Chapter Fourteen
Crowley dispensed his demon henchmen to the far corners of the world to search for the rugaru Murron's scrying had produced. As he waited, he sought amusement in observing Murron practicing her new skills.
He found her in the backyard near the wood pile, the grimoire balanced on one arm, which she consulted from time to time. He watched her for a moment from the back porch to determine what she'd been doing, chuckling when she flailed a few times towards the pile. "Trying telekinesis, then?" he called out. Murron turned, a look of tired exasperation on her face.
"Trying and failing miserably, yes," she replied with a sigh. "I can't seem to focus. It's pathetic."
Crowley laughed quietly to himself again as he approached her. "You have a proclivity towards fire spells, but your psychic awareness leaves much to be desired."
"Thanks," Murron said dryly, turning back to the pile and trying again. When nothing happened again, she growled in frustration and angrily set the pile on fire. She scowled as it blazed up, casting thick black smoke into the air, arms crossed over her chest in defiance. Crowley watched the smoke blow and billow about, put the pile out with a thought, then glanced over at Murron.
"Would you like some help?"
"You're offering?" Murron was dubious as she turned to him. He levelled her with a patronising stare. She shrugged helplessly. "Okay, if you think you can..."
"You're not hopeless, just artless, darling," Crowley drawled, moving to stand behind her. Murron started a bit to have him so close, tensing when he took up her wrists in his hands and gave her arms a gentle shake. "Just relax. Move with me. Now." He balanced her arms over his own, encouraging her to bend when he did, to lift her hands with his. Like a golf instructor training a new player, they moved together, Murron's arms arcing out gracefully atop Crowley's. He murmured words of encouragement in her ear. Soon she began to get the hang of it, allowing Crowley to step away from her. He gave her a reassuring nod when she looked back at him, then performed the same gesture towards the wood pile.
A log flew from the stack, hurling itself off into the distance. Murron gave a yelp of surprise and laughed. "That's fun!"
"It can be," Crowley agreed. "Even moreso when it's your enemy you're tossing about."
"Which is precisely what I need it for. I know I'm very behind skillwise compared to other witches, especially white ones, so I wanted to make sure I wasn't going in completely defenseless." Murron threw a few more logs from the pile, each time growing stronger and casting them further away. "I don't know what to expect when I face them. It's a little unnerving, going in alone. What if I run into all of them at once? I can't disappear like you can."
"There's always a way out," Crowley reminded her. Murron eyed him curiously. "Trust me."
"Haven't stopped yet," Murron replied quietly, turning her attention back to the pile. "Have you heard anything back from your people yet? About the kangaroos?"
"Rugarus and no, not yet. I suspect they won't have anything until the evening."
"What're you planning doing with them? More importantly, where do you plan on keeping them?"
"I have places for them," Crowley said, choosing to ignore her first question. Apparently used to that, Murron didn't press and resumed decimating the black ruin of the log pile bit by bit. Crowley watched for a brief moment, then vanished, reappearing in the basement cellar.
He snapped his fingers briskly. Immediately, one of his demon lackeys appeared beside him. "Report."
"We have most of them. Some are being difficult," the demon answered. "They don't seem keen on helping demons."
"Kill the ones that fight. Or better yet, give them to the ones that aren't. It'll tempt their appetites further."
"Yes, sir." The demon bowed, then blinked from sight. Crowley started to turn away when he sensed another presence enter the basement. He angled his head towards it, narrowing his eyes suspiciously.
"What do you want?" he demanded.
"It's not what I want, demon, but what my petitioner wants," replied a smooth feminine voice. Crowley turned completely, smiling sardonically at the goddess standing behind him.
"Kali. Here I thought you'd disappeared from this plane ever since your feathered boyfriend got shanked by his brother. What brings you here, sweetheart?"
"As I said, my petitioner," Kali replied, ignoring his jab. Crowley stared at her, chin lifting slightly. "I had hoped to find her alone. However," the goddess added, giving him a cursory glance, "I suppose you'd be the one to speak to."
"Normally I love this kind of thing, but I haven't all the time in the world to play word games with a defunct deity. Out with it," Crowley said abruptly.
"It is my understanding you're looking to take over Hell, but someone greater than you stands in your way," Kali explained after an annoying moment of silence. Crowley waited, his wariness rising. "Baal, Crowley? Really? You wish to take out the most powerful of the fallen next to Lucifer himself? Even I could not scratch the Morningstar and you seek to eliminate his second-in-command. Have you taken leave of your senses?"
"Merely reclaimed them," Crowley amended with a snake smile. "Baal is strong, yes, which is why I have my men out there building an army."
"You mean an army of fodder," Kali pressed. Crowley shrugged casually. "Your quest is a foolish one. You will die if you continue."
"That's your opinion."
"And it is an accurate one," Kali took a step towards him. "And if you die, then my petitioner's wish goes unfulfilled. I don't make it a habit of letting my own down."
"If you're referring to Murron, she's none of yours," Crowley informed her calmly. "She swears no fealty to any god."
"No, she is not one of my followers, this is true. However, she did send out a universal request. I just happened to be the first to hear it and take an interest."
"And what did she ask for that caught your attention?"
"That is between us. All you need to know is this: I will help you defeat Baal and claim Hell for yourself."
Crowley hated to admit that surprised him. He regarded the goddess carefully. "Why?" he asked finally.
"I have my reasons. Do you accept or no?" Kali's tone was final. She wasn't going to offer anything to him, now or if ever. Crowley shrugged again, accepting this, and nodded. "Good. Continue gathering your army of monsters. Together, you and I will storm Baal's fortress and take him out. I will be in touch."
Crowley was alone. Kali had vanished, leaving the exotic scent of incense behind her. The demon king contemplated the goddess's offer of help, his eyes straying up towards where Murron stood in the backyard. So, she'd been praying for him. He wasn't sure what to think about that. A small part of him wondered at the impossible, while a larger part was thankful for the continued support of his preservation. He smiled faintly, gaze lowering to stare absently at the floor. He would return the favor in equal measure.
Snapping his fingers again, another of his demons materialized at his side. Crowley spoke without turning to him. "You will watch over Murron Guthrie. Consider yourself exempt from the war; your only mission is to ensure her safety. Do you understand?"
"Of course, Mr. Crowley. But, if I might ask -"
"You may not," Crowley interrupted briskly. "Just do as I say and I won't kill you."
"Sir." The demon vanished.
Satisfied, Crowley transported himself back outside just as Murron finished putting the logs back into the stack. She turned to him with a pleased smile, the fading sun catching the red in her hair. She shielded her eyes with a hand. "Where've you been?" she asked conversationally. "Didn't even notice you'd left until I realized I'd been talking to myself."
"Just checking on my own progress, darling, nothing to worry about," Crowley replied just as lightly, keen on keeping her in the dark about both Kali's visit and the instructions he'd given his man. "Have you satisfied yourself, then?"
"I think so. I might even be ready to take at least one of them on tomorrow," Murron replied, starting for the back porch. Crowley allowed her to pass him, then followed after. They passed through the kitchen into the living room and sat down on the comfy green sofa together. Murron stretched her legs luxuriously, lifting her arms over her head as she did so. Crowley swept his gaze over the white of her long neck to the freckled skin peeking out from the collar of her blouse. The smile that curled his lips was done almost subconsciously.
Murron, feeling his eyes on her, met his gaze brightly. "What is it?" she asked.
"Just admiring the view," Crowley replied. Murron laughed and gave him a small push.
"I don't think you can go a day without teasing me," she remarked with another little amused chuckle. "Starting to think you have a quota or something."
Crowley didn't respond, merely smiled and shrugged his brows. They sat in silence for awhile, Murron curled up with her knees against the back of the couch, he with his hands folded and resting in his lap. It felt, and sort of was, like the eve before a great battle. Their silence was no less comfortable than it had always been, but a heaviness hung in the air all the same. Crowley could only guess what weighed on Murron's mind. He wanted to broach the subject about her prayer to the universe and who'd answered it, if only to satisfy his own curiousity. His hand strayed to his chest where that strange persistant itch continued to plague him. It had begun shortly after he'd woken up the first night after tangling with Baal. It almost felt like a healing wound, yet he couldn't recall being injured there.
Something else had been off since that night as well. He'd sensed strong magic at work, an aura that seemed to follow him around. He couldn't really see it, only sense it, a protective field - if he had to guess, anyway - that created a barrier between him and the rest of the world's influences. It was very strange. He didn't find it unpleasant, however. Alien, sure, but not unpleasant.
Crowley looked up when he felt Murron staring at him anxiously. His hand stilled on his chest. "Something the matter?"
"I was going to ask you the same thing. You've been scratching at yourself for a few days now; are you all right?" Murron asked, shifting a bit closer to him. Her knee touched his upper arm as she leaned in and peered at his chest. Crowley smirked a bit, shaking his head.
"It's nothing. Nothing's ever wrong with me, darling, you know that."
"None that you'd actually tell me, no," Murron conceded, disappointment in her voice. "I swear, you have to come home beaten up for me to know if anything's wrong."
"I'm the picture of forthrightness," Crowley quipped, looking to lighten the mood and possibly divert her attention. Murron furrowed her brow, dubious, but didn't press further. "Do you know who you'll be going after first?" he asked after another moment's silence. Murron, successfully distracted, nodded.
"There have been reports of more mysterious deaths in the area," she began, leaning in again. "They show signs of torture if you can believe it."
"Torture? Really? And you think it's your Glindas?"
"The torture methods used haven't been seen since the Spanish Inquisition," Murron replied meaningfully. Crowley's brows lifted. "I know! It struck me as odd, too, when I first heard about it. Like, why would witches be doing that? Then it occurred to me: they're probably Christian witches."
"Christian witches," Crowley echoed, clearly incredulous. "Those exist."
"There's zealots in every religion, even the ones that mix paganism and Christianity," Murron pointed out. "And another thing was mentioned that I didn't quite get."
"Which was?"
"Some of the victims had no eyes. Like they'd been burned clean out of their heads. Do you know what that could mean?"
Crowley blew out a slow breath. "Sounds like angels. When they smite something, they tend to fry the eyes out of their victims. These witches must have been hunting demons." This last bit bothered him intensely, as they could have easily been among his own followers. He didn't exactly have a lot of them to lose. It was just as well Kali had offered her assistance; anymore deaths like this and he'd be out of an army!
"Do you think they have an angel with them?" Murron asked, drawing Crowley from his thoughts. He shrugged. "'Cause if they do, I might be in over my head!"
"Well, you don't know that yet," he assured her. "If they're Christian witches like you say, they could easily have - for lack of a better term - holy powers. They may not have an angel with them, but could have been granted holy powers by them. It's not unheard of demons doing this, so why not angels?"
"You mean like how you allowed me to see Growley before my time?"
"Yes, something like that."
"That doesn't really help my anxiety much," Murron said with a grimace. Crowley reached over and gave her hand a small pat.
"You'll be fine. You've already taken out demons; witches should be a walk in the park."
"I can only hope you're right," she sighed, resting her head against the couch cushions. "I don't foresee much sleep tonight. I think I'm too wound up to really relax enough to sleep."
"I can think of a few things we could do to wear you out," Crowley grinned, unable to resist. He playfully poked at her nose with a fingertip. Murron giggled and bat his hand away.
"Is that all you think about?" she asked, smiling up at him warmly.
"Could be," Crowley replied evasively. "It's certainly been long enough, hasn't it?"
"In what regard?"
"Time. I've been with you for, what, six months and you've only creeped on me in my sleep once. I think you're slipping, love."
"Shut up, don't make me remember that,' Murron whacked his shoulder. "I felt so stupid!"
"Would it help if I said I'd let you do it again, but for longer?" Crowley bent closer till their foreheads just touched, his grin turning suggestive. "I'd even stay still for something below the belt!"
Murron blushed crimson, made a kind of squeaking noise, and fell back onto the sofa. Crowley laughed, enjoying her flustered expression and flailing hands. She struggled back up, hair a mess and face redder than before. "You are an absolute terror!" she exclaimed between gasping laughs. "You're never going to give up, are you? How do I know you're even being serious?"
"You don't, but that's part of the fun, isn't it? You can't tell me you don't enjoy these moments," Crowley insisted, propping his cheek on his fist and beaming at her. "It'd be so dull otherwise."
"Maybe a little dull is what we need now," Murron said, flipping her touseled curls out of her face. "I don't know what you're doing, but I'm preparing to go against a whole coven of really crazy and powerful witches. I'd like a little humdrum if I can get it!"
"My life is never dull and I don't intend to start here," Crowley said loftily. Murron shook her head. "How about this, then."
"I'm going to regret this, but how about what?"
Crowley's expression shifted, softening from the teasing to something a bit more kind. Murron noted the change and sobered as well, the crease above her eyes the only indication of her apprehension. "You made a deal with me for me, for a year, yet I feel as though you haven't taken as full advantage of it as you could. Perhaps you're too polite, I haven't really given it much thought, to be honest. Whatever it is, I'm telling you it's all right to want those things. Don't look at me like that. If you didn't want it, you wouldn't have fawned over me that morning. Why do you deny yourself? It doesn't make any sense."
Murron averted her eyes, the crease between her brows deepening. She fidgeted with the coin at her throat as if to collect her thoughts. "I suppose..." she began slowly, then swallowed thickly. "I suppose I'm...well. I guess I'm afraid."
"Of what?"
"Regretting it. Oh, I don't think I'd regret sleeping with you, but I'd definitely regret having to die at the end of the year," she finished this softly, her head lowering to her chest as if ashamed. "You saw how hard it was for me to refuse your amendment to our deal. I'd be too tempted to take you up on it if we..." Her words fell away as emotions closed off her throat. She pressed her fingers to it, swallowing hard again. "It's stupid, I know, but it's how I feel."
Crowley wasn't sure what to make of this confession. He disliked emotional scenes like this as a rule; they'd always left him disarmed. Yet he'd been aware of her attraction to him almost from the get-go and as a being that went after whatever he fancied, this self-denial of hers confused him greatly. If he hadn't made a deal with her or had witnessed her killing demons, he would have seen her as almost too puritanical for black magic. Her disposition was not that of the usual black magic user; she'd sought a demon deal for a wholly different reason than most. It had come off as self-serving initially, but now? Now she barely seemed to want to take advantage. She'd referred to the ten year amendment as a term of imprisonment for him. The witch who'd made the incredibly selfish deal for him had also made the selfless sacrifice of not holding him longer than she needed to.
This irritated him.
"It is stupid," he said finally, his voice slightly colored by his irritation. Murron looked up sharply at the change in his tone. "Demon deals are designed to be used selfishly, not selflessly. If you want me, then you can have me. But you deny yourself. It's annoying."
Murron stared at him, quite at a loss. "You think I just want an easy fuck, is that it?"
"Don't you?"
Murron's cheeks flared. "No, as a matter of fact, I don't!" she snapped. "And if that's what you're looking for, well, you can just go ahead and give me my soul back!"
"Murron, don't be ridiculous," Crowley sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose between two fingers. How he hated emotional outbursts! "I'm simply trying to understand your intentions here. Is that so difficult to understand?"
At that, she seemed to calm somewhat, her shoulders dropping from their raised stance. "No, I suppose it isn't," she allowed, her voice low. "To be fair, I don't even understand them myself. I wasn't exactly looking at the big picture when I made the deal."
"No one really does," Crowley remarked tiredly. "They're all so surprised when their time is up, even though we were always very clear about the terms. People hear ten years and think ten decades. Morons." He sighed again, this time with less irritation. "I'm going to be honest here, which I am not often fond of being as it leaves me open to attack, but I think you've more than earned it." He paused, absently gliding one finger between his nose and upper lip. Murron waited. Kali's words echoed in Crowley's mind, how they'd suggested something more than simple protection. Why did humans protect things? That was obvious: because they wanted those things to be safe. Why did they want it to be safe? Because they -
He sighed again, covering his face in both hands. "Stupid, stupid girl," he muttered as realisation dawned. "You're denying yourself because you..."
"Yes," Murron replied in a small voice, ducking her head to her chest again. "That's why I said it's stupid."
Crowley didn't know what to say. It was a confession and yet it wasn't. He knew he couldn't reciprocate, not the way she would have wanted. What had been a comfortable situation was now suddenly very complicated. Whenever emotions came into it, it always got complicated. And he wasn't overly fond of difficult situations.
The itch returned and he scratched idly at it, his thoughts still a jumble. Then, another epiphany came to him, and he looked up at Murron with wide eyes. "What did you do?" he breathed. Murron met his gaze uncertainly. He spread his fingers against his chest and asked again, this time very slowly, "What did you do."
She had the look of a child about to be scolded and sent to her room as she meekly replied, "I inscribed an invisible sigil onto your skin."
"Why? What does it do?"
Murron glanced down. "It's a very strong protection spell. You're probably itching because I had to use salt water." She said this last bit very quickly, wincing. "I'm so sorry, Crowley, but when you came home like that, I got so scared. I can't help you fight, if that's what you're doing, but I couldn't just sit by and watch you get killed. I had to do something. I just -" she paused as a sob caught in her throat. "I just can't let you die. How could I finish out my final year, knowing you died and I could've done something? How could I let that happen? I couldn't and I wouldn't, so I created that sigil and put it on you while you were still unconscious. It was wrong and I should have asked for your permission first, but I couldn't help myself. I can't let you die." She gave into the sobs that shook her shoulders and bowed her face into her hands. "I can't!" she repeated, her voice muffled.
Crowley could only stare at her, a cold feeling in the pit of his stomach. Part of him wanted to rail at her for taking advantage of a weak moment. To rob her of one of the gifts he'd granted her. But the other part was oddly affected. It had been her sigil that had called out to Kali, who had come to him and offered her powers to his cause despite the obvious distaste she had for him. Murron's sigil, her stupid act of selfless love for him, had given him the means to defeat Baal and take Hell.
It was that part of him that made him take her hands in his and pull them gently from her face. Murron lifted her face to him, cheeks stained with her tears and red from the emotional exertion. She gazed at him through those distraught brown eyes, mutely pleading for his forgiveness for her folly. She mouthed her apology again as Crowley drew nearer, one hand leaving her shaking ones to take her by the chin. With great care, Crowley pressed his lips to hers. She started at first, fumbling at the hand that still held hers. Then, slowly, she returned the kiss, her tears mingling between them.
It was a very different kiss from the ones they'd shared before. On his end was the gratitude he hated himself for feeling towards her wish for his preservation; on Murron's, the sorrow for having decieved him and the need for forgiveness. This sorrow melted away, replaced by what Crowley could only assume was her feelings for him. Her hands left his and gingerly went to his shoulders. She shifted closer towards him, coiling her arms around his neck and breathing deeply into the kiss. He obliged her by holding her to him, their joined lips shifting as they settled back against the sofa.
When the kiss ended, Murron bowed her head against Crowley's chest. She smoothed her palm above the invisible sigil, smiling when Crowley laid his hand over hers. He rested his forehead on top of her head and sighed slowly. "Thank you," he murmured softly. She tightened her grip on him, shoulders quaking as another silent sob moved through her. "I can't tell you what you've done, but thank you. Stupid girl." He said this last with some fondness, smiling when he felt her laugh quietly against him.
It was very strange, sitting there, holding her and not feeling repulsed by the obvious emotional display. Dim memories of another time drifted into his mind, causing his brow to furrow. He'd lived entirely too long if such a feeling was so old it barely registered. Mentally, he shrugged. This was potentially the night before a very trying time for her; the least he could do was cater to those foolish emotions she held for him.
After awhile, he became conscious of the fact she'd grown somewhat heavy. He peered into her face. Her eyes were closed, her face relaxed. She'd fallen asleep, he realized with a smile. Let her sleep. He shifted his head into a more comfortable position atop hers, her hair tickling his jaw. He remained that way with her sleeping form beside him, as the clock on the mantle steadily ticked away the night hours.