Angel Detective: Naming Jacob
Jacob Malewitz
in coffee and heroes, 2 - 24
1st Draft 8/29/07
2nd draft 9/1/07
3rd draft 11.15.08
The end of time for an angel was
Babylon. Here angels were first seen. Here angels were first killed.
Some detectives find interest in these times, the roaming bands of
tribes around the heart of western civilization.
Angel detectives. They were called
Angel Detectives.
If there was a beginning, it was the
gate that did not work, the city where the Hanging Gardens rose, and
a time of movement for angels and detectives alike.
“I call it a job casualty.”
“This is no time for jokes, Jacob.
We know little of this thing.” Richard tried to read the gate, but
could not make out the language. All he could tell was this was a
language without a key or way to translate. He could not decipher the
fact he was reading a demonic language created by a people he did
know of, the Hittites.
“Jokes allow me to live. Call them
what you will, but please don’t laugh at them.” Troubled, Jacob
looked back to the gate, and then to Azrael. Archangel of God …
once, but that is another story.
“I say,” Jacob said looking at
Azrael, “we find angels using angels.”
“What did I just say? Something
wrong is going on here. We cannot afford to lose another man. We must
first find out what happened to Quentin.”
Jacob bit into his nails, his
breathing increasing for he wanted a cigarette, his eyes narrowing
and roaming. Bored. Time was crucial to this angel detective.
“And what does Azrael think?”
“God would be angry.”
“He’s always angry. What do you
think?”
Azrael walked to Jacob, put his eyes
to his face, whispered a few words. “I don’t think.”
The room was not quite a room—such
was the case in a modern world where men could move away from evil
only to see it in every waking action. The room was just a room. It
meant nothing … but it had the gateway, the one it is said God came
through the first day Eden was created. Later he came through it and
fought a young shepherd named Jacob, who he named Israel, for he had
fought with God.
“Send me to the place where all
things begin.” Jacob was playing his fingers, still nervous, still
wanting to act, but barely holding on.
“Let the books guide you, Jacob.
What do you think? You are the detective here.”
“The bible is the only ordered book
I can think of at the moment. I say we forget the guiding graces, and
send me to investigate Babylon.”
“Azrael?” Richard said, nodding to
the angel with his eyes asking for permission.
“Hittites.”
“What?”
“Hittites,” the angel repeated,
“have their own form of hell. The language here, on the gate, is
directly Hittite. It was based on Babylonian, but only as a starting
point. The Hittites formed there own heaven and hell using demon
spirits—ones with no relation to Lucipher. I think Quentin is lost,
and we cannot hope to find him there.”
“Sounds like a job for me. I would
rather fight of some Sumerians than battle Necrom again. Send me in
the game coach, I know I can do it.”
“You risk much,” Azrael said, “but
I can send you directly to the man who might be able to save Quentin.
The jaunt may be hard on your stomach, as it was for Joan, but I
trust in the powers borne to me.”
“Then what are we waiting for?” He
continued speaking, repeating the football analogy because he thought
it applied to the situation. In his heart, everybody wanted to be put
in the game.
The place was absent of light. Jacob
thought he had been placed in a time before God touched the universe.
He was wrong.
He looked outside, fires shooting up
into the sky, people walking, screams in the distance. What he
couldn’t place, and what any angel detective had to do first, was
the time he was in. All he knew was to seek out a man named Saladin.
The problem was, even with some languages mastered, few detectives or
angels knew how to speak Babylonian, a riddle of a language if ever
there be one.
Cautious, as he didn’t want to
reveal himself, he approached a modern looking building, walked in,
and when Jacob decided he was in the wrong place , a door creaked. It
sounded much like thunder, an angel’s scream as Azrael would call
it. Jacob turned back, saw a man holding a paintbrush.
“Paint?” He said before he could
stop himself. “You’re a painter.” The man replied, but the
words came out in a fury of confusion. This man was scared.
“Saladin,” Jacob said, “Where is Saladin?”
“Saladin?”
“Yes, Saladin.”
This man pointed to himself.
“Saladin.”
“You’re Saladin?”
The man looked more confused when
Jacob spoke, but there was little he could do anyways. “Jacob,
angel. Do you have angels here?
“Angels…”
Jacob said slowly.
He saw the light before it came,
dodging the blow while Saladin screamed. The Hittite soldiers crossed
the room.
“If there was ever a time for an
angel to save me, it would be no—“
The scene changed. The darks were
back, the paintings gone, the troubled descendant of Saladin dead on
the floor at a certain point in time. He saw, but it wasn’t there.
He wanted to see … but he couldn’t.
Azrael grinned.
Azrael grinned.
“I just saw a man die before my
eyes. Why the hell did you send me to right before the city was
conquered?”
Azrael looked confused. He stepped
back, perhaps fearing Jacob planned action. Azrael understood good
and evil, but only when it came to angels. He did not understand the
vengeful thrusts of man; the ways man could kill each and every
fellow who crossed his path. Most importantly, he never understood
Necrom—and that was why he had called out for angel detectives.
Richard walked past Azrael, put his
arm to Jacob’s shoulder, looked him in the eyes “You know he has
no control over that.”
“If he cannot control the movement
of time, who does?” Jacob looked at Azrael for a moment, then felt
stupid. “Of course, of course …the higher power.”
“What exactly did you see? Azrael
said you met the man.”
“I just don’t understand why this
man is so important.”
“Saladin was a prophet to his people
during the crusades. His ancestors must have played a part in
Babylon’s rise. They were the first to fight the Hittites, who are
allied to Necrom. We must take action.” He motioned for them to
follow him as he walked to the gate. “See these?” he said
pointing at heroglyphics on the gate which did not work. “They
speak of war, battles across plains, men of different races.
Being an angel
detective, all Jacob could think of was how to fix the gate, or, if
he had to, fix himself. He cared little for mystery, shaking his
head. “I have forgotten more myth than you can divulge to me. We
lost a man, that is the point, so how do we get him back?”
Azrael, the archangel God placed to
work with Jacob, put his hand up.
“Okay class, what does Azrael have
to say?”
“We send you back, to where Saladin
is, you tell him what is going to happen, he stops the Hittites
before they create their hell and ally with Necrom.”
“Crazy enough to work I suppose,”
Jacob said. He walked over to the gate. “Can’t we contact him
then, and do one of those “tell my story to everyone” type of
deal?”
“You mean have this Saladin pass
word of you to the present. It would be changing time. It goes
against the laws—“
“I don’t care about the laws. That
is the best way to get Quentin back. We destroy the Hittites before
they come.”
“Perhaps we change one timeline, but
there are infinite more that would still have Quentin lost.”
Jacob put his hand to his face. “All
I know is, in this time, a man is lost.”
He walked to a map. “He was a
painter. A descendant of one of the greatest Islamic warriors … a
painter. How could the bloodline have lived?”
Jacob was back at the small house, in
the heart of ancient Babylon. He had a mission: save a man. It would
take more than one trip, but his eyes were set on finding out the
truth of the situation—for that was what all angel detectives did.
Redemption perhaps was what he sought. He had been guided, once, by a
sense of discovery. Now he felt justice was the only answer.
Before realizing it, there was a demon
flying above him, approaching fast. He did something that went
against his nature in one sense but defined him in another—he ran.
Many a face peered out at him in with curiosity first—these people
of Babylon—as he ran down the street trying to escape that which he
knew he could not.
“Freakin’ Necrom and the ghosts
and shit.” A blow struck. Jacob was knocked to the ground and
looked into the eyes of the demon who practiced killing angel
detectives in every situation. It spoke … said something, but Jacob
had never been able to understand these demons. It was a mystery he
did not care to solve. The beast cut him across the chest, made a
mark, tasted the blood, and flew away, its wings moving in earnest,
as though Necrom had somewhere else to be.
Jacob looked at his chest, at the
mark, but knew he had little time. The Hittites would kill Saladin
before he got there … if he did not hurry. He passed a few people,
one tried to speak to him, but he just nodded and hopes they would
not see his skin color was different than theirs.
He stopped at the doorway. The smell
of blood filled his senses--metallic. Then he realized it was his
own. Jacob, at that moment, decided being an angel detective did not
pay enough of the bills … to travel to different times trying to
save ancestors of prophets.
He walked into the Saladin’s home,
moving against the walls, feigning stealth, and hoping to surprise
the enemy before they came in. He had no idea where they had
originally come from; all he could work with was that Azrael could
send him back again.
“Quentin,” he said, whispering the
name of the man who had left a chaotic world for hell.
Perhaps he should not have spoken.
Saladin appeared. Jacob saw fear in his eyes, for when he appeared
from behind a canvass, his eyes were wide—like he was expecting
death. Jacob walked forward, held his hands up in a sign of peace,
but a man began pointing behind the angel detective. He did not care
to look back; he jumped forward and reached for a weapon that was not
there.
“Jacob. Angel.” The man said,
nodding to him. Jacob looked back, saw a group of Hittites, and
something that looked like a bow in one of the warriors hands. Their
looks were disturbing: each of them was covered in blood, had eyes
like drug addicts sick on their vices, and a pure evil that Jacob
wished he could not pinpoint. An arrow came … missed.
He opened his eyes, feeling the touch
of an angel.
“I brought you out, Jacob,” Azrael
said, “you were screaming.”
“He knew my name.”
“What?”
“Somehow he repeated the same words
that I said before … Jacob. Angel.”
Richard had a quake of a laugh. “That
was a good joke, Jacob. You, the sleuth, play words even as you are
brought close to death.”
Jacob pushed Azrael out of the way,
grabbed Richard, and stared into his eyes. “I think the jokes fail
me at this moment, because I am serious. He knew my name. You must
send me back!”
“Jacob, you were screaming; your
eyes were tense; you were speaking in a foreign tongue.”
Jacob looked back to the gate. He let
go of Richard. “What do we know of the creators of this?”
“Hittites.”
“Do you think they could have been
descendants of Saladin?”
“What do you mean?”
“I am not sure quite yet.”
Jacob went out of the room, noting the
sky outside. He wished there would be an answer in the landscape of
God. Perhaps the holy spirit would show his hand, play a card, do
something to guide a detective.
Richard and Azrael followed him out.
“There must be something here…,”
Jacob paused. Confused, he threw his hands up. I am an angel
detective. Royalty. Kinglike. What am I doing?
“We cannot repeat the same
mistakes Quentin did. If he is still alive he runs out of time.”
“You said Saladin knew who you
were.”
“Yes. How could he? Azrael took me
to one point in history; this is not textbook time travel. Only God
allows changes.”
“There are other stories,
detective.”
Jacob walked back inside, slamming his
fist against the door, yelling curses as loud as he could. Richard
put his hand to Jacob’s chest; he noted the mark, and his eyes
widened.
“When?”
“Just now. A
demon which had to be Necrom.”
“This is the key.
How could he be there? And he marked you with this but … I am not
familiar with it. Mesopotamian but where?”
“I don’t care.”
He actually hoped a
Hittite would attempt to kill him next time. He had a thought of a
different nature. “We stop questioning it. The world is full of
mystery, so I go back and add to the words Saladin knows until we can
reach Quentin in the Hittite hell.”
They agreed. Azrael kept putting his
hand in the air when he wanted to say something important. “Did you
flunk out? The assignment will be due Wednesday.” Jacob asked him
twice. Azrael never really got the joke.
They walked out and
Jacob, hungry, wished he had waited. Quentin, he thought to
himself, I will find you. This time he watched as Azrael open
his wings, revealing a level of time, and took him to the point just
outside Saladin’s home.
Babylon invited Jacob in. No demon
flyer came across him. He had forgotten the original intent of
Azrael’s magic; they had been using the gate before, because using
the power of an angel makes certain powers—like Necrom—notice. It
allowed them to right wrongs and battle the demon across nightmare
worlds … or just simple times where nothing happened. Jacob always
liked the latter world.
Saladin continued
painting, even when Jacob entered the room..
“How nice,” he said, walking to
him, “for you to come at this point in time, always finding me
doing something new, always painting the next masterpiece.”
“How?” He put his hand to his
face, looking back for the trap to spring, for one of Necrom’s dark
angels with a golden spear, ready to run him through.
“Time is no obstacle for prophets of
my line. What is it you seek, Jacob?”
Jacob stood there. “Well, I suppose
I want to go back in time and talk to a descendant of an Islamic
prophet. But my schedule on Mondays is full, so…”
“You seek to confuse me? Sarcasm
stretches my wit.”
“Quentin. He is in the Hittite hell.
He is of a royal line of angel detectives. He had no sons. If he is
to die … his bloodline will be ended.”
“There is more to it than that.”
Saladin walked back into the room, finding a red paintbrush. “We
are running out of time. The Hittites are at the wall. You will find
your man in Ur.”
“What do you mean?”
“The Hittites changed it to—“
A blade caught Saladin. Jacob rushed
forward, screamed as he attacked, but an angel’s touch came, and,
lost in time for a moment, he let Saladin’s words sink in. Ur?
Azrael let go of Jacob, and the
detective fell to the ground.
“Next time, I get a blade.”
“What did you find?”
“Something is wrong with how we are
doing this. He knows everything now. He knows of Quentin. He can
speak perfect English thousands of years before it came to be. How?”
Azrael raised his hand. Jacob shook
his head.
“Yes, Azrael, what does my pupil
want?”
“The line is speaking to him.
Perhaps these Saladin men truly are prophets. They contact each
other. If they believe in a force above them, why can’t they have
angels too?”
“It makes so much sense it might be
true,” Jacob said and walked outside because he felt like it.
He looked back, through the open door,
trying to think. “Ur. If we are to find Quentin, he will be in Ur.”
They conversed. Moving from point A to
point B never worked for Azrael. Angels did not have limitless
powers; it took time, practice, focus. The best he could do was get
Jacob close enough to walk into the city. Jacob made sure to arm
himself, as Azrael said the city would already be in Hittite hands.
Jacob did not want to fight the Hittites; he wanted to kill as many
as possible. He had gained rage.
The outside of Ur contrasted what Jacob
envisioned. Jacob saw the Hittites as demons; but they had not burned
the city to the ground. The towers of Ur still stood. The water still
rushed into it from ancient aqueducts. The people were not screaming
for their lives.
Inside, he found the city was empty
save the town square. Here there was only a vestige of evil. A man
was being beheaded. Jacob walked right into the square, his hand on
his blade, a touch of sweat on his brow. He remembered the ancient
stories where Hammurabi brought order to Babylon. Scholars said the
Hittites had brought chaos, and perhaps, Jacob thought, the Hittites
had followed Necrom.
When he saw the man who was about to
be beheaded, there was some surprise. The man was white, modern
clothes stretched over his tanned body, a minor scar above his eye,
blue eyes, red hair in spikes … Quentin. They had yet to kill him.
The Hittites circled him, laughing and spitting.
Jacob pulled out
his weapon. The blade came out, he felt the cold of the steel, and he
prepared.
A loud horn blew. A wind of green
came into the square. Riders on horses came and the demons cursed. A
massive battle took place and, as Jacob was confused, he grabbed
Quentin and took him as far away as possible. He saw the demon flying
towards him late, so late it knocked into him and cut a piece of
flesh with its blade. “The mark passes through time like a
snowflake, “ Necrom said.
Jacob tossed the blade away. Dealing
with demons, fighting them, was all about choosing the right weapon
from the outset. They had blood; but a blade would not draw it.
Jacob touched the
mark on his chest, then the fresh wound, and pushed Quentin behind
him. Quentin looked disturbed: his eyes open, his mouth letting out
fluid, and he was mumbling some kind of language Jacob had never
heard. “What did you do to him beast?”
“It is part of
the trial of manhood—become hosts, see, become our beings here, in
this world … for death and darkness.”
“But even demons
have to keep their hold on reality,” Jacob replied. He took the
blade to his chest, to the mark Necrom had left him, and cut deep
into it. The demon screamed. Screamed burst into flames. Jacob, in
pain, losing blood, fell to the ground. He let himself one more cut
before he passed out.
“Jacob. Angel.”
“Saladin.” Jacob looked to
Quentin.. Quentin was smiling. The madness had left his face. Jacob
was confused until he saw the oil Saladin had placed on his wounds.
“This does not look much like a
Hittite hell.”
“They created a hell on Earth,”
Saladin said, walking back to his horse.
“Why are you here?”
“I have studied you through the
ages. I passed down the knowledge to each of my bodies.”
“Rebirth.”
“In a sense.”
Jacob walked to Quentin, grabbed him,
wiping the blood off his face, and sheathed his blade. He looked.
Sometimes that was all he liked doing.
“Angel detective, they told me, see
the world, make money … never said I would travel to a different
version of Earth and a Hittite hell.”
“I will paint you, Jacob. I will
tell your story.”
Jacob did not ignore the words;
neither did he respond.
“Can I forget?” Quentin said.
A white glow lit them. Saladin,
seeming to understand, kicked his horse and began to go back to his
world at Babylon—perhaps to finish the painting of Jacob.
A few millennia later, in a small New
York Art Gallery, a priceless painting of a young man with a vibrant
blond hair, his eyes open in fear and hope, a mark on his chest, a
demon flying above him, and two angels setting beside him, was put
out not for an auction, nor a show, but just for people to gape it.
It defined the job of an angel detective: always looking, never going
away.
They called it
“Jacob, Angel.”
