Tuesday in Hell
Breathe, Crowley, just breathe...Crowley thought, attempting to reassure himself, his eyes shut, sweat breaking out on his forehead. He opened his eyes slowly, the lettering on the office door he stood in front of coming into focus.
'Lilith', the letters stated simply, in standard, uninteresting, black block type.
Still, the name seemed to rise and contract on the door, like something breathing, writhing, almost ready to explode in rage.
Crowley swallowed deeply and adjusted his too-tight necktie once more.
Lilith.
His boss.
Hell on wheels.
She was the first Demon that Lucifer had ever created once he established his kingdom in Hell, his revenge against God for banishing him there. She had led the Demons in the War of the Seals against the forces of Heaven, breaking all of the Seals required to free Lucifer, save one.
That last one was what had landed her here in the armpit of Hell.
Lilith was supposed to have sacrificed herself to break the final Seal, allowing Lucifer's vessel to kill her and cracking the Cage open. She apparently had other ideas, instead switching out the final Knight of Hell, Abaddon, as sacrifice at the last moment, transformed and bound to appear as a helpless Lilith to Lucifer's vessel. It was an act of self-preservation, and luckily for Hell, it had worked, even in defiance of the Rules of the Seals. Abaddon proved powerful enough of an offering to break the final Seal, but Lucifer...well, he was not particularly amused, or pleased, with Lilith. The alteration to the spell had left him partially trapped in the Cage, not able to fully manifest in Hell or Earth, even after he had taken his vessel. This put him at a distinct disadvantage in the War against Heaven and Michael. That's why the War raged on and on, instead of being one, large, cataclysmic event.
Luckily, or unluckily, if you considered all that happened afterwards for Lilith, Lucifer acknowledged the drive and ambition to survive that she had displayed, and if anyone could understand the need to rebel in the face of impossibilities, it was Lucifer.
So, he hadn't ripped her apart. He had sent her here. To the Bureau of Crossroad Demon Contracts.
She...wasn't adjusting well.
As far as Crowley could remember, Lilith had eviscerated at least two-hundred agents in the time that she had been there. It was more than a regular occurrence to receive a summons from the white-eyed terror, to never be heard from again.
There didn't even have to be a real reason.
I'm done for, Crowley thought glumly, reaching out with a shaking hand and turning the knob on the office door.
"You're late," an almost childlike voice rang sing-song from behind a plain wooden office desk. Crowley dared to glance up off of the low-pile blue carpet to find the source.
She sat there behind the desk, which was stacked with manilla folders, their paperwork contents stuffed to bursting, or randomly spilling out onto the desk, completely uncared for. There were also three or four empty coffee mugs stacked around the folders, a couple of which were knocked over, their contents dried out to a darker stain along the wood ages ago.
Lilith herself was a disheveled mess.
Her skin was gaunt and her hair was like a rat's nest. She wore what was once a white business suit, but was stained with various things that Crowley did not wish to guess at. She had her elbow on the desk, propping up her head, while with her other hand, she was idly clanking together the balls on a Newton's Cradle device, the retort of the metal spheres practically the only other sound in the room.
She looked up at Crowley, large, blue-black bags under her eyes and gave him a yellow, toothy smile.
Crowley could practically smell the alcohol from across the room. He flinched involuntarily.
Lilith grinned wider and gestured a claw at a chair in front of her desk.
Crowley nodded and walked tentatively to the chair. Lilith watched him like a tiger watched prey, eyes full of curiosity, a hint of amusement, and completely unmistakable malice.
He sat down and tried to look anywhere but at her. He found himself stammering out a response to his tardiness...anything to break up that stare...
"I...I do apologize most profusely, Mistress Lilith. To be quite honest, I found myself moving...well...rather slowly down this particular hallway." He swallowed hard and looked back at her.
She had stopped playing with the device and was watching him intently now. Her head had slipped from her hand and now rested on the desk, her mouth hanging open a bit. She slowly closed it, closed her eyes, seemingly gathering her strength, nodded to herself and sat up, leaning rather wobbily back in her chair.
She waved a drunken hand through the air in front of her face.
"What? You don't like my 'domain', here, minion? Whassa matter with it? Not orderly enough? That's it, it's the mess, issn-it?"
She crashed an arm into the desk and flung half of it's cluttered contents to the floor in a vicious sweep. Papers stirred lazily in the air for a few seconds before settling to their new home on the floor. Crowley gripped the armrests of his chair with white knuckles.
Here it comes...
"What? Schtop it...!", Lilith shouted at him. "I'm not gonna kill you, you insect, relax..."
Crowley opened one eye slowly, realizing suddenly that he had closed them tight.
He wished he had kept it closed, though.
Lilith had someone materialized directly in front of his face, her rotten teeth and breath inches from his nose. He glanced up at the wild, sunken white eyes and shrank back.
"You want to know why you're here, little mouse?", Lilith slurred at him.
It took Crowley a few moments to gather up the courage to answer.
"If...if you don't mind, Mistress, yes, I would like that very much."
Lilith nodded slowly, her eyes getting less intent, more lazy.
She leaned her mouth closer to Crowley's ear and began to whisper. Crowley had to fight not to recoil from the stench.
"I got a message from the Palace, little mouse. A message about you, as a matter of fact."
Crowley blinked.
"The...the Palace, Mistress? His Palace?"
"No, the other one, you imbecile," Lilith crooned, leaning back from him. Crowley breathed in deep in relief. "Yes, that Palace. Now, do you want to tell me why they're so interested in what you're doing in your free time?"
The wheels in Crowley's mind began spinning at once. He hadn't had much use of his propensity for scheming here in this rat-hole of a job, but he hadn't completely lost his edge. He was just out of practice was all.
"My...free time, Mistress?", he finally replied after thinking it over. "I'm afraid I cannot be sure as to what you're referring to."
Lilith's face twisted in undisguised fury, but she struggled with it for a second and apparently got it back under control. Crowley smiled to himself.
Just as he had thought...
Lilith waved a hand nonchalantly in the air. "Oh, don't play coy, mouse. You know perfectly well as to what I'm referring to."
Crowley cocked his head to the side, sitting up a little straighter in his chair.
"Nope. Not a clue."
Lilith's lip curled back in a snarl and she rushed forward and grabbed him by the necktie, pulling his face inches from hers.
He did not flinch.
"Every single night, Agent Crowley," she spit out his name like poison. "Every. Single. Night." She emphasized her words with hard, painful jerks on the tie. "You are spotted entering the archives. There you spend hour after hour pouring over old volumes regarding the War of the Seals and other past events. Did you really think that His Infernal Majesty wouldn't notice that?" She showed more teeth and drew him even closer, until all he could see were those, red-rimmed, sunken white eyes.
"I'm only going to ask you this once, you little maggot, what are you looking for in there?"
Crowley met her stare, and smiled.
"Let me go, you stupid, smelly, drunken bink," he snarled in a near whisper.
Lilith's eyes widened, and then narrowed in anger.
"Wha...what did you just say to me...?", she growled at him, incredulous.
"You heard me just fine, I think. Even you can't have drunken yourself deaf."
"I will rip your head from your...!"
Crowley reached his hand up to the the one she was holding his tie with and began to gently pry her fingers off.
"No. You won't," he said slowly, as if explaining himself to a particularly petulant child. "You see, my dear, you have let slip a very vital piece of information. One that I find leaves you in a very precarious situation regarding yours truly." He got her hand free, which she let numbly drop to her side. Her eyes were full of shock and fury as he leaned back and stood up and away from her.
"You see, I've been dealing in Crossroad Demon deals since Hell opened them up for business, so I know how to read between the lines a bit better than you, especially when attempting to conceal important information. Whereas you, you were just one of Hell's bruisers for a millenia. All brawn. No brains. Now, would you like to know where you took this particular misstep?"
Lilith glared at him in response.
Crowley shrugged, continuing without being prompted.
"You told me that the Palace was looking into this matter. And then you wanted to know what it was that I was doing. That means someone above your paygrade has a vested interest in that particular nugget of information. And they asked you to find out for them. Moreso, they didn't ask you to stop me, or I'd be dead already, which means I am to be allowed to continue doing whatever I'm doing. An official sanction, I'd wager."
He leaned down to glare at her.
"Which means, that unless you are looking for another, even more prestigious office than this one, you better deliver the information that I uncover. Which also means, you are relying on me. Tell me, darling, am I about right so far?"
Lilith's lips curled back in an evil smile. "I don't have to kill you to hurt you, maggot."
Crowley waved a scolding finger in the air. "Tsk, tsk, Mistress of mine. Please keep in mind, I don't do my reading so well whilst enduring crippling pain." He pursed his lips and frowned. "Actually, now that I think about, I don't even do that well with any kind of discomfort whatsoever."
Lilith's mouth actually dropped open in disbelief at that. She stared and stared until her shoulders drooped, her head following in defeat.
"What the hell do you want?"
Crowley's grin widened.
The look of shock on his fellow Demon's faces when he walked out unscathed from Lilith's office was worth a hundred years of torture, Crowley decided. He walked over to his desk and began to gather up his personal effects. The Demon next to him, Tom was his name, as Crowley recalled, he rarely spoke with his co-workers, was the one to finally ask him.
"What...what happened in there, Crowley?"
Crowley grinned, shoving a few choice paperback novels into the box.
"Movin' on up, my good friend," he answered. "I'm to be re-assigned."
Toms' face was blank.
"Wh...what?"
Crowley looked up at him, mock bemusement on his face.
"Why, just as I said. Re-assigned. Leaving. Adios, rat-hole. Hello new job."
"But...no one..."
"Ah," Crowley said, interrupting, holding up a finger. "No one, but Crowley, you mean, gets out of this place." He took a deep breath and picked up his box of possessions.
"So, adieu, my fellow Agents in Misery. I truly, truly hope...that we shall never see each other again."
With that, and a huge smile, Crowley strode out of the office, heading to his newly acquired space directly next to Hell's archives.
Now, if I only knew what the hell I was looking for in the first place..., he thought as he walked down the hall, his smile fading.