It's only been a day after Crowley found Aziza as in infant in California. Along with Gabriel, the Soulmate was taken to the Asylum and she'd already aged into a toddler. Crowley wanted to study her, so he had Gabriel locked into the cells in the basement, separated from Castiel, but he had to step up his security measures since he was detaining an Archangel.
Gabriel was chained to a chair and the metal bindings around him had the same sigils from Lucifer's Cage carved into the metal and more wards were painted on the walls of the cell; there were now twenty of his strongest Demons posted in the hall of the cells. Crowley learned from experience and experience told him not to take any chances when it came to Archangels.
With Gabriel securely bound, Crowley's full attention went to Aziza. She was a new sight to his aged eyes, something truly unique and special. Right now, they were in the 'throne room', which used to be the Asylum's common room, and Crowley's followers were talking among themselves. Most of it was gossip about the Archangel trapped in the basement, other was the usual speculations about Lucifer and his apocalyptic plans. Sometimes, they'd glance at the burbling child tottering about.
Crowley was supposed to be managing the latest Crossroad Deals, but he ordered his minions not to disturb him while he watched Aziza. She was a giggling body prancing around the room as she chased after a blue ball. From his throne, Crowley was bouncing the ball, controlling it with his finger, and he had an amused smirk on his face as he watched her chase after it.
"Fascinating, aren't they?" Crowley asked and Guthrie, his most trusted Demon, lifted his head from the table of scrolls beside the throne to look at his King. "These fleshy, easily distracted, strangely adorable little tots."
"Children are said to be the miracle of life, sir." The promoted Demon commented and Crowley absentmindedly nodded in agreement, his finger bouncing up and down on the armrest as he jounced the ball for Aziza. She actually stopped her wobbly run to let out the most darling laugh, then she continued her pursuit of the ball.
"I can think of a hundred things, in this room alone, that could easily kill her. If we're being honest, I could kill her."
"Again, sir." Guthrie reminded, setting a scroll down to stand beside Crowley.
"Exactly. I could kill her again and she couldn't do a thing about it. Yet, in this form, she's completely oblivious to anything dangerous. She's surrounded by bloody Demons, but her primary focus is playing with that ball, being happy."
Guthrie watched Aziza for a moment. As a Demon, the happiness he could feel radiating from the child was something he wasn't used to. She was truly something pure, something his sinful eyes shouldn't be witnessing. "With ignorance comes true bliss, sire."
Aziza tried to jump up to grab the bouncing ball, but she landed on her butt with a little oof. The entire room went silent, all the Demons holding their breaths in anticipation for the excruciating wails that could only come from a baby. Crowley was even anxiously watching the child, his finger frozen upwards and thus making the ball hover in the air.
Aziza looked around the room for the former King of Hell and when she found him, she stared at him for a moment. Then, she crawled over to his throne and grabbed the leg of his pants, using it to pull herself up on her feet. She babbled to Crowley and smiled her two-toothed grin when he responded to her incomprehensible dialogue; giving her a pat on the head. Her attention wandered back to the ball and she laughed as she tottered over to it, hands outstretched. Crowley dropped the ball into her grasp and she shook it, giggling, then wandered over to a Demon to get it to play with her.
"Did you see that?" Crowley questioned, turning to Guthrie almost as if he needed another witness to confirm what he just saw. "She just got up and walked it off like it was nothing. No crying, no fussing. She just shrugged it off like she doesn't care."
Guthrie chuckled. "Children are indestructible, sir."
"Fascinating." Crowley let out a light sigh as he relaxed into his throne, his attention going back to Aziza. She managed to get one of his Demons to sit on the floor and roll the ball back and fourth between them.
SN*SN*SN*
Due to yesterday's delay in business, Crowley had stacks of paperwork to get through. This is what came with being King, endless amounts of paperwork to sign. He didn't bother reading them anymore, that was Guthrie's job. Speaking of, he was walking the halls of the Asylum in search of his trusted Demon. He suspected Guthrie was watching Aziza because he was the one who put her to bed last night. There was an old office that his Demons made into a bedroom for the girl and Crowley headed there, finding a pair of his minions guarding the door.
"Guthrie, whatever this is, it bores me rigid." Crowley complained as he strolled into the room.
The walls had been painted pink to match the blankets on the full-sized bed, but the floor, armoire, bedframe and floor mirror were black. There was a pink toy trunk off to one side and in the middle of the room was a matching pink table with a porcelain teapot, saucers, creamer, sugar bowl and assortment of finger food spread out on it.
Guthrie was sitting in one of the impossibly small chairs and he looked up when Crowley entered the room to show him the scroll. "Do I sign or not?"
"I found it in order, sir. Do sign." Guthrie affirmed and Crowley quickly scribbled his signature on the line.
"And how is our little dove today?" Crowley pondered as he furled the scroll into a tube, tucking it under his arm. He looked across the small table and saw Aziza there, but she was no longer an adorable little toddler. Her hair was pulled up into a curly ponytail and she had a pink, boxed crown on the side of her head that looked like it was made of cardboard. The Demon King raised an eyebrow in surprise as she grabbed the porcelain teapot and poured herself a cup. "I don't think that's normal for Humans."
"Correct, sir. She underwent an overnight growth. By my estimate, she's about five-years-old now." Guthrie informed his King.
Crowley took a second to think. Aziza's spontaneous growth had to be due to her being the Soulmate and that only made him ponder what she was capable of. If she was growing so quickly, she needed to be older in order to reach her fullest potential. He wondered what this child could be capable of, if she could be what he needed to get rid of Lucifer for good. The Cupids he interrogated never said how powerful the Soulmate was or even what she was. Crowley knew that she was some kind of divine being, but unlike Angels or Archangels, her Grace was hidden from his eyes. Maybe God made another kind of superior Angel.
Crowley pulled the tiny chair from the table and sat down, setting the scroll beside him. Aziza placed a ceramic plate and teacup with a saucer under it in front of Crowley, then filled his cup with the warn tea from the pot. Crowley smiled at the blonde and lifted the teacup with the saucer, taking a sip of white Chai tea.
"Hello, dove. I'm your Uncle Crowley." He greeted Aziza as he reached for the milk and honey to add to his cup. "Are you having fun with Guthrie?"
Aziza smiled and nodded. "We're having a tea party." She picked up a plate holding cheese Samosas and offered them to Crowley. He decided to play along and took the plate, taking one of the cheese-filled triangles to set on his plate. "Where are all the Angels, Uncle Crowley?"
Crowley glanced to Guthrie when Aziza asked that, but the white-haired Demon looked just as surprised to hear her question. "Angels?"
The blonde nodded before explaining, "I'm supposed to be around Angels, so they can tell me the end of the story. That's what He said."
"He who?"
"Him." She repeated, but that only made Crowley's brows pull together in confusion. He took a moment to try and understand what she was saying and her origin came to him. She was the Soulmate, something divine, and God created her. God also told her some story that Angels were supposed to finish. "I had a dream about an Angel last night, but there aren't any here."
"Do you know which Angel was in your dream?" Guthrie questioned the blonde after seeing that his King was still working through his thoughts.
"Mm-hmm. It was the Morning Star." She said casually as she added a few spoonfuls of sugar to her cup and stirred it, not making the spoon clank against the cup.
At the mention of the Fallen Archangel, Guthrie sat a bit straighter in his small chair. He may have pledged loyalty to Crowley, but that didn't mean he wasn't fearful of Lucifer's wrath. Crowley was now looking at Aziza and being reminded of his last encounter with the Morning Star. If Lucifer could get in contact with Aziza, he worried that he would know where she was, which would mean the Archangel knew where he was.
"He said that he's a Prince and since I'm the Princess of Zeallegon, we can get married." Aziza coyly giggled and ducked her head a bit, a pink flush coating her cheeks. "He told me he knew me a long, long time ago, but he lost me and he can't find me now. He asked me where was, but I told him I didn't know."
"Good girl. He might be an Angel, but he's still a stranger and we don't trust strangers, do we?" Crowley asked and immediately, Aziza shook her head. He smiled at her, thankful that she wasn't going to go blabbing to Lucifer about where she was. He was sure that the girl didn't have the foggiest idea of where the hell she was anyway. Crowley finished off his tea, then stood from the small table and retrieved the scroll. "Guthrie has to take care of some things with me, so Taylor is going to stay with you. She'll give you whatever you want."
Crowley turned to the side and gestured to the Demon waiting at the door. It was wearing the tanned skin of a teenage girl, around 18 or 19-years-old, with syrupy brown eyes and caramel hair pulled back into a ponytail. She was wearing a black shirt with white Daises on it and jeans; an apron was tied around her waist with a floppy bow on the small of her back.
Taylor smiled at Aziza and the young blonde stared back at the girl. At this age, she couldn't 'switch' her eyes from seeing supernatural beings and Souls or simply faces, so she knew that Taylor and Guthrie weren't Humans. She knew Crowley wasn't Human either, but his tortured Soul was red and she didn't know what that made him.
As Crowley and Guthrie began to leave, the Demon King reminded Taylor to treat Aziza like a little princess. She obediently nodded and Crowley went back to the table to grab his Samosa before leaving with Guthrie to handle the day's business.
SN*SN*SN*
"You have coerced others into aligning with Lucifer. You've spread rumors and fostered doubt as to the competence and authority to the crown. You are hereby found guilty of treason and mutiny against the King." Crowley stated as he sat on his throne, his minions scattered around the room as spectators and Guthrie beside him with an unrolled scroll.
There was a handcuffed Demon standing a few feet away from him who had been caught in treasonous acts. The Demon was one of Lucifer's followers, but he remained 'loyal' to Crowley just so he could gather enough information to tell the Fallen Archangel. Crowley expected this to happen when Lucifer was released, for his 'most devoted' Demons to stab him in the back in attempts to gain the favor of their 'Father', and he refused to be merciful with his punishments.
He narrowed his eyes at the traitor. "Your sentence is death. Have you any last words?"
"Lucifer is the only King." The Demon started and just by the steely tone of his voice, Crowley knew he was about to start preaching to the masses. He rolled his eyes. "He is free from his Cage and has reclaimed his throne. You are nothing but an insect to him. You and those stupid enough to still follow you will feel his wrath. Your defiance and disloyalty to our Father will be rewarded with unimaginable-"
"Juliet!" Crowley called, cutting off the Demon's speech. He wouldn't be able to keep the vomit from filling his throat if he had to listen to another word of that nonsense.
A chilling howl was sounded in response to Crowley's call and all the Demons in the room began moving away from the doors to keep out of the approaching Hell Hound's way. With a demonic growl, the double doors were thrown open and Crowley's Hell Hound prowled into the room, lowly growling at the Demons she passed.
Crowley whistled and pointed to the chained Demon. Juliet dashed across the room and pounced on the traitor, bringing him down to the ground. She clawed at his chest, blood spurting out from the jagged, claw-lines, and the terrorized screams of the Demon echoing throughout the entire Asylum. She latched onto his neck with her sharp, canine teeth and dragged him out of the throne room, leaving behind a smeared trail of blood on the floor.
"Anyone else hungry to betray me?" Crowley cynically accused the Demons that pledged loyalty to him, knowing he just struck fear into them with that execution.
He noticed some of them nervously looking at others and wondered just how many of his minions could be double agents, spying on him for that wretched Archangel. Now that he had Aziza in his possession, he couldn't allow her to be in Lucifer's presence. The Morning Star knew more about her than he did and Crowley had no doubt that Lucifer could made Aziza turn on him at the drop of a dime.
Crowley gave the Demons in the room a final once-over, then took his phone from his suit jacket's inner breast pocket and looked to his notifications for missed calls or unopened texts. There was nothing from the contacts he saved under 'Squirrel' and 'Moose'.
Crowley wasn't expecting the Winchesters to know that he captured Aziza. He reasoned that they forgot about him after he tried to kill Lucifer, probably thought he slithered back to the Inferno where he belonged. He knew better than to underestimate the Hunters, but the brothers have yet to learn not to underestimate him.
"My King?" Crowley looked up from his phone when someone called him, finding Taylor a few feet from his throne. He scowled at her, not in the mood to be bothered.
"You're supposed to be watching the child." He said through clenched teeth and caught how Taylor stiffened at his harsh tone.
"Y-Yes, I know, but…there's something…" The Demon trailed off, unable to find the words to explain what the little blonde did. "You need to come see what she's done."
Crowley raised an eyebrow, curious. Aziza was a little angel, not like those flying monkeys in Heaven, and she wasn't troublesome at all. He just saw the girl having a tea party a few hours ago. He glanced to Guthrie to see if his most trusted Demon had a comment, but the white-haired fiend did not. With that, Crowley stood from his throne and followed Taylor to Aziza's room.
When they arrived at Aziza's room, Taylor opened the door for Crowley, but took a step back as if she didn't want to go back into the room. Crowley was really intrigued now, wondering what could've spooked his minion. When he entered the room, everything seemed to be in order. Her bed was still made and he noticed that there was a red hardcover book opened on the blankets. From his position, he could see the pages and knew that it was Dante's Inferno in the original Italian. Taylor was probably reading it to her.
Taking a look around the room, Crowley saw that her toys were tucked away in the trunk and the pink table was cleared of the tea set, but there were splatters of red staining the table. Two of the small chairs were overturned and a pair of Demons, the ones previously guarding the room, were on the floor, a dark-red puddle underneath both bodies. From the shredded clothing, it looked like Juliet came in here and killed them, but that didn't make sense. Crowley trained Juliet to behave and obey. She wouldn't just run off and kill a pair of his Demons just for kicks.
The sound of humming made Crowley look around the room until he spotted Aziza. She was rubbing her hands on the wall next to her dresser, almost out of sight.
"Aziza?" Crowley called as she approached the girl and she turned to him, smiling. "What's going on in here, darling?"
"I'm finger-painting!" She threw her hands in the air to show Crowley and he noticed that her palms and fingers were coated in something that was carmine in color, then pointed to the wall behind her. "See my pretty drawings?"
Crowley looked to the wall and saw that there were smears of the same substance coating Aziza's hands on the wall. He looked back to the corpses on the ground and everything clicked. The blond was using Demon Blood as paint. Looking back to her creations, he noticed that they were far from pretty or childlike. She didn't draw a shining sun or stick-people. Whatever she drew depicted something that would be seen in a mental patient's cell or by a Human being possessed by a rabid Demon. Maybe she was attempting to draw the creatures within the 14th-century epic poem Taylor was reading her.
"They're marvelous." Crowley complimented and he was only telling half of a lie. Aziza's drawings were certainly attention-grabbing and far from normal, but there was nothing good about them. They were sinister looking and macabre. Motioning to the bodies on the ground, he asked her, "Aziza, what happened to them?"
"Oh, those guys didn't wanna play with me." Aziza casually answered as if nothing was wrong with the newly created crime-scene in her room. "They said that they were dragons and that they were gonna burn Zeallegon to the ground, then eat the Princess. So, Snowflake ate them first."
"Snowflake?" Crowley questioned, unknowing of whom the blonde was naming.
"Her teddy bear." Taylor elucidated, warily glancing to the white teddy bear sitting in the only upright chair at the pink table. There were splatters of blood on its fur and its bottomless eyes seemed to be staring right at her tortured Soul, daring her to come closer.
"They should've been nice to me." Aziza said in a slightly singsong voice, going back to smearing the plasma on the wall. She stopped and looked down at her stomach, under her stained dress, when she felt a rumble, then to Crowley. "I'm hungry, Uncle Crowley."
Crowley stared at the blonde for a moment, trying to comprehend what happened. His Demons must've provoked her in some way, but how the hell did she make a goddamn teddy bear murder them? It was inanimate, soft and cuddly. Crowley let out a quiet sigh, too much on his mind at the moment.
"Taylor is going to get you cleaned up and then, she'll make you something scrummy to eat." He told Aziza as he pinched the bridge of his nose.
The blonde looked behind him at the teenage Demon standing next to Guthrie and she didn't smile like she usually did. She was a second away from glaring when Crowley put his hands on her shoulders to lead her to the door. Taylor held her hand out for Aziza to take and after a moment's hesitation, the blonde accepted it, being led away to the bathroom.
Taylor drew Aziza a bubble bath while the blonde was sitting on the toilet, wrapped in a purple towel as she played with a bath toy shark. Once the tub was filled, she happily got in and played with the bubbles, making a beard and blowing them out of her hand to watch the suds flutter through the air. She was laughing for the duration of her bathtime, then she washed and got out. Taylor wrapped her in the towel again, dried her hair and was now on her knees as she fished around the tub in search of the stopper.
"You snitched on me." Aziza said, standing right behind Taylor. The Demon could barely turn her head around to see the blonde.
"What was that, dear?" She asked. Her fingers were still searching for the stopper, but they brushed against something smooth and she pushed away the bath toy that Aziza left in the tub.
The blonde was trying to glare a hole in the back of Taylor's head, so that her brain could fall out, but she came around to the Demon's side so that they could see each other. "I don't like tattletales." She sneered at the brown-eyed Demon. She glanced at the tub and smirked when she noticed a fin moving through the mountains of bubbles. "And neither does Bandit."
Before Taylor could ask what Aziza meant by that, she let out a scream as searing-hot pain shot up her entire arm. Looking in the tub, she saw the red beginning to contaminate the water and as she jerked her hand from the tub, she found that her arm was missing from her elbow up, a gory stump left behind. She would've let out another scream, but a downsized Megalodon shark emerged from the suds and its mouth opened, revealing painfully sharp teeth, and chomped down on the Demon, dragging her into the tub.
Aziza watched, still with a smirk on her face, as Bandit ripped Taylor to pieces, the shark's head thrashing left and right to detach limbs, and ate every bite. Water was splashing all over the place, on the white walls and tiled floor. Some splatters of blood got on Aziza's face, but she didn't notice at first.
Once Bandit was satisfied with his kill, the water in the tub calmed and was now a bloody red, the bubbles were even stained with maroon; a few pieces of skin or chunks of meat were floating on the surface like macabre lily-pads. Bandit came to the edge of the tub and lifted his head from the water again, exposing his face to Aziza.
"Good shark." She smiled, stroking the shark's sleek snout.
After a minute or two of receiving affection from the blonde, Bandit retreated underwater again and was casually swimming around the tub, sometimes snacking on the remaining bits of Taylor floating around him. Aziza returned to her room and took a blue and white pajama set from her armoire to get dressed in. Before she left her room, she noticed her reflection in the floor mirror next to her wardrobe. There were still droplets of blood on her face and she wiped her hand over her face.
She stared at her stained palm and, curiously, stuck her tongue out to lick at one of the carmine streaks. Her pupils dilated to marble size when the unholy taste settled on her tongue.
Aziza walked back to the bathroom and was licking her hand clean of Demon Blood along the way. She washed her hands, then stood outside the door, sucking in a breath before calling, "Uncle Crowley!"
Crowley was in the lowest level of the Asylum, visiting the cells again. This time, he was preoccupied with trying to pick at Gabriel's brain, but the Archangel seemed immune to his cruel blade. All the gilded winged Archangel would do is scoff and sass the Demon. Crowley's tortured many a supernatural creature in his demonic lifespan, but never an Archangel. He was smart enough to keep away from them and if Lucifer's brother's were anywhere near as insane as he was, Crowley was perfectly fine with never wanting to even see one.
Crowley was twirling an Angel Blade as he paced in front of a shirtless and barefoot Gabriel bound to a chair. The brunet's hair was a little messy and his chest was littered with gouges of various lengths and widths, but Gabriel did not look scared. Not once has he begged for mercy or let out anything more than an annoyed noise that could've been mistaken for a grunt of irritation. If anything, Crowley was beginning to feel like he was a nuisance, nothing more than a pestering bug, to the Archangel instead of an oppressor of pain. He had a few vases of Holy Oil to use at his leisure, but he didn't want to use that until it was absolutely necessary. He knew that Angels would scream in agony when burned with Holy Fire and he wanted to see how an Archangel would react, so he was saving the best for last.
The Demon King looked to the locked door and thought about the Angel he had locked in another cell. He hasn't touched Castiel since his Demons kidnapped him because the blue-eyed divine being was more worth to him alive than dead, a bargaining chip. He knew that, similar to Demons, all Angels were related in a way, all of them considered siblings. If that was true, than he suspected that Balthazar would've finally caved in upon seeing his brother, thought that the blond would try to spare Castiel the torment of being tortured by spilling the beans. That plan didn't work out, but maybe it would this time around.
Crowley's lips just curled into a smile at the scheme formulating in his mind, but the loud clanking of metal tore him from his sinister plots. One of the Demons guarding the cells poked its head in to inform her boss that his presence was being requested by their guest. Crowley sighed, suspecting Taylor needed his attention again. He passed the Angel Blade off to the Demon and removed the black apron covering his suit.
Crowley didn't bother accepting his suit's jacket from another one of the Demons guarding the cells. He didn't stop his stride as he reached the higher floors of the Asylum and went to Aziza's room. The blonde was missing, as was Taylor, but there weren't any new bodies littering the floor. He went to the bathroom next, remembering the child needed a bath, and found Aziza sitting on the ground as she played with a toy shark.
"Where's your sitter?" Crowley asked the blonde. He was earnestly considering having Taylor flayed and boiled in molten lava.
"In the bathroom." Aziza answered, turning to push open the bathroom door and reveal the bloodied scene.
Crowley evaluated the state of the bathroom, the bloody water and splatters of plasma on the walls or floor. He looked to Aziza and noticed that, like earlier, she was unharmed. He didn't find Snowflake the Teddy Bear anywhere in the bathroom, but he did notice the toy shark the tiny blonde was playing with.
It was clear to him now that she could animate toys. She brought Snowflake to life and the teddy slaughtered the two Demons, then she must've animated the toy shark and it attacked Taylor. He wondered what Taylor could've done to provoke the blonde. He gave the sitter specific orders to give the child whatever she wanted and to keep her happy.
"Are you still hungry?" Crowley asked Aziza as he shut the bathroom door. She nodded and he held his hand out; she didn't hesitate to take it. "Alright, let's go get you something to eat."
Crowley planned to question Aziza on the triple homicide while she ate dinner. He didn't particularly care about the deaths, but he wanted to know why she had his Demons killed and he wanted to witness how she made her toys come to life. He was reminded that she was something divine and could have as much power as an Archangel.
With the proper training, he could groom her to be the perfect little murderer and he would set her loose on Lucifer the first chance he got. Even if he didn't know the extent of their history, Crowley knew for a fact that Lucifer wouldn't harm a hair on Aziza's head. He's found the Archangel's Achilles' heel.
"Can I have what Bandit had, Uncle Crowley? He said it was yummy." Aziza requested as she skipped down the halls beside Crowley. He looked down at her with a inquisitive expression.
"Bandit?"
"Mm-hmm. He's my bath toy shark." She held her toy up to show him, but Crowley didn't dare touch it, unknowing and wary of if the damn thing would try to bite his hand off. "He ate Taylor and Snowflake ate the dragons. I want more of that."
Crowley had to stop after hearing Aziza's explanation. He looked down at her with squinted eyes, trying to understand if she was asking him for what he thought she was. "You want to eat Demons?"
"Just the stuff that comes out." She blinked up at him. Her azure eyes were sparkling with something, but it was not innocence or purity. There may have been a happiness in them, but it was not a clean type of joy.
The child wanted to drink Demon Blood, she was asking Crowley to feed her Demons because her shark liked the taste. Crowley considered what Aziza wanted for a moment, thinking. Maybe the blonde simply didn't like the lower-level Demons she's been around and had them killed. Or perhaps, she got a taste of them, just like Bandit did, and she liked the flavor.
Crowley decided to conduct an experiment on the Soulmate. The only way to find out the answer to his theory was to give the blonde what she wanted and monitor her reaction.