AN: First of all guys, everyone go and read Cruel Beauty by

Rosamun Hodge. It's a very silly and melodromatic YA romance based on Demon in Greek Mythology and I headover heels loved it. Also, more selfishly, the fanbase is itty bitty and its hella YA so I gonna need some of you porn authors to fall in love with it as much as I have. (Ignore the cover art, it was designed by a 40 year old man who decided he knows what appeals to girls probably)

Chapter 34

Coming here had been a mistake. Crowley had felt sure that his best resource he had was himself and so teaming up with himself from the near future had been an almost natural thing to do.

He had given him the book, or, at least, the parts that he had read and had been entirely certain that as a team they would be unstoppable.

"So in all of your scheming and hijacking angel juice did you not think to tell Castiel what happened if he did this and stop the Hellions from being created?" His future counterpart asked him wryly.

Crowley did not bother to reply, he recognized that he had a point to make and would only relish a rebuke.

Indeed, his future self continued, "Oh, but then you wouldn't get your hands on the Baby Squirrel. WAS I EVER REALLY THIS DAMNED MORONIC!?" He pressed on, rising from his chair, "Do you think if you save her, the little whore will be any less successful taking over Hell than she was in the past? Do you think she'll sit demurely and let you keep your throne? OUR THRONE?!"

At this point Crowley stood and lifted his hand to snap his fingers, "Well, this has been a lovely tete a tete."

His double laughed, his mocking bark laugh, "And you thought what? I would let a blood junkie run amok and lose my throne for me?" He lifted an eyebrow and glanced down at the rug beneath Crowley's feet.

Crowley reciprocated his laugh and kicked the corner over, revealing the edge of the devil's trap that had been left for him, struck through cleanly, he retorted, "And you thought what? That I would trust myself?" He clicked his fingers and was gone.

XXXXX

Torturing an angel to bring him back to his time was not as much fun the second time as it had been the first. He had a fair amount of certainty that the Crowley of this age would not let him traipse about Hell, doing what needed to be done, he needed to return to when Hell was his. Although he feared he had set himself into action in collusion with the Winchesters.

He settled himself into his own desk chair and sipped his own scotch and continued his reading. He thought that if was going to act he had to be at least, well informed.

From the Journal of Bobby Winchester

If it weren't for Crowley, I would have been destroyed.

What a better man than one burnt by the horrors of Hell raised up as a connoisseur of terrors to teach me to stand amongst them even if they could not be fought. Which, I suppose, he never could have accomplished without the myriad unfortunates who first tortured him and then were tortured by him. So it was a team effort. Thank Hell.

The darkness never quite went away. The ghosts never entirely faded. A bashed mouth still made Ethan shriek until my ears rang. An unexpected touch made the hands of Zeus return. And I knew before we really learned, that these things would never go away. That they may never even fade.

I am making it sound easy. But it took a long time. So long. Ages rose and fell while I learned to stand among my torment. Each day I remained longer than the last against their assault. And every night I found myself thrashing and gripping Crowley to hold them off.

Aside from my lessons on endurance of horror, these were prosperous times for Hell. Too soon, first Patroclus and then Achilles joined us, Achilles joining Gilgash and Enkit as a captain.

The three of them, under my command, led our armies to wondrous acclaim. We discovered and slew Hellions and my armor once more glint in the Earth's sun and I felt the most free of my terrible burden.

Crowley was, of course, not idle. With no small effort, he crafted a latticework of informants throughout Earth that caught the whispers we needed of attacks and bloody deaths, of wings in the sky and growls in the night.

The flowers of hell were in full bloom and gold shone from them into every corner. The hounds bayed at our borders and filled our nights with song and Crowley and I ruled, once more, as one.

It was on a night such as this that they came.

I sat on my throne, pulled close enough to Crowley's that it was not so much of an effort to reach out and touch his fingers if the shrieking ghosts got too loud. The cloying dark, omnipresent, had been nearly reduced to a malicious companion. A suffocating endurance.

The song of the hellhounds came through the high windows, loud tonight.

With a spintering crash the tall double doors of the throne room cracked through and broke, spraying inside and shattering the summer peace. I leapt up. I was not wearing my armor, but a thin dress, belted at the waist and clasped in gold at the shoulders, it offered little protection. But my spear was, as ever, close at hand, I raised it to the intruder, dropping into a low and defensive stance before the relatively defenseless Crowley.

In my doorway was an angel. Not quite grown and lanky, his face boyishly good looking but for the panic stricken expression. He was taller than I remembered and less chubby, but it was unmistakable.

I lowered my spear and rushed him, "Gabriel!" I threw my arms around him and squeezed him near to death before he could get his words out, "Oh, Gabey Baby, you're so big."

He pushed me back, "Yes, Mom, I missed you too, whatever, but do you think I look this panicked because I was afraid you wouldn't hug me? You have to listen."

I frowned, "Sure, Gabe." Crowley was at my elbow now, looking concernedly at Gabriel.

Gabe looked behind him, "Mom, they're coming. My brothers and sisters, all of them. You have to run!"

I stepped back, "What do you mean, coming? Why?"

His eyes went wide, "The souls, they want them for Heaven!"

Crowley bolted immediately into action, he seemed to be a step ahead of me on this one.

"What do they want the souls for? And when did Heaven become a thing?" I asked, turning between Crowley who looked angry and not a little frightened, and Gabriel who was shaking.

Gabriel groaned and said in a rush, "The angels took Olympus when Zeus fell and now they want a power source but you're getting all the souls and you need. to. run."

"No." I said at once.

Crowley's fingers bit into my exposed arm, I can only imagine he had already decided the safest route for our flight. "Do you think, if I had been able to kill archangels I would have LET ANY OF THEM LIVE?" But it had been a long time since him ending his sentences by shouting at me had had much of an effect.

I set my stance, "They want to take our people to use as a power source, Crow, they want to start Heaven and Hell and everything that led to the fucking hellions in the first place. This is my home I built it with my blood and I have cared for it for centuries, if you think I'm going to stand by and watch pretty boys with wings take her from me, you are an idiot."

Gabriel stepped back, "I have to go, they can't know I've come."

I nodded and pulled him into a last embrace, "You be careful, Gabey." I kissed him again on the top of the head. My heart was warm with Gabriel's return and I did not want to let him go again.

He burrowed into my shoulder, "Your long hair makes you look like throne candy."

I gripped him tighter, "Don't you get hurt in this."

He kissed my cheek, still a little shorter than me, "You either, mom."

He fled from the room, half running, half flying. I turned to Crowley, "We stand and we fight."

"If we stay for too long, we will die alongside them. Don't think I will die beside you." This gave him away, he knew as wouldn't run as long as I remained.

Anger burnt through me and pushed my ghosts back, they were at the dullest roar I had ever heard them, I snarled. The throne room floor cracked beneath me and tendrils of my flowers crawled through it and crept ominously across the floor. The shadows deepened around me as I roared "I am the Queen Persephone, Heart Eater, Architect of the Dark, Savior of the Dead, Slayer of Hellions and I will not lower my spear until the last pieces of angel in my kingdom is the lifeblood of the archangels you can kiss off of my lips."

The hounds brayed a crescendo behind me and I towered once more, spear held high in my grasp.

While I had been thundering, fire high in my eyes, my captains had led my soldiers to our sundered door, the antechamber full of them stared at me momentarily, backlit from the Hell that now stormed outside and illuminated by the flame glittering flowers the had reached to the walls. Hair askew around my face, heavy spear juxtaposed with my thin and elegant dress.

They shouted as one, three brief growls of sound and their fists rose in the air. I turned to them, the ghosts unhearable over their clamor, "Shall we fight? Or shall we allow ourselves to be conquered by these winged upstarts?"

They answered with no words but a wall of sound. For the first time in eons the blood coursed hot in my veins and I did not have to struggle. The last thousand years of hunting and picking myself out of ashes has proven Crowley to be the sort of indefatigable current that fells mountains. But I was a hurricane and I razed cities to blood and fire and doom.

Crowley and I had, finally crawled our way to Earth, Hell burning and lost behind us, covered not in the blood of angels but our own. But on his belt was the knife and in my hands was my spear. And that was all that mattered.

XXXXX

Crowley turned the page back and checked, thinking he must have missed something. Halfway down his photocopied page read '...blood and fire and doom.' and a line jagged down the rest of the page, as though half of the original had been torn out. And on the next page, and who knew if any were missing from between them, the battle was lost and they were barely had bared so much already, what had happened in the battle with the angels that she had not wanted him to know?

He leaned back in his chair. She had not been the only one at that battle. He knew demons she had mentioned and, if he lived, there was one in particular he was interested in visiting with. He rose, finishing his drink. He would overturn ever rock in his kingdom to find someone to recount the battle to him.

XXXXX

Demons, luckily, are not particularly difficult to find in Hell, especially one so old. And soon Crowley sat in a chair, leaning back and sipping an excellent Scotch. He had spent what felt like eons now slogging through Hell, looking for this demon, this one he was sure could tell him what he had to know.

He sipped his drink and smiled up at Gilgash who was on his knees, chained in front of him.

"Something told me you wouldn't be the sort die." Crowley cooed at him.

Gilgash met his gaze steadily, "What do you know of me?" The vessel Gilgash had taken was small and slim, with dark skin and slanting dark eyes. Crowley, of course, could see it true form glistening behind it, less twisted and horrible than most demons, more like shadow.

Crowley stood and traipsed around him, "I know where you are from, and I know what you were, and I know about the oath you made to your Queen Persephone."

Gilgash's spine went rigid. "You know nothing."

Crowley raised an eyebrow at him, "Then you haven't spent the last few thousand years hunting Hellions on her command?"

He remained silent.

Crowley lost his temper and snarled at him, his voice cracking into a shout, "Answer your king!"

Gilgash sneered, his white teeth bared, and said in a low hiss, "You have never been my king."

Crowley struck him hard, his head turning only slightly to receive the blow, "You are a demon now," Crowley lashed, "Which makes you mine. Tell me what I ask."

Gilgash raised his head and looked proudly down his straight nose at the King of Hell, "You are not yet Hades, and even if you were, I never lost any love for you. I have ever been and will be into eternity, a servant of my Queen Persephone."

Crowley grinned, "Then, Gilly, you probably want to know the outcome of her fight with Castiel."

He tried to remain still but Crowley caught the stiffening of his spine and the near silent inhale of breath through his nose.

Crowley crouched so he was eye to eye with him, "Now, you're going to tell me what happened at during the battle when the angels attacked, and I will tell you if your Queen still draws breath."

AN: Wow two in one week! I'm getting rolling again. Thanks for all of you who have stuck with me so far. Your reviews mean so much, I love you guys!