet and covered in mud."
For a moment, Bailey had forgotten the abysmal-looking state she was in and looked down at her waterlogged jeans.
"I went for a walk in the woods, and I slipped." It wasn't exactly a lie.
Mike looked from her to the other two people in the coffee shop.
"I know it's probably not the best idea with everything going on, but would you like to come inside? You look like you've seen a ghost and I'm sure we can find you some fresh clothes and make you some hot food."
Bailey just stared at him for a minute. She was still in shock, and she knew she wanted to get home, but she was terrified of being alone right then.
"Where are you going to find clean clothes in a coffee shop?" she asked.
"Cici probably has a clean uniform in there somewhere, and if not, I can go to our apartment upstairs and borrow something from her. She won't mind."
Bailey supposed she shouldn't have been surprised Mike lived with Cici. Now that she thought about it, they were probably a couple.
"All right. That sounds good."
She let him lead her inside, thankful once she was able to step in and out of the rain. Of course, once she was in, the heads of the two people inside turned to look at her. Bailey felt herself tense up again under their gazes. They seemed alarmed and taken back by her arrival and stared with an intensity that felt like they were looking right through her.
"Michael," the red-haired woman said, "who is this person and why is she here?"
The blonde Viking type guy just nodded and looked at Mike as well. Up close, Bailey realized just how blue his eyes were and how the slight stubble on his square jaw gave him an even more rugged and masculine look than she had originally noticed.
"This is Bailey," Mike said. "She fell down outside in the rain and cut her head. I said she should come in out of the cold and get some clean clothes and something to eat. I assumed the two of you were still big on altruism."
The red-haired woman took a moment to think about that before nodding, and Bailey realized she had the greenest eyes she had ever seen. They were stunning. Like Mike and the Viking guy, everything about her was absolutely stunning. Bailey wasn't normally attracted to women, but there was just something about the red-haired woman that she couldn't put her finger on…
She felt a tight knot in her stomach as soon as she realized what that reminded her of. She was as unrealistically attractive as Satan had been. Both of the men were as well. Her mind started racing again, and she cursed herself for being so foolish as to come into the shop. Coffee shop open at weird hours of the night? Only on nights where horrific murders took place in the woods? And every one here had that same disturbing charm as the demon man in the forest? This was bad, she decided, and the look of horror must have been evident on her face because she realized that all of a sudden everyone was staring at her with concern.
"Are you all right, Ms. Bailey?" the Viking guy said in an absolutely melodic deep voice. "You seem troubled."
"I'm… I guess I'm just a little shaken up. I saw some kind of animal in the woods. I don't really know what it was, but I ran away from it and that's why I fell."
The Viking guy seemed satisfied with her response because he nodded and didn't ask any other questions. Bailey had been okay with seeing Mike again, but she really didn't feel comfortable around these two people. They seemed nice enough, but she just didn't know them. Not that she knew Mike any better. He must have noticed something was wrong because he gently touched her shoulder and pointed to the door that led to the back of the store.
"Why don't we get you those new clothes?" he asked. There was something about his tone and the gentle feeling of his hand on her shoulder that helped Bailey start feeling a little better.
"Yeah… sounds good."
She walked toward the back of the store, Mike a few feet behind her as they went. She didn't know what it was about Mike that just made her feel so comfortable with him. Perhaps it was a combination of his warmth and her own loneliness, but there was just something about the man that was so different. Or perhaps it was because he was the first person she had run into that night that wasn't trying to murder her and didn't have horns.
He brought Bailey a red sweater and some black jeans like Cici had been wearing earlier in the day. Then he gave her a couple of old towels to dry off with as he went back to the front of the store and closed the door to give Bailey some privacy. As soon as he was gone, Bailey looked through what was essentially just a storage room with a couple of folding chairs. It was as meticulously clean as the main part of the store was and even had a pleasant scent to it. She had thoroughly been expecting something more run down and musty. It made her wonder what kind of person Cici actually was that she cared this much about a business that never had any customers.
Bailey stripped out of her old clothes and dried herself off with the towels. Once she was sufficiently dry, she put on the sweater and jeans. The height was more or less a perfect fit, but Cici was a wider woman than Bailey was. A little on the buxom side, but she also just had a different bone structure and a larger chest. Bailey wished she had a belt to keep the pants up easier and the shirt was very baggy, but other than that things seemed okay.
After drying her hair with one of the towels as best she could and combing it out with her fingers, Bailey walked out into the main part of the store. Once again, she felt everyone's eyes on her.
"Why don't you come sit over with us?" Mike called from one of the oversized chairs by the old couch. The other two just stared.
"I'm actually kind of hungry. Is there anything around I can have? I'm happy to give you the money for it," she said.
Mike just waved off her concerns as he stood up and wandered back behind the counter. He threw on Cici's red gingham apron from earlier and turned on the grill.
"What'll it be?"
"Oh, you're actually going to cook?"
"I told you we'd get you something warm to eat, didn't I?"
"I guess you did." She forced herself to smile, a gesture he returned, albeit more genuinely.
"Bacon and eggs again? Although perhaps with decaf coffee this time?"
"Maybe just a couple of eggs scrambled on a roll with that coffee?"
"Coming right up."
It didn't take long for Mike to prep the meal, and once he was finished, he and Bailey went over to sit in the couch circle with the other two people. Bailey sat on the empty couch while Mike took the oversized chair he had been in earlier. She ate in silence for a while until she was finishing up and noticed the woman eyeing her closely.
"Um… hi?" Bailey said a little coldly as she made eye contact with the woman. She was getting tired of her and the Viking guy looking at her like she was a specimen under a microscope. "Are you waiting for me to do a trick or something?"
"How exactly do you know Michael?" the woman asked bluntly, seeming oblivious to her own rudeness or Bailey's attempt to point it out.
Well that was direct at least, Bailey thought.
"I've seen him around town a few times, and I had coffee in here earlier today with him and Cici."
The woman looked confused.
"Cici?" she asked.
"Just the woman who works here during the day," Mike said dismissively. "She's nobody important."
Bailey blinked in surprise as just how quickly he had dismissed any mention of the waitress when earlier that day he had claimed she was the reason he hung around here. She wondered if there was some kind of infidelity going on, but it didn't seem like Mike and the woman were together, and she couldn't imagine why he would be so bold as to live with his mistress if they were.
"Right," the woman said before looking back to Bailey. "You said you were in the woods and you saw a creature. What did this creature look like?"
"Was it horned?" the Viking guy asked, staring at Bailey curiously. "Did it stand on all fours or on two legs like a man?"
"…that's oddly specific," Mike muttered.
Bailey nearly choked on the coffee she had been drinking as she just stared at the two of them in disbelief.
"You've seen it too?" she asked, looking between the two of them. "Because it was horned and it did stand upright… It was dark and I didn't get a great look at it but I do remember its eyes. It had been golden eyes that looked almost human."
She would never forget those eyes. They seemed like they were looking through her very soul, like the creature was able to learn everything about her with just a glance.
Mike sighed, looking suddenly tired. The red-haired woman looked over to him.
"I suppose he very well may be around after all," the woman said, still looking at Mike. "I thought you said you had everything under control."
"I do," Mike said, looking like it was taking everything he had to hold back from snapping at the woman. "Clearly he wasn't out for blood or Bailey wouldn't be here. I can't just drive him out for no reason if he isn't doing anything. You know how he is."
"Michael," the Viking man said, looking at him very seriously, "which is it? Do you have everything under control or is he back and wandering around?"
"He's always around, Raph," Mike said, sounding annoyed. "He has free access to be here whenever he wants and he takes advantage of that from time to time. If he's not doing anything outside of what he's permitted, I can't just go and send him back to his home."
Bailey listened for a minute, but she was starting to get the impression that maybe what she had seen in the forest hadn't been her imagination at all. Clearly this had been no ordinary animal, and it was starting to feel like she had just avoided a run in with a serial killer and Mike was his parole officer or something.
"Look, I know this sounds crazy," Bailey said, and all eyes turned to look at her. "But the creature spoke. He looked like he took on the form of a horned man."
"He spoke to you?" The woman asked, clearly shocked. "What did he say?"
Bailey swallowed. She could feel her hands trembling just thinking about her encounter.
"He knew my name and told me that he was the Devil."
Mike sighed in exasperation as the other two leaned in and stared at Bailey with shock and mild horror.
"So," Mike said after a while, "sounds like you met Satan. Just great…"
"Wait." Bailey looked at him in confusion. "You sound almost like you believe me."
"We do believe you," the woman said. "This is specifically what we were worried about. Apparently, Satan is around here and he's running around having people sacrifice each other as offerings to him."
"Actually," Bailey said, "I don't think he was really so into the human sacrifice thing… he seemed pretty against it."
"What?" the woman asked, dropping all semblance of formality as she stared at Bailey with incredulity. "What makes you say something like that?"
"Because…" Her voice broke and she had to take a deep breath to steady herself. "Some guys in cloaks and hoods grabbed me. They took out some fancy knife and told me I was going to be their next sacrifice to Satan. But then he appeared in the form of a beast…" She swallowed again. Recounting this wasn't easy, but these were probably the only people in the world who would believe her. "And he saved me. He told all of the men that he didn't want them to sacrifice the innocent to him, that he was only a punisher of the wicked. And then… they all just burst into these weird white flames and burned to death before my eyes…"
Bailey was shaking as her voice threatened to break again. She was having difficulty holding back tears as the cries of the burning men in their final moments played over and over again in her mind.
"Satan saved you?" the woman asked, sitting back on her couch and looking like she couldn't make heads or tails of what was going on. "If he didn't want anything sacrificed to him, why were people doing it in the first place?"
Bailey shrugged. "The men said that Satan had commanded them to do it, but he insisted he had said no such thing. And once they were all dead, he helped me up off of the ground and took the form of the horned man. And he just… let me go."
"He killed humans," the Viking guy muttered.
"He killed serial killers," Mike interjected, "not innocents. He punished the wicked, just like he's supposed to do. If he had killed Bailey, I would have driven him back to Hell tonight, but he didn't violate any of the laws about how he's supposed to behave on Earth."
"Wait," Bailey said, a couple of pieces coming together in her head. "Satan is real, and you're supposed to somehow enforce the boundaries of… some kind of treaty, I guess? And of if he doesn't comply, you send him back to Hell?"
"That's right."
Bailey was starting to think she wasn't so far off with the idea that Mike was Satan's parole officer.
"And you're Michael. As in… Michael-Michael? The angel guy?"
He sighed again, but then he nodded. "That's also right."
"So you're all…?"
"It's okay," Michael said. "You can say it."
"You're all angels? And you're in here trying to figure out what to do about Satan because apparently the actual real Devil Satan is here and walking around in the woods somewhere just outside town?"
"That's about the size of it," Michael replied, not sure what else to say. "Are you… all right? I know humans don't tend to do great with this kind of information."
"I might be in a state of shock," she said, still finding herself unable to process anything. "I'm still trying to get over that whole part where I just watched the actual Devil commit a triple homicide right in front of me. Also just trying to wrap my head around the idea that any of this stuff is… real. I guess."
Perhaps all of the people here were as insane as she was, Bailey thought.
"I believe," the woman said, addressing Bailey, "that this is probably somewhat traumatic for you."
Bailey just found herself nodding at the woman's words without realizing it. Her whole body was on autopilot.
"Bailey," Michael said, "Satan didn't try to hurt you at all, did he? Did he threaten you?"
Bailey looked over to him and quickly shook her head. There was something about meeting his eyes that she found calming and grounding, and now she was wondering if that was just some kind of angel hypnosis he was doing to make her feel better and that's why she was so perplexed by him.
"He wasn't bad. He was actually kind of nice, I think…." She paused and looked around. "Does Cici know her coffee shop is used at night to host Angel Club?"
The three alleged angels just stared at Bailey, their faces blank as though they hadn't even considered it.
"Angel Club?" Michael asked.
"Cici owns this place?" said the woman.
"This is a coffee shop?" asked the blond man.
"I assumed Cici was the owner?" Bailey said, glancing at Michael with confusion.
"Um… yeah," he said. "She does own the place. And um… yeah she knows about Angel Club."
The other two alleged angels glared daggers at him.
"Is Cici um… like you guys?" Bailey asked.
Michael shook his head. "Cici isn't like Gabrielle, Raphael, or myself. No. She just knows about Angel Club, but she isn't part of it."
"Michael," said the woman who was apparently called Gabrielle. "You have some serious explaining to do about why your pet human knows any of this."
Bailey felt like she had just stepped on a landmine and was starting to wonder if there was any way she could slip out of the shop without anyone noticing. But she doubted it, especially if by some bizarre chance these people were all really what they said they were. She wasn't about to try pulling one over on a room full of angry angels.
"Look, Gabby," Michael said, looking her dead in the eyes. "Earth, Satan, all this. That's my responsibility. I keep him in line. I've been doing that for thousands of years, and I know Satan far better than you do. As for the people with whom I associate while I'm on Earth, that's my business. There are no laws specifically forbidding me from revealing my nature to anyone, but I still tend to keep it to myself. But sometimes I get lonely, Gabby, and unlike all of you I don't have any other angel-types flying around. I have a couple of human friends and my adversary. That's it. Those are the only beings who know."
"Michael," Gabby said, standing up out of her seat, "Satan killed people tonight. He killed humans. Maybe they were wicked and he hasn't crossed any lines yet, but he will. You know his nature."
"Yes, I do know his nature," Michael said, also standing now. "I know it better than you. And I know I haven't had to discipline him in over two thousand years. He does his punishing evil thing from time to time and rules over Hell. The things he's permitted to do."
"You sound like you're going soft on him."
"I'm avoiding kicking a hornets' nest because the last thing I want to do is piss off an emotionally unstable fallen angel with the power to incinerate whole human beings in under thirty seconds without having to come close enough to touch them."
"Michael—"
"We can't kill him, Gabby. We can only manage him. You know how it goes. And yes, if he ever gets back to causing trouble, I will take whatever action I need to but until then, my way has been working for thousands of years and I don't need you coming in and derailing all of that."
The door leading to the back of the shop opened suddenly and everyone froze, the tension in the air thick and heavy as whipping cream.
Cici had come into the shop and just looked at everyone wondering what the hell she had walked in on. She obviously hadn't expected anyone to be there because all she had on was a plain black long-sleeved tee shirt and Spongebob Squarepants pajama pants. She wasn't even wearing her glasses.
"Well don't stop whatever you were doing on my account. I just came down here to get a danish and go back to sleep."
"Impeccable timing, Cici," Michael said.
Cici looked over the group of people around the couches. Her amber eyes lingered on Bailey for a moment too long, and Bailey felt a chill almost as intense as the one outside. For whatever reason, she could tell Cici didn't want her there. Without her glasses, the woman had a very intimidating gaze, and her eyes had a much more golden hue to them.
"Aren't you all supposed to be social distancing?" Cici said, notes of sarcasm in her tone as she went behind the counter and grabbed one of the leftover danishes from the day before. She leaned over the counter and took a bite, intrigued by the gathering.
"No, it's okay," Michael said, clearly trying to gauge the tension in the room and select his words carefully. "Bailey knows about Angel Club."
Cici raised an eyebrow. "Is that what the kids are calling it nowadays?"
"She had a run-in with Satan," Mike said, looking at Cici very intensely, a gesture she returned.
"Huh. How is the old goat man doing these days?"
"You say that like you know Satan personally," Bailey said. Cici gave her a curious look.
"You could say that."
She proceeded to eat more of her Danish.
"Excuse me for interrupting," Gabrielle said as she looked Cici up and down, "but why am I starting to get the impression no one here is sufficiently concerned about Satan running amok? This world is already in chaos. Do you really think things go this bad on their own?"
"I don't know, Random-Angel-who-thinks-she-can-just-barge-into-my-house-whenever-she-wants," Cici said in a suddenly snide tone, "why don't you go ask your boss? Last I heard, plagues were Their department."
Bailey was taken back by witnessing a human mouth off to an alleged angel like that. She wasn't sure what she had been expecting, but she supposed a good deal of reverence was part of it. Unless Cici didn't believe them about actually being angels.
"You have a lot of nerve speaking to me that way," Gabby snapped. "And I'll have you know that plagues like this aren't—"
"Cici," Michael said as the tension in the air became palpable, "do you mind going back upstairs and leaving us to our business?"
Cici was about to retort when Gabrielle cut her off.
"Don't bother," said the alleged angel. "Raphael and I are leaving. We clearly have some creative differences on how to handle the Adversary, and you have even less control over your pet human than you do of him." She turned to her partner. "Come, Raphael. Make haste."
The blonde man stood up, looking a little confused as to what was going on, but he didn't feel like arguing. Bailey couldn't blame him. They were in the same boat.
"And Michael," Gabrielle said as she was halfway out the door, "There will be a report on all of this, and we will be back."
Michael just stared at her blankly. "Oh yes, threatening to report me to an omniscient, omnipresent being. Because I'm sure They never would have figured out what happened without that."
Gabrielle didn't even offer a response to that as she and Raphael closed the door behind them and left. Bailey was fully expecting to see them walk off like normal people so she could continue rationalizing the situation in her head and enjoy that skepticism, but no. They did not. Instead, an ethereal bright light appeared around them and within seconds, they had both vanished from sight.
Looking back down into her decaf coffee mug, Bailey huddled on the couch with her knees close to her chest. This had to have been a dream. It absolutely must have been a dream. She really didn't know much about angels, but she was pretty sure they weren't supposed to bicker like that.
"Cici," Mike said, turning to the only other human in the room, "what were you thinking? You can't just come down and start trying to pick fights with Gabriel! Or anyone for that matter!"
The woman snorted, looking indignant. "I don't like the insinuation that I'm your pet. And I don't like how she was trying to undermine you like she knows better when you're the one who's been doing this job for thousands of years."
"While I appreciate you supporting and defending me through all this, we just don't need them poking around. We need to—"
"Mike. Stop. Please just… stop." She pinched the bridge of her nose like she was getting a headache from everything. Then she glanced over to Bailey, looking far more tired than she had just moments before. "Enough damage has been done tonight."
He sighed. There was clearly something he wanted to say, but it remained unspoken. The only thing to break the tense silence was the rolling roar of the thunder outside.
"I'm sorry you had to see all this, Bailey," Michael said. "Things aren't usually this tense around here. Normally Gabriel and Raphael never come down to Earth unless they have a specific task to complete."
"Usually things are pretty quiet," Cici said, going behind the counter and getting another Danish. "Everything has just been a wreck this year… on quite a few different levels."
"Yeah," Bailey said with a nod. "You can say that again."
She yawned, suddenly realizing just how tired she was. Between her attempted murder in the woods and then discovering all of the weird angel stuff she was exhausted, and that wasn't even accounting for the fact that she was still in shock about having met Satan in the woods and watching him kill three people. She figured it was safe to say that any semblance of composure she had left at this point was due solely to shock and the fact that she hadn't been able to process everything yet.
Bailey stood up abruptly.
"I should head home."
The thunder rumbled outside, and the rain hadn't let up at all from earlier. She briefly considered asking if she could sleep on the couch where she was, particularly given that there probably wasn't anywhere she would be safer from Satan than in the shop with the angel who apparently kept the Devil under control. But that was too weird. And she wanted to go home. Everything had just been too much, and she needed to get away from these people for a while and finish getting her thoughts together about them.
"You're welcome to stay here," Michael said, but Bailey shook her head.
"No, I want to go home. I need some time to myself."
"Give her your phone number," Cici said. "That way if Satan or those weird cultists show up again she can text you."
Bailey flinched at the mention of Satan or more of those cloaked figures coming after her, but Satan had made it very clear that he had no interest in ever seeing her again, and as far as she knew, none of the cultists who had seen her had survived. She was probably in more danger of the police showing up at her door saying there was some kind of security footage linking her to the triple homicide.
"Do you want someone to walk you home?" Michael asked, but Bailey shook her head.
"No. Just… no."
She didn't bother looking back as she went out the door and into the rain. It wasn't far to her apartment building, but she was soaking wet again the moment she went out there. Once she was back in the building, she hurriedly ran up the steps and back into her crappy studio apartment.
She should have been scared. She knew she should have been scared. But right now, she didn't have the emotional capacity to be scared. All she wanted to do was sleep. Sleep and wake up and be done with all of this weirdness.
Bailey was just about to throw herself down onto the bed when she realized she would feel better with some kind of protection from Satan. But what sorts of things did a person use to ward off the Devil? She looked at her humidifier, but sh didn't exactly have a few gallons of holy water laying around to fill it with. If that even worked.
Figuring it was better than nothing, she went into her pantry—which was just a cardboard box filled with canned goods—and grabbed a jar of pickled garlic. It definitely wouldn't be her first choice of things, but she didn't have any whole cloves of garlic or any kind of religious artifacts aside from the Flying Spaghetti Monster magnet on her mini fridge. She felt very silly but opted to grab the magnet of the Pastafarian deity and bring it to bed with her as well.
When at last she walked across the tiny studio apartment and fell down onto her bed, she was still holding the jar and magnet, clutching them close to her chest.