St Louis, Missouri, 1922
This speakeasy had shit liquor. Shit. It was amazing that none of these hicks were blind. I asked for another one, but I sure as shit didn’t want to drink it. I tossed a ten on the bar and the old barkeep snapped it up. Like this kerosene was worth ten bucks. He grinned at me, showing brown teeth. So that’s what this moonshine did to you. I didn’t grin back.
I turned away and looked over the underground bar. There were card games going on in almost every corner. A stage lined the back wall, a sad piano player plunking away on a shiny grand piano. A couple of brass instruments were resting near the piano, so I assumed there’d be livelier music later. There were a bunch of factory workers, even a pocket of well dressed men drinking something red. I should’ve ordered that. Flappers were everywhere and some of them were working girls.
I didn’t see the person I’d come to see.
One of the flappers sidled up next to me, her face a thick cake of makeup. Her hair was dark curls pressed tight against her head. The dress she wore was too big, the strap falling over her shoulder.
“Hi, honey,” she said with a smile. Missing teeth. She must be addicted to the kerosene they were peddling.
“Hi,” I told her, trying not to make eye contact.
“You looking for some fun, honey?” She asked as she used a shiny fingernail to follow a pinstripe in my suit.
“Not tonight, sugar.”
“You sure?”
I sure didn’t want to be mean. This girl was young, troubled, and probably riddled with some disease. I wasn’t dipping in that.
“Sorry, sugar. Maybe some other time.”
“Sure thing, honey,” she answered, her eyes already wandering past me before she moved off.
I pretended to sip the foul liquid in my glass while I continued to look over the bar. Maybe I’d gone to the wrong speakeasy? This had been the one all of my information had said was the right one….
The crowd parted and I saw a flash of white. I moved to my right and there he was, the man I’d been hunting for weeks now.
Long time ago, there were bastards that fell alongside me. I’m not saying that I wasn’t doing bad shit, but there were some bastards doing worse shit than me. Creating war and killing innocents. I wasn’t into all that. Worse thing I did was fuck a lotta women and encourage everyone around me to do the same. Taught humans the best way to make alcohol, not this cheap shit, and kept them addicted to it. Made them think I was some god they needed to worship.
Then Gabriel and Michael came and cleaned house. Followed all of us to the ends of the earth to do it, too. Tossed us over the side and told us that if we led humans astray, then we had no right to be on this earth protecting them.
Fucking spent a thousand years in Hell just for teaching some jackasses how to make wine and get fucked for it.
Look, I’ve fucked up. No doubt about it. But I sure as shit shouldn’t have been sent to Hell to poke people with a pitchfork. I had orgies, I didn’t have melees. So the second I could, I hitched my wagon to a dragon and got the fuck out of Hell.
Some of the fallen angels stayed.
I was looking at one of them right now. I knew him as Plutarch. Handsome son of a bitch, but not real bright. Probably how I found his ass. People are going to do what people do, having their free will and all, but they sure as shit didn’t need this bastard influencing them.
I set my glass down on the bar and weaved my way through the flappers and the gents that wanted to buy their services. I started this hunt in Miami, following the wide swath of death and deterioration that Plutarch had sneezed out over the country.
I got to the table and put both fists on it, leaning down over the three men who sat around it, Plutarch in the middle. “Hey, Plu.”
He blanched. He fumbled his cigarette and it went end over end onto the floor. Plutarch danced in his seat, but who gives a shit. This fight wasn’t going to be fair.
I grabbed him by the collar and dragged him over the table. The men with him made half-hearted attempts to stop me, but come on. I’ve got the strength of an angel on earth. Plu started to fight a little, but one fist to the face got him to stop that shit. I plugged him good, too, right in the nose, making blood gush out on his white lapels.
He snorted blood out at me and several people around us started moving away. One of the flappers semi-screamed when she saw the blood, but fuck it. I found my man and I wasn’t taking any crap.
“Bacchus, Bacchus, stop!” Plutarch yelled.
I stopped, my hands still fisted in his jacket and shirt. “Tell me why I should.”
“Look, brother, we’re on the same side—”
“I’m not on your side.”
“Bacchus—”
I punched him again for good measure, mostly just to shut him the fuck up. I swung him around and looked over at the two guys he’d been with. “He give you money? Drugs? Contacts?”
One held up his hands, his beady eyes narrowing. The other simply shook his head.
I knew they were lying.
Gangsters do that a lot.
When Prohibition started, my hunting became focused on these sons a bitches. Lotta fallen angels that hadn’t left Hell with the Exodus were swarming over these thugs. Helping them. Giving them money and contacts in the underworld. I’d already stomped a few back into the ground. Plutarch just happened to be the latest one.
These two gangsters were the real thing, too. They weren’t just fucking around trying to make money the easy way. They were in this for the long haul. I looked them over, from their expensive fedoras, over their pinstripe suits, down over their Italian loafers.
There was no way these two could be saved.
“We can make a deal,” one started to say.
“I’ve made enough deals in my life,” I interrupted. I glared at him, at his fleshy face, his beady eyes, and fish-like lips. “I ain’t making a deal with you.”
“It would be beneficial to both of us, I’m sure,” he said with a shrug.
I swung Plutarch around and advanced on both the men at the table, dragging the agonized Plu with me. Neither of the men backed down. In fact, the fat one pulled out a cigar, nicely showing me his piece at the same time.
“I’m not buying what you’re selling, fucker,” I spat. “I’ve already been where you are and let me say, it wasn’t fucking worth it.”
“All the drink, all the drugs, all the pussy you want?” he asked.
My mind flashed on when Cupid had run into my room to warn me that our shit was over, three women crawling all over me, my very own personal orgy. Right behind him was Michael, as in, God’s Michael, and shit hadn’t been the same since.
“Had it,” I sneered. “Paid for it.”
The man shrugged and adjusted his tie. “Anytime you change your mind, come on up to Chicago. I like your style.” He swept past me, his friend following behind him. “Hope you take out the trash,” he laughed.
The crowd swallowed him up and Plutarch and I were left with a bunch of flappers and gents staring at us.
“This place got a back door?” I asked.
They all pointed toward my right and I dragged Plu that way. He blubbered, something about did I know who I just pissed off or something. Like it mattered. I yanked him down a hallway, a big green door at the end. Using my foot, I smashed the door open and tossed Plutarch through it. He hit the ground just as I let the door slam behind me.
“Do you know who that was?” he demanded.
“Don’t know, don’t care.”
I went to reach for him, but he held up a hand. “Bacchus, please….”
“It ain’t Bacchus anymore,” I said through clenched teeth. “You can tell the Devil that for sure.”
I pulled Plu to his feet and threw another right into his jaw. He turned and spit out a tooth or two. He sagged in my grip.
“Tell him it’s Arcangelo de Bacchio. Got it?”
Plu moaned.
So I sent another fist flying into his face. “Got it?”
“Yeah, yeah. But you don’t understand who you just—”
I pulled my staff out of my jacket. Looked like a conductor’s wand, until I shook it and it flared open. Ivy wrapped around my hand and ambrosia dripped off the end.
Plu moaned again.
With a flip of my wrist, I grasped the staff and sent it spinning into Plutarch’s chest. He combusted into a frill of sparkly glitter that rained down on me and the alley.
Another shake and the staff was small enough to put in my inside pocket again. I walked off down the alley, whistling.
Time to find another fallen.