Friday dawned like most Fridays: a sense of anticipation about the coming weekend, mingled with the knowledge of everything that must be done before then. For many people this might involve finishing off enough work to knock off early and go to the pub. For me, it entailed finishing off an administrative monster and going to Hell.
I spent the morning dithering and trying not to hope that Crowley turned up. I couldn't eat a bite at lunch. I briefly considered filling in my timesheets, but at this stage, what would be the point?
At midday, the sky dimmed. The time had come.
Thunder over Soho warned me that the Compliance had updated Heaven on the situation, and that Heaven was not impressed. Many people dismiss weather as mere atmospheric disturbance, but for those of us in the know, thunder means someone has upset the balance of Good and Evil. Similarly, a solitary shaft of sunshine in a grey sky means new hope, and sudden, torrential rain indicates a broken heart. In this, Victorian novelists and Hollywood screenwriters have it right.
I locked up my shop and followed the sound of thunder to Greenwich Park. This was promising: had the Compliance come to me, there was a chance Crowley might show up and interfere. Out here, high on the hill overlooking London, if I employed a little smoke and mirror magic, nobody would notice the battle, and Crowey would not find me.
I put some thought into my tactics. For show, I had brought some paperwork with me, purporting to be my ledger, but actually an armful of the nineteenth-century books. I chose a spot far from any tourists, and as the autumnal sky turned the colour of last week's soup, I sent up a brief prayer, requesting forgiveness, and an internal enquiry into how come Gabriel was allowed to summon a supposedly impartial auditor.
The brown air shimmered, and the urchin-financier burst into existence on the yellowed grass in front of me.
This was it.
I faced the Compliance with a trembling heart. It was truly monstrous, a thing of pure ugliness. Yet I could defeat it, or at least, prevent it from harming the humans. It was hard to understand why the Almighty would allow such a creature, would make such a thing, but then, understanding is not required. Only obedience is required.
I knew I had not been entirely obedient.
A memory flashed across my mind, of champagne and caviar under the sunlit arches of the Colosseum, a tray of delicacies served to me by a man dressed as a centurion, while Crowley stalked around poking at shadows and clicking his fingers whenever I ran out of bubbles. Or another time, walking to the ocean at the end of an Aegean lane, sardines grilled to silvery perfection on the quayside as the waves sparkled in the background and Crowley magicked plastic forks into starfish on the harbour wall. Midnight in a graveyard, I working a couple of minor curses before quickly cancelling them out with miracles, and Crowley laughing because I am not very good at deliberate badness.
I cast these sentimental memories aside. "I have the paperwork," I lied, holding up my books.
"You do not," said the Compliance in a voice like rotting seaweed.
"Take them," I said.
"I will destroy the humans," it remarked. "Or you can bring me the demon."
This was odd. As much as Heaven dislikes a demon, it is not the concern of the Compliance to wipe them out. Its job is only to ensure galactic balance, and accurate timesheets.
There was no time to question, however. The monster drew itself up to its full height - about that of a double decker bus - and took one squelching step nearer. It raised its knobbly appendages - they were too disgusting to call arms - and aimed them at the city. Foul curses formed in its throat. I detected the start of flood, fire and damnation - and pain, a great deal of pain.
It stretched its slimy mouth wide in a sickening grimace of triumph. Evil spewed forth and struck the city with a sound that could not be heard, only felt. My heart juddered as misery engulfed the innocents of London: mothers and fathers bending over cots, children eating secret chips for lunch, men and women everywhere at work or study or play. Anguish rose in a silent scream, tearing at my heart. All over London, love was extinguished.
"Stop," I command the Compliance as it lumbered towards me. "Or I will make you stop."
It belched out a laugh. "You cannot."
I darted between the Compliance and the city. "I, I bet I can."
"Try."
"I will try."
Thus far our exchange was at the level of scornful ten year olds. Now I had to back up my threat with action.
The monster curled its claws in satisfaction and turned back to me. "You will be ended, and so will Crowley."
I steeled myself. It would be fine. It was half angel. I had the strength to at least half defeat it. That would be enough, surely.
Whatever happened now, I must stop the Compliance torturing the humans any further. Without love, all life withers and dies. No ledger was worth the kind of pain this monster was inflicting.
All around, humans crouched on the ground, clutching their chests, felled by the monster's curse. Nobody was looking at me.
I drew a breath, and unfurled my wings. I might be only one being, and a flawed, outcast one at that, but I was still an angel. And I was right.
I stepped towards the thing, nearer than I had been even in my shop, and a wave of nausea washed through me. I staggered.
The Compliance's aura was - entirely evil. There was no glimmer of goodness about it.
Well, of course, even angels can be a little bad. But at our core is love, and light.
This thing had neither. Not even a hint of kindness, of mercy, of care.
Too late I understood that this creature was not the Compliance at all. It didn't care about timesheets, or cosmic balance. It was some hideous tool of the underworld, sent to destroy me, Crowley or preferably both..
And that meant... it held no angelic element. I did not have the capacity to defeat it. Or even half defeat it.
Oh dear.
