Angels Below
A Good Omens and Neverwhere fanfiction
Part 5 of 7
Richard Mayhew, whose eyes were glassy and hair was rumpled although he wasn't drunk, glanced over at the wages clerk he'd shared a desk with ever since they'd promoted Gary.
Of course, he'd have had his own desk, except that Gary's replacement somehow blew up a computer and fried the whole tabletop, and the fire department had had to come in with hoses and foam, and now it was part of Richard's job to print out the information from the database so that Gary's replacement could do the sums on paper.
He didn't actually mind; he rather liked Newton Pulsifer. Newt was the closest thing to a person from London Below – a lost, unseen person – Richard thought he'd ever know again.
"Have you ever got everything you ever wanted?" he asked Newt, glancing up from work he wasn't actually doing. "And then realised it wasn't what you wanted at all?"
"Yes!" cried Newt, his pencil hovering above the paper. Then he registered second question and added, with a little – somewhat confused – frown, "Wait, that is, I mean, no. Not the last part. So I guess...no... I haven't. Not really." He set the pencil down and stared at Richard. "Sorry. What was the question again?"
He repeated it.
Newt replied, rather awkwardly, that, indeed, he had gotten everything he ever wanted, was a happily married man, didn't even mind the commute to work from Tadfield to London (he was just glad to even have a job again, especially now that there could be no more weekday afternoons with Sergeant Shadwell).
"Except, apart from not being fired," Newt mused, "I don't suppose I knew I wanted any of what I've got now – so it couldn't be everything I ever wanted...not if I didn't actually know I wanted it... Could it?"
Richard chuckled, shaking his head. "I suppose not."
"Why do you ask?"
He ran his index finger through the Day-Glo hair of a troll doll. "Sometimes I wish I'd never come back."
Newt, being one of those rare persons who did not look at Richard as if he ought to be committed or – at the very least – have his temperature taken and perhaps an hour's lie-down when he made remarks like this, simply asked, "From where?"
"London Below."
Newt didn't know what that meant – though it sounded rather self-explanatory, he supposed. "I thought maybe you were going to say Scotland."
"The accent?"
"Yeah." He shifted uncomfortably, slightly afraid he'd insulted his desk-mate. "I couldn't help noticing it."
"No, I don't miss it there – not really. But below...sometimes... I wanted this life back...so badly...I didn't think about what it meant giving up." He paused, sadly. "And she warned me."
"She?" echoed Newt. "Someone special to you?"
"Not in the way you're thinking," Richard said. There hadn't exactly been time for that...and back then he'd still been sore over Jessica, though for the life of him he couldn't remember why. "But yes," he whispered. "She was very special."
"What was her name? I mean, if it's not a personal question."
"Door."
"Is that short for something? Like Doreen?"
"No, it was just Door."
Newt's brow furrowed. "What sort of name is that?"
Richard smiled. "Her name." And he wondered, as he began to consider the vague possibility of actually getting some work done today, what she was doing right then.
What she was doing right then was trying to persuade two angels that she could not come with them to London Above at a moment's notice.
She would have to tell somebody where she was going, for a start.
After all, given what happened with Islington recently, and the murder of her father (who'd had some very unique ideas about how the way things were done in London Below ought to be changed), she was a person of interest to many groups besides those who moved in Heavenly circles.
The stout angels who called themselves Sandalphon and Aziraphale would have to get in line, as far as persons who wanted a word with her – or several – went.
She wasn't in any immediate danger from the metaphorical queue, not just now, but she wasn't keen on stirring up the waters, getting their attentions by leaving London Below with two angels.
"But my dear young lady," protested the one called Aziraphale, spreading his – surprisingly beautiful – hands imploringly. "You don't understand the pressure we're under right now – we don't know where Islington is. And if we don't find him quickly there could be a war unlike anything this universe has ever known. I think you can agree with me that that's not something any responsible person would permit."
"I didn't know the angel Islington well." She pushed an auburn curl over her shoulder and stared at them steadily. "I'm not sure what I can tell you – or any other angel – that you don't already know."
"You could tell us," growled the one called Sandalphon, "where in blazes you sent him – where that door you opened for it let out."
She flinched. Behind her, the brick walls dripped ominously with sludge and condensation. "I don't know. Far away. A long way away."
Sandalphon's face turned purple; Aziraphale shushed him before he could start screaming furiously not so much at Door as in her general direction.
"You haven't any idea," Aziraphale said, for the sake of saying something, "where it let out – at all?"
"I'm afraid not," she told him. "There isn't much I can do for you, as far as I can tell. I could send word to the Black Friars–"
Sandalphon let out a strangled snort.
"–or perhaps the Marquis de Carabas; he witnessed me opening the door for Islington, if you need to confirm what I say."
Aziraphale leaned closer to Sandalphon, though Door thought the movement a trifle apprehensive (to say the pair were obviously not close, not particular friends, would be like saying the planet Jupiter was bigger than a duck). "Would it be better than nothing?" he whispered urgently. "I mean, two confirmed stories about the last time Islington was seen? That's got to count for something."
"We didn't come all the way down here, misplace a guide, and chase an opener through the sewers of London for confirmation of a story, Aziraphale!"
"It's the best I can do, I'm afraid," Door said firmly, though she let a tremor of pity lace her tone this time. "I don't want trouble with Islington any more than either of you – but he wanted to go to Heaven straightaway. He was sick. He'd been down here, locked away, too long. He threatened my friends." She blinked at Aziraphale, and made a brief wrist motion as if she was about to take his hand in hers but then didn't. "What choice did I have?"
"You aren't the only one with friends," snapped Sandalphon, looking vulnerable, though only for a fleeting second before his face hardened again.
With his hands linked behind his back, Gabriel was looking out the window; the sun was peeking through the tall window, as the rain had finally let up a bit.
This lightening occurred just in time for dusk to begin in earnest, and the archangel could see more of the room reflected behind him than he could of the street and cars below.
He saw himself – pale and exhausted, his pastel suit a great deal more rumpled than it had been when he left Heaven – standing in front of a white-and-grey wall surrounded by gaudy spotlights and neon tubes.
Behind him, a sketchy Mona Lisa smirked like she was aware of some tantalizing secret he was not party to. Also behind him, a demon in dark glasses who used to be an archangel like himself, long ago, materialized from the unlit rooms beyond the window's reach.
Gabriel did not turn around, but he did speak. "Michael will be here early tomorrow."
"I don't think Islington's coming back," Crowley told him. "Not to the flat. He's not stupid enough to waltz into a trap with his hands up."
Gabriel didn't ask if Islington had spoken with Crowley during his absence earlier, though he suspected such a conversation more than likely took place. "Whatever Islington offered you," he said, after a terse pause, "don't take it. It's not worth the universe."
"You really think I don't know that?"
Gabriel shook his head. "Raphael, please." He finally turned. "I don't want it to end like this."
The demon smacked his lips together. "D'you mean in a demon's flat in Mayfair, or just this situation in general?"
"Both." He regarded Crowley with a look that wasn't as cold and aloof as the previous ones he'd condescended to grant him. "I need to know you aren't going to step out of the way and let Islington destroy me if it comes down to a choice."
"It's a different proposition now – I can't betray you without betraying everything."
"If something does happen to me," Gabriel said, as if it galled him but he had to make the forthcoming request irregardless, "will you tell the others I'm sorry I failed them? And that none of this was their fault?"
"What others?" said Crowley, clearly a little puzzled.
"The other archangels."
"Right." He turned his head away, adjusting the bridge of his dark glasses. "Yeah, I'll tell them."
"Thanks." Gabriel let his hands drop to his sides and turned to the window again as, outside, the street lights were coming on, turning the world beyond Crowley's flat into a succession of golden puddles.
A widening gold smudge spread across Mona Lisa's reflected face, blurring her cocky smile.
Before the Lady Door opened the way for them to return to London Above, she took them – as she promised – to see the Marquis.
Sandalphon had been in favour of using the hilt of Aziraphale's flaming sword to knock Door unconscious so they could drag her to London Above; but Aziraphale refused to play any part in the unnecessary kidnapping of an innocent girl; and – archangel or not – the lady was still an opener, she could open some central, crucial part of his body with little more than a thought and discorporate him, and then where would Sandalphon be?
"You can't help Gabriel," Aziraphale had pointed out, "if you're dispatched to Heaven without a body."
This was especially true as the principality knew Sandalphon wasn't innovative enough to do what he'd done in a similar predicament – he wouldn't possess a human. Wouldn't even attempt to search for a receptive body. Not so much for any moral reason, more that it simply wouldn't occur to Sandalphon to try any such thing.
Grunting, Sandalphon had had to concede, though the resentment that burned in his eyes was directed more than a little at Aziraphale on a personal level. He was already thinking how much he'd like to make him pay for this someday.
Aziraphale thought that if Gabriel wasn't in danger, if all had been well enough in Heaven, Sandalphon might have punched him right then and there.
The Marquis de Carabas was evidently attending some manner of party, which Door discreetly crashed, entering through her self-created passageway in a wall at the back with the two – slightly panting – angels in tow.
As the familiar, if somewhat squeaky, strands of music being played on violins and flutes reached Aziraphale's ear, he brightened. "Is that...? No, it couldn't be."
Door smiled, her opal eyes warm. "The gavotte."
"It's been out of style for ages!" he exclaimed, scanning the party for any sign of dancers.
She shook her head. "Not down here."
Meanwhile, Sandalphon made a face at their chipper exchange and attempted to shoo a rat off a half-rotted barrel to his left.
The rat began telling him off in a series of angry chitters.
"How remarkable!" said Aziraphale, utterly delighted by this unexpected turn of events.
"The Marquis is stationed on the other side of the room." Door gingerly lifted a hand. "There are better ways than walking to cross it – would you do me the honour, angel?"
Aziraphale was momentarily dumbstruck by three facts which made him feel both exceedingly happy and inexpressibly lonesome. One, Lady Door had dark red hair; two, Lady Door had highly unusual eyes; and three, she'd just called him 'angel' with a friendly, affectionate lilt to her voice.
In Aziraphale's mind, these were three very good things, even if they collectively made him miss a certain demon so terribly it hurt.
His manners came back to him in a rush; he took her hand. "Certainly, young lady." Turning at the waist, he placed his sheathed flaming sword on edge of the barrel. "Watch this for me, would you? There's a good chap."
Arms folded across his chest, Sandalphon snapped that he wasn't Aziraphale's manservant and the principality could keep track of his own belongings.
"Oh, no, Sandalphon, you've quite mistaken me," he amended hastily, a single pale eyebrow raised. "I was addressing the rat."
The rat sat up a bit straighter, looking very proud, raising his paw in what almost looked like a salute.
Door giggled appreciatively as her angelic partner escorted her into the crowd of merrymakers.
Crowley did not dream. Demons didn't, usually. Angels might, except their dreams were usually more like interpretational visions than imagined slumbering scenarios, and they slept too infrequently for it to matter. Crowley had never slept when he was an archangel – when he was Raphael – and so was largely unaware of any possible celestial losses in that area following his downwards saunter.
What did happen when Crowley slept – which he put down to his overactive imagination, though it likely had little to do with that and in actuality seemed more akin to typical demonic paranoia, just another part of the job description – was sometimes amid the welcoming blackness of oblivion sleep brought him, in that bizarre corporal plane between asleep and awake, he felt things that weren't there.
Sometimes he woke certain that a houseplant had grown a vine of several feet and made its way into the bedroom and was rattling the window.
More than once he'd awakened unnerved by the conviction he wasn't alone in his bed; he'd felt a give in the mattress, the folding of somebody else's bones against his own.
This was one reason he enjoyed long naps – the longer his slumber, usually the less intense that confusing moment before waking was. He hadn't had any sensation even of time having gone by when he woke up from sleeping for a century. Shorter sleeping hours seemed to mess with him far more.
On this night, Crowley came to himself in a state comparable to that of a deep-sea diver who has risen to the surface too quickly; he thought, inexplicably, Aziraphale had returned and was standing beside his bed, lifting up the coverlet from over his head.
He opened his eyes, not frightened so much as momentarily thrilled, until he saw a pair of luminous grey irises staring back in the darkness.
These grey eyes showed mild surprise but no anger or alarm.
It wasn't Aziraphale returned from London Below standing there; it was Islington, and there was a crystal jar in his raised hand from the middle of which a tiny but unmistakably Hellish flame flickered.
"Oh." The angel's voice was level, polite. "Hello again, Crowley. It would appear I have come into the wrong room."
A/N: Reviews welcome, replies could be delayed, I thank any reviewers in advance for your patience.