Author's Note: I'm back from my residency. And I am tiiiiired. I thought you guys deserved the next chapter though. :3
Hope you like it. 3 R+rs are always appreciated. ^-^
*****
Chapter Two
The Next Evening
An angel and a demon sat in the back of the angel's dusty bookshop in Soho, surrounded by bottles of alcohol. This was not an unusual occurrence. (1)
The angel, Aziraphale, reached for one of the half full wine bottles and knocked several empty ones off the table. "Oops," he said. "Crowley—"
Crowley, the demon, topped off the angel's glass before he could ask for the bottle.
Aziraphale beamed at him. (2) "Ta', m'dear."
"So. So I 'uz sayin'…Um…" The demon paused thoughtfully, trying to remember what he was saying.
"'Bout the demon that I smited. Er, smote." Aziraphale made a wiggling motion in the air with his hand that he intended to indicate the act of smiting that actually looked like he was attempting to direct air traffic.
"'S smited," Crowley said.
"Smote."
"Smited.
"Smote."
"Dun' matter. So that demon, his name's Surgat, and his spesssia-spesssi—" The demon's tongue, as inebriated as the rest of him, couldn't quite stop hissing on the word. "Partic'lar power ista open anything, an' I mean anything. Locked your keys inna car? He's who you call. Needta get into or outta anywhere? Surgat's your demon." Crowley laughed shortly in the manner of one who doesn't really think anything is funny. "Into or out of anywhere."
"Obviol-obvi—clearly he helped the boy outta 'is body..." Aziraphale said. "Bu' why?"
Crowley shrugged, refilled his own glass, and tried to gather the unraveling threads of his narrative. "I got it second 'and, from Dagon's secretary (3). All I know is the kid, name 'a Matt, made some kinda deal with Surgat. He got the power to get outta 'is body."
Aziraphale opened his mouth.
Crowley hurried on to avoid an interruption. "Then spirit-Kid goes somewhere, an' Surgat goes t' the circle t' wait, right?"
"I dunno," the angel replied truthfully. "You're tellin' the story."
Crowley rolled his eyes behind his shades. "'S figure of what's-it. Speech. Any way, some other human comes an' spills holy water."
"Must've been fam'ly," Aziraphale muttered. "Tha's what Surgat said. Somethin' 'bout a child." The angel furrowed his brows in effort to remember. "That he hadn't known 'im, an' he couldn't touch fam'ly."
Crowley nodded. "That's your usual clause inna pact made by smarter humans. So a demon can't hurt the summ'ner's kin. That'd explain things. Surgat might not be huge, but he's devious as anythin'. Only way it makes sense he got Off-ed 's if he couldn't fight back."
"I have somethin' to tell you," Aziraphale began.
"Hol' on," Crowley said, pouring himself another drink and getting at least a smidgen of liquid in his glass. "'M not finished. This is where it gets interessssting."
Aziraphale, who had been sulking upon being interrupted, saw his counterpart's expression and snapped back to attention.
"The summ'ner, Matt, he's got a regl'lar celebrity in 'is blood."
"Inside 'is act'al blood?" The angel asked doubtfully.
"No, I mean 'is ances'ry. Bloodlines an' whatnot. So guess who 'e's descended from?"
Aziraphale knitted his brows and Crowley realized the Principality really would try and answer his question, so he hurriedly said, "Ti-res-iasss." He prounounced the name carefully since his tongue was still numb.
The angel sat down his wineglass and sobered up a little. "But…though Tiresias hadda Gift, Upstairs made certain he, er, was a tad confused. Poor thing thought he was a woman for seven years." (4)
The demon likewise sobered up to some extent. "The kid's one of his descendants, and he might no' be a prophet, but he's a... A thing. Wossname. Sees stuff. Like Dead people." Crowley paused. "A psychic. A real one."
"But Heaven and Hell—"
"Mess up their channels. I know." Crowley continued doggedly, "Or they mess 'em up themselves. But this Matt, he's smart, like Nutter smart, (5) an' he dun' go crazy. So he has the ancestry an' comes across one of few working grimoires. An' knows what it is. So he calls Surgat an' gets all diabolical on the demon."
"…" Aziraphale looked at Crowley. "Is that…is that some kind of insinu—insininiu—innuendo?"
"…" Crowley looked at Aziraphale. "No. I just mean he was clever enough to use his own blood inna pact and to—get this—get Surgat to write up the details and sign 'em. Surgat was bound to do whatever the kid stip'lated. It was only after everythin' he asked for was done that Matt would forfeit his soul."
"Hmm," Aziraphale replied. Generally demons did not adhere to agreements they made with humans—they only would do so as a last resort, if it was the only possible way to get the soul. Matt had taken wise precautions, though they hadn't helped him any. "I don't s'ppose there's some sort of rule that if they sell their soul for a noble cause, they get a shot at redemption?"
"Nope."
"Thought not," Aziraphale said.
"What kind of noble cause anyway? Gen'rally, a human wants to do somethin' noble, they don't ask for a demon's help."
"Yes, but… I got a good feeling from him."
"What, while he was lying there mos'ly dead?"
"Yes."
Crowley shook his head and then decided he wasn't ever going to shake it again because the room took a minute longer to stop shaking than his head did. "What were you goin' to say?"
"I talked to Raphael, asked him 'bout a way to get the soul back inna body. He's not supposed to interfere direc'ly with a soul, so he couldn't help. I'll look in my books."
There was silence a moment. Aziraphale cleared his throat. "I checked on him inna hospital."
"Tha's just bloody smart—what if someone Down There was watchin' the body and they saw you? You could've been followed—they could know where your shop is!"
"You know where my shop is."
"I'm ssserious Aziraphale!"
"Thanks for worryin'—" The angel began.
Crowley scowled. "I'm not—"
Aziraphale continued, "But no one followed me. Matt... His parents weren't there. He was 'lone. Still inna coma. None of the doctors know what to make of it."
"Wasn't your fault."
"What'd he ask for, Crowley? What'd he get in return?"
"I don't know."
They drank in silence for awhile.
"What'd be worth riskin' your soul?" Aziraphale slurred into the bottom of his glass.
"Humans seem to think 'most anything is. Money, sex, fame, rock-n-roll, shiny things, that sort of stuff."
"Love," Aziraphale said decidedly. "Bet it was love."
"You would say that, being soppy and all."
"'M not soppy."
"You are. Look it up inna dictionary, they got a picture of you."
"Well, you're…" Aziraphale crinkled his nose and looked at Crowley and his expensive suit and shiny shoes and said the first word he could think of (he thought of it because it nearly rhymed). "Foppish."
Crowley grinned. "That's sorta a compliment to me."
Aziraphale decided to ignore him and materialized another bottle of some excellent 1898 Sauvignon Blanc. He poured some in both their glasses, Crowley already having wished them clean.
The demon raised his glass. "To the sop."
"Really," Aziraphale replied, radiating Disapproval.
"To both of usss, then, the sop and the fop."
The angel laughed despite himself.
1. Nor was it the tagline for a joke.
2. He was an emotional drunk. Either he was rather happy or rather morose. Of course, the emotions could switch mid splurge. The one thing that remained consistent was that he also tended to be, in Crowley's opinion, an interruptive drunk.
3. The whole 'Summoning gone Wrong' thing made a good tawdry headline, especially in Hell.
4. Mythology-nerd inside joke. Tiresias was a blind poet mentioned often in Greek myths that was blinded by the gods and, to make up for it, was given the abillity to see the future. He once kicked a pair of snakes that were copulating and for some reason this angered Hera, Queen of the Heavens, and so she turned Tiresias into a woman. Legend has it he stayed that way for seven years when he came across another pair of snakes (kinda ironic it was snakes, hm?) having at it and this time he—she, that is—left them alone. So the myth states that Hera then turned Tiresias back into a man.
5. Agnes Nutter smart, not crazy person smart, by the way.
*****
Later, In the Wee Hours of the Morning
Alexandra 'Alex' McDermott was a girl with a past (1). To be fair, she honestly was a girl with a past (everyone has one, really) in the sense that hers had been more complicated than some.
She was not a firm believer in anything, except maybe the principles of cruelty and kindness. Cruelty was what she had known with her 'real' family, the family she had legally been declared independent from at age 14. Kindness was what she had known with the Rolands. Although technically an adult, Alex had only been declared independent from her parents in order to get away from them and so she could stay with the Rolands without going into foster care or going through a long adoption process. Even so, Marianne Roland was her mother figure and Matt Roland was the older brother she'd always wanted. Until recently, Alex had thought she cared for Ryan Roland like a brother, too, but it wasn't so. Not anymore.
Like all young teenagers are wont to do, she had just become aware of the two lumps on her chest and, nervously, of the lumps in Ryan's pants. For the first time, Alex was glad she was a refuge in the Roland family and not an official member.
Not that she'd admit any of that. It would ruin her image (a constantly changing thing). She was trying what she called Punk-Goth Chick at the moment, and had taken to wearing dark clothes with safety pins in odd places and more fishnet than most people would advise. Alex overdid the look because she was a natural blonde with a rosy complexion and big blue eyes: she wanted to counter her inherent 'cheerleader' vibe. Hence she wore heavy mascara, foundation at least two shades too light, purple lipstick and eye shadow, and had black streaks in her hair. All of this was in addition to the fishnet top over which she wore a shirt that loudly proclaimed 'BITE ME' with a picture of a vampire on it, the jeans covered with zippers and chains, the heavy jewelry, and the boots laden with buckles.
Marianne had supported Alex's 'artistic exploration of self,' but then she'd been in the skiing accident that had left her paraplegic and comatose. Her older sister Margot, who lived in London, England, (2) had been granted sole custody of Ryan and (unofficially) Alex. Matt was old enough he didn't need to be worried about, though he went from the US to England to live with them, too.
To come back to the point, Alex didn't understand Ryan's belief in supernatural entities. She'd never believed in anything like that, (3) though she had gone along with the guys when they planned to summon a mystical creature to cure their mother. And then it had supposedly worked.
Not telling his brother or Alex, Matt had apparently performed the summoning at Margot's warehouse. The paramedics found Matt in a coma, though Ryan had been there first. Ryan had told Alex he'd discovered the grimoire missing and rode his bike to the warehouse and walked in to find his brother on the floor and a demon in the circle. He'd broken the circle and naturally grabbed the holy water, but, to his embarrassment, spilled it. And then he ran. It was almost an hour before Ryan went back and called for help. He was angry at himself for running—he hadn't told Alex that, but she knew—and he was determined to re-summon the demon, to force it fix Matt. Ryan had found some feathers that he was sure had come from its wings, and he said that having the feathers was majorly important.
Alex had listened, occasionally stifling the urge to roll her eyes, and then she'd silently helped Ryan prepare for the ritual. Good thing Margot was a hospital nurse who worked night shift—she slept almost all day and was away most of the night. They prepared for the summoning in the basement after Margot left.
All in all, Alex couldn't quite believe she was standing in the dark with a bunch of incense and candles lit while Ryan chanted weird things he read out of a moldy book. At least, she thought, her outfit fit right in. Ryan, on the other hand, looked a little ridiculous in his jeans, t-shirt, and grimy sneakers.
And then, after Ryan had cut his hand, drawn squiggly things on the feathers with his blood, and finished the binding and sealing rituals, there was a ripping sound.
The teenagers simultaneously gasped when there was a bright flash of light. A figure materialized in the center circle, glowing so much it seemed to be made out of pure radiance, and then it collapsed.
Alex, who had started the process of readjusting her belief system, could have sworn she heard the entity mutter 'oh dear,' before it dropped to the floor and stopped shimmering so brightly.
1. Well, this was how she characterized herself in the many 1940s-esque dramas she starred in inside her head.
2. Who naturally was plain and normal in contrast to what her parents had thought was a romantic, exciting sounding name.
3. Not even when she had gone through her Moon-Goddess-Worshipping-Hippy phase.
*****
Aziraphale had a headache. To be more precise, he had a whole body ache. It seemed as though he was in a deep fog and he couldn't move. Even his thinking process was slowed and it took him a moment before he was coherent enough to wonder what on Earth had happened and why, precisely, did his eyelids feel so heavy? The angel had no idea where he was, what had happened, or how long he had been unconscious. It was, needless to say, an uncomfortable situation.
Abruptly his hearing returned and he could discern people talking. They were young people. A boy and a girl. Aziraphale listened, though he couldn't yet open his eyes. Or move.
"You killed him," the girl said.
"I did not. And it isn't a him." The boy sounded nervous. Nervous and guilty.
"Are you sure you did it right?" the girl asked. "He really looks dead."
"He isn't dead," the boy replied, sounding unsure, himself. "I don't think they can die. Anyway, even if he—it—is dead, it deserves it."
"He doesn't look like a—"
"Well, he is."
"How do you know for sure?"
"I just do."
"Oh that's deep, Ryan," the girl said. Aziraphale could tell she rolled her eyes. (1) "Really deep. You sure this is the right one? Is that what he looked like before?"
Aziraphale concentrated on getting his wits about him. It was difficult. He'd been roaring-drunk, passed-out-pissed, and nearly-pee-one's-trousers-sloshed before, but he'd never felt so disjointed. Rattled. Shaken and Stirred.
"No, he—" The boy, Ryan, stopped mid sentence. "Shut up, he's awake!"
Aziraphale's eyes opened. "Mnhf?" he asked.
"Arise, I command thee!" Ryan decreed, in a forceful manner that might have been convincing if his voice hadn't squeaked.
The girl let out a high, nervous giggle.
"Arise, I said! I have summoned thee here—"
"Summoned? Me?" Aziraphale asked, blinking as he sat up. "Whatever for?"
The Principality took his first good look around. He was in a chilly, dark sort of place—a basement?—in the middle of a circle of runes. Inside the rune-circle was another a circle of chalk that had lots of squiggly writings around it. Around the rims of both of them there were small bronze disks with seals embossed on the tops. The set up would have been impressive and one of the rare instances a human had properly prepared for a summoning, except that it was all arranged as if he were a demon.
The culprits were two young teenagers who stood in their own protective circle staring at him. Behind their circle was a triangle that had a bench in it with a stained silk bathrobe draped on top. It was most probably supposed to be a makeshift altar. The altar held candles, incense burners, and two feathers. The boy Ryan held a grimoire in the crook of his arm and something white clenched in his free hand. He was bony without being overly skinny—one of those people that jutted out, all knees and elbows. The girl had long, blonde hair streaked with black pulled into a high ponytail, metal chains and buckles everywhere, and more makeup than Aziraphale felt was seemly at her tender age.
"I'll get to that," Ryan said sulkily. "Like I was saying, I have summoned thee here to do my bidding. To gather your strength, I offer thee the blood of a pure maiden."
"What?" Aziraphale was absolutely flabbergasted.
"A virgin," Ryan clarified. "You can have some virgin blood to strengthen your dark powers."
Aziraphale opened his mouth and then closed it. Where, precisely, had this young man gotten his ideas on how to handle a demon summoning? More to the point, how had he succeeded? And two Summonings occurring in London so close together? The angel was beginning to get a rather unnerving sinking sensation.
"If I die," the girl said. "I will haunt your ass, Ry."
"Alex, be quiet." Ryan whispered, and then added, louder, "But not all of her blood, just a drink or two," he clarified. The look the boy was giving him was positively poisonous. "I've seen what your kind can do."
Aziraphale frowned. "I am certainly not interested in any blo—"
"Stop trying to trick us!" Ryan yelled. "I know what you are; I know you're evil."
"I am not a demon," Aziraphale said, hoping this was a strange dream, even though he'd never had one.
"Are too."
"Am not—" The angel shook his head to clear it. How, pray tell, had he gone from tidying up his shop in the aftermath of a Crowley-visit to arguing with a teenager in an immature fashion? "You are mistaken, young man. I am not a demon. In fact, one could say I am the direct opposite of a demon."
"That's just what a demon would say," Ryan shot back.
Aziraphale stood and reminded himself that patience was an inherent angelic trait. "I'll prove it. You made these circles to trap all things demonic, correct?"
Alex nodded and Ryan gave her a dirty look.
The angel stepped out of the circles. He was not thrown writhing back to the ground.
"How—how did you…?" Ryan crouched down and opened the grimoire, flipping through the pages frantically.
"Your wards are against demons. As I stated previously, I am not a demon and thus they do not restrict me."
"You're not a… but you have to be! Otherwise the spell wouldn't work. I've got these…" Ryan held up the feather in his hand. "I could feel they were different, special, so if you're not a demon, then—then you'd have to be…an angel."
"We summoned an angel?" Alex asked. "Seriously? That's so cool."
Oh dear. Aziraphale's eyes fell on the blood-bound feathers on the altar and the one in the boy's hand. He needed to get them back; he couldn't perform miracles on the being that had them. "This has all been a misunderstanding, but that's quite all right, I'll just be taking the feathers and leaving—"
"You're not going anywhere until my brother is better."
Aziraphale raised his eyebrows. "Your brother...his name wouldn't happen to be Matt?"
Ryan's eyes narrowed. "Yeah."
The angel nodded sympathetically. "You were trying to summon the demon who left him in his present state." He must have lost the feathers when Surgat attacked him and the boy had gone back to the scene and found them.
"Yeah. I guess you're not who Matt summoned, but I still need you to fix him."
"I really am sorry," Aziraphale said gently. "But I've already tried to heal him and I am entirely unable to help. I cannot put his soul back into his body."
Ryan smiled. It was an unsettling smile; the smile of a human who had realized he had an angel right where he wanted him. "I didn't summon you the right way, but I still have your feathers, and they're what have the power. I wrote my name on your feathers and that's blood binding magic. Basically, you belong to me and you've got to do what I say."
In different circumstances, Aziraphale might have rolled his eyes. He 'belonged to him,' indeed. Talk about overstating things.
The problem was, on a very basic level, the boy was right. The angel regarded him with the same sort of chagrined dismay he usually used on telemarketers, couples that enthusiastically snogged in public, and people who came into his shop.
"Knock it off, Ryan," Alex said, sounding uncomfortable. "Just make your three wishes or whatever and let him go."
"I am not a jinn," Aziraphale said in a semi-offended tone. "I do not grant wishes, I perform miracles."
"The way I see it," Ryan replied, looking like the cat that got the canary, the cream, and a side order of tuna. "I get a favor for each of the two feathers on the altar. This one," he waved the one he had in his hand, "is what I bound you with. So after you do two things for me, I give you the last feather and you're free."
Alex shook her head. "That doesn't make sense. He's an angel. He's got like phenomenal cosmic powers. (2) Why would he have to do what you say?"
"He is powerful."
"I—" Aziraphale began, but the boy went on, ignoring him.
"And so are his feathers. As long as I've got them, I'm immune to his magic and he has to do what I say."
Alex glanced at Aziraphale. "He's a freaking angel, Ryan. Are you sure you want to do this? You'll probably get zapped by lightening or something."
"I'm doing it for Matt."
"I know," she said softly. "But I still think maybe you should let him go. It's not his fault Matt's in a coma."
The two teens continued bickering.
"Excuse my intrusion," Aziraphale began after waiting politely for several minutes.
"Keep your panties on a second, we're talking," Ryan snapped.
The angel looked at him. "Beg pardon?"
"It's not 'panties' here, Ryan."
"It's panties everywhere. Panties are universal."
Not true," Alex said. "It's knickers. Isn't it?" She looked at Aziraphale, who did indeed have a British accent, for confirmation.
"Beg pardon?" he repeated.
"I'll show you." It was at that point that Alex pulled down the top of her trousers and pulled out the top strap of a rather lacy undergarment. "Do you call these knickers, here?"
The angel nodded mutely. What sort of situation had he gotten into? He had been Summoned by children, one-upped by a boy whose voice had just changed, and had been shown under-things. If Crowley knew of his situation, he'd never let him hear the end of it. Ever.
"Pink? With lace?" Ryan asked with astonishment.
Alex yanked her trousers back up and shot him a glare. "So what if they are? I wasn't showing them to you, anyway, I was showing them to the angel. He's a gentleman. He doesn't make remarks about ladies' underclothes." She was affecting a lofty tone that would have worked better had she not been in ripped up, safety-pinned together jeans and a top that instructed people to sink their teeth into her.
"Neither do I—you're not a lady."
"Screw you," she said.
"Oh yeah? Sod off. That's how they say that here," Ryan countered.
"Prick."
"Whore."
Aziraphale, who had not realized this was friendly, normal banter, was surprised when they laughed and smiled at each other.
"Kids," an unfamiliar voice drifted down from upstairs. "I just got home from a horrid shift so if you want me to take you to school before I go to sleep; I suggest you get up here."
Alex and Ryan looked at each other.
"We can't just leave him," Alex said.
"You could give me back the feathers," Aziraphale said softly. "I have already done everything in my Power to help Matt."
Ryan shook his head. "I don't believe you. There has to be something else you can do or something you didn't try."
"Are we just going to lock him down here? Would that even work?" Alex asked.
"He can go home or wherever while we're in school. But don't forget—"
"You have my feathers and can call me with them or find me with them at any time. Yes, my boy, I know," Aziraphale finished.
Ryan nodded and put the feather he held in his pocket. Then he snatched the other two off the altar and darted up the steps.
Alex hesitated. "You're really an angel?"
"Yes."
"And you already tried to help Matt?
"Yes."
She stared at him for a long minute. "I believe you."
"You seem to be close, the two of you," Aziraphale said easily.
"He's my best friend." She crossed her arms at the slight raising of an eyebrow. "He's a good guy; he just wants to help his brother."
"I'm sure."
She was silent a minute longer and he calmly held her gaze until she almost squirmed with guilt (3). "See you later!" she said bounding up the steps.
Aziraphale sighed and miracled himself back to the bookshop.
1. The angel was good at knowing when eyes were rolled even when he couldn't see them, thanks to Crowley.
2. Like Jafar when he turned into a genie at the end of the first Aladdin movie.
3. Angels are good at making people feel guilt—and he hadn't even given her his lethal 'puppy-eyes' expression.