Part Two: In Which Aziraphale Loses His Rationality & Hastur's Plan Changes
Aziraphale was sipping coffee and flipping pages when the morning mail dropped through the slot in his front door. Detaching himself from one of the twenty-seven international newspapers he subscribed to, he walked over and collected the pile from the floor, filing through bills and credit card offers until he happened upon a strangely coloured envelope.
The angel frowned, examining it more closely. No return address. Odd seal. Curious handwritten calligraphy. It looked like an Official Letter at first, and for a second Aziraphale felt his stomach drop to the soles of his soul. But then he read the front:
Ozzi R. Fel
42 & ½ CXR
London
WC2H0NE
He breathed an unnecessary sigh of relief. If it were something from Heaven they'd have used his full title, which was rather embarrassing, particularly if they sent packages that he had to collect at the post office. He recalled the last incident where a nosy postal employee had nettled him with questions concerning proper recipient identification until at last the angel had been forced to explain that 'His Ethereal Cardinal Highness Prince Azirafael of the Second District, Europe' was the sender's idea of a humiliating joke. The post woman had given him his package and then told everyone at the office about it. Aziraphale hasn't stepped foot in the building since.
He opened the envelope carefully and unfolded the letter within. It was printed on very nice antiqued paper, and it appeared to be handwritten by the same person who wrote the address on the envelope. It read:
To Whom it Doth Concern,
This letter written grim
Is to warn thee of the danger
As though growest fond of him.
He might appear benign
But he cannot feign for long;
Be wary of his guiles
Ere he leadeth thee to wrong.
Recallest thou of Caesar,
And also noble Brutus
Whom betrayed his friendship
As was done to Christ by Judas.
Thou cannot mendeth him,
Thou cannot change his ways
For in him lieth darkness
And his path he never strays.
His greatest wile cometh soon
He'll bare his soul to thee
So keepeth close thy friends
But closer enemies.
For better to be cautious
Than to join him where he lies:
In Void and utter Chaos
Where the Fallen never shine.
Take these words upon thy heart,
Spare not death for worse a fate
And perhaps you'll see the light again.
Yours in Confidence,
D.H.
Aziraphale lowered the letter and stood very still for a long time, trying to decide whether he ought to laugh, comment on the poetic composition, try to ignore it, or be very, very worried. Somehow or another he managed all four, each at different times of course. The laughter came first, being that it was the angel's initial reaction to any sort of troubling news. Then he reread it again and was rather impressed by the overall creativity of the content, even though it was a bit amateurish and the metre was a mish-mash of odd rhythms. Then he placed it on the counter and tried to forget about it for the next six hours as he went about his daily business. By seven o'clock that evening, he was a few short steps away from the living definition of a nervous wreck.
He slowly paced the floor of his bookshop and tried to approach the matter from a collected, rational standpoint. Perhaps it was merely a jape of some sort, Crowley trying to get back at him for all those insensitive notes he had written. But that was nonsense; they patched the incident over dinner like they always did and now it was behind them. Wasn't it?
Aziraphale didn't know anyone with the initials D.H. It had to be Crowley then. He was probably still sore about being chided via ink pen and was doing his best to make the angel fret himself into a moult. But why the warning? Why the seriousness? Crowley wasn't a poet. He wasn't even eloquent. Gaudy and pretentious maybe, but never eloquent.
Bugger it, he finally decided. With a brief burst of golden fire, the letter on the counter disintegrated into a pile of sparkling twinkles that quickly faded away.
Aziraphale straightened his collar and combed his fingers through his hair, composing himself once more.
"Right then," he told himself crisply, "that's that."
He resolved to purge the letter from his mind completely and think of it no more, and if Crowley came round acting as if he were up to something, the angel would just pretend that he had never received it in the first place. That ought to put a lid on that boiling ego of his, he mused smugly.
Three Days Later
Three days had passed, and Aziraphale had seen neither hide nor scale of Crowley. He began to worry, but only in the pettiest, most frivolous way that one may worry. It was a waste of time fretting about a demon of all creatures, especially that one. He was undoubtedly sleeping off the side effects of being in Amsterdam for well over a fortnight.
I hope it made him sick, Aziraphale thought with contempt quite unsuitable for a being of his standing, but the fact that this was a demon he was thinking about made it perfectly appropriate.
Banishing Crowley to the back burner of his mind, the angel closed shop that morning and proceeded to the political conference he was scheduled to attend. Though he greatly disliked the dealings of government bureaucracies these days (he very nearly managed to nod off on several occasions), it was in the job description of being a Principality and there was simply no getting out of it. At least it wasn't a large part of his regular routine, otherwise he feared he'd be forced to switch to caffeinated coffee, which was something he'd rather sell his feathers for souvenirs at the Vatican than do.
As was his custom, Aziraphale sat on the bench at the corner and waited for the 8:45 bus to roll through. He glanced at his pocket watch, sighed, and picked up the remains of that morning's newspaper from where it lay scattered on the ground underneath the bench, deciding that if he were going to wait he ought to at least make himself useful by disposing of some litter. He was fully prepared to toss it into the nearby trash bin when the front page headline caught his eye:
BETRAYED
Treason exposed in scandalous
affair between opposing political
representatives.
High-ranking government official
faces expulsion from party. Sources
say downfall was preventable.
The angel hadn't felt such a shockwave of icy dread roll over him since that occasion when he tumbled into the Thames in 1716 and went straight through the ice. It was not only the chaotic ramifications of this political blitzkrieg that so concerned him, nor just the possibility that it had something to do with the meeting he scheduled this morning with these very officials, but the eerie way the headlines alluded to a particular Arrangement that could very well be the consequences faced if certain Authorities discovered its existence.
(He never mentioned this blunder to Crowley; Aziraphale could only bear that dreadful "Chubby Chubby Cherubim" taunt so many times in his immortal life without going spare on the demon's corporation.)
Aziraphale stuffed the paper in the waste bin and wiped his hands on his jacket. They were shaking. He wiped them on his pants next, rubbing off the invisible grime that had dirtied them deeper than his mortal skin.
You're being preposterous, he thought to himself. Stop overreacting.
The bus squealed to a stop and the angel gratefully stepped on, taking an empty seat near the back to clear his head and prepare an oratory to give in light of these recent events. His mind was wandering sooner than he had intended, and Aziraphale ended up staring out of the window at the grey London sky as if caught in a hypnotic trance.
Suddenly his view was obstructed by a tall building. On the side of the tall building was a billboard. And on the billboard was:
GOT TRUST?
Don't waste time investing
with questionable entities.
"Honesty, Loyalty, Fidelity"
HARPE & PITCHFORD TRUST MANAGEMENT, LLP
Aziraphale looked away as fast as he could, but the damage was already done; a knot formed in his throat and his mouth went dry. He slouched in his seat and tried to pull himself into the warmth of his coat, feeling suddenly chilled and not at all well.
No, no it was silly. It was mad. Paranoia induced irrationality, that's what. Selective vision provoking the misconception of bizarre coincidences, due to the bearing of a… guilty conscience?
I haven't got a guilty conscience, have I? Surely not. What could have I ever done in all these millennia that-
Unsolicited agreements. Unwarranted truces. Conspiring. Subordination. Treason.
No. No no no. It can't be that.
But what else could it be?
This was his stop. Aziraphale sprang from his seat and shuffled off the bus as quickly as he could, and went to the nearest phone booth. He had to ring Crowley, right now. He was beginning to see things, whether they were delusions of his overactive imagination or signs warning of eminent doom at the hands of Whomever, he had to know. He needed an anchor, some sort of life line to reach out and grab hold of-
He stopped with the phone to his ear and his finger on the first number.
That was when he realised it, when it all became clear to him. It was as if he had spent his entire existence on this earth blindfolded and relatively happy, only to have the cloth torn away when he least expected it, leaving his eyes bare and naked in the wind and open to everything. Here, in a smelly phone booth, on a crowded square in central London, on a grey Monday morning no less, Aziraphale finally saw what he had failed to see for so long, whether by subconscious repression or his own blatant ignorance, he now knew.
He clenched his teeth and trembled. He wasn't afraid. He wasn't angry. He wasn't sad. He simply wasn't.
"Give me a sign," he murmured, staring at the number pad. "Just one more to make it proper."
Nothing happened. He waited. More nothing happened, then a little more. He waited a little longer, just to be sure. Lots of nothing happened in consequence.
Aziraphale sighed and placed the phone back on the cradle, then stepped out of the booth, feeling somewhat relieved. But that didn't last for long because the first thing he saw, the very first thing that greeted his eyes upon stepping from the booth, was a lamp post. A paper had been taped onto it, right at eye level. It had the words LOST at the top, and a picture of a furry cat below it. Beneath the photo read:
Angel. 2 yrs old, pure white, plump,
blue eyes, friendly & smart. Fell from
balcony on Greyce St. in NC London,
not seen since. Loving family misses
dearly.
Contact Joan Milton at # below if seen.
Half a second later Aziraphale was in the phone booth again, madly punching in a series of numbers that no other person on earth knew, except for a few unfortunate telemarketers who will never make that same mistake again.
Anthony Crowley was, for what it seemed at the moment, pupating. He lay motionless in his disheveled bed, wholly wrapped in the comforter like a Mexican entrée and lost somewhere in the midst of a foggy realm that lay on the thin void between unconsciousness and the Unknown. He very dimly registered the phone ringing, and he knew immediately who it was. Aziraphale's rings always sounded more urgent than anyone else's, not that anyone else was really in the habit of calling him at home, during daylight hours much less.
It was a dream, he decided, and lapsed back into that semi-comatose state of nothingness.
But the phone kept ringing. Why the ansaphone hadn't taken care of it by now was anyone's guess, but it continued to ring and ring and ring, driving away the ominous silence that had coiled itself around Crowley's mind and bringing him back into sharp, cold clarity.
Wriggling himself free from his warm, protective cocoon, the demon reached over to the bedside table and picked up the handset, dropped it, picked it up again, and somehow managed to get it to his ear.
"What'dyou want, angel."
"Crowley, is that you?"
"No. It's the Queen Mum."
"Crowley, I have to talk to you right away. It's urgent."
"Can't it wait? I'm not feeling well."
"Oh no. What's the matter?"
The demon pulled himself back into his satin tortilla with a sleepy grunt. "Haven't felt like myself lately. Probably caught something."
"Demons don't fall ill, Crowley, I'm telling you, there's something strange afoot. I've been seeing things."
Crowley didn't want to know. He was simply entertaining Aziraphale when he muttered, "What kinds of things."
"Things, you know, newspapers and adverts and signs. I received a letter in the post a few days ago and it-"
"Az-"
"-said that-"
"Azir-"
"-I ought to bewa-"
"Aziraphale."
"What?"
Crowley closed his eyes. "I really don't have time for this."
"What the devil do you mean by that?" the angel demanded.
"What's it got to do with me?"
"Crowley, trouble is brewing. I think something terrible is going to happen."
"Terrible like what?"
"I don't know! That's why I called you. I was hoping perhaps you've heard from your people."
"I haven't. Aziraphale, what's this all about? Why are you really calling me?"
There was a brief pause on the other side. "I needed to hear your voice. I wanted to know that… that you're all right."
"Don't know about all right, but I'm still alive and incorporated if that's what you mean."
"Crowley, I need to talk to you."
"So talk to me."
"Not over the wire. I need to see you. Can you meet me this afternoon? St. James', two o'clock perhaps?"
Something that had been sleeping inside of Crowley slowly began to waken, and for a single moment he was absolutely terrified for reasons that he failed to grasp. Suddenly he wasn't entirely sure if he trusted himself any longer, not like this, not around the angel. What oh what was the matter with him?
He should have said no. He should have said nothing and hung up the phone right then, but he didn't. The darkness inside was already making him forget.
"I need time," came the mellow reply. "How does six o'clock sound?"
"Crowley, this is urgent," Aziraphale insisted. "I need to see you as soon as possible."
"All right, five thirty. Take it or leave it."
There was a sputter on the other end, then a forced sigh. "Fine. But you had better not be late."
"Relax. You can trust me."
There was a pause, and Crowley thought he heard an almost inaudible murmur of "Can I?" but he wasn't certain.
"What was that?"
"Nothing," said Aziraphale. "See you at five thirty."
And he rang off.
Crowley pressed the OFF button on the handset and pulled the covers over his head. He fell asleep once more, and as far as he knew, never woke up.
The political conference went better than Aziraphale had expected, if also a bit peculiarly. It turned out that nobody had even heard of the scandal because it had never existed. Aziraphale cited a very reliable source for verification, but the source had heard nothing of the event and left the muddled angel wondering if he hadn't witnessed a fluke misprint or perhaps confused the newspaper with a tabloid. Certainly it was nothing to worry about. It hadn't happened after all, and that amended things, right?
With the meeting adjourned and Aziraphale's dreadfully tedious task out of the way for at least another month or two, he allowed himself to heave a much-needed sigh of relief and collect his thoughts concerning the troublesome day he was having. On his way back to the bus stop he passed by the lamp post and telephone booth, and noticed that the LOST poster was, well, lost. In fact, it looked as if it had never been there in the first place; no shreds of paper stuck to bits of remaining tape, nothing. Just bare lamp post.
Perhaps they found their cat? In the past three hours? Aziraphale hoped, more for the sake of his own sanity rather than the happiness of the Milton family. He hurried along and caught the bus back to Soho. He tried to relax and find a reasonable explanation for things, such as simple overreaction or too much caffeine. He was doing a fine job of it until the bus passed by where the Harpe & Pitchford Trust Management, LLP billboard was once stationed on the side of a building, now gone. Vanished. Kaput. Not even the billboard frame remained.
Aziraphale suddenly knew how it felt to be utterly mad. Was he hallucinating? Was his mind inventing images to warn him of his own subconscious awareness to danger? What was going on? But what's more, did he really want to know what was going on?
The bus ride seemed to last for hours. Time misplaced itself, passed when it wanted to, idled when it pleased. It loitered in Aziraphale's seat and flipped a coin, like it had no place else to be. With each mile a little piece of the angel's composure crumbled away until he was nearly on the brink of a hysterical conniption by the time he disembarked at his stop. He shuffled quickly down the street to his bookshop, carelessly bumping into people in his mental absence.
He arrived at the door, unlocked it with hands that had hardly ceased shaking that entire morning, stepped inside, and removed his coat. It was unusually dark in the store for this time of day. The shades were down and the curtains drawn. Aziraphale didn't remember closing them up before he left.
"Splendid," he said to himself as he walked to the windows with the intention of letting in some light. "Not only am I going insane, but I'm also getting Alzheimer's."
"I wouldn't say that, Your Highness," murmured a deep, unfamiliar voice.
Aziraphale, given the fact that he was more or less an eternal entity simply dressed in a suit of mortal flesh, was wholly capable of jumping out of his own skin. He did that just now. There was a surprised pop, a puffy white explosion, and suddenly loose feathers were drifting down from where they had been shaken free of a pair of ethereal wings.
The angel spun with a horrified expression to see Duke Hastur leaning comfortably against a book shelf, casually thumbing through a rare first edition of The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde. He gazed across the room at his foe with an amused smirk on his lean, sharp face. He was dressed a bit better than the last time Aziraphale had seen him; it looked as if he had gone through a lot of trouble to update his wardrobe from the sad rendition of a WWII German officer's uniform to a less-formal black slacks and leather blazer outfit. It still didn't make him look any less menacing.
Aziraphale instinctively backed against the wall, stunned. "You!" he exclaimed, more surprised to have been taken by surprise than to find a duke of Hell in his abode. "How did- why are you-?"
"Calm down. I'm not here on infernal business," the duke said, straightening himself and placing the book back on a shelf. "I came on behalf of your halo and my job. To put it simply, I'm here to save you."
Aziraphale gawped. "I beg your pardon."
"You are in grave danger, Your Highness." Pause.
His Highness looked distinctly nauseated.
The demon continued, "I really thought you would have caught onto the fact sooner, but you're very good at denying reality, angel. Like most of your kind. Head in the clouds, all that."
Aziraphale felt his temper begin to warm. Hastur laughed; it sounded normal.
"Don't be upset. It was a joke. Angels and clouds, you know. Surely Crowley has taught you to have a sense of humour, hasn't he?"
Aziraphale immediately entered a heightened state of defence at the mention of his associate; his feathers rustled softly as they plumed in alarm, his cheeks took on a pink flush, and his eyes flashed something dangerous behind their peaceful cerulean hue. The duke noticed his reaction and grinned almost gleefully.
"So he is your friend, is he?" he said as he took a cigar case from the inside breast pocket of his blazer.
"How long have you been watching us?" Aziraphale asked coldly.
Hastur lit a cigar with the tip of his long, bony forefinger and blew a small cloud of smoke towards the ceiling. "It doesn't take a mastermind to figure out that you two are consorts. I mean, the way you two dine and drink together nearly every other week, anyone in their right minds could see it. It's very careless of you if you ask me."
"It's a good thing that I didn't ask you, then."
The demon took a long drag. The tip of the cigar glowed hellishly red for a moment and then dropped ash to the floor. "How long has Crowley been romancing you, angel?"
"He's not romancing me," snapped Aziraphale, "and that's none of your damned business."
"When your fate directly affects my position, it damned well is my business," Hastur said with a serious tone, striding over to where the angel stood riveted to the spot. "Aziraphale –do you mind if I call you Aziraphale? Listen, I'm going to do something very special just for you, Aziraphale, but you can't tell anybody I did it, all right?"
The angel was very, very reluctant to answer. Hastur didn't wait.
"I'm going to tell you the truth. No lies. Will you listen?"
"Do I have a choice?"
"Not really."
"How can I be sure that you are telling the truth?"
Hastur smiled around the cigar. His teeth were far too sharp. "Heh. You're just going to have to trust me."
"And why should I do an insane thing like that?"
"Because, Aziraphale," he said, "I have no reason to lie to you."
Aziraphale hesitated for a moment. Then he folded his wings down tightly, they disappeared, and he had returned to his normal, middle-aged alter ego. He pursed his lips and crossed his arms skeptically.
"All right, Your Disgrace," he said. "I'm listening."
Hastur nodded. "You may think you know Crowley, angel, but with all due respect, you don't know shit. About him, about us. But demons, see, we know each other. Only we know what we're capable of, only we know the tactics we use to bring the righteous down. I came to you to warn you not because I like you, but because I hate Crowley."
"Ah." Nod. "For killing your partner Ligur, correct?"
"Yes. And for being a smug, conniving bastard. In fact, he's so good at what he does that he's even managed to fool you into thinking you're his friend."
"Pray, tell me, why would he do that?" Aziraphale said uninterestedly.
Hastur pretended to be engrossed in blowing smoke rings. "Do you happen to know the reward for Felling an angel? A Principality? One of the four Cardinal Principalities on this earth and former guardian of the Eastern Gate?"
The Cardinal Principality and former guardian of the Easter Gate shook his head slightly.
"Well, put it this way," he said. "It's like every holiday on this disgusting planet all rolled into one gigantic, hellfire orgy and mixed with nitro glycerin, and then shaken. Crowley would go straight to the top of Hell's ranks and he'd never have to take shit from nobody ever again. His power Below would be the equivalent of, oh what's the name of that poncy tosser you've got on your side? Raphael, I think? Yeah, that's him."
"Crowley would be an arch-demon?" Aziraphale asked a trifle uneasily.
"Something like that. But only if he got you to Fall."
"He'd never do a thing like that."
"And why not? Oh, right, right. I forgot. You know all about demons, yes. How stupid of me to assume you know nothing of the degree of deception our kind is capable of spawning."
Aziraphale scowled at the demon. "I know Crowley better than you, Hastur. I've lived with him for over six thousand years now and-"
"Yes, you know him, but only one side of him. We have many sides, ugly ones that we don't show to anyone else and no one but us knows about. We're excellent actors, you know. It's part of our torture and punishment, don't you see? We bloody tell lies for a living. It's why we can never trust each other—it makes us mad. It's why we are the way we are."
"Demons?"
"Yes."
"If you've got anything else to say, I suggest you do it now," Aziraphale said with a tone of unmistakable threat in his voice, "otherwise I'm going to have to ask you to leave."
"Fine. I can see you've already made up your mind, angel, but allow me to ask you this: how much longer are you going to allow yourself to be led around by Crowley? Think on it. Right now your entire life practically revolves around him, or haven't you noticed yet? You can't go a fortnight without pining for him and disguising it as annoyance. You've developed feelings for him, and that is exactly what he was hoping for. You're being led like a lamb to the slaughter-"
"Shut up," Aziraphale muttered, looking askance.
"Why else would he befriend an angel? What'd be in it for him, eh? What'd he get out of a 'wholesome friendship'? You think he actually likes you? You think you're just going to sit back and be good old mates forever then, right? Well I'll tell you one thing, demons don't settle for that kind of rot."
Hastur became more intense, stabbing gestures with the cigar between his fingers to make his point.
"Crowley's not your friend because he wants to be. He's your friend because he's been working on a master plan to get you fired. He's formulated a top secret idea and hasn't told any of his own people because he wants the credit all for himself, the greedy worm. Why the fuck else you think he'd hang about this wretched place when there's more exciting places to go? Here, this ought to ruffle your feathers: Crowley was one of our transient agents once upon a time. Yeah, that's right. He was a wanderer, roaming all over this stinking planet way back when and stirring up evil, and everything was wretchedly fine. Then he started getting close to you, realised what a blithering gullible naïf you are, and when you took up residence in London, so did he. Coincidence? You decide. I'm just stating facts here, but if you don't watch your tail feathers, Your Highness, you're going to lose them."
"I don't believe you," Aziraphale said, but he was lying. A flower, a disgusting weed called Doubt, had already begun to bloom in his mind, and there was nothing he could do to stop it.
The duke's face softened and took on an almost sympathetic expression. "I understand it must be hard for you," he said gently, "being deceived for so long. But I wouldn't have come to you if it didn't concern me somehow, that's just how demons are, in all sincerity. We can't help it, you see."
"So what's your part in this?"
Hastur took a meditative puff and narrowed his eyes. "If you Fall, and if Crowley gets promoted, he's going to outrank me. I can't kiss the arse of the bastard who killed my partner, I'd rather die and go to Heaven. If one of your angels had killed Crowley and got a hero's treatment, how would you feel about it, eh?"
"I…"
"You're fond of him, I know. That's dangerous, Your Highness, and very stupid. Your feelings for Crowley are the key to his success, and ultimately your Fall."
He was very close to Aziraphale now, closer than the angel would have liked. The cigar smoke made his eyes sting as the duke's voice fell to a irreverent whisper.
"Everything," he murmured, "everything he's ever told you -about himself, about his past, his present, his very existence- was a lie. He wants nothing more than to see you Fall, to be dragged into Hell kicking and screaming, where he can make up for all those unfulfilled nights by ravaging your soul until it shines no more."
Aziraphale shook his head but he was already trembling. "You couldn't fake what we had- have. What we have. No one could play a farce like that."
Hastur grinned incredulously. "Your Highness, this isn't a piddling little imp we're talking about. This is Crowley, the serpent who brought the entire human race to its knees and abandoned them to the mercy of the damned. Any demon capable of getting away with something like that can fool a simple angel into thinking he's their friend. He did it with Eve, he can do it with you just as easily."
"Eve was only human."
"And the greatest of all His creatures, greater than you," Hastur replied darkly. "And now her children belong to us. So will you, if you don't wise up. Listen, I know somewhere in that foggy feather-brain of yours I'm getting through, and that means there's still hope for you. But you've got to do something before it's too late. Remember, for all Crowley's subtle human acts, he's still one of Us, a bastard son of Hell, a servant to His Infernal Majesty. Remember that the next time he looks at you with those pretty yellow eyes of his, or when he brings a smile to your face with a pleasant little lie told by a forked tongue."
Aziraphale gulped, and was quiet for a short while. "If," he said shakily at last, "if what you're saying is the truth, what could I do? I imagine you aren't going to be jumping to my rescue any time soon."
Hastur shook his head. "I've already risked too much by entering the dwelling of an angel, and if my people ever find out that I warned you against another demon's infernal plot to destroy you, I'm going to get it. Big time. Hell like you wouldn't believe. But I couldn't just stand aside and watch that sneaky bastard get away with what he's planning."
He ground the cigar into the wall and let it drop to the floor.
"Listen to me, this is very important: you must keep this little meeting of ours a secret. Don't let Crowley know that you know what he's up to, he could go insane and hurt a lot of innocent people—not that I even care about the stupid humans, but I know you do. The best thing you could do is to just cut off all contact with him, tell him your 'friendship' is over and that you never want to see him again. Don't let him convince you to reconsider, no matter how much he begs and pleads and pretends to be hurt. Your job and your life depend on you being able to stand up to him, and for a slimy little serpent, he's pretty good at getting people to do exactly what he wants. Don't forget, he's done it before."
Aziraphale felt as if he were suddenly drowning. He couldn't seem to think straight anymore. Nothing was making sense. It was like he was lost in his own mind and frantically searching for a way out.
"And what if he's not trying to Fell me?" he managed to croak at last. "What if he truly wants to-"
"Impossible," Hastur scoffed. "Demons don't have friends, Below or Above, not amongst each other, certainly not with enemy agents. You can't continue to think like this or else you're not going to help yourself a bloody bit, now if you doubt me at all, just put Crowley to the test. Ask him the true meaning of your friendship. You'll see then, Your Highness, oh, you'll bloody see what I'm talking about. I can only help you out so much before my people would notice, so you've got to help yourself. Besides, you got yourself into this mess by believing a demon could be your friend in the first place, no hard feelings or anything, but you'll understand in good time."
Hastur reached into his pocket and handed Aziraphale a business card. "If you ever want to talk, you can find me here."
Aziraphale glanced at the card. "You're living in London?"
"Temporarily. I had to come up here in order to warn you. I'm counting on you, angel, as ironic as that sounds. Don't let me down, or else you're going to have more to worry about than a serpent trying to permanently ground you."
He smiled, managing to look charming for the briefest of moments, and then showed himself out. Aziraphale stood numbly where he was, breathing heavily in his forgetfulness and turning the business card over and over in his hand. The demon's scent still lingered in the air, along with the nauseous odour of the infernal cigar. The angel tried to be reasonable, but every direction his thoughts led was confronted by a wall of madness. He felt like he wanted to scream and cry, if only to find some way to physically purge the emotion from his being.
But Aziraphale didn't scream, and he certainly didn't cry. He collected himself in a way that only a pompous 19th century Englishman knew how: he sniffed, lifted his chin high, stiffened his upper lip, and pulled out his pocket watch. Crowley will be expecting him at the park in a while. Perhaps it was a good day for a walk after all.
Down the street and lurking inconspicuously behind a large neon sign stood Hastur. He watched as the angel locked the door to his bookshop behind him, adjusted the collar of his coat, and set off down the sidewalk in the opposite direction.
"Did he take it, boss?" asked Ed, who peered around the demon's boots at the departing figure.
The duke smiled evilly. "Like a child in a candy store," he said triumphantly. "Bought it all and came back for more. I don't even think he realised that the so-called 'signs' he saw were our doing. No wonder Crawly's been after him for so long, he's a typical heavenly sheep. If all angels were as trusting as him, we'd own mankind, Ed."
"Own 'em, you bet. Tax, title and tag."
"What?"
"Er, nothing, boss."
"I think he's well enough ahead," said Hastur, squinting to see Aziraphale. "Run along and follow him, and don't let him out of your sight. I want details when you get back, so you'd better not disappoint me."
"Right!" yipped the Chihuahua, and with the tapping of toenails on concrete, scampered down the sidewalk after the angel.
It had rained that afternoon and the ground was still soft and wet when Aziraphale arrived at the usual meeting spot by the duck pond. He dried off the nearby bench with a thought and sat down to wait for his associate. Two wading mallards recognised the familiar bread-bearing figure and scuttled ashore. They came waddling up to the bench, quacking softly with each awkward step, and nibbled at the tasteless brown oxfords as if looking for a food-dispensing button to press.
"Sorry, chaps," Aziraphale said to them, "I'm empty-handed today."
The fowl gave the angel a piece of their minds before angrily shaking their tail feathers and returning to the water, grumbling to each other about what the world was coming to when people visit a duck pond without a single crumb to toss.
Aziraphale sighed and glanced at his pocket watch again. Five fifty five. Late as usual. At least that was comforting; had Crowley actually been on time this once, the angel would have been alarmed enough to believe that something truly was the matter.
He always makes me wait for him, Aziraphale thought with annoyance, and yet I'm always punctual. How unfair. I ought to be terribly late just once, teach him a lesson. What arrogance he has to assume that I'll always be waiting for him. What kind of power does he think he has over me, anyway?
"Hi," murmured a voice in his ear.
The angel very nearly jumped out of his mortal skin for the second time that day. He wasn't accustomed to being on edge like this, and the fact that Crowley obviously knew he was on edge and exploited this paranoia for his own personal amusement made Aziraphale very cross.
"Don't ever do that again," he snapped as his associate walked around the bench and sat down next to him. Very next to him. Nexter to him than usual.
"Sorry," Crowley shrugged and flashed an unnecessary grin. "Didn't know you would be so twitchy."
"I'm not twitchy," Aziraphale said as he inched away as inconspicuously as he could. "Where have you been for the past few days?"
"Around," said the demon, crossing his legs and resting his arms along the back of the bench casually. "Hope you didn't put out an APB for me. You know you have to wait forty eight hours before you can file a mis-"
"Don't patronise me, Crowley, I was worried."
"About me? How sweet of you, angel. If I didn't know any better I'd say you were in love with me."
"I'm being serious, you nitwit," Aziraphale said acidly, though his heart was bouncing off of his sternum like a tennis ball. "You've been acting strangely ever since you got back from your 'business trip', and I've been sensing a premonition stirring in the universal fibre."
"Hm. It could just be the universal Metamucil."
"You're not funny, Crowley. Something bad is going to happen very soon, I can feel it, like those last days before the Apocalypse. Do you remember what they were like? The overwhelming dread and anticipation hanging in the atmosphere like the breath before the fall, the sheer helplessness to halt the inevitable pressing down on y-"
Aziraphale was cut off when the demon leaned forward and gazed at him with golden eyes from over the rims of his shades. "As much as I find this all positively riveting," he said with a drowsy, predatory slur, "what's it got to do with me and you?"
"Everything." The angel turned his eyes out towards the pond. "Crowley, I've been thinking. I've been… I believe I'm starting to see things for what they are for the first time since the Beginning: the Arrangement, our… camaraderie."
He paused. Crowley said nothing.
"You may not have noticed, but we've grown awfully close since That Saturday. I don't know who's to blame for it; both of us, perhaps, but it's compelled me to, to start asking some very poignant questions."
"Such as."
Aziraphale's fingers twiddled restlessly. "What's to be done about it."
"What's to be done about what?"
"Us."
"And what about us?"
"I was hoping you could tell me."
"What would you like to hear?"
"It doesn't matter what I like, all that matters is the truth."
"Aziraphale," said Crowley, drawing the name out in a way that brought to mind the slow movement of serpentine scales as they slinked across black satin. "You know I wouldn't lie to you."
The angel turned his head and stared into the sunglasses. "I'm not so sure about that, Crowley."
The sardonic smile that had been present on the demon's lips during the course of their conversation vanished suddenly and settled into a blank, vacant expression.
"What do you mean? What's happened to make you doubt me?"
"It-it's not so much what has happened recently, but the questions that have been lying just beneath the surface all this time," Aziraphale said evasively. "We haven't bothered to ask them because we were afraid they would get us in trouble, after the Apocalypse, mind you, when everything was so uncertain. But now enough time has passed that I think it's time we start thinking about what we plan to do with the rest of our lives here on Earth. I mean, we obviously aren't living up to our full potential when we've got to travel back from foreign countries just to keep our dinner appointments."
"I think keeping dinner appointments is a very good reason to leave a foreign country," came the thoughtful reply.
Aziraphale looked tired. "Face it, Crowley, we're hindering each other by working so closely in the same territory. Perhaps some distance would be a good idea, think of it as a holiday of sorts. It's embarrassing really; look at how much we've come to depend on one another's company. I mean, goodness knows, a demon and an angel, truce, maybe, but co-existing on a level like this?" He shook his head. "It's not healthy."
"You say the same thing about custard pie, but you still eat that."
"There's a big difference between demons and custard pies."
"Yeah, we taste a whole lot better for one thing."
"I honestly wouldn't know."
"You ought to try, then."
"Stop it," Aziraphale growled. "Just stop it."
Crowley sulked. "You haven't laughed or smiled once yet."
"It's hard to be merry with someone you don't trust."
"Don't you trust me, Aziraphale?"
"I need to know one thing before I can." There came a pause, then a breath. "Crowley. Why did you really settle in London? And don't lie to me, because I'll know it if you do."
The demon looked oddly relieved. "That's all? To be closer to you," he said simply.
"Why would you want to be closer to me?"
"Because we're business partners. We work together, right? Wile and thwart, you know the routine. It's all part of the Arrangement."
"The Arrangement wasn't a certified business contract, Crowley," Aziraphale said with unusual vehemence. "It was a conditional agreement between two parties that, if ever they were in proximity of one another, insured no senseless acts of violence for the sake of bureaucracy. It was not a matrimonial proposition, nor was it a binding covenant for long-term living arrangements with one another in the same ten kilometre radius. It was a simple, basic settlement that wasn't even transcribed to written document because its stipulations were so loosely defined."
"Well damn, angel. Sue me why don't you."
"Can't you bloody be serious for one second!"
"Me be serious?" Crowley snapped. "Why don't you be reasonable? Do you have any idea what you sound like right now? You're being dodgy, you don't answer my questions, you're treating me like some sort of sinister suspect, so why don't you be a man about it and tell me why you really brought me here."
He almost sounded like the old Crowley again. Almost. But Aziraphale knew better. However, it still wasn't enough to keep the glisten out of his pale blue eyes.
"We're finished, Crowley," he said with a detached voice. "You and me. Us. The Arrangement. All of it, nullified as of this day."
At first the demon looked as if he were going to start laughing, but after a few moments all sign of outward emotion faded. For a while he was silent, still, breathless. Finally Aziraphale couldn't bear to look at him another second. He stood from the bench, but a hand reached up and grasped his coat sleeve.
"Aziraphale, angel, please," Crowley's voice whispered in his most convincing tremble, "don't do this to me. I need you. I can't live without you. Look at me, please, just look at me for one second!"
And Aziraphale did. He looked down at Crowley's face as he removed his sunglasses. Golden irises stared pitifully upwards, begging more loudly and more profoundly than the demon ever could. His lips were trembling, his hands shaking, his eyes shimmering in a way that only melodramatic soap opera actors could achieve with the proper lighting. And then he went too far.
Lips moved. Three words were spoken. The world held its breath. Aziraphale blinked slowly, and something hot ran down his cheeks. And without another thought, he struck Crowley across the face with the palm of his hand. It wasn't a forceful blow, but being that this was the first physical assault one of them had experienced at the hands of the other in several hundred years, it received the intended effect.
Crowley dropped the angel's sleeve and put a hand to his smarting cheekbone, staring at his former comrade with a mixture of anger, betrayal, and shock.
He's still one of Us, a bastard son of Hell, a servant to His Infernal Majesty. Remember that the next time he looks at you with those pretty yellow eyes of his, or when he brings a smile to your face with a pleasant little lie told by a forked tongue…
Aziraphale's hand was still throbbing from the impact. He broke his gaze with the demon and looked out across the pond.
"I never want to see your face again, Crowley. You have three days to leave London. Three more to leave Europe and never return. If I ever see you again, I will kill you, do you understand."
"Az… Azira-"
He drew in a breath and blinked. "It's a shame," he sighed. "I've always hated saying good-bye."
And then he walked away.
It didn't sink through to the reality deep inside him until Aziraphale had vanished from his sight completely. Lost somewhere beneath the waves of an unknown sea determined to drown him, the true Crowley felt himself begin to die. The black water above and below was laughing cruelly, tossing him violently and smashing the will from his body. He fought to swim to the surface of his consciousness, but wave after wave crashed down upon his head like a titan's hammer, sinking him deeper into the abyss where the small spark could never survive.
Most of the time he didn't know which way was up or down, whether he was clawing his way towards the air or towards death, but somehow, through sheer desperation brought on by the dim awareness of what had just happened, he broke the surface.
And Crowley was awake, though barely, and fighting weakly against a faceless foe.
"Aziraphale," he hissed softly, wanting nothing more than to curl in upon himself and go to sleep forever. He ached inside, like something was in there and tearing him apart, eating him one vital organ at a time. It hurt so badly he could scarcely think about anything else, but by some measure of a miracle, his own instinctive selfishness was tossed aside.
"Azi…ra," he gasped haltingly, staggering from the bench and lurching off towards where he vaguely remembered parking. "You were… right. Sssomething's wrong."
After what seemed like hours of wandering while blacking in and out of life, Crowley slumped against the side of the Bentley and tried to stop the world from spinning. He wanted to get off his feet. He felt like vomiting himself inside out. On the walk, people passed him by without giving any notice. It was as if he wasn't even there at all, that he was invisible. They couldn't help him anyway. No human being could, even if they wanted to.
Crowley slid into the front seat and felt a fever devour him, amplifying the searing pain that was already ripping through his body.
"Start… the car," he uttered as sweat beaded down the sides of his face. "Go… find Aziraph-"
Darkness flooded his eyes, but not before he heard the Bentley's engine growl to life and felt the wheels roll into the street.
Crowley awoke gradually. He was lying on the carpet, staring at the ceiling over his living room. He had no idea what time it was, nor what day for that matter. He was so consumed with pain that he was almost certain he was paralysed, but at least his surroundings had stopped churning and spinning. However, this did little to alleviate his condition, so he decided that he would try to clear his thoughts and get his bearings back one breath at a time.
Something in the room, smoke perhaps, was making his eyes sting and water. It was acrid and foul and yet disgustingly familiar. The moment he recalled the horrific brand of cigars that Hastur so fondly favoured, the duke's voice sounded as if on cue:
"Welcome back, Crawly. You had me worried—you've been comatose for an entire week. So glad you were able to make it all the way out here to give your final farewell performance, though."
An ugly chuckle followed, and then Crowley saw Hastur crouch down by his side. The seniour demon grinned sharply and blew cigar smoke into Crowley's face; he gagged and began to cough violently, which sent fiery blades of agony into his chest.
"Mind if I smoke? Thanks, you're a sport."
"Bastard," the prostrate demon choked. "What did you do to me?"
"Oh, I'm sorry. Can't turn your head? I do apologise. Here, I'll get it for you."
Hastur wedged the cigar between his teeth, reached down and grabbed Crowley's hair in both hands, lifted, turned with a juicy crack, and dropped. Crowley accidentally bit the inside of his cheek and stifled a small screech. When he stopped grimacing and opened his eyes, he saw his mortal corporation (or at least what remained of it) lying next to him in several bloody, mangled, reeking chunks.
It appeared that Hastur had had a bit of fun while his victim was still unconscious, judging by the gruesome way that a few organs were removed and so lovingly decorated with things like nails and knives and darts and shuriken and even a vintage Iroquois tomahawk. And was that his imagination, or was there really a sweater-clad Chihuahua on the other side of the room, enthusiastically gnawing on what looked like either an ulna or a radius with bits of meat still hanging off of it?
Unthinkable. It seemed that the demented duke had somehow managed to extract Crowley's true form by dismantling his flesh and intercepting the subsequent summon down to the Department of Mortal Raiment, but Crowley was not worried by his apparent vulnerability at the hands of one who would take great pleasure in disemboweling him one ounce at a time—he was pissed off.
"Hastur, you prick," he seethed. "Look at what you did to my fucking carpet."
He was grabbed by the hair again, lifted completely upright, and held squarely eye to eye with his antagonist.
"Your carpet is going to be the least of your worries when the poison begins to run its course," he smiled sadistically, and then slammed Crowley back down to the floor.
The unfortunate demon felt something crack beneath him, and as burning stalagmites of pain shot into his back he realised that it was his wings, bound tightly to his body with yards of thin, chafing rope. But right now his main concern was with the last six words he just heard.
"What did you use?" he demanded, trying to sound tough but only managing to sound bewildered.
Hastur said levelly, "Don't worry, it won't kill you right away. No sense in dying without enduring excruciating pain and suffering first."
Crowley coughed violently, half-screaming each time his body was wracked by the reflex. It was only when he felt blood begin to pool in the back of his throat that he knew Hastur wasn't bluffing, and that if he didn't think of some way to save himself that it was going to be curtains. He also didn't trust the duke not to do something horrible to his real corpse like what happened to his faux one. Not that Crowley would care. He'd be too busy not existing to notice.
"Music to my ears," Hastur said sentimentally, listening to the helpless demon on the floor gurgling and spitting out blood before it could drown him. "It almost makes me sad, Crawly. Poisons are your specialty, not mine. I thought you would have caught on sooner, but I suppose it really was predestined after all."
"Oh please, do enlighten me," Crowley sputtered sardonically, lips slick and shiny red.
The duke produced a small, almost empty-looking pouch from his pocket and dangled it above his victim's face. The heart-shaped skull stitched on the side grinned at him.
"It's my own recipe. Essence de Incubus and dust from the holiest chambers of the Vatican°, for a lovely sex-crazed dementia followed by pure agony. Really brings out the mindless, evil desires in a demon. I call it Lust Dust. I started you on small doses, didn't want you snuffing it before the fun started you know, and increased the amount over time. I'm astounded you've managed to last this long. I was afraid I was going to run out."
(°Yes, even the dust is blessed at the Vatican.)
"Lust Dust. Cute name. How'd you get the ingredients? I thought They had a law prohibiting the sale of lethal potions to idiots."
"Oh you are so clever, Crowley. You're so clever in fact that while you were off smoking yourself into a stupor and playing Ring Around the Roses with your little Third Reich friends, myself and my accomplice took the liberty of sabotaging your automobile and your lair. After you returned, whenever you were in one, we were out seasoning the other in greater amounts. Now everything is saturated with Dust, and you were so clever that it escaped your knowledge completely. Perhaps if you weren't so caught up with trying to get your hands on that angel you'd have been able to save yourself before it was too late."
The spark in the deep dark inside of Crowley burst into flame like an atom bomb detonating, and suddenly he was oblivious to even his own imminent doom; his nostrils flared, his expression disappeared, and what might have been a homicidal thought flickered in his eyes, causing his pupils to dilate like an angered cat's just before it pounced and shredded something to pieces.
Hastur saw. Crowley saw that Hastur saw. Hastur saw that Crowley saw that he saw.
"Ooh hoo hoo," the duke laughed in mock fear. "I knew I was going to strike a chord with that one."
"Touch him and I'll kill you."
"Bold words coming from a dying demon," Hastur said, swinging the pouch casually. "I'd be more than happy to finish you off right now if you'd like. Did you know that it only takes a few sprinkles inhaled directly to kill even a moderately powerful demon? Imagine what it would do to you, oh delight! This is so exciting I think I've got an erection."
For .24888889 seconds, dying slowly and horribly didn't sound so bad to Crowley. "You're revolting, Hastur."
"Thank you, it was worth the effort. Speaking of which, I'd love to sit around and watch your guts liquefy and ooze out of your orifices, but I've got a date to console a grieving angel and can't keep him waiting. He's going to want to thank me for opening his eyes to your plan to Fell him, and if I play my cards just right, I won't be returning to Dis alone tonight."
"You fucking bastard," Crowley uttered, swallowing a half pint of his own blood. "So you're responsible for all of this. For all the…! You stay away from him or I-"
"You had your chance, Crawly, and you blew it. You had all those years to Fell him but you didn't know how the Game worked. I do. That's why I'm a duke and you're nothing but a squirming, wormy little nobody. You failed us all, Crawly. You're a disappointment, incompetent, a worthless demon who got away with murder and ruined the Apocalypse for our side."
Hastur grabbed Crowley's face in his hand and gritted his teeth.
"You thought you would get away with it, didn't you, you slimy cunt? You thought you were going to bring down the Principality and make up for your own blundering stupidity, didn't you? You thought I'd forget that you annihilated my partner and never saw a day's punishment for it, didn't you? Well you were wrong, Crawly, dead wrong."
He released the demon and stood to his feet, straightened his leather blazer and combed his hair back with his hand. "Aziraphale is waiting for me. Ha, you know, I never planned to bring down an angel when I came up here. I was just going to kill you and be done with it, but when the opportunity presents itself, I say, go for it."
"Don't call him that, you-" Crowley tried to sit up but pain ripped through his insides and caused him to fall back to the floor, groaning angrily at his own helplessness.
"Now now," Hastur chided mockingly, "don't try to stop me. You won't get very far anyway, looking like that. Even so, if you do manage to free yourself, you won't be flying anywhere soon. It's amazing what you can accomplish with a simple pair of hedging shears, everything from trimming privet to clipping wings."
The duke laughed as Crowley rolled over onto his side and curled into a protective foetal position, feeling as if he were going to pass out from the pain. Or cry, which was probably worse.
Hastur collected himself. "Oh, right, by the way Crawly, They won't be expecting you back. I've already got the paperwork for your obituary filled out and ready to be processed, so it's best if you just accept the inevitable and die slowly like you deserve. The more you move the more painful the poison makes it."
Crowley summoned enough strength to lift his head and spit a mouthful of blood onto Hastur's shoes. "I hope he kills you," he hissed.
A swift kick later and Crowley was seeing infra-black starbursts.
"He won't," Hastur muttered. "He'll be too busy enjoying the tasty poison I prepared for him, a nice concoction that guarantees permanent paralysis after only a few minutes. Once he's been rendered immobile, I'll have my little way with him, but that's none of your concern, really—what's left of the Lust Dust belongs to you, so here it is. Consider it my parting gift."
He opened the cinch-string pouch and emptied it into his gloved hand. A small mound of golden dust formed in the centre of his palm; he leaned down towards Crowley's face and blew. The yellow cloud enveloped him and he let out a high pitched whine before launching into a chronicle of sneezes that threatened to drain him of any liquid still held in his body. After he had stopped, he let out a moan of anguish, spasming uncontrollably. Hastur stood upright, removed the glove, and tossed it onto the cringing demon.
"It's ironic, really," he mused. "Gift in German means poison. " He laughed scornfully and turned to leave. "Come along, Ed! It is time to complete Operation Damnation."
The Chihuahua that Crowley thought had been a hallucination dropped the bone it had been playing with and scampered across the room after Hastur. A few moments later the door slammed and silence fell.
It was dark. No sunlight shined through the blinds, but Crowley didn't know the hour, nor how many he had remaining.
He had lain still for a long while, listening to the faint noise of passing cars outside the apartment building and waiting for the pain to subside to a level he could tolerate. That moment never came. He finally decided that he didn't have time to lie about on the floor, bound and dying while his only friend faced a fate worst than death (by angels' standards, of course). He had to warn Aziraphale. Or he had to at least try.
Crowley sucked in a breath and lurched upward. It took six attempts before he finally managed to get himself into a sitting position, and the moment he succeeded he vomited blood into his lap. His world was beginning to dance around him again, twisting back and forth and distorting, stretching, twirling, turning. He wanted to lie back down and curl up on the floor again, anything to make his sickening, swirling surroundings go away.
"I don't… want to die like this," he grunted, straining to stay conscious and speaking aloud to keep himself present. "I can't let him down."
The agony consuming him was unbearable. Blood was trickling from everywhere: his nose, his eyes, his mouth, his ears. The ropes bit into his skin like razors and leaked his life fluid out like a broken faucet. His carpet was never going to look the same again.
"I love pain," he groaned, trying to get his legs to work. "Pain is good. Love the pain. Want the pain. Need the pain. Embrace the pain-"
A burst of energy later and he was on his feet, swaying unsteadily. For five whole seconds Crowley actually believed that he was going to make it. Then his knees buckled and he crashed to the floor, crumpling like a sheet of foil. He let out a howl as an excruciating wave of blistering steel and fire made his previous discomfort seem like a mere paper cut in comparison. It was after this last effort that Crowley realised this was it, that he was going to die, that Aziraphale was going to be poisoned by Hastur and Fall. And that there was nothing he could do to stop any of it.
Crowley's bloody cheek lay pressed to the carpet. He stared at his decaying mortal corpse dispassionately and blinked, and something purer than blood began to trickle from his eyes.
"What kind of a god allows this injustice," he whispered. "What kind of a god leaves his children defenceless and in danger."
He rolled over onto his clipped, broken wings and stared someplace beyond the ceiling, wrath burning in his eyes like flames. "What kind of a Father are you!"
The fallen angel's cry ended in a strangled spatter of blood, and he felt the life slowly begin to seep out of him, his body numbing over with a form of death he failed to recognise. But death did not matter to Crowley, nor pain. Only one thing mattered anymore, as it somehow always had for hundreds and hundreds of years. He wished he could have had one last chance to tell Aziraphale, tell him everything. But now nothing awaited him but an eternal realm of emptiness, devoid of thought and familiar smiling faces with twinkling blue eyes.
Save him, came the last thoughts that flitted through Crowley's mind like celestial butterflies on a passing breeze. Save him… or my whole life will have been for nothing.
He had been expecting darkness and was vaguely surprised by the light that came instead, flying towards his mind's eye like a silent dove. But he stopped caring about it after a little while, around the same time he stopped breathing.
To Be Concluded in Part Three!