Angels Below
A Good Omens and Neverwhere fanfiction
Part 3 of 7
"Hello, Azi-raah-phaleee." Sandalphon spoke slowly, over-enunciating.
The archangel sounded rather like a Hollywood stereotype of a medieval king attempting to address a particularly mucky peasant, right down to the way his nose seemed to twitch with displeasure after each pretentious breath that passed his fat lips.
Bit over the top, Aziraphale thought, and only avoided rolling his eyes through sheer willpower.
The principality had decided he wasn't going to give Sandalphon's obvious animosity any further fuel. He wasn't even going to do what he thought Crowley would have done in his place – namely keep the archangel on his toes by reminding him, in small suggestive ways, how scary he was despite his soft appearance, this little plump angel who could survive Hellfire and who knew what else.
No, if at all possible, he was going to do this right and proper. No intimidation, no threats. Do the job, find Lady Door, hope for the best for Islington (bleak as its prospects unfortunately were), and go back to the flat. Soon this might all be over. Soon he might be at the Ritz with Crowley, laughing about this over a fine lunch.
"Yes, hello again, Sandalphon." He smiled tightly. "How have things been?"
Sandalphon didn't reply to this. Instead, he sniffed, his voice exceedingly nasal, "You smell evil."
"What nonsense," he said evenly, trying to be both firm and inoffensive. "Now, then, about what we've got to do–"
"You know, just because you spend all your time cavorting with demons doesn't mean you have to reek like one."
Aziraphale tightened his grip on the flaming sword's handle. "Please, if you don't mind, I'd very much like to get this over with."
Sandalphon's eyes darted to the angel's manicured hands. They looked dainty, but they were gripping a sword, however idly. He was a semi-ignorant bully more than he was a proper idiot. "Yes, well, we'd best discuss what we know so far. Shall we walk?"
Aziraphale nodded and trotted down the square at Sandalphon's side. "Would you like to get something to eat?"
Sandalphon wasn't like Gabriel – sometimes he consumed so-called 'gross matter'. He just told the others he didn't, and for some reason they believed him.
In the past, Aziraphale had always supposed it was just blatant favouritism because of rank, that archangels stood by one another no matter what; but learning that the 'lost' archangel Raphael – the fallen one – had been Crowley all along put rather a different spin on his perspective.
Even the way Gabriel said his demonic name, on the occasions he asked if they'd had any run-ins, had been so utterly...dismissive... Not uttered as if he were, deep down, mourning a friend closer than a brother – which was what Aziraphale had always supposed the bond between archangels to be like.
Anyway, Sandalphon agreed to stop for a slice of pizza.
They went to Bianco43, where one of the servers instantly recognised Aziraphale, and came up and asked him who his new companion was and – a little worriedly – what had happened to the charming, dark-haired fellow in the sunglasses he usually came in with.
Sandalphon said something condescending, but for perhaps the first time in his long but limited existence he was in an environment where nobody particularly cared what he thought; Aziraphale was the regular, a valued customer – they cared what he thought.
"Oh, Crowley's quite well, thank you," Aziraphale assured them (it was 'them' now, as a few of the other servers had come up and asked the same question – they'd formed an anxious little queue). "And I'm afraid we won't be sitting down – we're in a frightful hurry today. Just a couple slices of diavola and some serviettes, if you please."
They got the slices and serviettes, then – with a friendly wink from the first server – discreetly handed Aziraphale a folded-over brown bag. "Dessert's on us today, love. Give Anthony our best, yeah?"
"Of course." He smiled warmly. "Thank you. That's very kind."
"I thought them very unpleasant," Sandalphon commented, as soon as they were out on the pavement again.
"Nonsense," said Aziraphale.
"It's not nonsense," argued Sandalphon; "where's their love of stranger? One never knows when one might be entertaining angels." He puffed his chest out self-importantly.
"The Lady Door," Aziraphale pressed, changing the subject, thinking it best to steer the conversation firmly away from anything that might put Sandalphon in the mood for punishing or smiting on behalf of his wounded pride. "Where do you think we ought to start looking for her?"
"The Floating Market is the ideal place to start," Sandalphon told him, taking a bite out of his slice. "They've only got people from London Below there; the lady herself may show up."
"And if she doesn't? Then what?"
"Then we find ourselves a guide to take us below the city and search for her there."
Aziraphale nodded, dabbing at the corners of his mouth with a serviette and wiping his fingers clean for good measure. "Seems simple enough. Where is this Floating Market of yours?"
"Different place each time," the archangel explained. "But I've reliable sources that say tonight's will be held at The Royal Opera House."
"Covent Garden?" Aziraphale blinked, mildly surprised. "But I heard they were under temporarily renovations. That's why there aren't any performances on and the terrace cafe's been closed."
"An overly elaborate cover-up, no doubt, typical of the sort of sewer folk holding the market – they don't do anything by halves."
"But if we're going to a marketplace full of displaced persons," Aziraphale pondered, not unreasonably, "shouldn't we be worried about our safety? We'd be strangers to everyone attending."
"There's a truce in the marketplace; nobody is allowed to attack anyone during the proceedings." He spoke with forced weariness, as if Aziraphale really ought to have known that, because even an idiot would have, but not as if he were all that shocked by the principality's deplorable ignorance.
"Oh."
"In the meantime, keep an eye out for anyone who seems...unusual..."
"Yes, I suppose we need all the help we can get."
"You might – we're doing fine."
Aziraphale looked at him. "If Heaven was doing fine, I wouldn't be here right now."
"It's just an upstart," sniffed Sandalphon. "Islington will be dealt with and Gabriel will be back in Heaven soon enough."
Despite himself, Aziraphale almost pitied Sandalphon in that moment. He was – like Aziraphale – separated from his best friend by all this.
"You," the archangel continued, "can go back to demeaning yourself with that creepy-crawly demon and everything will be as it was."
The moment was more or less over. Aziraphale pursed his lips and trudged on. For lack of anything else to say, the awkwardness only increasing as they continued grimly on the seven minute walk to Covent Garden, the angel eventually blurted, "I do hope Crowley and Gabriel are doing all right."
"What's the worst that could happen to either them there?" said Sandalphon, as if flats in Mayfair were by nature's law some sort of emotionless void where the two of them would be suspended in harmless abyss-like inaction, proving once and for all that he had absolutely no imagination.
"Well..." Aziraphale's mind dredged up an ungodly scene of Crowley being escorted out of his building by befuddled policemen while Gabriel stood at the landing, draping himself over the banister melodramatically, barking for them to lock the demon up and throw away the key.
Perhaps not very likely to happen, but worrisome in the angel's estimation nonetheless.
He cleared his throat. "Erm."
Gabriel turned on the hot water and prepared to step into the shower before he noticed something red – dark, deep red – pooling around the otherwise sparkling chrome drain.
He craned his neck and looked up at the nozzle, which seemed to be producing crystal-clear water the coagulating, stinky mess on the shower floor didn't match with.
A few drops landed on his forehead, thick and sticky, and ran slowly down the sides of his face.
"Yuck!" (or perhaps it was something that sounded like yuck, but with a different first letter; Gabriel could have gone either way).
Ripping a towel from the nearest cabinet, the archangel wiped his splattered, dripping face clean and hastily threw his clothes back on.
Crowley was sitting in the lounge, causally flipping through a gardening catalogue. "Gabriel! How was your shower? Nice and relaxing?"
"There's blood in the shower!"
"Is there now?" he said obtusely, turning a page. "Well, how about that."
"Crowley, I swear–"
"Oh, you really shouldn't, you know, being an angel and all that."
Gabriel whirled around in a huff, muttering furiously. A few seconds later, Crowley heard the guest room's door slam and smirked to himself.
"Day one, Gabriel," he said, with dark satisfaction, turning another page. "Oh, would you look at that; there's a sale on topsoil coming up."
Aziraphale and Sandalphon had been hiding backstage at the at the Royal Opera House for hours before the preparations for The Floating Market began – at least, before they began in earnest.
Aziraphale watched with fascination – and a little horror, given some of the unsanitary items being dragged in – as sellers began setting up their booths.
They constructed them everywhere that wasn't needed for a path. They constructed them between theatre seats in the auditorium, on the stage itself, in the lobby, and – when the angel crept that way to check, ignoring Sandalphon's mutters of disapproval as he darkly pointed out the truce didn't actually start until the market did but if Aziraphale wanted to get his throat slit that was his own idiotic affair – he saw they'd set up in the cafe area, too, littering the terrace with their bizarre clutter.
Some of the things they had there were remarkable – jewels all the colours of the rainbow which looked very real, yet surely couldn't be real because they were as big as golf balls and just piled in heaps, for instance!
Shockingly, these treasures were being set up alongside heaps of what could charitably, if one was willing to season one's words with a lot of salt, be called rubbish.
When Aziraphale saw the cartloads of old second-hand mittens and worn shoes and 'shawls with only one or two holes in them' his heart bled for these poor people who dwelt in London Below. He pitied them all, sight unseen, thinking how very cold they must be, how hungry, how in need, and wished he'd thought of them before now – that he'd thought to do a miracle or two for these poor, cast-out, forgotten souls.
He was, he feared, no better than the heedless humans in London Above who never saw the poor dears as they shuffled along, never heard their whimpers or noted their suffering.
He hoped Islington – in his time below, prior to this mess, imprisoned and limited though he'd been – had done something for them.
Aziraphale ducked beneath a concealed ladder as somebody shuffled by, scratched themselves somewhat inappropriately, and then draped a moth-eaten curtain over their ramshackle booth of bent nails and chewed ballpoint pens.
Technically, truce or no truce, he didn't have to hide like this, not with his flaming sword at hand.
It was true he hadn't used it in a while, but it was the sort of thing you didn't forget, like riding a velocipede; it always came back to you once you started up again.
But he didn't want to fight these people – it would be like stealing the last woolen sweater from a box of donations, a low-grade cruelty that wasn't unspeakable in and of itself, depending on the circumstances, yet still certainly earned you a frowning and a telling off.
A woman with matted hair dressed in a suit several sizes too large for her narrow frame waddled by carrying a black cooking-pot from which steamed the most vile boiling smell.
Retching, Aziraphale reached into his pocket, pulled out a handkerchief, and pressed it to his nose as he made his way back to Sandalphon.
When they came out again, once the market started, Aziraphale was amazed to see that it had transformed from what amounted to what he considered desecration of a place of art and expression – even if it would all be gone by morning – to a veritable fairyland.
Lights glittered, crystal glasses and tin coins clinked; the most astonishing people wove in and out of artificial passageways. Goods and baubles changed hands; the stage lights came on and a young, golden-haired girl selling old radio cassette players and gently-used wristwatch batteries danced with surprising elegance, bouncing onto her toes and sliding back onto the balls of her feet.
There was a show on tonight, several of them, all exclusive to this remarkable lot. The closure signs that kept those from London Above out had been intriguingly mistaken.
The two angels paced the length of the market, back and forth, searching for any sign of Lady Door.
"Do we..." Aziraphale cleared his throat. "Do we know what she looks like?"
Sandalphon looked at him as if that were the stupidest question in the world.
"I'll take that as a no," he said, reaching for the handrail as they made their way down a crowded staircase containing far too much traffic moving in both directions.
A folding table missing one leg was set with tall frosted glasses of a cloudy liquid. The rather greasy person behind it, pouring the liquid into these glasses with a finger-smudged ladle, offered Aziraphale a glass. "Bottoms up, mate."
He looked to Sandalphon to see what he thought, but the archangel was busy scanning the space behind the table for signs of anybody who might know something useful.
Shrugging, the angel accepted a glass, only for his arm to be jolted by a passerby and the sloshed liquid to spill onto the floor, where it turned vivid green and started eating away at the varnish.
"Oh...er..." He set the glass back down and smiled tightly. "No. No, thank you."
"Makes no difference to me," they muttered, wiping their nose unbecomingly with the back of their wrist.
"You don't," Aziraphale decided to try, "by any chance, happen to know where I might find the Lady Door?"
"I en't seen the likes of her since Portico got himself killed – that's her father, Lord Portico."
"Thank you most kindly anyway."
"That's a nice sword you've got there."
"Yes, I suppose it is, rather."
"Don't suppose you'd be willing to trade it."
"You suppose right." He widened his eyes pointedly.
"Fair enough. What about that pocket handkerchief sticking out of your coat-sleeve there?"
He was appalled. "My dear fellow, that's used."
"Makes no difference to me."
"Good lord."
"Anyways, if you can see yourself handsing it over," they said, "I could tell you about somebody as more helpful about Lady Door than I am – point you in their direction, like."
Trying to keep his face from twisting with revulsion, Aziraphale handed it to him, gingerly. "Mind you wash it."
"Makes no–"
"–difference to you, yes, I got that; you are rather a chap of one idea, aren't you?"
"Brother Fuliginous – he knowed her recently." They pointed back towards the stairs. "He's here, by the tea seller's booth."
Aziraphale thanked him and got Sandalphon's attention, telling him what he'd learned.
"That useless dolt?" sighed Sandalphon. "Brother Fuliginous was one of the friars meant to guard the key to Islington's prison. He won't be any use to us – from what I've gathered, the Lady Door is not present tonight. But I've found us our guide." He gestured to a man standing behind him Aziraphale had assumed was just another browsing shopper. "This is the Lord Rat-speaker."
He did wish Sandalphon could have told him this before he parted with his soiled handkerchief; it was getting so hard to find places willing to monogram them these days.
Swallowing his frustration, he studied their guide, who appeared to be a stoop-backed, bushy-bearded chap evidently very fond of mismatched furs, as he was wearing a number of them unevenly about his personage.
"Pleased to meet you," Aziraphale said, though he wasn't particularly.
"The rats say you aren't spies – that you're angels – but not like Islington."
"No," Aziraphale agreed, rather sadly. "I suppose we aren't very like him at all."
"He'll take us below tonight," Sandalphon told him airily.
"But... What about the rest of the market? Lady Door may turn up." He hadn't even been to the old book stall he'd seen set up at Paul Hamlyn yet, and here Sandalphon was ready to leave just like that. "We might–"
"And God might change the colour of the night sky for no fathomable reason – we can't stand around waiting for mights, Aziraphale. You are extraordinarily passive." He shot him a nasty sneer. "No wonder you never accomplished anything."
The lid of a manhole scraped upwards against the cobblestone and asphalt under Lord Rat-speaker's hands as he pulled it out of its place.
Aziraphale had never been claustrophobic before, nor much of a star-gazer (that was more Crowley's fascination than his), but suddenly faced with the knowledge that they'd be down there for who knew how long, and that there would be no visible sky, he found he couldn't stop staring upwards until the last possible second.
Sandalphon shifted his bulk onto an iron ladder and began going downwards, and Aziraphale was obliged to follow.
The angel glanced back, once last time, over his shoulder – at the world and sky above – and then – hurrying up, for fear Sandalphon would get impatient and turn him into salt or something – he descended.
A/N: Reviews welcome, replies may be delayed