Disclaimer: There's nothing new here, so I don't own anything that I didn't own in the last chapter.
Another short one. I apologize for the pitiful lack of footnotes.
The tweedy man had not noticed the angel in his midst(1), and Aziraphale knew that there was still time to escape. However, a delightful opportunity had presented itself and would not be ignored.
He cleared his throat politely, and subsequently several reams of parchment scattered into the air.
"Oh, dear!" said the man and the angel concurrently.
Aziraphale rushed to help him pick up his papers.
"Thank you," said the man as he did so. "I'm sorry, I'm afraid I didn't see you there."
"Oh, no, my dear, I beg you pardon, I'm sure. I didn't mean to startle you."
"Oh, that's, that's quite..." all his sheaves were bundled back together in neat piles and, he thought, were rather less dusty than they had been a moment ago, "quite all right."
Aziraphale smiled and stood up.
Tweedy stared at the piles of papers a moment longer, then raised his eyebrows resignedly and stood as well.
"Er, Giles. Rupert Giles," he offered Aziraphale his hand.
Aziraphale continued to smile. "Ezra Fell," he returned, taking Giles' hand.
Giles had an odd sensation when the angel shook his hand. Isn't that remarkable, he thought. Remarkable...
"So," Aziraphale went on, "what are you, ah, reading-" He laid a hand on a particularly ancient-looking volume, which let out a horrifying screech that continued to echo long after the angel had jerked his hand away. The book settled into itself and suddenly looked more the size of a pamphlet than the tome it had been.
Aziraphale's eyes were wide with terror. He took one look at Giles, whose eyes were even wider and staring at the angel in surprise and fear, and high-tailed in out of there.
Chalmers had a large glass half-full of brandy in one hand and his forehead in the other. He had not seen this coming. Anthony Crowley, a demon? A demon best friends with an angel? A demon best friends with an angel, both of whom having aided in averting the Apocalypse in the early nineties? Add to that Crowley's extremely well-groomed appearance and his excellent taste in wine, and it just passed into the realm of the completely unbelievable. But the computer. Chalmers had always hated those blasted machines. Now he would count himself lucky never to lay eyes on another one as long as he lived. That had been the single most horrifying image he had ever seen. All the circles of Hell belching fire and brimstone! Fire and brimstone which, worst of all, had materialised on his side of the screen. Crowley's explanation, ironically, was the only one that made sense. And Chalmers knew him well enough to know that when Crowley lied, he stuck to stories that people wouldn't question.
"Er, Chalmers?"
Chalmers raised his head. "Hm?"
"You alright, mate?"
"What? Oh, yes. Yes, I'll be fine."
"Good. Good."
There was another embarrassed silence.
"So," Crowley continued, "you still on board, then?"
"What?"
"You know, the favour I asked of you-"
"Oh, yes. Yes, of course. It actually makes more sense now, anyway."
"Good. Good."
"So, er..." Chalmers had several questions posing themselves abstractedly in his mind, and most of them he dared not ask, but there was one that kept jumping up and down, waving its arms in the air, that he couldn't ignore.
"So," he began again, "Are... are you... evil?"
Crowley was slightly taken aback at this. And though the first answer that had sprung to mind was "Um, yeah..." there was instantly a second thought that suddenly made itself known for the first time: "Well, steady on, now. Am I? Am I really?" Surley Chalmers would have difficultyappreciating the difference between Evil the way he necessarily saw it every day in his work and Evil as a principle. Because in principle, yes, Crowley was evil. He worked for Satan. Much in the way that political followers of Hitler were Nazis. That didn't mean they were all psychotic mass-murderers. The thing is, Crowley had no real malice. Evil was just an assumed trait for a demon, as being bothersome was for a telemarketer. The majority of telemarketers are probably not bothersome in their personal lives at all. They're probably just nice people that you can be mates with. Like Johnny Depp.
"Er, Crowley?"
Crowley looked up from his desultory inner commentary. Was he evil...
He half-smiled. "Not in a bad way."
(1) People rarely do.