Angels Below
A Good Omens and Neverwhere fanfiction
Part 6 of 7
Islington actually smiled down at Crowley.
It was the kind of smile somebody anticipating a monster – a dragon long grown fat on meat and gold they meant to slay, to rid the world of – might smile at the unexpected appearance of a delightful kitten in its place.
"An unfortunate mistake," it said, "coming into your bedroom instead of Gabriel's. Do feel free to resume your rest. I'll see myself out when I'm quite finished."
Crowley was a shadow – half-changed into his serpent form for the sake of speed – gliding across the room and planting himself, in his favourite shape again, before Islington, blocking the angel's way.
"You're standing in my way." He spoke as if there were some chance Crowley was not wholly aware of that fact.
Crowley spoke through his teeth. "I think you and I both know I can't let you do this."
Brow furrowed, Islington looked down at the jar in his hand, at its contents which glowed and sizzled, then back at Crowley's unmoved expression. He was puzzled by this resistance, though not troubled by it. It made no sense to him. Why all this fuss about standing in his path and glaring? How long until he could slake his thirst for vengeance? How long until he could destroy Gabriel? There was no part of his demented mind that registered how this desired action could not be put into practice.
No part of him truly considered the possibility Crowley – dear old Raphael from the olden days, the only reasonable archangel – would stop him.
"Why-ever not?"
"If you destroy him, it'll start a war."
Islington considered this. "That won't matter, not if I win it."
"Factions of angels and demons tearing each other to pieces – the oceans turning into seafood gumbo while stars implode under the pressure of uncontrolled angelic and demonic energy..." Crowley pressed. "That doesn't worry you?"
"Should it?" The angel blinked.
"Damn lot, I'd say."
"Interesting." Islington tried to move around him, sighing when Crowley blocked his every turn. "You're still in my way."
"You can't just do whatever you want, Islington – things up here don't work that way."
"And what is it you want?" it asked, almost as if it cared. "What are you doing this for? If it's not Lucifer's forgiveness, and it's not to join me, and it's certainly not for some manner of divine forgiveness through keeping Gabriel in existence – then what?"
"So we are all in agreement," said the Marquis de Carabas, with an exaggerated flick of his wrist. "I go with you–" he motioned, as an extension of the flicking gesture, at Sandalphon and Aziraphale, "and I testify to what I saw when Lady Door released the angel Islington." His eyes narrowed as he glanced over his shoulder at Door, who looked pale in a blue dress under a leather jacket. "You will, of course, owe me another very big favour – and you've scarcely rid yourself of the last one owed to me. Are you certain you wish me to take your place with them? A few questions is hardly a reason to waste a favour."
"This is not a good time for me to be in London Above," she insisted. "This is how it must be." And she looked from the Marquis to Aziraphale, as if she were more than a little sorry to be parting from him after their friendly exchanges and pleasurable gavotte. "I do hope Heaven can find Islington before anything goes further awry."
With a little ironic frown, de Carabas chuckled, "Better that you hope you sent him far enough away it never matters if they find him or not."
"You could always reopen a door to wherever it was – for an angel to go after Islington," Sandalphon said suddenly, as if the thought had just occurred to him.
"I couldn't," she snapped, appalled by the suggestion, and by the fact that Sandalphon's eyes had shifted for a moment towards Aziraphale, as if he already knew which angel he wanted to send on an obvious suicide mission and would be only too glad to be rid of him. "And I wouldn't."
Aziraphale hadn't noticed the look on Sandalphon's face, hadn't seen how it was directed at himself, but he quite agreed with Door irregardless. "There would be no guarantee it would be the same place – not if she didn't know what she opened the first time." He gripped his flaming sword. "Hardly worth the effort."
"Still," said Sandalphon, "something to ask Gabriel about – he might think it a good idea."
"Whether he thinks it's a good idea or not, I won't be with you," Door reminded him. "And the Marquis is not an opener." She put her hand to the brick wall – behind which the party they'd left after getting the attention of de Carabas and retrieving Aziraphale's sword from the amiable rat was still in full swing – and inhaled. "This is the last door I open for you."
"And if we need to find you again?" simpered Sandalphon, nasally.
"You don't." She noticed Aziraphale's crestfallen expression at her harsh tone and said it again, this time to him, gentler. "You don't. I've told you both everything I know. It was a pleasure meeting you, angel, please believe me."
"A mutual pleasure, young lady." A pause. "Er..." The angel cleared his throat, reassuming with forced cheerfulness, "If you ever need to find me, however, I do run a bookshop in Soho." And he pulled a business card – the first he'd ever willingly distributed because he wanted a customer to visit him during opening hours – from his vest pocket and gave it to her.
She did not say she would not go there – it was not part of her world, too far from her London, London Below – she was aware he already knew that and let him pretend; she was of the mind that it might give him a moment's peace in their parting, if nothing more substantial.
"No need to drag this out," Sandalphon said next, callously. "The sooner we're back, the better."
"While I don't appreciate being hurried along like a tardy school-boy," sighed de Carabas, "I'm inclined to agree – best to get this over with." He looked at Door. "Open it."
She pressed her hand to the brick, closed her eyes, concentrated. The wall fell in under her palm. The world beyond it was not the party they'd left, nor anywhere else in London Below. It was a dark, open space in a very different sort of indoors than the sewers they'd been travelling through.
Aziraphale recognised the smell at once; it was Crowley's bedroom, Crowley's closet; Crowley's only real suit, the one with the tartan collar.
Door hugged him goodbye, and she turned to go, staying within range only in order to close the door again behind them once they'd all gone.
Sandalphon, to Aziraphale's complete astonishment, allowed both himself and the Marquis to go first. "I won't be a moment. Go on."
There was a little scream, indignant, appalled. "Unhand me!"
Too late – far too late to stop it – Aziraphale understood what was happening.
Lady Door was behind forcibly dragged through to London Above by Sandalphon as the opening closed.
She would have discorporated him in her terror, and she nearly did, reaching with her free hand for his chest, her mind still thinking only one word: open.
Except she saw it – she was the first of them to see it – and she forgot about Sandalphon the way somebody about to smack the nose of a small but mean dog who has been nipping at them would forget the errant canine in light of a wolf with blood on its muzzle turning up.
Islington, holding a crystal jar with a flame inside it.
She wrenched her hand free – it took very little effort as Sandalphon was already letting go.
"...it's certainly not for some manner of divine forgiveness through keeping Gabriel in existence – then what?"
There was a commotion behind them; Crowley's bedroom was suddenly filled with people, pouring out from behind the double-doors of his mirrored closet.
People the demon could see emerging perfectly well, despite the fact that there were no lights on and the only illumination in the room was Islington's jar.
But it was the smell he noticed first. Before he allowed his gaze to drift to them – before he weighed the possible consequences of taking his eyes off Islington for even the shortest of moments, he knew what that smell was.
"Aziraphale!"
"Crowley!" Aziraphale took a step towards him, halting at the sight of Islington.
A girl behind Sandalphon – a girl with eyes the colour of fire opals – cried out, in a short, horrified breath, "Islington!" And she stepped closer to the tall, dark man, who inhaled sharply and muttered a curse word.
Then Aziraphale exclaimed, with notably less horror, almost pleasure, "Islington!"
The angel looked at the principality. "So sorry, don't think me rude, but have we met?" Islington's eyes raked across the row of them. "These other three I know" (the brief expression he shot at the opal-eyed girl was a dark one, and his upper lip was curled in a passing sneer; he clearly hated her) "you I don't seem to remember."
Aziraphale appeared rather offended. "We shared a desk for nearly two hundred years, my good chap!"
Crowley shook his head warningly at his friend. Islington was nobody's good chap. He was nobody's good anything.
"I'm afraid it doesn't ring any bells," Islington said, turning his attention back to Crowley. "Now, you were about to answer my..." He stopped, glanced from Crowley to Aziraphale, and smiled very slowly. "Oh." The angel's hands pressed together with the jar between them. "This is about him, isn't it? I couldn't figure out who it was you were missing – who you were trying to protect – I foolishly thought it might still be Lucifer, after all, despite his casting you off. But you've made a new friend. How sweet." He whirled around to grin indolently at Aziraphale. "What was your name again?"
"Aziraphale." Aziraphale was indignant. "For pity's sake, Islington! You saw me every day in Heaven; I was in the Ninth Choir."
"I don't think so," it said, politely dismissive. "Perhaps you've confused me with someone else." Then, to Crowley, "Forgive me, I hadn't realised. I wrongly assumed whoever you were doing this for was going to be a demon – I didn't expect you to have picked your dearest companion from among the angels." A thought seemed to flitter behind the angel's calculating grey eyes – it was the sort of shadow a moth makes passing by a porch light. "Is he...? He's not by any chance the one you stopped Armageddon with? Oh, my, my..."
It would have been better if Islington showed some sign of jealousy, perhaps, or annoyance mixed with disappointment – at least those were emotions.
The little cogs and gears turning in its angelic head while Islington considered how best to use this newly-gleaned information was disturbing – you could practically hear things clicking speedily into place as the angel's mind was being made up.
"Enough!" snarled Sandalphon, pushing forward, his expression the most passionate one either Crowley or Aziraphale had ever seen on his usually passive-aggressive face, the most unabashedly anxious. "Where's Gabriel? Where's he gone? What have you done with him?"
"Really, Crowley," Islington told the demon, ignoring Sandalphon, "if that's all you want – to be left alone with your new friend – you could have asked me. It's as good as done. Step aside, let me get on with things here, and I promise you'll both be left alone to do whatever it is you like best."
"Don't trust him," blurted the opal girl.
"I seriously doubt he's that stupid," snorted her dark-skinned friend.
Aziraphale unsheathed his flaming sword.
The sword wasn't alight, not yet, though it glowed from within like it was studded with embers, but it was ready. Ready for whatever was about to take place when Crowley refused Islington and the politeness was replaced with white-hot rage.
There were more than just cogs and gears in Islington's mind – there was also a spring, tightly coiled, and once it was sprung...oh, once it was sprung...
There was a weight on Crowley's chest – he was tempted, in spite of himself. He was thinking of how perfect everything had been before Gabriel came, of the puzzle still in the kitchen Aziraphale never got to finish, of the neatly-labeled home-movies in the lounge...
It wasn't a good feeling, this. He was used to be the tempter, not the tempted.
He had to push the word out, like it was stuck in his throat and he'd choke on it if he didn't dislodge it quickly. "No."
Islington blinked. "No?" Then his shoulders lifted in a little shrug. "Of course, I don't have to leave him alone." He lightly shook the jar in his hand. "I could just as easily destroy him."
Sandalphon sniffed, his voice cracked, "Shows what you know – Aziraphale happens to be immune to Hellfire."
Grimacing, Aziraphale leaned closer to Sandalphon and murmured, "Er... About that..."
The archangel didn't catch on. "So your threat, Islington, is meaningless."
"Sandalphon," snarled Crowley, "shut up."
"Just let me pass," Islington insisted. "This way we both get what we want."
"Not if it means the end of the world – I don't want that."
Islington began to lift the lid of the jar – Sandalphon flinched back instinctively. Aziraphale looked like he was going to be sick, but he didn't draw away, he stepped forward with his sword held out defensively.
"Islington," said the principality, "you don't want to do this."
The spring coiled tighter.
Aziraphale made a lightning-fast motion with this sword to keep Islington's hands holding the jar away from his personage, and the mad angel let out a sharp, wild cry when two gashes – two straight lines across the sides of its pale hands – beaded with blood then began to drip downwards.
Down its arms, down the slide of the jar, down into the carpet...
The spring was tripped.
"You fat bastard!" Wings unfurling, revealing feathers as grey as its eyes, Islington made a furious lunge for Aziraphale.
Crowley, lengthening into a serpent behind him, sprung out and began to coil himself tightly around Islington, squeezing.
The jar fell from its hands but luckily did not break, though the already lifted lid cracked and the flicker of Hellfire within grew a little taller, as if it were stretching in preparation for a near-imminent release.
The man who had been awkwardly comforting the opal girl righted it but did not hold onto it – Hellfire could not destroy a man, not the way it could an angel, but humans could still feel it burn.
The hell-heated crystal left red welts forming on the man's dark palm, and the opal girl yelped, "de Carabas!" when she saw them rising on his skin.
Sandalphon cowered, yet at the same time was trying to crawl away – possibly to find Gabriel before Islington did, which was, oddly enough, a different sort of bravery from the manner the rest of them were being forced to display in all this.
Crowley barely registered this, or what de Carabas was doing, however. He was too busy wrapping his long black self around a thrashing angel that was no longer all sweetness and promises of an eternity spent in happiness with his best friend; now he was threatening, in a choked off voice, to do worse to him than he would to Gabriel.
Islington got a hand free and – after a violent struggle – managed to yank Aziraphale's sword away from him, clutching the hilt while the principality clutched his twisted wrist.
It struck out with the weapon, brutally.
Crowley looped himself around Islington's wrist until he dropped the sword, and Aziraphale stumbled forward, regained balance, and – with surprising grace – reclaimed the sword and brandished it in a single, fluid motion as the embers ignited and it went up in flames.
Crowley held on tight. It was like trying to hold back a bloody hurricane. He wished Sandalphon would get off his hands and knees and help, but Sandalphon was gone, of course, he'd seen him going in his peripheral vision – and then he was back, with Gabriel, who had a sword of his own.
The three of them should have been able to overpower Islington, except that it concentrated its power into a quake that shook the bedroom, making them all fall, even Crowley – who was flung back onto the bed and crawled out from the sheets in a form somewhere between snake-like and man-shaped, fangs bared.
Islington was steady on his feet as he used this interval to reach the jar again. This time he opened it all the way, and it flared straight up, like a miniature pillar.
Aziraphale, still the nearest to Islington, recoiled, turning his face away, his free hand across his body, pressed to his side like he was hugging himself.
Gabriel realised what Sandalphon had been too dense to pick up on, despite its obviousness. "Aziraphale! You're not immune to–"
"No, I'm not!" snapped Aziraphale, over his shoulder at the archangel, irritably. "But with all due respect I hardly think that's our biggest concern just now."
Islington was being careful not to touch the fire himself – his hands clutched the bottom of the jar; they had perfect control.
"What is he?" shrieked Sandalphon – horrified by this creature that had the same weakness as any other angel yet the casualty of a demon, this unfallen thing.
Floating up from Islington's pocket there came a box of matches, and silence enveloped the bedroom.
One match was held – with long, soft, careful fingers – to the flame rising from the jar. He smiled, holding onto it dangerously long, as if one second too late wouldn't have been the end of him, then he flung it in the direction of Gabriel, who flung himself aside in a panic.
A curtain caught fire instead of the archangel. The fabric blackened and crackled but didn't burn away; it just kept burning like it meant to burn forever and ever.
The opal girl – Lady Door, Crowley had worked out by deduction – wailed like a banshee, obviously pushed to her breaking point by all this.
Islington kept on grinning. He began to light another match.
The bedroom started growing smokey – de Carabas was gasping for air, Sandalphon was coughing violently; his face was turning colours as if he was having an allergic reaction.
They were herded down the hallway and into the bathroom, Crowley the last one inside, barricading the door.
"Michael's coming," Gabriel said to Sandalphon, evidently attempting to comfort the shell-shocked archangel. "She won't be alone. She's smart – she'll have thought to bring Uriel with her, at the very least. It's going to be okay."
Sandalphon didn't say anything in response.
On the other side of the door, Islington called, "Come out, come out..."
Aziraphale backed up against the tub. Door looked at him funny and – letting go of de Carabas – bent over the angel and whispered something Crowley didn't hear.
A sizzling match dropped through the keyhole of the door. Two more slid underneath.
"Gabriel..." called Islington, tauntingly.
Stepping on each match, stomping emphatically in an attempt to put them out before they caught and spread, Crowley cried, "Shit! Shit! Shit!" as he struggled to put out each one, only for two more to fall through the keyhole.
Then he wet a towel in the sink and stuck it under the door, even though he thought it wouldn't do much good.
"You know, much as I hate to be the one to state the obvious," said de Carabas, "there appears to be a window directly behind us – we could just as easily be making our escape as cowering here waiting for death."
"'snot a real window," Crowley mumbled. He'd simply thought the bathroom looked nicer with more light and had created the illusion after the landlord refused to let him have an actual window installed there. Some nonsense about zoning and building structure that had made his yellow eyes go glassy with boredom behind their sunglasses.
"Then..." de Carabas looked meaningful at Door. "...if you wouldn't mind...?" His tone was more doubting than hopeful. "If you're not too weak to do it again?"
Aziraphale was in the tub now, though Crowley didn't remember seeing him climb over the rim and wondered what he was doing in there. Door was still bent over him, lifting herself up to respond to de Carabas.
Crowley stared – her blue dress was covered in blood. "You're–"
"No." She swallowed. "It isn't my blood."
Crowley nearly pushed her out of the way as he rushed over, almost forgetting about how a moment ago he was terrified Islington would somehow never run out of matches.
That was all entirely gone from the demon's mind just then, in a flash of realisation.
"Move your hand, angel."
There was blood on Lady Door, smeared across her front – blood on the rim of the tub – blood pooling around the drain under Aziraphale even though no one had run a bath. This wasn't left over from his prank on Gabriel; this was something real.
"It's nothing, dear boy," Aziraphale tried, rather pathetically; "we've got to help them – Door and the Marquis and–"
"Aziraphale, move your damn hand."
"Crowley, it doesn't matter – look. Look at them." He motioned weakly with his head, vaguely in the direction of Gabriel and Sandalphon, and at first Crowley couldn't understand what the principality was getting all sentimental and protective about, and then he saw them – as if through the angel's own eyes, looking where they lolled – and noticed their hands were clasped together.
Waiting for Michael – or perhaps some intervention from the Almighty, whichever came first, and neither had to be exclusive – the two archangels were huddled together beside the toilet.
They didn't look like the gleeful monsters Crowley remembered from Aziraphale's trial – the ones who were going to let a demon hit a helpless angel and then expected that same angel to shut up and die already. They looked like children who didn't know how they were going to get out of their frightening situation – children who only knew two things: one, that they were each clutching the hand of their best friend and, two, that nothing would persuade them to let go until it was over, until they were safe again.
Of course Aziraphale would see that – understanding it at once – and pity them now. Of course he bloody would!
Crowley reached over and moved Aziraphale's hand himself, then lifted his blood-soaked shirt, ignoring the angel's protests that he was perfectly fine.
There it was: a nasty, deep wound.
How had it happened?
Casting his mind back, Crowley tried to think.
No, no, no. It was falling into place in his memory. Islington had gotten one good jab at Aziraphale, before he'd intervened and forced the bastard to drop the sword so Aziraphale could retrieve it.
After that, he had seen little signs of pain from the angel – he had hugged himself that one time, no doubt clutching at the wound, but Crowley had mistaken that for fear of the Hellfire...
He should have known better. Aziraphale was braver than that.
"You stupid idiot," he choked, still crouched over the side of the tub, snaking an arm around his friend. "What'd you have to go and get yourself–"
"Crowley, it's not the end of the world."
It might as well have been. Did he even have to say it? Aziraphale was so clever... How could somebody as clever as him pretend this wasn't happening?
Pretend he wasn't loosing copious amounts of blood, in a room they had no current escape from, and that if he discorporated and went back to Heaven, they might never give him another body.
The angels might keep him there forever.
If they didn't arrange for another ridiculous trial, now that Gabriel and Sandalphon knew Aziraphale wasn't immune to Hellfire...
Crowley didn't hold any hope of the last few days having changed anything in that regard.
The obvious love and camaraderie Gabriel and Sandalphon were displaying was only for themselves – not for Aziraphale – so it hardly mattered to the demon that they were capable of it.
If Aziraphale was to discorporate now, there was a good chance they'd never see each other – never talk to each other – again.
Crowley couldn't live with that.
He had to think of something.
A/N: Reviews welcome, replies could be delayed.