Chapter Seven

Krrik. Krrak-krrik.

The sound brought Gabriel's head roaring up from his favorite centerfold. He turned in his blue, white and yellow striped lawn chair -strategically placed in the boot of the alley behind the Sea Blossom Chinese restaurant- and smiled as he saw what was coming up the street. His brother Lucifer was standing there, cracking his ample bosomed Asian meat suit's neck from side to side and regarding everything as though he'd already decided to paint the town red. Par for the course. So dutifully, he rose from his lawn chair, backed away from the little white table set with lemonade, vodka, and those little sausages on toothpicks, and turned to face the first of his brothers to arrive. He was going to need more chairs.

"Lucy!" he called, tossing his shoulder-length dirty blonde hair back away from his Irish chin like a careless girl of sixteen, "So nice of you to join us. Try the swai."

On cue the restaurant's grey back door opened, allowing a small scruffy porter with a box who jumped when he saw the Morningstar and promptly dropped the crate stamped 'Ocean Caught Whitefish' on his foot.

Lucifer grinned slightly, then parted his rouged lips, plumping the flesh of the lower one just enough to give the impression of a pout. The porter scrabbled away in terror, the box forgotten.

"My Vessel owns the restaurant, Gabby. Nice of you to do your homework. Where are Michael and Raphael?"

Gabriel laughed.

"Very Lucy Liu, by the way. I noticed you're using a new moisturizer..."

The Morningstar blinked out of boredom. His grace, if one could still call it that, tweaked to the presence of another Archangel. It was like someone sticking their hand in front of a candle and watching it flicker, feeling the flame lick around the obstructing hand, eager to flick out and burn as it waits for an opening, then dousing the hand in kerosene.

Michael was here.

His elder brother's boyish face, the face of Adam Winchester, turned as he turned to look. It was a cheesy sort of creepy. Creepy had its merits.

"Mikey. You said you'd found the Doctor, found his Ship even. Then why are we here at my little shop playing hooky? Where's Fearless Leader and his pet Time Lord?"

Michael sighed, his lips quirking in that way he had with nasty smiles.

"We each had to come alone, from different locations. The Old One has been tracking us as well as the Doctor's Ship. And, there was a complication with the Doctor's arrangement."

"Yes…" Raphael murmured softly, his beautiful deep coffee bean skin gleaming in the neon reflected from Chinatown's collection of dragon sculptures and backstreet gambling dive signs.

"Castiel made good time. Another few minutes and Shub Niggurath would have burned the Doctor's body to a crisp and taken his unborn child as a Vessel. As it is," he paused, glaring at the faces of his brothers before he took an unnecessary breath, "I know they were there, at Rhys Williams' apartment. Jack Harkness, as well. Little Brother keeps moving the humans and the two children every few days, stopping only long enough to rest. Perhaps one of us should…"

Michael's calm flew away, replaced by something strange and terrible. But none of them could see it, not really. Lucifer had always been best at reading his brother's moods.

The blonde hair bled white light; the pale rings of his bluish irises lit up like Chinese firecrackers. Even his face took on that special holy glow.

Then the crate of whitefish behind the dumpster began to sizzle.

"Michael! Michael, don't!"

Raphael backed away; the street… hell, probably the whole district was clear of mortals now; only a few lesser gods, demons and low-level angels were fool enough to be running around when Michael had one of his fits.

Skirrrrrr.

Skeeeerunch!

Gabriel looked at Lucifer. They both looked at Raphael.

"You know, little brother," Lucifer smirked, cocking his head as he filled his Vessel's lungs with a good deal of useless air, making his plump breasts rise like heaving burial mounds below his breastbone, "I could say it, but… I think it's pretty much obvious."

"Say what?" said Gabriel, wincing as Raphael's smooth, suited figure was scattered across five Chinese greengrocers, three closed laundries, a gambling joint and the bright red entrance Paifang.

"Oh. Don't kill the messenger. Oops, too late! Ha ha. That was a good one, Luce. It'll take Raph five minutes to reconstitute, at least."

Then the lid on the crate exploded, spraying bits of slimy, breaded whitefish, probably cod, over everyone –except- Lucifer and Michael.

"Well geez. I was going to eat that, possibly baked with some caviar in a white wine sauce, possibly sautéed in an exquisite lemon and herb reduction," said Gabriel, tipping his drink to Michael as he plucked a piece of half-frozen fish off the shoulder of his jacket, "So anyway, you said you found the TARDIS, Mikey…"

Michael smiled, then swept his arm toward the dumpster.

Gabriel choked; Lucifer merely blinked unnecessarily and looked at his brother with mild surprise as half of Raphael's jaw -dragging a pristine white tooth or two- suddenly crawled over his foot toward the place the angel had been standing. Raphael was always so funny when Michael smote him.

"Oh come on, Mikey, tell me you didn't make the Ship transform into a giant trash can?"

The archangel Michael rose, folded a napkin he'd swiped from Gabriel's little table, then walked to the brick of the Ocean Blossom's back wall, patting it softly.

This time, Lucifer did stare.

They were inside Her the whole time?

Michael sighed and patted the wall again, then waved them away as the whole of Chinatown shimmered, melting away in strange chocolate and red patterns to reveal the inside of the Doctor's beloved TARDIS, all roundels and broom handles and blue paint.

"She wants her Doctor back, my brothers," he murmured, tracing the lines of a roundel as the final vestiges of Chinatown disappeared around them, " … but I suggest we take her to him. It will save us the trouble. Use them both as bait for the Great Old One. The Ancient Enemy cannot hear us inside her walls. Once we have finished discussing the matter, each one of us must leave the TARDIS and take a position at a corner of her façade.

"Oh, this is hilarious. But Raph's not back yet, Mikey. We kind of need another Archangel to pull this job…"

"Oh, we have something better." Michael said, waving a hand down one of the Ship's great corridors at an approaching shadow.

A woman came into view. She had an oval face, a thick wash of deep gold ringlets, lips like red plums and a shiny-new disruptor. And what was she was wearing? Only a white silk cami over a pair of fatigues and combat boots…

"Aunty?" said Gabriel, slapping his thigh as Lucifer produced a lop-sided smirk from around one end of a long cigarette.

"You found The Magdalene. Well, hot diddly damn." Lucifer snorted, sniffing his delicate Asian nose as his whole essence reveled in the scent of Father's beloved step-daughter.

River Song grinned as she tapped a loving pat to her pistol, then met all the faces in the room.

"Hello, boys," she mused, taking in the three of them as though they were pool boys shivering after a bathing beauty, "… so where's the Doctor?"