A/N: back after a short RL Summer hiatus. Thanks to Ms Saemay for her hard work collaborating on this chapter with me. Always a pleasure.

Chapter 38 - The Corner Stone

Richard lost his sense of humour quickly as they traveled from the airport. Even Hettie had dropped into an uncharacteristic silence. The car passed wreck after ruin. The Cardiff motorists, attempting to escape from impending doom, appeared to have piled in on each other at top speed. Cars, lorries, bicycles, anything with wheels had been compacted brutally into poles, buildings and each other. Both lanes of the eastbound motorway were filled to a standstill. To say the least, the motorway was a little backed up. Their car was the only one attempting to travel west.

Richard broke the silence, "This thing that Belinda left here. You said she left it for Hal, right?" His brain was beginning to piece things together, he'd get there in a minute, thought Hettie. Old as he was, Richard was never the smartest tack in the tin.

"Sort of," she smiled.

"Sort of? Hal's been shacked up in Southend for half a century with that boy-scout of a werewolf."

"Apparently he moved, or would move, I stopped paying attention. After what that turncoat did to Snow I wish I hadn't now. Anyway, when we got there though there was just Grace. She left it with her to give to him."

"And if it was so valuable why exactly did you let her do that?"

"Because of the whole future Fuckopalypse thing he kicked off."

"He what!"

"Oh yeah, didn't he tell you about that, honestly the man's a damned liability, I was glad whenever he went off on one, kept him out of trouble."

"He caused the Apocalypse?"

"Back last century, we had a good thing going, lots of carnage, a nice, healthy war to really help with the stress management, plus humans were easy pickings," she sighed reminiscently, "and then he had to go and spoil it by picking a fight with the soddin' anti-christ! All because he had a lob-on for some werewolf. Weren't you there for the Lady Catherine crap? 'The Apocalypse is bad for us all' my arse."

"It's not?"

"Looks like a lot of fun to me. Makes a change from just existing doesn't it? I mean you've lived long enough to realise immortality is boring as shit, right? At least Hal has minor schizophrenia to keep him entertained, I have to deal with the Disney channel."

"This!" he spat, and gestured past the steering column towards the carnage. "This is the End of Days?"

"No shit, Sherlock," Hettie retorted without her usual venom. Her gaze was far away, watching the Apocalypse roll by. "I thought there would be more...I don't know...fireworks, or dancing. Like a One Direction Concert but with added death." She sighed. Downside of the Apocalypse: significantly reduced chances of ripping out Harry Styles' intestines.

"So, the Cardinal was important?" asked Richard, "I don't understand how Belinda even got near him."

Hettie delivered a swift punch into his thigh, "Thick much? It was the key! That shit storm at the Guggenheim; it was all for that damn bloody key. And to get our attention...she needed an Old One for her plan to work."

Hettie trailed off with a mopey sigh and then scooted in her seat to face him. "I may as well spill. This mass suicide shit is gonna take like f-o-r-ever to get through. Fucking lemmings," Hettie kicked off her Mary Janes, they ricocheted off the dashboard and landed in the footwell as she drew her stockinged feet onto the seat.

April 17th , 1960

With dual french braids, a collared sweater and a dark green pleated skirt, Hettie looked every bit the beloved little girl. The frilly buggy at her side and doll she clutched to her chest only enhanced the image.

"I can't fucking believe that wingnut talked me into this," Hettie muttered. She reached into the pram, pulled back the hood, and removed a lit cigarette.

The Rothmans cigarette she was puffing away on might blow her cover, but she didn't give a shit. Sharply dressed New Yorkers, starting their day, barely gave her a second glance. Hettie watched as the grandiose doors across the street opened for the first round of morning tourists. She took a long last drag before stubbing it out in the ashtray which sat on the plush quilt, concealed inside the pram.

She turned her gaze upward. The colossal bronze arms of Atlas held up the world and framed the tower of Rockefeller Centre. They dwarfed the small figure standing below.

"You've got the whole wide world in your hands there buddy," she sing-songed half to Atlas, and half to herself, "got any tips?" She asked.

Atlas said nothing. He didn't even shrug.

Hettie stuck out her tongue, "Much help you are, mate!" She brushed down her skirts and snaked a tiny fist into her pocket. She popped a red gum-ball into her pert little mouth and a glanced down Fifth Ave. The light changed. "So long sucker!" Hettie hollered.

With her Dolly tucked under arm, pushchair pushed forward, Hettie skipped across the street and onto the sanctified grounds of Saint Patrick's Cathedral.

She joined the back of the crowd that was being herded through the huge entrance. Slack jawed, throats temptingly stretched, the tourists turned their gazes towards the soaring spires overhead.

No one paid the little girl any mind whatsoever. This was going to be child's play...

"...bronze and weighing in at over 9,000 pounds. However, each door is crafted in such a way that they can be opened by one strong hand." The tour guide droned.

Hettie peered past the tour, towards the sanctuary at the far end of the building. She blew a good sized bubble. It popped. A woman, passing by, tutted. Hettie flipped the v's towards her.

According to Belinda, Hettie would have to access the inner recesses of the crypt, which Belinda could not get there herself of course. According to blueprints in the New York State Library, the inner recesses were accessed through the Sacricities.

"One of the newer additions to the building," said the tour guide, "the figures you see carved into the door's facade represent Saints as well as certain distinguished "blessed people." Hettie yawned. She hated history. She hated historians. They were generally flavourless. No, that wasn't true, they all tasted of tweed. Wet tweed.

Petting the thin hair of her doll for distraction, Hettie analysed the Nave beyond. Aisle after aisle of pews provided plenty of cover for someone of her size. There was an opening just past a rumpled looking man in atrociously plaid trousers.

The guide paused. Those on the tour that were well-to-do enough to possess hand-held cameras began snapping pictures, so Hettie hung back. "Gimme a break," she swore, impatiently tapping a saddle stitched shoe, "Fucking technology."

The guide led them past the threshold, gesturing wide with his arm,"In 1858 when construction b - "

"Blah blah blah" muttered Hettie.

"- allows for a wall structure that does not need to hold as much weight which is why St. Patrick's has famously larger windows."

The crowd filed inside and Hettie wheeled her little stroller behind, still unnoticed. She suppressed a shiver as she passed between the heavy doors. Just because she could go inside a church didn't mean she was supposed to like it. She shuffled along behind the group. Eyes and cameras were raised to the heavens once more, towards the impressive vaults above. Hettie reminded herself to be patient. She'd soon find out if Belinda had been pulling a fast one; then, so help her, she'd dust Linny and deal with the consequences. She was sure Snow would understand.

The tour would probably bring her right to where she needed to go. As long as gazes continued to be directed up, she could slip into the Crypt like a ghost.

"Seriously, Linny, you couldn't get a ghost to do this?" she whined, remembering Belinda's assertion that she and Isabella had 'Already tried that. Apparently ghosts can't touch it,' Linny had explained. Hettie swore.

"...the crowning work was the installation of the grand rose window over the portal, Charles Connick..."

Thirty humans suddenly turned in Hettie's her direction.

With haste, Hettie followed suit, and stared up at the window the tour guide seemed to think was worth all of their attention.

It's nice glass, big whoop, well done. Sometimes Hettie wondered what would happen if Humans took a minute to stop self-congratulating themselves for making pretty shit, maybe they would notice the monsters under the bed. She smiled, then again, that would sort of spoil the element of surprise.

Clicks and flashes flared and Hettie cringed. All it would take was one of these morons getting artistic and photographing the little girl on their tour and she would have to do something unsavory!

"...Measuring a span of twenty-six feet in diameter..."

Hettie tuned out and calculated her distance to the exit. Belinda-fucking-Weaver and her little apocalypse saving schemes could shove it. She wasn't getting herself in a shitstorm on that woman's account! Not even for ...

The tour turned around, moving on. Hettie whirled to catch up.

What seemed like eons later, with her head stuffed full of even more historical factoids that she didn't give a Holy-Fuck about, Hettie's destination was finally in sight. The group was clustered around the marble Pieta, Hettie was pretending to admire the carved wooden screen between the Ambulatory and the High Altar.

All that separated Hettie from the polished marble steps leading down behind the Altar was one padded leather sash. Easy.

"...in 1906 by William Ordway Partridge and inspired by Michelangelo's Pieta in St. Peter's Cathedral at the Vatican in Rome -"

Now was her chance! Approaching the sash, Hettie gave one last glance to make sure there were no Bishops or Altar boys hanging about. Her research with Belinda had paid off. Hettie pushed her buggy ahead and slipped under sash. Under the watchful eye of a singular carved cherub, Hettie stuffed her dolly into the folds of the the buggy, crossed the open space in a flash, lifted the pram up, with strength beyond her size, and darted down the steps with it.

The doorway at the bottom was open. Hettie set the pushchair down and paused, listening. She could hear the tour shuffling away, while ahead of her was silent as a crypt. Literally. If anyone else was down here, they were lost in prayer or study, or dead...or were soon to be the later. Still, it paid to be cautious. Hettie slipped off her shoes and stuffed those into the pram as well.

Now, to find which door the Cardinal's key fit!

Considering many of the doors weren't locked at all, it was easy for Hettie to figure out where she needed to go. Hettie retrieved the antique key from the string under her jumper. The lock was old and sticky. Just like the Cardinal himself probably had been. Hettie pulled on the handle and the key clicked home. She did a little dance and was inside, in less than two shakes of a lamb's tail.

The torch she pulled out of the buggy illuminated a dark room. It was as large as she expected but was fat with contents: a holy archive of crap and dumping ground for the archaic. Books and papers piled, shelves of scrolls, drawings and cases. Broken candelabra, moth eaten fabric and a few filing cabinets of old papers.

"Shit me solid," Hettie said, scratching her head. She swept the torch around the room. She was looking for a big bloody rock. How hard could it be?

Overhead, there was a bare bulb on a string. It was tempting, but she didn't want to risk the light attracting any undue attention, so, wIth a frustrated growl, she started rummaging. The torch end gripped in her teeth. By the time she found the corner-stone, buried under a rolled up pile of velvet, the bloody choir upstairs had started. She didn't have much time left. Hettie set the torch on a pile of bibles and squatted to lift out the stone.

"Urgh! This shit's actually heavy." It wouldn't move. "Couldn't put it on a trolley or anything could you boys?" She looked around for something she could use to pry it out with, Hettie elected for the velvet itself. She ripped a shred free and lassoed the rock. It took her awhile to tug it clear, through gritted teeth, and scuffed ankles. When she was done she caught a breather and listened. The choir upstairs was still in the Kyrie.

With the first job done Hettie returned to the pram and pulled out the quilt, scattering fag ash into the darkness. Wrapped inside, tightly wound in pink satin, was her more 'standard' key: 'Old pointy'. Rolling up her sleeves she did a few bends and stretches for good measure, then cocked her head to listen.

"Aria aria... blah blah blah," Hettie muttered.

The choir finally swelled into full voice. Hettie raised the pickaxe for the plunge!

"Come on Gloria!" she said, and brought the pickaxe down with all the power that gravity and her small arms would allow.

The hollow cavity of the cornerstone was quite easy to break through. After a couple good swings during the swells of glorificamus te the recently dried plaster shattered, as if it was made of meringue. Dust spewed into the torch beam. Hettie coughed in the pumice cloud, shook herself off and retrieved the light. Waving her arm through the air she moved towards the cavity. Traditionally cornerstones, like this one, were hollow, and left open for public offerings, before being laid in the foundations. This stone had been removed from its position, Belinda had learned, on the Cardinal's orders, for a particular purpose...

Hettie had half expected it to be full of useless idols, trinkets, talismans, or coins, like the shit that got dumped in fountains by the foolish. She didn't expect Belinda's suspicions to be right.

There was nothing... nothing Hettie could say about the something that was most definitely there, most definitely not a trinket, nor a talisman, nor a coin, nor any kind of useless shit. Quite the opposite. She didn't know if it was the torch light, or nicotine withdrawal, but the something inside seemed to glow.

She reached for her cigarettes. Took two out. Lit one, without taking her eyes off the wonderful little thing hidden inside the St Patrick's cornerstone. She smoked her cigarette down to the stub, silently, lit the other from the remains and, when that was done, waited a little while more. Just to savour the moment as she reached inside, slowly, scared for the first time in a long time about what would happen. She held it in her hands, and took a moment to pinch herself.

"Well shag me sideways and call me Mary," she said, and laughed. "Belinda Weaver, you bloody legend!"

Ten minutes later, as the choir finished their repertoire, a little girl rolled out of the Cathedral, with the Holy Grail stashed next to her Rothmans in the pram. She left them the Old Pointy in exchange.

Storm clouds rolled and rumbled overhead as Richard and Hettie began to walk their way through the deceased that littered Canon Street, all the way up to the doorway of Honolulu Heights.

"It's just a waste," sighed Richard, seeing all the blood drain into the gutter. "I don't see how you can think this is a good thing, Het."

Hettie shrugged, "Fair point." She skipped up the steps. "Maybe we can negotiate a food supply?"

"With the Devil? You know what they say about deals of that nature. They never seem to offer good returns on investment."

"Well we have something I'm sure he'll want. I had planned selling the thing to the highest bidder, but..." she shrugged. "I suppose money doesn't really matter any more...Does Armageddon even have a Stock Exchange?"

With that she knocked on the door.

.