What Isn't And Came To Be
Chapter 3: Deal Or No Deal
Her throat was on fire, she felt like she was choking.
Coughing and gagging, Michele found herself disconcertingly alive.
Crowley was kneeling over her, one hand gripped painfully around her shoulder, his eyes cutting and intense.
Johnny was crying somewhere, close by.
"I'm alive," was that a statement or a question, she couldn't tell, "how?"
He stared down at her smiling slyly. "I'm the King of Hell darling, I know all sorts of swell tricks." He told her, his voice was dark and intimate, as was the way he squeezed her shoulder for emphasis.
Looking away from his eyes, she turned her gaze down to glare at his hand, trying to subtly express her distaste for him invading her personal space, yet again.
And realised to her horror that she was naked.
With a squeak of mortification Michele scrambled backwards, away from the demon. Until her back collided with the wall behind. She curled into a ball, trying to shield herself from view.
Crowley's smile widened.
"Why am I naked. What did you do?" She gasped.
"Oh, relax, pet.
While I can't deny that I've thought of desecrating your corpse a time or two. I wasn't in the mood.
Besides, I can do better." He added scornfully.
"Then… why…?"
Crowley glanced away. "Didn't your mother ever tell you that scribbling on your skin can give you cancer. It's an ugly, nasty habit."
"The warding?"
"Yes, the bloody warding!" He snarled, and suddenly he was standing over her, eyes swimming with red."
"You brought me back. H-how? You'd tapped out your contracts, I didn't make a deal… there's no way."
"You don't see everything, do you pet. You didn't see," Crowley looked over his shoulder and waved towards where Johnny was curled up in a hedgehog ball in the corner. "MacGuffin over there, in any of your visions did you? No, no you didn't..."
"MacGuf—" she repeated slowly, then it hit her, Johnny….
"Oh God. No! Please no!"
Crowley's grin widened, shark like as she made the horrified leap of logic. "Lets just say G-O-D wasn't involved.
Myself and your darling boy however..."
Despair clogged her throat. "Please Crowley, please. Don't tell me. You didn't talk my eight year old, autistic son into making a deal for his soul. Don't tell me that."
The demon smirked. "I won't tell you that, if you insist.
Still, it's a Hell of a plot-line isn't it? A little boy's unheeding love for his mother, the ultimate sacrifice. And we have to ask ourselves, is yours truly the hero or the villain of the piece. Read on to find out."
"Please Crowley, take it back, I'll do anything."
"Anything? Darling.
You'll do anything now. Don't kid yourself you won't. Besides, if I undid what I did, the only thing you'd be doing would be sitting in a cell up in heaven, reliving your greatest hits.
I have plans for you, Kitten."
"Lucifer's going to win, he's going to burn the world… Don't you remember, didn't you see... " tears leaked down her cheeks as she begged him to understand, to see what he'd done.
"Oh I saw, and it was all very horrific and bloody, blah blah. But you can't argue the facts, you didn't see any of this, did you.
This is all new.
'There is no fate but that which we make.' That's the whole point.
Choice and Consequence.
Now be a dear and let's get going." He reached down and pulled her to her feet.
"Going?" She asked dully, still struggling to cover her body with her hands.
"Well I can hardly leave you here, now can I? You've made it abundantly clear you can't be trusted."
Dragging her with him, Crowley strode across the room and picked up her shellshocked son, effortlessly.
"As for the lad, let's just say, we are now both invested in his future. I'm prepared to leave the rest of your family here, to live out their lives unmolested. A token of my good will, as it were. As long as you behave yourself.
I've even organised to endow your husband with a hefty life insurance payout upon your expected, but untimely demise. They'll be rich, and with you dead and buried the men of letters will have no reason to come sniffing about."
"And, and Lucifer? Are you mad, have you forgotten what he's going to do?"
"Hardly. But see, I've got the grace." He patted his coat-pocket with the hand clamped around her wrist; coincidentally pulling her arm away from where she was attempting to shelter her breasts.
Exhausted beyond words she gave up the pretext of modesty, he was right, he had Johnny's soul, she'd do anything to save her son from Hell. She just stood there limply as he eyed her up and down, then shrugged.
"Same overall plan, pet. Lock the Devil away in the bombed out apocalypse world. After which we whisk Kelly Kline's spawn away and perform a partial grace extraction. Raise the child of Satan to be a real boy, without psychotic leanings. Whilst instilling a deep abiding love for his planet and new family. Of which I intend to take on the paternal role, of course."
Crowley raised her blood smeared hand to his lips and kissed it almost gallantly. Almost gallantly, except for the way he swiped his tongue across her knuckles lapping at the tacky drying blood on her hand. Her blood.
A small shudder transmitted to her through his grip. His eyes rolled back and fluttered closed, as he let out a small, punchy breath of pleasure.
The whole thing made her feel soiled and dirty.
"If, at some later point the Devil manages to rip the universe a new one. Jack Kline becomes our 'in case of emergency,' plan." He handed off her son into her arms as he spoke, and picked up the leather suitcase he'd arrived with.
"Now, shall we?" He asked with a courtly gesture.
Crowley didn't wait for an answer, he snapped his fingers and suddenly they were somewhere else.
The somewhere else wasn't what she expected, it was a narrow cramped space, covered wall to ceiling with black spray painted symbols.
The furniture and Formica kitchenette were outdated and worn. Crowley dropped her wrist and stepped away.
Suddenly the whole space lurched and shuddered, her feet went out from under her. But with a dismissive flick of his wrist from Crowley. Michele found herself , cradling Johnny, seated in the checked arm chair opposite an old style T.V.
"Juliet, darling, stand down. It's Papa." He called out, opening a door, concealed by a fall of long striped curtains.
Something invisible barrelled past him into the room, knocking him back a step.
"Yes, yes." Crowley crooned indulgently, "I missed you to." His hand patted at some invisible thing four feet off the ground in rough affection.
"No, as long as she and her pup stay inside the R.V, you may not eat them.
If she tries to escape, well then, you have my permission to chew on them a little." Crowley turned away from the invisible thing and started puttering about the kitchenette, opening cupboard doors and the refrigerator.
"Is that—"
"Hellhound, yes." He answered staring at a patch of empty space.
"Daddies favourite aren't you Juliet? Yes you are, yes you are."
Suddenly, the invisible thing Crowley had let into the room was right there, in her space, looming over her and her son. Malignant dread flooded over her as a sweltering blast of air that reeked of sulphur and rotted meat washed over her face. Then something that felt like a handful of roofing nails scraped over her knee.
Johnny jerked away from it, shrieked in her arms.
"No!." Crowley barked. "Mine. Bad girl!" The demon made a cutting gesture and the Hellhound was batted away from her to collide with the metal side wall of the mobile home.
"Mine!" He repeated again in a near growl and was answered by a low whimper. "Not for you. Bad girl!
Out and guard!"
The demon pointed to the door.
The R.V rose an inch on its shocks as the Hellhound exited.
Crowley kicked the door shut then opened a cupboard to pull out a bottle and glass.
"Questions, comments, concerns?"
"You shouldn't hit your dog."
The demon chuckled and looked at her over the rim of his crystal tumbler. "Of course. Cruelty to animals…" He shook his head.
"Let me explain something, pet, Juliet isn't a Pekinese. She's a bloody Hellhound, emphasis on the bloody. They exist for one purpose, to savagely rip human-beings into bloody rags, tear their souls out and drag them down to Hell. The moment she got a taste of your blood, her instincts were urging her to do just that, with you.
Oh and FYI, now she's had a taste of you, there's nowhere on Hell or earth you can hide from her.
Deal or no deal. The only reason you're still alive now is because I'm top dog of the pack."
He downed the rest of the glass of scotch and dusted off his hands.
"Stay inside and don't answer the door.
Time she's a wasting, pet, and I still need to go clean up your mess, before I head out to North Cove and meet up with the three musketeers."
"Crowley, wait! Where are we? And what do I do if you don't come back?"
"You're not in Kansas, or should I say Godzone, anymore, Toto. And I suggest you get down on your knees and pray, I do come back.
You've got a weeks worth of food.
After that, your choices are, starve or become puppy chow. Sucks being you, doesn't it, Kitten.
Toodles."
And then Crowley was gone.