Hey guys! This one took a bit longer to get done, sorry about that. But, I finally finished up this chapter! Hope you enjoy :)

Disclaimer: I do not own Good Omens

Chapter Three

The Second Attempt

Crowley shut off the radio and sat back in his seat, letting out a breath as he drove back towards the bookshop. The talk with Hell was annoying, but he got it done and over with.

While he drove, Crowley straightened up a little, an unsure feeling nagging at him. It grew the closer he got to the shop.

Something was up. His eyes narrowed and he drove faster.

Aziraphale dove to the side, the lethal daggers stabbing into the seat where his heart and neck would have been. He quickly jumped back with a yelp as his attacker swung at him again, the blade drawing a line of blood across his forearm. He held his arm to himself and backed up, getting a good look at the demon's face.

"You!", he said in shock. How could she be here?! Crowley had only minutes ago said she wouldn't be able to find this place!

"Nice to see you, too", she growled, glaring shards of glass at him. Griffith advanced on him, backing Aziraphale into the corner. "You. You ruined everything good in my life."

"What are you talking about?", he asked, his voice confused and shaky with nerves, but still somehow holding strong indignance. "You're the one who tried to kill me!", he pointed out.

"You're the reason he discorporated me. You made him afraid of me. You made him want to stay as far away from me as possible", she said, her gaze and her voice growing more intense with each sentence.

"Crowley? He was just protecting me! Everything bad that's happened to you, you've done to yourself", he said defensively. There was the flash of metal and a short burst of wind. Aziraphale gasped at the lightning-fast attack.

Griffith had him pinned by the neck with the dagger, keeping him pressed firmly into the corner, her large, powerful brown wings flaring out to either side in anger. A new fear bloomed in him at the pure fury in her eyes.

"None of what happened was my fault", she said in a low, hissing growl, her voice too quiet to be anything less than a death threat. "What happened then was because of you. I lost my only hope of anything even close to a friend because of you. Because you couldn't be a good little angel and let me kill you." She pressed the blade further into his neck, drawing blood.

Aziraphale winced, but the ghost of a hopeful smile flashed over his face. "Well, at least now I know we have something in common."

"We have nothing in common, angel!", she yelled. Aziraphale backed further into the corner, feeling the tip of a second blade at his gut, ready to slice him open. He gulped, scrunching his eyes closed.

Griffith pressed her second dagger to the angel's stomach. This pitiful excuse of an angel knew nothing. She would have nothing in common with any angel. Especially this one. She bared her teeth at him, letting her fangs show.

She felt flickers of flame gathering in her feathers, licking at the air around them. Griffith opened her mouth to yell at him again, but the sound of the bell on the shop door made her head shoot up. She realized her Firebird ears and her horns had replaced her human ears and normal skull as she snapped her head around, feeling the weight on the back of her head and her ears turning towards the sound.

"Crowley!", Aziraphale yelled, taking the chance to quickly push the blade away from his neck and shove Griffith away from him. The fire on Griffith's wings sputtered and died in her feathers.

"Angel!", came the alarmed response from the front of the shop. Griffith spun back around and slammed the side of her wing into the angel's head, knocking him to the ground with a pained grunt. She leapt into cover behind a shelf of books, pulling her wings close into her sides to keep them from hitting anything. She backed into a dark corner and stayed absolutely silent and still, hiding.

"Aziraphale, are you alright?", Crowley asked with worry in his voice, running into the back room and helping the angel up off the ground. Aziraphale groaned as he stood, holding his head, a purple bruise already forming on his pristine skin.

"She's here", Aziraphale said, looking at a spot behind a shelf.

Crowley narrowed his eyes sharply at the spot and gestured for Aziraphale to go to the front of the shop. The angel shook his head and opened his mouth to oppose him, but Crowley stopped the angel from talking, holding up a finger. He gave him a look that said "I need to deal with this alone". Aziraphale hesitated for a moment, but nodded and left the room, understanding the look even through the dark glasses.

Crowley turned back to the corner and strode over, his eyes blazing yellow slits behind the glasses. "Griffith." His voice came out in a low growl, his lip quirking up in a snarl.

Griffith's anger had drained away almost as soon as she saw Crowley enter the room, replaced instead with a deep sadness for her lost acquaintance. However, she hid it well and stood up taller in the corner.

"Crowley", she responded, her voice defensive.

"Why aren't you still in that cage?", he said with knives in his tone, his stance rigid. Griffith narrowed her eyes at him.

She had been put in a demonically miracled, metal cage in Hell after her failed attempt at killing the angel. The bars had burnt her as if they were covered in holy water every time she tried to escape, giving her a few painful scars (they went away after a few years) which showed up easily as she was locked in her original Firebird form and her feathers would fall away where her skin was burned.

The demons down there were very fond of nagging her and poking her with long metal spikes when they were bored and Hastur had been the worst. He would almost always come by to tell her how useless she was and how pathetic of an assassin she had proved to be.

Griffith opened her wings a bit to act like a shield. "Why aren't you killing that angel like you're supposed to?", she shot back. Crowley stalked forward, making her back closer into the corner. She hated being stuck in small places. It made her feel crowded and claustrophobic.

"There is no need for you to worry about him. The angel is my problem. Your problem, at the moment, is me", he hissed. "You need to leave. Go back to Hell, or whatever dumpster you crawled out of, and never come back, you hear me?"

"No." Her answer was almost immediate. Her golden brown, sure eyes met his through his glasses. Crowley ground his teeth together.

"Wrong. Answer." A hand was suddenly wrapped around her throat, slamming her head into the corner. She bared her fangs at him as her air was cut off, choking her. She kept her eyes defiantly on his, a fiery shine flicking through them.

"You don't scare me, snake", she hissed in a rough voice, the lack of air making it difficult to talk. The grip got tighter and Crowley growled, digging his nails into her skin. She winced, scrunching her nose in discomfort.

"Crowley, is that really necessary?" The angel's voice startled both of the demons, making them turn their heads to the voice. Griffith held back a wince at the movement as it caused Crowley's nails to dig harder into her neck.

"Yes", the other demon said in a flat, stone cold tone.

"Oh, come now, Crowley. You don't have to hurt her", he said, gesturing to the already-forming bruises the demon's nails were causing on Griffith's throat.

"She tried to kill you!", Crowley said incredulously, his voice rising a little in anger. "Twice!"

Aziraphale shifted his weight and shuffled his feet a bit. "Well, yes,...but she didn't." He looked at Crowley with a pleading gaze.

Crowley growled, clenching his teeth before looking back at Griffith. He jabbed a finger at her face and tightened his grip, making pain erupt through her neck. She thought she felt something shift in her throat from the force he used.

"I'm going to let go of your throat and maybe I won't kill you, for now," he started, looking at her over the top rim of his dark glasses with eyes full of hatred. Griffith relaxed just slightly for about a millisecond before his nails dug deeper into her throat, making her eyes water slightly. "But", he continued, "I'm not letting you out of my sight until all this is sorted out." He finally released her throat and grabbed hold of her arm, making sure to grip as tightly as he could. Griffith winced and cleared her throat a few times, subtly catching her breath as she gingerly rubbed the areas where Crowley's hand had been.

He pulled her out of the corner and back into the light of the room. She hid her horns and Firebird ears, letting them shrink back into their human form along with her wings. Aziraphale smiled lightly and nodded at Crowley in thanks and held out a polite hand toward a set of stairs.

"Now that that's settled, let us show you to your room for the night", the angel said nicely. 'For the night?', Griffith thought to herself. Where would they bring her tomorrow? Her thoughts were knocked off track as Crowley yanked on her arm, practically dragging her to and up the stairs. She followed quickly behind him, jaw clenched from how he was twisting her wrist.

They got to the room and the snake demon opened the door, throwing her inside.

"Hey!", she said, catching herself before she fell. She looked back only to see the door slam shut. She didn't hear a key, but she had a feeling Crowley had miracled the door to stay closed. Griffith narrowed her eyes and growled in annoyance before looking around.

The room was rather small, about the size of her Firebird wingspan from wall-to-wall on each side. There was one small window straight across from the door with thin, white curtains trailing on each side of it, but when she tried to pry and break the glass open to escape, she found that she couldn't. It was probably miracled to keep her in like the door was. The walls were the same brick as the rest of the building with only a couple of old fashioned paintings of books to spruce them up.

A small bed sat in the middle of the wall to the right of the door, a thin sheet and flimsy, greenish comforter laying limply across it and a small, squashed-looking, stained pillow resting on the short, wooden headboard. Griffith wilted a little at the sight of it. This would be an uncomfortable night. And that was coming from a being who felt comfort in the scratchy limbs of a tree.

At least there was a bookshelf to keep her company. It was a semi-tall structure across from the bed, reaching halfway up the wall and standing strong although it looked to be a solid eighty years old. It did have plenty of books and scrolls stacked in it, though. Griffith looked through them and smiled slightly to herself at the nice selection. There were all sorts of them, from the late thousands to the twenties and up until the current, all sorts of languages covering the spines (or labels for the scrolls).

A thick layer of dust lay over everything on the shelves, so when the demon picked up an older-looking scroll that crinkled a bit under her touch, a poof of dust rose with it and swirled into her lungs, making her cough a bit and back away from the bookshelf towards the bed. She waved the dust away from her face and cleared her throat a few times before sitting down on the edge of the raggedy bed.

The mattress felt stiff and creaked under her as the sat and Griffith scrunched her nose at it before carefully unrolling the top of the scroll. It read in a language no mortal knew, only meant for the eyes of angels and other heavenly beings. Griffith, though she was a demon, was able to read and write it fluently after centuries of study and practicing...and just a little bit of information given to her by chained-up and...motivated angels.

She scooted herself up to the headboard, shifting so the soft light of the setting sun could skim across the paper. Griffith settled in as well as she could on the rock-hard bed and began to read, letting herself get pulled into the angelic legends and myths of unheard of creatures as the light ever so slowly faded into the darkness of the night sky.