The house was a plain, slate-blue Cape with black shutters, and a few sad-looking herbs growing along its foundation. All the curtains were drawn, but then it was rapidly getting dark out. Crowley walked up the worn brick pathway to the front door and rang the doorbell. He heard it echo inside the house, but no one came, so he rang it a second time. Finally he heard footsteps approaching. The door swung open slowly, revealing a tall woman with brown hair and a loose white shirt.
"Evening," said Crowley with a smile.
The woman frowned slightly. "Can I help you with something?"
"I don't know. You're the one who called me."
Her eyes widened, blood draining from her face. "You're…Crowley?"
"What, not impressive enough?" He glanced down at himself. "I wore a suit and everything."
"But we…you're not in the triangle."
Crowley shrugged. "Why should I be? They're so confining. Besides, it is rather rude to demand that I come see you. Who knows what I was in the middle of?"
The woman stared, seeming quite shaken now that the situation had begun to sink in. She took a step backward and closed the door.
"Whatever happened to hospitality?" Crowley muttered. With a wave of his hand the door swung open. He paused before stepping over the threshold to check the rug by the door. No devil's trap.
Amateurs.
The woman had already retreated into the living room, so Crowley went after her. He was met by three other women besides the first, all standing around candles and a goetic triangle drawn on the floor, looking confused.
"Hmm," Crowley said. "Been fiddling around with goetic magic, have we?" He rubbed away a corner of the triangle with his shoe, then wiped it off on the carpet with disgust. "Now, let's introduce ourselves. I am Crowley. And you are?"
A woman with short black hair opened her mouth and shut it again, while the rest only stared.
"Look," said Crowley, more sternly, "I'm being cordial. You lot tried to drag me here, and I had the courtesy to come willingly. Now tell me who you are and what you want, or I'll simply leave. Unless you irritate me further, in which case there'll be a bit of carnage first."
"All right, fine," said the woman who had answered the door. "I'm Laura Kemper."
"Natalie Parsons," said the black-haired woman.
"Jennifer LaCroix," said the next woman, her shirt such a garish shade of purple it offended the part of Crowley that was still a tailor.
The last woman, who had blond hair pulled back in a ponytail, said, "Kate Spare."
"Good. Now, why did you summon me here?"
"Well," Natalie began, "we're Wiccan but we wanted to try something a little darker, so we thought we'd evoke a spirit from Kate's book."
This flippancy should have angered Crowley, but he just laughed. Besides, that only made the would-be witches even more nervous. "I do hope that decision was inspired by a drunken Charmed marathon, because if you made it in your right minds…Honestly, you summoned the king of Hell on a whim?"
"No, that's…that can't be right," said Laura, glancing at Kate fearfully. "The book says you're a common pact-making demon. See?" She put a book on the end table and pushed it toward him.
Crowley picked it up carefully, immediately recognizing it as a very old copy of the Lemegeton, or Lesser Key of Solomon. Its cover was worn tan leather, and its smooth vellum pages were marked up with notes in different hands, in both Latin and English. One page near the end was marked with a modern bookmark, and Crowley turned it to find his sigil and a brief description of him. He had seen it before in more recent grimoires, but it was always strange.
Sometimes Crowley forgot he was a demon like any other.
"This is out of date," he said. "Things have changed quite a bit."
Jennifer shook her head with some hesitation. "Lucifer is in charge of Hell."
"Not anymore." Crowley frowned as he realized Kate looked less surprised than the others. "But you knew that already," he said, looking pointedly at her.
Kate shook her head. "I don't know what you're talking about."
"This is yours, yes?" He tossed the book to her, and Kate managed to catch it before it slammed into her stomach. "You didn't get that from Llewellyn. It's serious magic, and if you own it you must know a bit about that kind of magic."
Kate clutched the book tightly. "It's my sister's, all right? It belonged to our mother before that. I took it."
"You stole it?" Laura interrupted. "Did you forget about the Threefold L—"
"That's quite enough, Glinda," said Crowley, then he looked back to Kate. "You were saying?"
"My sister is the witch," Kate sighed. "I've just dabbled in it. I wanted to try something from this book to see if it would work. I wasn't expecting…well, I'm sorry I bothered you."
"Don't flatter yourself," said Crowley. "I told you, I came willingly. Now, where is this sister of yours, the true witch?"
"Why?" She sounded nervous.
Crowley took a step forward, which made the other women flinch. "Perhaps you've forgotten who you're speaking to," he said, letting a bit of anger darken his voice. "Shall I remind you?"
Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed Natalie reaching for something on a table behind her—a glass of water with a string of beads at the bottom.
Holy water.
Crowley's eyes narrowed. With a snap of his fingers, the glass was engulfed in fire, causing the water to evaporate rapidly. Natalie shrieked and dropped it, scattering flaming shards of glass across the floor. Another snap of Crowley's fingers and the flames went out in a puff of smoke.
"You ladies need to learn how to treat your guests," he growled. "Now, my dear Katie, what is your sister's name and where can I find her?"
Kate's blue eyes were wide. "Her name is Irene. She lives at 16 Bancroft Lane in Sunderland. But why—"
"Goodnight, then," said Crowley, disappearing.
Crowley reappeared in an office lined with bookshelves. A blond woman with large, old-fashioned glasses sat behind a desk in the middle of the room. Despite her ordinary appearance, Crowley could sense immediately that she was indeed a witch. He could smell power on her like a heady perfume. She looked up, startled at her sudden visitor.
"Evening, Irene," said Crowley, hands in his pockets.
She hesitated, brow creasing. "You're a demon."
"Indeed."
"Hmm." Irene gazed at him for a moment. "I'm not sure which demon you are, though. And since you already know who I am…"
"The name's Crowley." He smirked. "Try not to forget it."
"Crowley, right. The erstwhile crossroads demon turned king of Hell." Her features were plain and rather stern, but there was a cunning glint in her eyes. "I guess they do say it's better to reign in Hell than to—"
Crowley put up his hand. "Spare me. Read it two hundred years ago and I still don't like it. But literature aside, I came here because you're supposedly an experienced witch."
Irene shrugged. "Witch, magician, whatever. What I truly am is a left-hand path occultist, a student of Luciferian gnosis."
Crowley resisted rolling his eyes. "Pity your god is locked up."
"I don't worship Lucifer. I merely follow the dark, adversarial principles he represents."
"Please." Hell's fire and iron flashed through Crowley's mind. "You know nothing of darkness."
"Clearly I know something of use to you," she said. She seemed calm, as if she had nothing to fear. "Otherwise you wouldn't be here."
"Don't overestimate your worth, darling. I am looking for information, but it doesn't need to come from you."
Irene sat back and folded her arms. "Fair enough. What do you want to know?"
Satisfied that he had won, Crowley said, "I'm looking for something. A place. Perhaps you know a witch who could determine where it is."
"Have you tried Google Maps?"
"I doubt bloody Google Maps shows the location of Purgatory," Crowley snarled.
He noticed a hint of surprise in Irene's expression before she could conceal it. "There's no such place. Human souls go to either Heaven or Hell."
"True, but it exists nonetheless."
She hesitated. "Well, it's possible that attempting to communicate with…whatever is in there might reveal how to get to it. A witch who's very skilled with scrying or divination might also be able to find it. The head of my order may be able to do it, or know someone who can. We're meeting tomorrow in the old chapel at the edge of town, on Summer Street. Our group is called the Order of the Black Thorn, and our leader's name is Terrence Marsh. He'll be there then and I'm sure he would love to meet you."
"Hmph. We'll see about that," Crowley said. "'Til then." Before she could reply, he was gone.
Crowley reappeared back in Ash Hill Park. Night had fallen, so the park was empty and dark except for the gold-tinted puddles of light cast by lampposts along the main path. He snapped his fingers and every light was extinguished in a crackle of sparks. The heavy darkness of a starless winter night settled over the park.
"Much better," said Crowley. Then he whistled—a sharp, clear sound that rang out along the empty pathway.
With a flash of red light, his hound appeared. He was nearly five feet tall at the shoulders, with black fur that seemed to absorb all light, and dark eyes that glinted scarlet. He bounded toward Crowley, tongue lolling out past razor teeth.
A smile spread across Crowley's face as the hound nuzzled his hand. "Good pup," he said. "Shall we go for a walk?" Crowley slid his hands into his pockets and headed off down the path, and the hound sauntered along beside him. As they walked, a few snowflakes began to fall, white as death and cold against his skin.
Still, at that moment, he thought that everything might turn out all right.