17. Investigation

Musdur is only using one long needle. They like focusing their attention into that one, sharp point. It is relaxing, almost meditative. They can feel the confusion in their mind clearing, the new pieces of knowledge drifting into a proper place. They know what to do now. They are just waiting for the proper moment.

The angel is pressing his lips into a firm line, intent on not screaming. The mantis and facepaint are holding him down with the axolotl watching from a safe distance.

Musdur could make the angel scream, if they wanted. They could tip the balance towards the point where he would have no choice but to scream. But they're enjoying keeping it on the verge of that, giving the angel a challenge and seeing how he handles it.

There's almost no blood. Not even any serious or long-term damage. Musdur is focused solely on the pain, perceiving it through the sensitive touch of their fingers, drinking it greedily. They can feel it's the angel's first time being in this much pain.

When Zadkiel's lips quiver, threatening to let out a scream, Musdur withdraws slightly, giving him time to gather his resolve before pressing again. It's a delicate dance between them. A delicate dance between all of them: the torturer and the tortured, the watchers. Musdur is thinking about their reputation that could suffer if they let the angel go but also about other things.

The transmission is still going on even as Musdur is working. They watch it. Feel is enough for them to know what they are doing with the needle, so they can keep their eyes on the screen. Even Zadkiel watches it as he is pressing his lips to keep the screams in. A distraction from the pain, maybe. Musdur allows it.

It's hard to see what's going on now as Crowley spreads his wings and shields both himself and the supine angel.

Suddenly a flash of black light fills the screen. The speakers of the ancient TV struggle with a sound that is too loud for them and turns into an ear-splitting shriek of tortured electronics.

The angel and demon disappear from the shot. From where they had been just a moment ago, a shockwave is spreading, pushing a wall of bloody feathers. A silver cobweb of cracks spreads in front of the camera.

Then the picture shatters.

Something hits the camera and static fills the screen.

In the stunned silence, Musdur slowly withdraws their needle. Like a regretful parting, they press against a nerve with the move, eliciting a little whimper from the angel.

Then they slam the needle into the neck of the facepaint demon.

Before they can withdraw the needle from the corpse, the mantis strikes, lightning-fast.

o

A rising commotion can be heard outside in the hall. Zadkiel yelps as the praying (who came up that name, really?) mantis demon falls right on him, staining his corporation with pale, sticky ichor. Suddenly unrestrained, he struggles against her until her body slides down and he can see the short dagger protruding from her nape. He jumps up, defensive.

But nobody attacks him. Musdur's eyes are narrowed as they watch the axolotl demon. The dagger in the axolotl's hand matches the one in the mantis's corpse and proves the childish expression in his face deceptive.

Zadkiel's head spins after rising too suddenly. He feels weak and sore. He leans on a dusty chalkboard covered in vulgar drawings and tries to keep himself ready to fight through the increasing dizziness.

"I'm going to let the angel go," Musdur says in a low voice.

"Fine with me," the axolotl smiles in a broad grin.

"And you're not going to tell anyone if you want to keep your current corporation."

"Tell? That's right, I'm not going to tell anyone."

Musdur still watches him suspiciously.

"I'm from the Infernal Times. I'm going to write about it. And I've got a journalist pass, can get a new corporation in a matter of hours."

Musdur regards him, clutching the needle in an offensive stance.

Zadkiel holds his breath. Seeing the demons not paying attention to him, he pushes himself away from the chalkboard and staggers a little. Keeping his back to the wall, he makes it to the video recorder. He looks at it briefly to locate the stop button and then keeps watching the demons warily.

He presses the button and the device stops humming. Then presses it again. And again. He looks at the recorder for a second, but quickly turns back to the demons.

Musdur snorts. "The button on the left. Inscribed eject."

Zadkiel feels the buttons with his fingers and finds the leftmost one. He presses it and the recorder makes a choking sound and yields the tape.

"So what are you going to write about… after you get a new body?" Musdur inquires, watching the angel who is trying to collect both tapes without actually looking at them.

"You think I will write that you smuggled an angel into Hell and then let him go? No, although I'll keep that one as a leverage on you," the axolotl grins.

Zadkiel is trying to make his way to the door in an unsuspicious manner, skirting around the mantis's corpse. The door is locked, but the key is there. If he is lucky...

"What are you doing here then?" Musdur asks. "You might want that cloak I lent you before to get out without someone noticing," they mutter towards the angel without a pause.

Zadkiel stops his slow advance to the door. "Uh… may I borrow it, please?"

Musdur smirks. "Give me a moment to finish with the scribbler here. So, what do you actually want to achieve?" they turn to the axolotl demon again. "Get yourself dismembered?"

"Maybe, wouldn't be anything new. And what are you trying to achieve?" axolotl asks, giving a pointed look to Zadkiel.

"I don't want my face slapped on that second-rate torture in some heavenly propaganda. Might also be amusing if the pricks Upstairs found out what bullshit their bosses have been feeding them," Musdur shrugs.

"Might be indeed, if the egghead can make it."

Zadkiel is suddenly nervous, unsure. He almost drops the tapes, as if they are burning his hands. It can't be a good thing to bring them Upstairs, if it's what the demons want.

"I'm after a related story, actually," axolotl continues. "The one about the cooperation of Heaven's and Hell's management. And of course, some of the angel's insight into the Highest Boss's torture practices will make a nice column as well. People are curious about that."

"The management will not allow it. You will be punished if you make that public," Zadkiel says, surprising himself.

"So?" axolotl shrugs.

Zadkiel opens his mouth, but he realizes he doesn't know what to say. Demons are already supposed to be punished. They Fell as punishment for their rebellion and everyone in Heaven knows that there is no feeling worse than Falling.

Axolotl is still watching the needle in Musdur's hand, but he smiles a little. "The cooperation is old news anyway. Everybody knows that we have been using the angels' stupidity to get what we want."

"You… what?" Zadkiel gapes.

"Oh, you don't know about the cooperation? You don't know Michael brought the holy water for Crowley's trial? And we supplied the hellfire for Aziraphale's…"

Zadkiel gapes further.

"Ooooh, sweet!" axolotl chuckles. "You don't even know about the trials? They never told you they tried to execute Aziraphale with hellfire?"

Zadkiel shakes his head slowly.

"Heh. What does the Celestial Observer even write about? Rating the fluffiness of clouds? Anyway, I'm after the details of that cooperation because it seems that Heaven has been using us as well, to a certain extent. I'm not going to put it that bluntly, though. Even investigative journalists have some sense of self-preservation. What we publish must work with questions, not answers. Make the readers wonder what if. Offer theories, no concrete claims. Then reveal facts only when they become public knowledge."

Zadkiel clutches the tapes in his hands more firmly again, not moving. He finds himself listening with fascination instead of grabbing the cloak and making a run for it. He only wanted to share those tapes with his old platoon, as the explanation they have been seeking. But now he is getting some different ideas. Dangerous ideas...

"But you actually can do that?" he asks. "You can write about such questions and theories? You can just… ask?"

Both demons lower their weapons a little and look at him.

"Sure you can ask or say anything. You may have your intestines ripped out for it, but nobody can forbid you to ask," axolotl says.

Musdur smiles slowly. "A part of being a demon, I guess. Considering a Fall? I can help you with that…"

"No… No, thank you," Zadkiel says hastily, but his expression is thoughtful.

He remembers Aziraphale's reports. How a play about some event can feel more touching than witnessing the event in reality. How written words can be used to stir and wake emotions.

"Do you think it would be possible to deliver the Infernal Times to Heaven?" he asks.

The demons stare at him in surprise.

"Why would you want that? You've got the tapes, shouldn't that be more than enough?" axolotl asks.

"It's too much," Zadkiel murmurs. "Heaven's not ready for the truth yet. It would be dismissed as demonic manipulation. You said the facts should become public knowledge first. Only then reveal them." Then he presses his hand to his mouth as if he had just realized what he said. He looks torn, conflicted. It should be wrong, to listen to demons. To agree with them. And yet… He has seen the version of events that Heaven has been presented with and the true one. That difference feels more wrong than cooperating with demons, somehow.

"Why Infernal Times, though?" axolotl asks with a little smirk.

"It would be an untrustworthy source," Zadkiel replies despite his inner voice screaming 'bad angel!' at him - in an Archangel's voice. "The propaganda of the enemy. Of course I don't believe it, I just want to know what ridiculous claims they are spreading, anyone might say. But the idea would get there. I've got a few friends who could help me spread it..."

"Okay, just to make sure," Musdur interrupts, looking at the axolotl. "We're not killing each other right now, are we? Because it's getting a bit hard to focus on everything at once."

"No, not now," axolotl agrees and to demonstrate it, he puts aside his dagger.

Musdur sheathes their needle. "Okay, so this is all very nice, and I really hope that holy shit who dared to put my face on some mediocre torture gets to eat it, but you all saw that, right? I just feel like we're not addressing that properly. They escaped, didn't they?"

"Well, yes, it seems so," axolotl says. "But everyone saw what we did. That makes it not much of a story. Unless you got some theories on how it happened. Hm. Speaking about that, some angelic insight could be useful here. Mind playing that second tape again?"

Zadkiel licks his dry lips, clutching the tapes.

"You can take it afterwards, I just want your opinion."

Curiosity wins. Zadkiel pushes the tape back into the recorder and presses play. Nothing happens. There's only static on the screen. He inhales sharply.

Musdur watches his rising panic for a while and seems to enjoy it. "You have to rewind it first," they say finally. "Let me."

Zadkiel hesitates, but then lets the demon to the video recorder. He steps closer to the screen as the last moments captured on the video play again.

"They teleported somewhere," he says finally, relief evident in his voice. "Crowley did."

"No shit," the axolotl murmurs impatiently. "It's clear that the angel was in no state to teleport them anywhere. How did Crowley do it, though? The bonds are miracle-proof."

"Impossible to break by any means," Musdur adds.

"In that case, they had to get the key somehow," Zadkiel says reasonably, smiling as he realizes fully that Aziraphale is free from the terrible torture, cared for by his demon right now. Not all demons are that bad, it seems.

Musdur shakes their head. "The Boss has the only key."

"Maybe he doesn't anymore," Zadkiel shrugs.

"Impossible… or?"

The commotion in the halls is still loud, but they ignore it. The footage is studied frame by frame. The video recorder knows better than to reveal that it doesn't have that function to the demon with the needle.

Zadkiel seems rather uncomfortable with the detailed shots, but he studies them closely anyway.

"Here!" he exclaims at one point as they are watching the same scene for the third time. He's so focused on solving the puzzle he has almost forgotten he's among enemies.

"I don't see anything," axolotl frowns.

Zadkiel points to a particular point on the screen. "Aziraphale's hand. Close to Satan's pocket. That's the last moment we see his hand open, after that it's clenched. He staggered towards Satan and leant at Him for a moment. That was calculated, he must have pickpocketed the key here." He grins, feeling proud to have served under Aziraphale's command. The command of an angel who crossed Satan Himself, endured the terrible torture and managed to keep enough presence of mind through the pain to secure a means for their escape. He touches the insignia of the flaming sword on his jacket.

Musdur shifts the footage by one frame and squints at the screen. "It's too blurry, but it seems like he has something in his hand here."

Next frame.

"And here it's already clenched. I think you are right."

Axolotl whistles quietly. "Lord of Hell pickpocketed by a half-dead angel. Now that's something even I wouldn't dare to publish."

"I wouldn't want to be there when He finds out," Musdur agrees.

"Why didn't He even break his fingers first? Or pull out the nails, you know, the classics…" axolotl wonders. "Not that He could predict the angel to do something like that, but then he wouldn't be able to."

"Too delicate a job, He wouldn't have patience for it," Musdur scoffs. "And an invulnerability spell. Beelzebub told me, otherwise I would have started with fingers, too. A lot of sensitive spots in the fingers. But Crowley tried to bite his thumbs off so he could pull off the bonds. That's why they put an invulnerability spell on his hands, and apparently the angel's as well."

"Archangel shit, someone's in trouble…" axolotl mutters. "Where do you think they teleported?"

"Somewhere safe, I hope," Zadkiel says. And if not, we will make it so, he makes a silent promise in his mind.

Musdur rewinds and ejects the tape.

"Okay, egghead," they flash a predatory smile as they give it back to the angel. "I'll help you with the Infernal Times. If we keep in touch, maybe I'll get to torture you again sometime."

Zadkiel gets a bit unsure but then narrows his eyes. There's pride in them, awakened by the daring deed of his commander. "I can usually defend myself, you know. It was four against one here, totally unfair."

"That a challenge?" Musdur grins. "By the way, how do you feel now?"

Zadkiel pauses. "Uhm… actually... quite fine already."

"See? Just a bit of harmless fun," Musdur smirks and takes off their cloak. "Now let's get you out of here."


Under a heap of shattered glass and rubble, something moves.

There is a sound like a furious fly, captured under a shot glass, just a thousand times louder.

The shards that have only now settled shift again, cascading down with a loud clatter. A swarm of flies flows in streams from all the gaps. The streams dance around each other, clash and divide again. Finally they connect and form the vague shape of a figure.

"Zzzzzzwhat the fuck wazzzzzz that?" the figure says as soon as it has a mouth, formed by hundreds of squirming insect bodies.

"They teleported somewhere," another voice replies.

The mosaic eyes focus in that direction. The entity who spoke is in human form and currently spending a rather excessive number of frivolous miracles on fixing their expensive suit.

The flies merge into demonic flesh, oozing something better left unidentified. "I can tell zzzzzhat, you idiot! But how… the bondzzzzz. You guaranteed they were miracle-proof."

"They are. They must have gotten the key somehow."

"Impozzzzzzzible."

"Then ask your Boss if he has it," Gabriel says smugly.

"Not now," Beelzebub snarls, buzzing with tension. "We need to get them back!"

"I imagine your Boss will be furious if we don't," Gabriel muses.

"Bookshop," Beelzebub just says and disappears.

Was there a hint of panic in the voice of the Prince of Hell? Gabriel shakes his head and follows.


A. Z. Fell and Co., Antiquarian and unusual books, London, Soho:

It's quiet in the bookshop. There are still books on the floor, the soil from the broken pot staining their open pages. The plant that used to be there is almost dead: only a few wilting leaves are still struggling, the rest of them are dry.

Gabriel moves to the back of the shop. The bananas next to the overturned fruit bowl are dark brown. The pears are soft and mushy, but the oranges and apples are still looking fine. Only the one under the table has a big brown spot spreading from the place where it hit the ground. Mould has started to grow in the cups of tea and coffee. Gabriel makes a disgusted face and moves upstairs.

That's where he finds Beelzebub, sniffing the bed sheets.

The TV is still on. "Buy the professional set of master chef knives now and you will get not just this awesome cheese grater but also this multifunctional tool for ornamental vegetable cutting for free! Call now…"

Gabriel raises an eyebrow.

Beelzebub straightens. "They haven't been here."

"I can see that."

"Crowley's flat!"

Gabriel sighs and follows Beelzebub who has already disappeared.


Crowley's flat, London, Mayfair:

The space would not feel like one meant for living to a human, but neither Gabriel nor Beelzebub seem to perceive anything off. The aesthetics are a peculiar mix of Heaven and Hell: empty space and gloomy walls.

What both Gabriel and Beelzebub can perceive is that nobody has been here for a long time. There is some furniture and a few decorations, but it's all covered by a layer of dust. It looks more like a storage for stacks of second-hand books and gardening supplies: bags of soil, peat and sand, clay pots.

"Stop for a moment!" Gabriel snaps, annoyed.

Beelzebub looks at him. "We need to find them!"

"Then stop and think, you drosophila! They wouldn't go to the first place that we check!"

"Where elzzzze could they go, though?"

"I don't know. To some of their human friends, maybe. Or the Antichrist. They might try to hide under his protection."

"Hmmmzzzzzz. Where doezzzz he live again?"

"Tadfield."

"They might try to hide there, but they won't be able to. He refuzzzzed his powerzzz."


Lower Tadfield, Oxfordshire:

When Mrs. Young opens the door, she sees two persons. One looks like a businessman with a confident expression. The other one looks like a harried elementary teacher.

"Do not be afraid," starts the businessman in a booming voice, startling her.

"Why? What happened?"

"Don't mind him," says the teacher, giving the businessman an inconspicuous elbow hit. "We are looking for Adam."

"Why? What did he do?"

Gabriel rolls his eyes and snaps his fingers. Mrs. Young's expresion goes vacant.

"We are looking for an escaped angel and demon. Your son might be hiding them. Have you seen anything suspicious?"

"Adam is in school. I haven't seen any angels or demons," Mrs. Young answers mechanically.

"Damn. You don't mind if we look around a bit."

It's not a question. The two entities enter the house and head straight for Adam's bedroom. There's no trace of anything supernatural with the exception of Adam himself.


Jasmine cottage, Tadfield, Oxfordshire:

"Anathema! We have guests!"

The witch comes to the door right away, sensing the confusion in Newt's voice.

"What do you want here?"

o

It's half an hour later.

"Exorcised. Me. Archangel Gabriel. How the Hell do you exorcise an angel?"

"It zzzeems that witchezzz have their methods," Beelzebub smirks.

"A combination of parts of the Satanic and Christian masses. Seriously? You would think it would just cancel itself. Why do we even have that rule about not hurting humans, remind me?"

"Szzzzomthing with szouls. No traitorzzz in her house, though."

"No. She has no idea where they went."


Hell and Heaven main entrance, London:

"Why did that man point hizzz finger at us?"

"I think he believed it would do something in combination with that glittery jingle bell, lighter and advertising leaflet."

"Szzztrange."

"They haven't been there, though."

"No. They haven't. Any other ideazzz?"

"I fear they could be anywhere. I will employ the Earth surveillance."

"And I will send demonzzz to check all possible hiding placezzz."

"What if they are not on Earth?"

"Then we will check elszzewhere. I've got a tip on Alpha Centauri."

"Hmm… When do you think your Boss will start getting impatient?"

"Shut up."

"Sure, sure. Not my problem, obviously," Gabriel grins. "Just showing my concern."

The grin is wiped out by a rather petite, but very strong fist.