“Then me challenge you...to Monopoly!”
The Minotaur slammed a Monopoly board onto the tiny bridge table and the blood drained out of Michael’s face.
“No, not Monopoly,” he said. “ Anything but Monopoly. It’s a terrible game. It’s horrible. It takes forever and everyone plays with different rules and it...it brings out the worst in anyone who touches it. No Monopoly.”
“You say you beat Minotaur in anything!” the Minotaur hooted. “Now you beat Minotaur in Monopoly or you a dum-dum fathead!”
“He’s got you there,” Satan said, from the sidelines. “Is Heaven’s champion a dum-dum fathead?”
Michael didn’t move.
“Minotaur let you be car,” the Minotaur said. “Minotaur be doggie. Pope be banker”
And he set up the board.
The second it was evident that Monopoly was going to be played the demons began to cheer in earnest. One stood up, and said, “Yay.” And then others and then more and more and more until the hideous sound of their hopeful cheers issued from every deformed mouth, from every face-hole and noise organ, every trunk and snout. From every multi-mouthed horror and flatulent, Hellish sphincter came the roar and bellow of Hell’s cheerleading squad as every awful demon cheered the Minotaur. Because there is no game more demonic, more torturous, more beneficial to Hell’s interests than Monopoly.
The angels tried to control the demonic side of Madison Square Garden, laying about them with their whips but then the growling, screeching, cawing, hooting, hollering, ululating swarm of demons made them step back and soon, like rich white people abandoning the inner cities for the suburbs, they fled to their side of the stadium for their own safety and protection. Among the demons a new feeling was spreading. The demons were feeling it for the first time in months. Years. Maybe even centuries. They rolled on the ground, they jumped up and down, they pumped their appendages and sprayed their victory stenches. They were drunk on hope. And the Minotaur wasn’t going to let them down.
In the first round, he rolled double sixes, bought the power company and then rolled a four, landing on St. James Place. He bought both of them, snuffling to himself in delight at having bought some of the most commonly landed on properties in his first move. Michael ignored the Minotaur’s chuckles of triumph and rolled a four: Income Tax. He paid two hundred dollars into Community Chest. On his next move, the Minotaur rolled a four and landed on Free Parking, scooping up the money Michael had just put down. Throughout the stands, the demons cheered. The angels booed, but their booing had a nervous quality to it that hadn’t been there before.
“That’s not fair,” Michael said.“You can’t land on Free Parking the first time around. That’s not how it’s played.”
The Pope checked the rule book. Nothing there about not landing on Free Parking the first time around.
“The move stands,” he pontificated.
The Minotaur grinned. The demons cheered louder. Michael sulked.
The game was afoot.
Inside the Sky Box, Barachiel was stress-eating kettle corn.
“How do we win?” Raphael asked. “I mean, what’s the plan? Can someone get Gabriel up here? Or Michael? They’ve got a plan for this, right.”
“I think we are outside the plan now,” Jegudiel said.
“Outside the plan? That’s not good. That’s really, really, really not good,” Raphael gibbered.
“I fear that our brothers have overreached,” Jegudiel said. “It is what I warned you all of.”
“Shut your mouth!” Barachiel screamed, bits of kettle corn spraying from his lips. “Just shut it, you smug, thirty-six-winged twit! We’re not beaten yet. We’re at war. This just means the fight is going to go harder.”
“I am only stating the obvious,” Jegudiel said. “All along, you have chosen to be blind to the flaws in Michael’s plan. After all, we are fighting the Deceitful One. He is as cunning and resourceful as we are. Maybe even more so.”
Barachiel grabbed Jegudiel by the collar and pulled him forward until their noses were touching.
“If you want me to rip off your wings and feed them to you, then you just keep talking,” he snarled.
“Violence is the first resort of tiny minds,” Metatron said. “This is an interesting position in which we find ourselves but it is still one in which Satan has only the appearance of a chance. Not an actual chance.”
“You shut up, too,” Barachiel said, dropping Jegudiel to the floor.
“I am merely agreeing with you in my own way, brother,” Metatron said. “Satan cannot win this simply because he cannot oppose the will of God. It is impossible.”
In the corner of the Sky Box, Phanuel spun and his flames blazed higher. A series of distressed crystalline chimes filled the glass-walled room.
“Phanuel makes a good point,” Jegudiel said from where he lay on the floor. “Have any of you considered that perhaps our defeat is the will of God? Has anyone discussed this with God himself, or have we just been taking Michael’s word for it? Remember, pride has always been our greatest sin.”
There was silence for a moment.
“Uh, guys,” Raphael said. “Is he right? Seriously? Did we just screw up?”
In the ring, Michael’s car landed on Park Place. Which was owned by the Minotaur. And had two hotels on it.
“You owe Minotaur one thousand, two hundred dollar,” the Minotaur said.
“I don’t have it,” Michael said, grumpily.
“Can mortgage properties,” the Minotaur said.
“The game is over,” Michael huffed.
“As long as you have properties to mortgage, the game continues,” the Pope said.
Michael looked at his properties and began checking the mortgage prices. The Minotaur controlled all the orange and light blue properties, as well as all four railroads, both utilities and Boardwalk and Park Place. If Michael mortgaged everything he could raise enough to keep his car spinning around the board for another hour while the Minotaur drained him of his cash. Soon he’d be making stupid deals and trading properties just to stay in the game. There was no way for him to win.
He had planned. He had plotted. He had walked through The Room and spoken to God himself. And now this. A part of his mind whispered, “It’s your own fault,” but he quickly shut up that part of his mind. That part of his mind was stupid and ignorant and not fair, it wasn’t fair, this wasn’t fair, he was Michael the Archangel, the Right Arm of the Heavenly Host, the Sword of the Lord.
“Arrrgghhh!!!!!” he screamed, standing up and flipping the table.
It flew into the air and exploded into flames.
“I may lose at board games but I will always win at physical violence,” he screamed and with a mighty flap of his wings he took to the air.
“To Hell! To Hell, my brothers! What we cannot win here, we will win by main force.”
Chaos exploded in Madison Square Gardens.
“To arms, my brothers! To arms!”
Golden trumpets sounded, and throughout the stadium the Heavenly Host took to the air in a flapping of wings. Heaven’s armory was opened and swords of fire, golden armor and holy hand grenades poured out.
In the Sky Box, Jegudiel was aghast. Phanuel spun rapidly in a panic.
“What’s going on?” Raphael gibbered.
“Possession is nine-tenths of the law,” Barachiel sneered. “Maybe Michael never shared his plan with all of you weak-livered Frenchmen, but I always knew that if we were defeated in the ring we would take Hell by main force. The Ultimate Death Match is only a formality. It may have hastened the legitimacy of our occupation, but it was never necessary.”
“You are making a grave mistake,” Jegudiel cried.
“Get stuffed,” Barachiel said and then the Sky Box windows exploded outwards at the sound of his Holy Shout and he flew into the air that was thick with feathers and gold and anger and the massed military might of Heaven’s Army streaming down to the escalators that led to the Gates of Hell.<
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“Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy,” Raphael babbled in a panic. “I don’t think this is a good idea.”
By the ring, Minos and Nero held on to the ropes as the air was churned into a hurricane by a thousand, thousand flapping wings.
“Sir, we must get to Hell and protect the Gates,” Nero shouted.
But Satan ignored him. He was sitting on the edge of the ring watching the chaos, seemingly unconcerned. He drummed his heels and hummed a tuneless little melody to himself.
“Sir?” Nero cried.
Minos was trying to direct the demons, who lacked the advantage of flight, trying to get them to follow the angels into Hell and join the battle there. He was hoping to head them off at the Gates. Nero struggled over to Satan and pulled his sleeve.
“Sir, we must hold the beachhead,” he said. “Come on! Bring the Minotaur!”
Satan looked back at the Minotaur who was totaling up his points. The Pope had kept careful score and the Minotaur looked like he was satisfied with his clear victory.
“Did we win?” Satan shouted to him.
“Minotaur win big!” the happy Minotaur snorted back.
Satan smiled.
“Sir?!?” Nero said.
“Relax, Nero,” Satan said. “It’s all under control. They’ve forgotten just what it was that got me thrown out of Heaven in the first place.”
“But they’re going to take Hell,” Nero said.
“Don’t worry about it,” Satan said.“And tell Minos to stop panicking. They may get to Hell, but I don’t think they’re going to want it.”
“Onward, Christian soldiers!” Gabriel called as the Heavenly Host smashed into Hell’s Vestibule.
The vanguard of the avenging Heavenly Host were led by Michael and next to him was Gabriel. A little further back, Barachiel brandished his twenty-foot sword of fire. Phanuel hung a good way back, more of an observer than a participant this time. And then the flying column of angels ran smack into the mountain of cargo containers. They fluttered in disarray for a moment as more angels poured down behind them and began to jam up the Vestibule.
“What are those?” Gabriel asked.
“Care you not!” Michael proclaimed. “Destroy them in the name of the Lord!”
He raised his mighty sword and brought it down on the containers, and such was the power of his will that it split the first door in two, cleaved the second and then the shockwaves of his willpower burst the locks on all the rest. As one, all two hundred doors opened and a smelly tide poured forth.
At first the angels were confused. They fluttered and flapped backwards instinctively recoiling from the avalanche of jeggings, pomade and body odor that seemed to spill out in an unending flow. And then they saw what Michael had accidentally unleashed.
“Hipsters!” Gabriel screamed, in a panic. “Don’t let them touch you.”
What is it about the hipster that inspires such panic in the hearts of angels? Perhaps it is their devotion to all that is ugly and cheap? Perhaps it is their trendy cynicism or their inattention to personal hygiene? Those may all play a part, but really it is much simpler than that: hipsters are a negation of God. They worship a false idol called Trendiness, and their god is the God of Emptiness. The God of Nothing. The God of Plastic. Why is there a Creation? Why is there something instead of nothing? If the hipsters had their way, there would only be nothing. They are poison for all that is holy. Their very existence is a slap in the face of God. They are the darkness. They are unclean. They are horror.
And here was a horde of them. A human avalanche of hipsters, none of whom believed in God, all of them angry and maddened at being locked in tractor-trailers for so long, all of them dead. Zombie hipsters, hand manufactured by Death and his minions in their final act of loyalty to Satan. A boiling, writhing, churning sea of hipsters rising up to drown the Heavenly Host.
The angels were separated from one another, they were pushed back and the bulk of them panicked and tried to flee. The sky was filled with feathers set alight by flicked American Spirit and Parliament Light butts. Barachiel laid about him with his sword but he was overcome and they held him down and gave him a fauxhawk and pierced his nose, rendering him ridiculous even to himself. Phanuel tried to escape but hipster hands dragged him down and turned him into a wagon wheel coffee table. He spun and chimed desperately but to no avail. Michael saw Gabriel just make it out of the Vestibule before a hundred hands with ironically applied black nail polish dragged him back by his wings.
“No,” he screamed. “Nooooo.”
The hipsters had no respect for authority. He felt them ripping his wings from his back.
“I’m going to mount these over my absinthe bar,” he heard one of them say. “Near the rack from that ten point buck I bought at Goodwill.”
Michael struggled mightily, but no one could stop the hipsters. They were merciless.
It was a total rout. And somewhere in the confusion, Satan slipped away. Nero, Minos, Mary and the rest would not see him again for some time.
Hell’s victory celebration was just like every other party since the dawn of time. It started with refreshments and blender drinks and some awkward standing around, and then someone shoved someone else, and there was a fight, and the food ran out and the mixers went next and soon the blender drinks were just ice and tequila and then someone was crying in the bathroom, and the music got turned up really loud and before you knew it the whole place was trashed and a full-blown party was in swing.
Fortunately, they were in Hell, on the banks of the Acheron River, and a little trashing was hardly going to be noticed. All of Hell was a wreck. The Mall of the Unbaptized was a shattered ruin, the piers where Charo’s pink inboard had ferried the souls of the damned was a jagged series of leaning pilings, the Reeducation Camps had been lit on fire by drunk demons. The sky was dark with smoke. Everyone felt right at home. Even the Minotaur seemed happy.
Nero looked around. Over on one side of the party, Mary sat in a wheelchair, drunk for one of the first times in her life. Minos was introducing her to the demons who were all, now that they were freed from Heaven’s influence, acting extra-demonic. Mary tried to pay attention, but her jaw was wired shut, she was on her third pina colada and her second Demerol and she only had one limb that wasn’t in a cast. She let her mind float along on top of Minos’s words like a happy little raft drifting on the ocean.
The Minotaur was taking on all comers in Yahtzee, and his bellows of, “Yahtzee!” split the air. But he could barely be heard over the J-pop stylings of the Seven Deadly Sins. They had rolled up that morning, fresh from their Japanese tour.
“What happened?” Envy had asked. “This place is a wreck.”
They’d brought back presents: disgusting and inedible candy from Japan that no one wanted. Later that afternoon, two of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse had called and they were coming home early.
“So, I guesh it all worked outh,” Mary slurred, wheeling her way over to Nero. “‘Cept fer the whole Hell being totally destroyed thing.”
“We have one hundred million dollars,” Nero said. “All sitting in the Prince of Darkness Defense Fund. Satan hinted that he had a way to get it for us before he vanished. Can you imagine what we could do with one hundred million dollars?”
“Lemme rebuild it,” Mary said. “With thash much money I woan haveta go to Home Depot and pick up a bunsha Mexithans. I can hire good people. Do it right.”
“Give me a proposal tomorrow and we’ll talk.” Nero said. “If you remember this conversation after you wake up.”
They looked out over the mosh pit where hundreds of hipsters were nodding their heads ever-so-slightly in time with the music.
“Whas’ gonna happen to them?” Mary asked.
“I’ve been talking to Death about it,” Nero said. “While he swore never to be Death again, he didn’t say anything about not training new Deaths. Frankly, I can’t think of anything more horrible than an army of undead hipster Deaths.”
Minos joined them and shuddered.
“Hundreds of th’ horrible things running around.” he said. “Makes me wanna puke.”
“I think we can turn them into a real workforce,” Nero said. “You know, I never thought I’d say this but things are starting to turn around for us. It’s a good day to be in Hell.”
And just like that, a demon brought Nero the phone.
“Hell speaking.”
“Nero, it’s me,” Satan said.
“Sir! Where are you? Things are going wonderfully down here, we’ve got – ”
“Listen,” Satan said. “I’m going to disappear for a while.”
“But, sir, you can’t. We have to rebuild.”
“I need to get out of the rat race,” Satan said. “Recharge my batteries. Do you know how long it’s been since I designed a new torment? I’m going to Cleveland. Or maybe Darfur.”
“But sir,” Nero said. “All the money for rebuilding. You never told us how to access it.”
“Right,” Satan said. “About that money.”
“Yes?”
“I embezzled it.”
“Pardon me?”
“I’m Satan. It’s what I do. If there’s any left when I come back I’ll give it to you. But I don’t think there’ll be any left. I’m flying first class.”
Nero felt a headache beginning.
“You’ll find a way, Nero,” Satan said. “Besides, when have we ever needed money? Hell has always been about shoddy workmanship and poor construction.”
“Sir, this is all so sudden.”
“I’ll see you around. Good luck with Hell. You’re in charge until I get back.”
Satan hung up. Nero stared at the phone for a minute.
“Wha?” Mary asked. “Wha? Wha?”
“He embezzled all the money. Now he’s run away. We’re broke.”
“So I’ll go to Home Depot an’ hire alla Mexithans,” Mary said. “They do alla construction everywhere, anyways.”
“What are you so happy about?” Nero grumbled.
“Imma ex-nun who was impregnated by Satan, committed suicide, got beaten up by the Archangel Michael and I can still drink pina coladas,” Mary said. “The glass is startin’ to look half full to me.”
Satan Loves You Page 26