BAD GRACE - quantum witch © 2005

see Prologue for warnings, rating, and summary


In which Hastur returns, hellbent on kicking Crawly's ass.


1:03 - THE DEVIL YOU KNOW

NOT LONG AFTER THE WORLD DIDN'T QUITE END, a new entity came briefly to Mayfair and proceeded to skulk about, watching and plotting.

You could go so far as to say he was a demon hunter, and you'd be right on almost every permutation of the phrase. He was hunting a demon named Crawly º. He was also, himself, a demon in the process of hunting.

This new demonic entity was tall and thin, and basically man-shaped. The clothes he wore were fairly un-fashionable, unless you went for the 'slightly homeless vagabond, slightly pervert haunting the schoolyard' look. His battered mack was definitely of the flashing variety, though he'd never have bothered with such an activity unless it killed someone to see it (which was a distinct possibility). He had a hairstyle, if one could call it such, that couldn't even be called 'retro', unless you tacked on most of an extra century just to be sure, and it included a ridiculous overlarge mustache and pointed goatee. But, if one had chanced to look into his glowing red eyes, one would stop noticing other things about his person. One would very likely stop noticing a hell of a lot of anything after a few moments, except maybe how amazingly sharp his teeth and claws were and perhaps, if consciousness stuck around long enough, one might wonder just how he managed to contain so many maggots in such a lean body.

You could also say he was a Duke of Hell, but that might be more negotiable now that he'd left Hell without notifying those even superior to himself, and on a personal mission that he'd actually been instructed to abandon. His territory would have already been annexed by others and what rights he had to the title stricken from record. Hell was like that. The minute your back was turned, you could expect a very sharp and probably poisoned knife to appear in it.

Hastur, now-former Duke of Hell, knew this and though it annoyed him, he didn't really care at the moment. After all, with his skill and cunning he fully intended to waltz back into Hell with Crawly's discorporated self in a bloody paper bag and be handed another commanding position. Archduke sounded good. Or maybe Czar. He wasn't sure they used such titles, but he'd see about having it added.

He knew damned well that Down Below was still furious over Crawly's behaviour during the aborted Apocalypse. Yet, for reasons that absolutely no one was revealing, even under hideous tortures, Crawly had been declared persona non gratis. The lesser demon was free of Hell for the foreseeable future, left to wander Earth as he pleased and do the same old waste-of-time shit that he always had, and no one was to bother him. However, Hastur knew the way things worked in Hell. If he decided to take it upon himself to retrieve the wayward lesser demon, those in Lower Places would undoubtedly forget about the paperwork. Meanwhile, he was entirely on his own and officially in trouble.

Why, one might wonder, would Hastur give it all up and risk his own neck just to chase down another demon that even Hell didn't seem to care about? Did he miss his old buddy Ligur, and wish to wreak havoc on the one who destroyed him? Not especially.

First of all, 'buddy' was a very strong word to use. The phrase 'loathed compatriot in evil' was about as close as one could get to defining it. Ligur had been a Duke as well, but wasn't overly clever or even a good conversationalist, and he had had a particularly ripe smell of sulfur about his person at all times. When he'd been hit with the bucket of holy water Crawly rigged, he'd been not just discorporated, but completely obliterated. Vanished, to the best of anyone's knowledge. Nowhere to be found in all of Hell. This wasn't much of a loss for anyone.

No, Hastur's biggest reason for vengeance was entirely personal. It was because Crawly had made a bloody fool of him, trapping him inside an Ansaphone, for pity's sake. How humiliating and enraging it had been, having to listen to that blithering angel's voice over and over and over...

And the angel. What the sodding Hell was that about? Hastur knew that Crawly had 'gone native', given himself a new name and gotten very attached to the world's pleasures. But it was now clear that he was actually a sympathiser for the other side. Aiding and abetting and fraternising with the Enemy, bold as brass and without a qualm. Hastur had ranted and screamed about that detail Down Below, but had garnered only a deaf ear and blind eye from those in command. He was lucky, really, that they didn't arrange for him to assume that same condition himself, and only warned him to shut up and look the other way.

Crawly was simply a disgrace, which ordinarily wouldn't have been a bad thing except that it meant he was, by proxy, disgracing his superiors. For reasons unknown, they weren't seeing it that way. But Hastur did, oh yes, he saw it clearly. Crawly, when Hastur got through with him, would wish that he'd never Fallen.

No more than a few hours after the Apocalypse, Hastur had dug his way out of Hell. In Wales of all places, through one of the many old mining caves that had collapsed a century ago. He was now a renegade, which wouldn't be tolerated for long, but if he managed to get hold of Crawly and beat him into a crunchy red paste and deliver him Down Below soon enough, they might not be as harsh on Hastur himself.

And he'd made Plans, Big Ones, which he'd thought about for quite a while really. Since he'd delivered the Antichrist into Crawly's bungling hands, in fact. And after the world failed to end, he thought about it even harder. He simply couldn't understand why anyone, especially another demon, would want to save the Earth. It should have all been demolished years ago, paved over, and replaced with a pit of brimstone. If Hell made up their damned minds and tried for Armageddon Mark II, he'd be happy to help redecorate. Until then... his own Big Plans were all he cared about.

Once he had brushed off some of the worst of the coal dust and wiped the muck out of his hair, he made his way into a particular tiny Welsh town bearing a particularly ironic Biblical name. There he visited a small chapel in a small hospital, where he threatened a small priest who gladly provided what he needed. ºº

And thus Hastur was now officially masked from most otherworldly detection. At least, he'd hoped so. He had quickly made his way to London to seek out the one being he was sure would notice his demonic aura at close range.

A few days later, he was disgusted. Following Crawly from a reasonably discrete distant was pathetically easy. The other demon was so preposterously human in his daily behaviour that he might as well chop off his freaking wings and bathe in holy water. Come to think of it, that would a very pleasant revenge. Hastur added it to his list of methods by which he planned to dispatch the slimy snake.

But his Plans weren't taking shape as quickly as he'd have liked. The angel was about, almost constantly, and unfortunately it wasn't just any old ordinary angel. This was a Principality. The aura of holiness made Hastur ill. How the hell Crawly coped with it was a mystery that could really use solving. Later. Meanwhile he didn't dare go for direct assault on the other demon. The angel would be powerful enough to make even a former Duke of Hell sorry, and from all indications actually was fond of Crawly. Okay, so he'd have to bide his time and hope to catch the demon alone.

Less than a week passed, and he could see that it wasn't going to be simple. Demon and angel were practically attached at the hip. Which was not only annoying, but skin-crawlingly annoying. What the fuck was going on with these two?

Hopefully not that.

The only good thing was that his preparations for blending into the mystical background seemed to be working. Neither angel nor demon seemed to catch a whiff of his aura, even when he strolled right past them as they sat by the window in a rather fancy restaurant, sharing a bottle of wine and eating off each other's plates. Hastur had to stifle his own repugnance at the sight, and keep walking.

So the Big Plans would have to be put on hold briefly. And Hastur would have to hide a little further from Hell. He returned to Wales, as it seemed a bit less populated and far less 'modern' than London, and began to look for a decent lair.

He just wasn't comfortable or familiar with this new world. His last serious tenure on Earth was 1914 in Potsdam, where he'd done some lovely work convincing even reluctant European nations to declare war. As much as he could be fond of humans, he rather liked the mindset of those he'd encountered then. Simple, one-track, old-fashioned. None of this new-fangled bollocks like Ansaphones and computers and women voting. If he'd have wanted to stay on Earth, he'd have wanted it to be the Earth of that era.

The world had changed a lot faster than he'd have credited. Humans had come to rely greatly on even more advanced machines to live their lives. And he suspected that it took a hell of a lot more money to get these machines than he still had in his grubby pocket. Probably the wrong currency now, as well. They kept changing things, these bloody morons. Why couldn't gold and silver still be the standard? Why couldn't they still make things by hand, and kill each other the same way? But he was nothing if not cunning and willing to adapt to the situation, in order to achieve his end. If it became necessary, he'd even hock the impressive medals on his lapel, that's how serious he was.

Most demons are capable of reading human minds and influencing them to a degree. And it was especially easy when all you had to do was wave a hand and make their tiny brains wilt into submission. It was hardly sporting with most humans, they were so easily spooked. That is, hundreds of years ago it had been easy. They had lived in constant fear of ghosts and goblins and long-leggedy beasties. As one of those beasts, Hastur expected to be obeyed readily by every human he crossed.

During his few days returned to Earth, he'd seen things that hinted modern humans would be harder to influence. They lived in such a big world with easy access to books and motion pictures filled with images of Hell, that they'd gotten somewhat immune to dreadful visions of doom. The bloody English, especially, seemed to take it all with a boulder of sodium and a cup of tea, then went their merry old way. They were proud of their stereotypical stiff upper lips.

He worried for a moment that he could have appeared in hideous true demonic form, writhing and pulsing and twitching in the most unpleasant ways, and no one would have batted an eye and might possibly ask if he wished to have a doctor called. It could be that no one would credit the reality of something as fearsome as a demon.

...Except the priest had. A simple, one-track, old-fashioned mind that still dwelled on the horrors of Hell.

Yes,that would be the place to start. Amongst the fervently religious.

Hastur had supreme confidence in his abilities. He would find the right people to serve him, and to aid him in fitting into this new world. Minions, even human ones, were right up Hastur's dark and thug-filled alley. And as a former Duke, now deposed, he was still accustomed to a certain level of fawning from underlings.

All right then. First order of business, acquire suitable servants and the rest would follow: accommodations, creature comforts, and so on. After that, he'd work on the daily details of his Big Plans. He'd known he might be forced to stay on Earth for a while, and there was no reason to be uncomfortable doing it.

Because the Big Plans included bringing himself up in the world...and then burning it down and reclaiming his place in Hell.


º The flash bastard called himself Anthony J. Crowley now and even had legal identification declaring the same. In the beginning, he'd had to practice signing the new name a few times, because putting his real name in Daemonese on any sort of ordinary paper usually led to unpleasant amounts of smoke and flames, and it was just not fun explaining the special effects to beleaguered humans simply trying to do already thankless clerical jobs.

ºº After first fainting and then recovering and fainting again. Once Hastur left, he'd changed his pants in great embarrassment. And after that, checked himself into the psychiatric ward upstairs for a little lie down and something pharmaceutically calming.