The shop was dim and empty when he got back to Soho. Aziraphale went upstairs to his flat and found it similarly deserted. "Crowley! Adam!" He couldn't help but call for them anyway. "Crowley, where the devil are you?" He muttered.
He found the light switch on the wall and flipped it. Nothing happened. He toggled it a few times. The room remained dim.
Angel or not, he'd never paid the bill.
oOoOoOo
"Hey, Adam," Anathema said into her mobile, brushing her dirty hands on her yard apron.
Anathema and Newton had bought Jasmine Cottage shortly after they had married. Under her care, it had a thriving back garden, and she had never once needed to resort to threatening any of her plants. She made due with a lot of hard work with a garden trowel and the occasional bit of green magic. Most witches were naturally good at that sort of thing.
"I'm in London with my godfathers for the weekend, and I was hoping that you could help us out with something."
"All right," Anathema said uncertainly. She didn't entirely approve of either Crowley or Aziraphale- not since one had hit her with his car, and the other had stolen her book.
"Crowley's misplaced his Bentley. Do you think you could have a look and tell us where it is?"
"Probably at the bottom of the Thames, the way he drives. That's where it belongs."
"You tell that mad, bicycle riding, harridan to tell me where my car is right now, or I'll ram it up her… Wait. Have you got this on speaker phone?"
"Hello, Mr. Crowley," Anathema said sweetly.
"Ah, er… Hello, Ms. Device."
"It's Mrs. Pulsifer," she corrected him.
"Right. Congratulations on the wedding, and all of that."
"It was seven years ago," she told him. "We have two children."
"Well, belated congratulations then," he snapped. "Are you going to tell me where my car is, or not?"
"Are you going to ask nicely?" She smiled to herself as she made her way up the walk to the cottage; she really did enjoy having men over a barrel.
"Please, Mrs. Pulsifer," Crowley gritted out. "Do you think you could tell me where my car is?"
"I can try," she said. "Hold on a minute."
She went over to the corner where a very battered and tobacco stained map hung on the wall. It notably didn't have Milton Keynes on it. It didn't show Harlow. It barely had Manchester and Birmingham. The general geography of the country hadn't changed since it had been made though (probably by some nineteenth century cartographer with a quadrant and a quill pen,) so it served well enough for Anathema's purposes.
She selected a pin, thought very hard about the Bentley, and stuck it into the map. It had fallen out again before she even opened her eyes. Frowning, she knelt to pick up the pin and tried again. This time, she couldn't get it to stick into the map at all. She chose a different pin, but again, the tip seemed to slide away from the map as if influenced by strong opposing magnetic forces.
"I'm not sure…" she mumbled, trying again, but still wasn't able to make the hard , steel pin stick into the soft, cork-backed, paper map. "I'm not sure that I can help you. Unless… Is it possible you left it in another country?"
"England is an island."
"You could've taken the euro shuttle."
"I don't care how drunk I was last night," Crowly was nearly shouting. "I did not take the Bentley on a train ride to France."
"That only leaves two options," Anathema told him. "Either your car is somehow repelling my magic, or it's been completely disintegrated."
Crowley made a choking noise.
"I'm sorry, but I don't think that I can help you either way." She really did feel a little pity for him, a bit. Whatever else, that was a man, well demon, who truly loved his car.
She had a bicycle named Phaeton. She could sympathize.
"Okay, well, thanks anyway, Anathema," Adam said. "I guess we'll try something else. Er… I've got to go."
oOoOoOo
Aziraphale tries to call them, but of course he hasn't paid the phone bill either, and they've disconnected his service.
"Those vultures at Britsh Telecom," Aziraphale complains to the empty flat. "This is an emergency."
He wandered aimlessly around for a few minutes, and then muttered, "Fuck it."
It wasn't dark out yet, but the skies overhead were dreary, and there wasn't enough light filtering in through the windows to read by, so he lit every candle he could find, made himself a nest of blankets on the couch, settled in with a bottle of wine and a P.G. Wodehouse anthology for comfort, and began to wait for Crowley.
Aziraphale just hoped that he wasn't doing anything stupid.
oOoOoOo
The electricity in his flat had been turned off at the same time they had ended their conversation with Anathema. Crowley didn't care. The Bentley was no more. It had been disintegrated. Its pistons no longer pumped. It's hubcaps were all melted to scrap. It had gone to meet its maker. It was cruising the celestial highways with Walter Owen Bentley.
"Wha's that?" Crowley sniffled.
He'd been laying on the floor, drowning in his own despair, but even in the depths of grief, he could hardly miss the large black and white dog that had suddenly appeared in his flat and started sniffling at his hair. He craned his head around, still not lifting it from the floor, to get a better look. It appeared to be some kind of cross between a Border Collie and a Great Dane.
"The new plan," Adam said.
"It looks like a dog." He sniffed the air. "It smells like…" He sniffed again—fire, and sulfur, and the tortured despair of a billion souls. "A Hellhound."
Crowley sat up.
"That's your Hellhound? He's bigger than last time."
"Yeah, well," Adam scratched the back of his neck. "The neighbors got this Irish Wolfhound, Lacy, and he was having… adequacy issues, so… I bulked him up a bit."
Crowley eyed the dog warily. "He isn't going to piddle, or… lake on the carpet, is he?"
"He's properly trained," Adam said reproachfully.
"Yes, I'm sure he's a very well behaved… Hellhound."
Adam scowled. "If you want him to help you find your car, maybe you should show him a little more respect."
"You think that thing can find my Bentley?"
"Maybe," Adam said, "if it's anywhere to be found."
Crowley flopped back onto the floor. "It's Hastur," he said. "He's always had this thing about fire. He's reduced my car to a smoldering pile of embers somewhere."
"We don't know that," Adam said, trying to console him. "Anathema said that it could just be repelling her magic. "I'm sure that Dog can find it. They use dogs to find people all the time. I watched a program about it once."
"Your Hellhound's name is Dog, and you're going to use him as a bloodhound to find my Bentley," Crowley said, disbelieving.
"I told you, it's the new plan. It's a good plan."
"No, it's the stupidest plan I've ever heard. How's he supposed to get the scent? Here dog, good boy, smell the old tire. He'll drag us around London, pissing lakes on every car we pass."
Adam made a thoughtful noise. "Well, maybe we can just show him a picture."
Crowley sat up and spun around so that he could give Adam a dead-eyed stare over the rims of his sunglasses.
"Have you got a better idea, then?" Adam demanded.
Crowley flopped back down on the floor.
"Oh, yeah, real helpful, that," Adam said. "C'mon Dog, Let's go find Demon Sassypants of The Pit of Despair's precious Bentley, so that you can piss on the tires and chew on the upholstery."
He made for the door.
"Hey," Crowley called after him, "Hang on one minute." He hurried to catch up.
"So, where do you garage the car normally?" Adam asked when Crowley joined him on the street. "I figure that's the best place to start. Give Dog a chance to get the scent."
"The scent of steel, tire rubber, and engine grease?" Crowley asked.
"If you aren't going to be helpful…"
"Fine. Fine," Crowley relented. "I don't have a garage."
"You parkthat thing on the street."
"That thing," Crowley said, tartly, "is a 1926 Bentley. Talk about showing respect."
"Well, yeah," Adam said. "Aren't you worried about vandals or car thieves?"
"I'd like to see them try," Crowley growled. "The Bentley would eat them alive and spit out the bones."
Adam raised a brow. "What about weathering from the elements?"
"Some supernatural entities currently present know how to properly maintain their vehicles."
"The first time I saw that car, it was a blazing ball of fire."
"Extenuating circumstances," Crowley said. "Someone decided to start a world-ending apocalypse; sacrifices needed to be made."
"Oh, fuck off," Adam said. "I put everything right after."
"Does your father know that you use that kind of language?"
"He encourages it."
"Your mortalfather," Crowley clarified. "You know, Mr. Young the bank manager with the mustache, and the pipe, and the car that he never drives more than five miles under the speed limit. Does heknow that you go around telling your elders to fuck off?"
"He's a chartered accountant," Adam said.
"Of course he is."
"Do you want to stand here and bitch at me all day, or do you want to see if Dog can find your car?" Adam asked.
"Okay, fine," Crowley said. He walked over to where he normally parked the Bentley, on the street. "Listen carefully, Dog! It's a black, 1926 Bentley, about this big!" he threw his arms wide. "It has James Bond bullet hole decals in the window. It's usually blasting Freddy Mercury out of its non-existent speakers. May or may not currently have a tartan bike rack. But, more than likely closely resembles a pile of ashes. Fetch!"
Dog wagged his tail. There was a pop of displaced air, and the Hellhound was gone.
Crowley stopped his histrionics and turned to Adam, flabbergasted. "Where's he gone?"
Adam looked smug. "To get your car."
oOoOoOo
Aziraphale had gone through two bottles of wine, normally only the start of a usual Wednesday evening, but he was feeling a bit woozy and fuzzy round the edges.
The text on the pages of his book had gone all wavy, and he'd lost the sense of the story ages ago in any case. He was pretty sure that Jeeves had done something to once again get Bertie out of some social entanglement, and fend off the hordes of unwanted suitors, while keeping him suitably well-dressed, but the details had gone foggy. And anyway, no matter how many times he read it, they were never going to get on with it and just kiss already- no matter how obvious it was that they were madly in love with each other.
So, what was the point?
Aziraphale threw the book down in disgust and poured himself another glass.
oOoOoOo
They'd been waiting for ages. Whole generations had lived and died. Civilizations had risen and fallen. Crowley was sure of it.
In truth, it had been about two hours.
Finally, finally,there was another pop of displaced air, and Dog reappeared, wagging his tail- a CD jewel case clamped between his jaws.
"Oh!" Crowley jumped up from where he'd been sitting on the curb, garnering strange looks from pedestrians. He'd recognized the CD instantly. It was the Velvet Underground one that had been sitting on the passenger seat the last time he'd seen the Bentley. "Good dog! Good boy!" He took the CD reverently, despite the strings of drool dripping from it.
"Is it from the Bentley?" Adam asked.
"Yes."
"How can you be sure?"
Crowley flipped the case open and showed it to Adam. The disc inside read, Best of Queen.
"Trust me. It's from the Bentley, " Crowley said, cradling it like a baby bird.
"Okay. Good job, Dog. Now, bring us to the car."
Dog wagged his tail and disappeared again.
"Perhaps you should have been a bit more specific," Crowley said.
They waited again. At some point, it must have become apparent to Dog that they weren't in hot pursuit, so they only had to wait about fifteen minutes this time instead of a couple hours.
"We can't go that way," Adam explained when he'd returned. "You have to show us how to get there on foot."
Dog cocked his head to the side and barked.
"What does that mean?"
"Do I look like Doctor Dolittle?" Adam asked. "I don't speak Hellhound." He stared very intently into Dog's eyes. "Now Dog, I need you to take us to the Bentley."
Dog barked again and once more disappeared.
They repeated this pantomime several more times before they gave up and made their way back to Soho.
They had to put the top down to fit Dog into the Citroen.
It started raining.