Happy Holidays, Andreemeese!
title: Reservoir Demons, Part I
gift for: andremeese
gift from: maelipstick
rating: PG-13
pairing: A/C
a/n: "I am very sorry, but due to an unexpected surfeit of plot, this fic will be in two parts. Part Two should be finished around New Year's day. Andreemeese, I apologise for the incomplete story."
Soho is no longer a place for the damned. The darkness has been banished by floodlighting, the sin and the shame by rainbow flags. There are still cobbled alleys, but they are now resplendent with the canopies of sidewalk cafes, the customers protected from the London winter by canvas and subtle odourless heaters. Admittedly, in the seamier bars of Fitzrovia and Kings Cross the skin trade exiles still whisper of their infernal realm lost. You can take Soho out of the demon, but you can’t take the demon out of Soho, they say. We shall return. Then they slump myopically into their eighteenth shot of grappa.
But tonight the exiles are sleeping. Tonight, there is not a shadow in the square mile; it is not now the place for our story.
So let us imagine Soho as it was in Christmas past. Let us walk the alleyways of that twisted quadrilateral in the days when it smelt universally of the London sewage system failing. Let us look through disappeared doorways where tinfoil starbursts wilt over beckoning girls with blue thighs, or guttering fairy lights illuminate the shiny videocassette covers of “College Sluts 3”. Let us watch the winter wind whip the vinyl strip curtains around the faces of the men in mackintoshes as they step into their dingy interiors and the urchin boys take shelter in the glittering caverns of the amusement arcades. It’s a grey day and the wind is howling up from the Essex marshes, from the icy Thames estuary where the water is too impure to freeze.
By twenty-seven minutes past four that afternoon the shadows will amass sufficient depth and opacity to have potential for lurking, and by twenty-nine minutes past the deepest and most impenetrable will start to become occupied. Dead to the world and dreaming of nothing but the thought of crisp bank notes in his hands, Billy Bowen pulls his hood over his head and takes up his place in the grimmest alley forcing his aching bones to be ready for the pounce. To him on this winter evening the loveliest light of all is the orange glow of a ten-pound note in his dirty fingers. They should bottle that, he thought. That moment when you see one poking up from between the leather folds of a wallet, that feeling is better than any fix in the world.
He didn’t know quite how he came to be lying on the steps of St Paul’s sometime later that evening. Lapses of memory were hardly new to him after all. But before his strange journey through the London air he could have sworn he’d heard a rasping voice say:
“I’d suggest pal, you bugger off and find your own darkness to skulk in.”
The tall demon wiped his hands on the front of his greasy overcoat and leered at his squat companion.
“You got everythin’?’”
“Yeah.”
“Gentleman’s ‘andkerchief ?”
“Yeah.”
“Bottle of chloroform?”
“Yeah,”
“Blindfold?”
“Yeah.”
“Manacles?”
A slightly damp, hissing laugh:
“Oh yeah, got them alright.”
“’acksaw?”
There was a brief pause as the shadow of menace gave out sounds of pockets being turned out and curses being softly hissed, before eventually a rueful:
“Yeah.”
A cigarette flared in the gloom.
“Well then, there’s nothing left but to wait for him to show.”
Rasping lungs drew a thick cloud of nicotine heavily into their tar encrusted depth.
“I’m gonna enjoy this,”
Knuckles cracked in the dark.
“I’m really gonna bloody enjoy this.”
~*~
It is fully dark now. There is an ooze in the air; a dull, clinging mist that seems to twine with the greasy fume emerging from Il Panino’s extractor vents. The sweet smell of over-ripe rubbish bins lingers. The refuse drizzles a milky, sickly fluid out onto the cobblestones and catches the neon. There is no natural light here. There are the ultra-reds and blues of the neon tube that distort the faces of the shadows in the streets. There are green signs for bookstores that make the passers by look livid as dead fish. Neon glasses empty and miraculously fill, neon showgirls high kick and flashing red arrows flash over stairwells, downwards and downwards and downwards.
Someone is driving too fast down Wardour Street. A great black car from the era of Tableaux Vivants at the Windmill crashes through the pea-souper mist and standing water. Someone is driving it with little seeming regard for life or limb, or indeed exposed bosom and thigh, which was the usual inducement in these parts to keep well below the speed limit. Someone is taking the corner on to Brewer Street at speeds normally reserved for Silverstone, until suddenly they are not, and the car is neatly parked at the kerb although it all happened so quickly one could swear the smoke from Greek Tony’s spliff was addling the air.
If Greek Tony, or indeed Christos or Taro or Scottish John had been looking out into the gloomy night they would spit softly at seeing the crisp young man getting out of that expensive old car. It wasn’t like you had to be on Mastermind to guess his game. Italian tailoring, designer shades, snakeskin shoes, cocksucker cheekbones; there were two jobs for men in the skin trade and he clearly had the other one. Odd though, that he was driving alone. Surely, a florid old sugar daddy should spill out behind him with keys to a discreet upstairs flat? But no, he was alone and looking into the murk like he had mislaid something. He flourished a graceful gloved hand at the vehicle and the lights went out then he hurried off into the dark.
In the dark someone was waiting for him.
Clawed fingers clamped a wet, reeking cloth over his mouth and nose. He gasped in shock, and before he remembered he really didn’t need to breathe after all he was sinking unconscious into the arms of a Duke of Hell.
“’ello Crowley. Long time no see.”
~*~
Aziraphale had rented a small shop front in Soho during that brief period in the eighteenth century when the neighbourhood was respectable. He had lived here when it was poor and filled with starving French exiles, when it was scandalous and filled with consumptive chorus girls, when it was bohemian and filled with syphilitic artists. Now it was just plain seedy, but habit made him live here still. There was still a good delicatessen on the corner of Old Compton Street and Midnight Mass at St Anne’s was always memorable. There was no point in moving on just yet. After all, the duty of protecting this small dusty corner of the sentient universe from diabolical machinations rested on his embonpoint shoulders; he had enough on his plate without trying to keep up with the times.
The business of fashions, along with the allied businesses of scandal and trouble he left to his demonic counterpart and sometimes friend Crowley. All told the demon performed that function admirably. As for him, he ignored the yellow plastic signs with the black letters, the empty doorways whose bare stairs led upwards to a hand written promise of Delores or Carlita. He ignored the dusty tinsel in red and gold around the spread thighs and bared breasts and the clanking shower of coins as a slot machine paid out in the gaming arcades. He always tipped his hat politely to the women on the door of the Cabaret and the Fantasia. Seedy was just another of the world’s seasons, bright, brief and quick to change.
Tonight, he was humming to himself and inspecting a small cardboard box filled with shapes wrapped in antique tissue paper. Gently he unwrapped them, bright glass spheres in silver and gold and amorphous shapes like melted tears in reds and purples. They were so old the delicate glass would have shattered under the touch of human hands, but in Aziraphale’s divine care these fragile relics lived on. He threaded them through wiry silver tinsel and hung them, in the mortal fashion by standing on a chair and spearing the tinsel with tintacks, along the edges of the bookshop ceiling. It was good to work at getting things right, he reflected, particularly at this time of year. He hung a large, tartan bow behind the cash desk where it was certain to be noticed by, and annoy, Crowley.
There was no sense in going overboard. There was a small sprig of holly from Berwick Street market still to go on the sideboard in the back room, but for now that was that. He dispelled the small prayer of guidance he had used to avoid any unnecessary meetings of angel-pushed tintacks and brittle Edwardian gas piping, because really plumbers had enough to be doing at this time of year so that miracle could really be considered for the public good, couldn’t it?, and settled down with a cup of tea and the warm sense of satisfaction that came from knowing all was safely gathered in.
~*~
When Crowley came to the first thing he felt was nausea. He’d never liked that chloroform stuff; it really wasn’t a patch on anything Humphrey Davey had come up with.
The second thing he felt was terror. Two sets of yellow eyes were glaring straight at him; one pair from deeply sunken sockets in a gaunt, skull-like face, the other’s bleared from puffy discoloured pouches in a warty, bloated mug.
Hastur and Ligur. He tried frantically to move but he realised his arms were stuck behind him. He struggled experimentally but nothing gave. Hastur ran a bluish-purple tongue over one long, yellow eyetooth and laughed.
“Compliments of the Season, you traitorous bastard. Not wanting to leave so soon?”
Crowley pulled again on whatever was holding him in place. As the bleachy smell of the anaesthetic left his tongue and nose another scent washed forward to take its place. This one was deep and primal and sour and wet. He recognised it like a dog recognising his own territory. The room stunk of sex.
“I’s the season of goodwill Snakey.” The squat demon hissed. “Iss time for giving.”
Grimy, stubby fingers that smelt of sulphur stroked Crowley’s cheek and pulled his head up, so he could take in the full extent of his surroundings. He was, as he’d started to guess, in one of the many upstairs flats in Soho where girls with limbs like matchsticks and eyes like pinpricks could be bought for less than the price of a semi decent bottle of Pinot Noir.
“An’ we hears you are very giving, Crawlee. Very giving indeed.”
Black candles burnt low in the room. The floor was bare wood, stained and scruffy on which someone had been chalking a circle filled with inverse pentagrams and other demonic sigils. His arms were chained behind him to the iron bed frame that had, he guessed, been the main theatre of activity for the room’s previous occupant. Now it was covered with the deep black cloth of a desecrated altar.
He narrowed his eyes. If there was one thing that Anthony J. Crowley believed he had any skill in at all, it was in getting out of sticky situations alive. And this situation promised to be sticker than a tanker of honey colliding with a sweet shop.
“After all, I’d say you owe us one,” grunted Hastur.
“Or two,” interjected Ligur, the more excitable and less proficient at threatening dialogue.
“’Cos jus’ maybe we got you trapped this time. Somewhere small an’ dark where you can’t get out. With jus’ us. Jus’ us playing, over and over like a damn ansaphone tape.”
“Now that,” said Crowley, “was just a misunderstanding. I thought downstairs had already explained how we all got a little fraught over nothing.”
His attempt at diplomacy was met with a steel toe-capped boot in the ribs.
“On yer back you scaly worm.”
Crowley was just about to point out that thanks to the two dukes efficiency in securing him he was unable to turn much more than his neck when there was a whooshing noise as several items in the room re-arranged themselves. One of them was Crowley. He was equally manacled, but now face down on the Satanic Altar, which had been shifted to the centre of the room, and to the centre of the accursed circle.
“Yeah snake, on your belly.”
There was a thick, bubbling noise that was actually Ligur, literally the more phlegmatic demon, giggling.
“I hears yer good like that.”
Something struck Crowley hard between his shoulder blades. His shirt disintegrated and his wings involuntarily burst out.
“I think its mighty fishy you getting let up here at all, stinking little imp like you.” Hastur thoughtfully flexed Crowley’s left wing tip, ruffling the neatly preened barbs of a long primary. “You must have made someone big most happy.”
“You must have spent a long time crawling,” hissed Ligur. Droplets of his saliva splattered Crowley’s naked shoulders. Ligur was always so much dribblier when he knew some act of wanton cruelty was coming up.
“Now its our turn, Snakey.”
He heard that guttural rasp by his ear. The candles smoked and went out. A howl of sickening glee rent the salty, musky darkness and Crowley screeched as silver daggers of pain shot through every nerve in his back.
~*~
“People thought it dreadful of me to have entertained the evil things of life, and to have found pleasure in their company. …I used to feel as the snake-charmer must feel when he lures the cobra to stir from the painted cloth or reed basket that holds it, and makes it spread its hood at his bidding, and sway to and fro in the air as a plant sways restfully in a stream. They to me were the brightest of gilded snakes. Their poison was part of their perfection.”
Aziraphale licked his finger and turned the page smiling softly. He was fairly sure Crowley had left Oscar alone despite the demon’s dark hints to the contrary. Still it was an interesting coincidence. The accursed one had not been best pleased to be woken from an eighty-seven year snooze to find police constables, family values and Aziraphale with a new friend. Even three hours spent patiently explaining that angelic minds didn’t work like that did nothing to mollify him. In fact, after spending considerably longer than he needed to explaining to a sulking demon that he was physiologically incapable of experiencing lust, Crowley had stormed out of the bookshop leaving several Jane Austin first editions smouldering behind him.
It had been their worst argument since the Arrangement. The angel never understood what all the fuss was about, but then the demon always was flaring up over nothing. Being damned must play havoc with the nerves, after all.
To distract himself from such thoughts, he walked across the room to stoke his bright little fire. He gave it an experimental prod with the poker and sparks flew out. He peered into the grate. It looked like a little city in there, with side streets of flame wreathing the black blocks of houses. He wondered vaguely if hell were like that. The flames were the colour of Crowley’s eyes.
He tried to remember if he had ever seen the demon look into a fire. He felt he must have done at some point; after all, fires were common enough in human meeting houses particularly at this time of year. He wondered if it made him homesick, or filled him with dread at the horror he was condemned to, or had some other significance in the head of his fallen counterpart. He recalled no memories of any reaction, and wondered if that was because Crowley kept his thoughts well hidden, or if fire meant nothing to him at all.
He was really thinking far too deeply about Crowley.
He wandered back to his sofa, pulled the travel rug around himself and continued reading.
~*~
The other demons had left him alone in the dark. His hands were bound and sticky with blood, he was face down, blindfold and worst of all stuck in his own shape. He didn’t know how long he had; he guessed it wasn’t long enough.
He had to trust to the two dukes’ stupidity. After all, it had served him well in the past. He tugged at the manacles, which clanked on the metal bed frame above him. The air in the room was stupidly heavy; he guessed the other demons had fixed things so they could not be altered easily. A deep cloud of diabolical energy blocked the door.
He held his breath and imagined the room as it was when he’d last seen it. He visualised the walls, the floorboards, the metal bedstead, the manacles, pushing within his mind for any hint of weakness. His eyes burned red behind the blindfold. He heard a mattress squeak through the thin walls. The manacles wouldn’t give. The walls were paper-thin but he couldn’t get to them.
The atoms of the bedstead shook with the scrutiny. He pushed them further and they began to emit a high-pitched whine.
He ordered them to part with such gut-wrenching effort he nearly burst a blood vessel. They weren’t happy about it. Hastur had clearly had words with them before he left. The atoms grudgingly slunk apart and Crowley was able to jerk the far end of the handcuffs free of them.
He sat on the bed for a moment panting with the effort. He pulled off the blindfold and looked around. There were no windows. The door was locked and emitting an eerie reddish glow. There was no way out that way. He guessed he could try smashing through one of the walls and tried to summon enthusiasm for the idea. It would hurt, he felt sure. It might be embarrassing too. He knew his human form looked rather capable of such acts, but had never actually tested its physical abilities beyond its ability to eat, drink, sleep and - his thoughts were interrupted by sounds of enthusiastic groaning from next door, - yes well, that too.
He rolled his eyes heavenward. It was then he noticed that in the far left corner of the room, the ceiling tiles were cracked. And, he was pretty certain, if he could get above them, he could get somewhere that had the potential for escape.
In the end, his physical abilities proved quite satisfactory. He pushed the bed against the wall, climbed up on it, pulled the ceiling tiles down and, with just a little distortion of gravitational forces got himself up into a crawlspace above the partition wall.
Unfortunately, the ceiling tiles in the adjoining room proved equally fragile. It is perhaps better not to think of what the young lady and her older associate thought of the shirtless gentleman covered in plaster and blood crashing through their roof. Possibly, had the demon had his wits about him he could have erased their memories with one wriggle of his hands. As it was he had other things on his mind. He had a limited amount of strength left in him, and he had an angel to find.
~*~
Outside, in the dark, evil was moving. Creeping miasmas flowed beneath the paving slabs, spirits of putrefaction swarmed in the dank corners listening to the accursed litany summoning them to action. Tongues of sulphurous flames licked through the cracks in the cobblestones and a black rain was falling. Soot was in the air, and the stink of brimstone, and something long sleeping was summoned up from the fetid depth of its hibernation.
On the flagstones of Broadwick Street the two dirty coated and claw fingered Dukes of the underworld finished reciting the black mass. The dark brick buildings sighed in complicity and a bolt of lightening tore through the mouldering night.
“’ss good timing,” said Ligur.
“Shuup you, an’ get them wings fixed in place.”
“They’re ‘eavy.”
“Of course they’re ‘eavy. ‘Ee aint’t no mayfly that flashy git ain’t.” Hastur rubbed his fingerless-gloved hands together. “Of course, now we got ‘im, ‘e might wish ‘e was.”
The two demons cackled as they turned back to the heart of Soho. A faint trail of dark liquid showed their route. They followed it. Now business was taken care of, it was time to have some fun.
Behind them, two great, black bloodstained wings rose into the darkness.
~*~
A bang made Aziraphale look up from his book. The clock showed five past midnight on the twenty third of December. Sleet driven by gale force winds lashed the basement strip window of his cosy back room. He heard the bang again, a rhythmic crash of a fist on wood and glass.
Someone was knocking the on the door of his shop. He paused for a moment wondering whom on earth, or indeed any of the other celestial planes it could be at this hour until the sound of kicking was added to the timpani. Then he resigned himself to the fact that it probably was who it usually was at this time of night.
He wandered into the shop and opened the door.
“Hello Crowley.”
The demon barely nodded at him but made his way over the threshold and towards the back room with no preamble. Aziraphale looked at his retreating back thoughtfully. There seemed to be something different about him. His usual slouch had gone; in fact he seemed to be holding his shoulders with near military stiffness. He sighed and followed Crowley into the back room, wondering what trouble the damned fool had landed himself in this time.
The literal and metaphorical damned fool was already sitting in the back room with his arms folded on the table in front of him. There seemed to be some kind of metal bracelet about his wrists. He looked over at Aziraphale. The angel thought he looked a little clammy.
“I don’t suppose you fancy materialising a syringe of morphine, do you?”
“Dear boy, what nonsense are you coming up with now?”
“Well, do you?”
“Isn’t that illegal?”
“Not,” Crowley swallowed as if struggling to keep speaking, “if it’s used by healthcare professionals for strictly medicinal purposes.”
“I’m a bookseller.”
“You own books on medicine.”
Actually, thought Aziraphale with a swelling feeling dangerously close to pride, I own the original manuscript of Harvey’s “Exercitatio anatomica de circulatione sanguinis,” as well as several medieval transcriptions of the writings of Galen and a crumpled napkin from a Gloucestershire inn on which someone had scrawled, “Must speake with that milkmaid.”
He was distracted from his reverie by the demon wailing softly.
“You’re a bloody angel. You are the oldest healthcare professional there is!”
“My dear, now that’s just stereotyping.”
“Is not. Your lot are always laying hands on things and playing doctor. Now I suggest you get your divine healing mojo on and call up some refined opiates or you bring out that bottle of Napoleonic Armagnac that you have been hiding from me under the sink since 1956 because once I stop using my infernal powers to pretend there are not two gaping amputation wounds cluttering up the upper portion of my back it’s really going to fucking hurt. And possibly ruin your carpet.”
Aziraphale brought out the brandy. He also brought out several old newspapers and placed them around the demon who was pulling off his shirt. Crowley took a long swig and then sighed. He seemed to will himself to relax. His shoulders drooped and he rested his weight heavily on his arms. The pale skin on his back appeared to melt; two deep pink fleshy blotches appeared under the surface that gradually grew darker and more livid until two ugly open wounds burst through it.
The angel shuddered delicately and materialised some latex-free gloves.
~*~
In the shadow of the demon’s missing wings a woman was gently stretching. She looked no more than a girl of fourteen or so, but her white antique gown was stained with age and the curls around her rickets-struck waif’s face were palest grey. She was coruscating slightly. a sick, pinkish phosphorescence clung to her match-girl frame.
Her eyes shone like a child with fever. Her lips were black. She stood up and smiled at the sculpture of the Broadwick Street water pump and reached out to touch the blind fountain with a single lace-gloved finger. Water flowed from the solid metal.
It was good to be home.
~*~
There was a little sprig of holly on the sideboard in Aziraphale’s back room. Crowley noticed it as he was guided to the sofa, which obligingly lengthened by two feet when he lay down on it. He sighed. The angel materialised a thick feather duvet and advanced on him with it. It was a damn good piece of spontaneous creation all told; particularly considering the prissy creature was much less practiced in the skill than him.
“Sss nice here,” he said into his elbow. “Sss warm.”
“I think it might do you some good to try that sleeping thing of yours. You’re still looking rather peaky.”
He was being tucked up. He’d never been tucked up before and he was rather surprised by how endearing he found it. He decided to chalk it up on the list of the things he shouldn’t like but did.
“Do you want some cocoa?”
He shook his head. He still felt less than well. He felt very soft fingers pull the sunglasses off his nose and heard a click where they must have been put down on the dresser.
“I just wish I knew what they were up too.”
“If it’s an infernal machination, surely it’s my job to worry about how to thwart it?” Aziraphale’s hand was back, stroking the hair off his forehead like he was some sick kid on a daytime soap opera.
“If it’s an infernal machination those two will bugger it up and then it’ll be my job to sort out the mess.”
“I’m sure we’ll find out soon enough old boy.” Aziraphale’s hand moved down to his shoulder. He turned away.
“I’m not sure you’d understand, about everything,” muttered Crowley into the sofa.
“Hmm well, probably not. Are you warm enough?”
“Yesss.”
“Nothing I can get you?”
“No.”
The angel waited until Crowley’s breathing became soft and regular and he snuffled a little against the itchy velour of the couch. He touched his hair gently, and it was strangely light. Well, he supposed, the sleeping creature had been an angel once. It was odd, how his familiarity somehow made him precious, so that touching him was lovely. He had been feeling this warm closeness more and more as the centuries passed. It wasn’t a temptation. The feeling was as pure as love itself.
And if I am without love, I am nothing.
The demon smiled in his sleep. Aziraphale continued stroking him as he sighed and rolled over gently. He knew the cold-blooded creature felt the chill on winter nights. He knew he could slip in behind him, if he extended the couch a little to hold him until morning. He told himself it was an act of kindness.
So when the demon turned round and kissed him full on the mouth, he did not know what to think. His body responded anyway, drawing closer to the demon’s and opening his mouth to allow him greater range. They moaned faintly together, Crowley’s body somehow becoming less taught in his arms. He thought dimly that nothing good could come of this but then the sweetness of holding the silly, damaged creature in his arms got to much for him.
He held Crowley until morning.
Part II
gift for: andremeese
gift from: maelipstick
rating: PG-13
pairing: A/C
a/n: "I am very sorry, but due to an unexpected surfeit of plot, this fic will be in two parts. Part Two should be finished around New Year's day. Andreemeese, I apologise for the incomplete story."
Soho is no longer a place for the damned. The darkness has been banished by floodlighting, the sin and the shame by rainbow flags. There are still cobbled alleys, but they are now resplendent with the canopies of sidewalk cafes, the customers protected from the London winter by canvas and subtle odourless heaters. Admittedly, in the seamier bars of Fitzrovia and Kings Cross the skin trade exiles still whisper of their infernal realm lost. You can take Soho out of the demon, but you can’t take the demon out of Soho, they say. We shall return. Then they slump myopically into their eighteenth shot of grappa.
But tonight the exiles are sleeping. Tonight, there is not a shadow in the square mile; it is not now the place for our story.
So let us imagine Soho as it was in Christmas past. Let us walk the alleyways of that twisted quadrilateral in the days when it smelt universally of the London sewage system failing. Let us look through disappeared doorways where tinfoil starbursts wilt over beckoning girls with blue thighs, or guttering fairy lights illuminate the shiny videocassette covers of “College Sluts 3”. Let us watch the winter wind whip the vinyl strip curtains around the faces of the men in mackintoshes as they step into their dingy interiors and the urchin boys take shelter in the glittering caverns of the amusement arcades. It’s a grey day and the wind is howling up from the Essex marshes, from the icy Thames estuary where the water is too impure to freeze.
By twenty-seven minutes past four that afternoon the shadows will amass sufficient depth and opacity to have potential for lurking, and by twenty-nine minutes past the deepest and most impenetrable will start to become occupied. Dead to the world and dreaming of nothing but the thought of crisp bank notes in his hands, Billy Bowen pulls his hood over his head and takes up his place in the grimmest alley forcing his aching bones to be ready for the pounce. To him on this winter evening the loveliest light of all is the orange glow of a ten-pound note in his dirty fingers. They should bottle that, he thought. That moment when you see one poking up from between the leather folds of a wallet, that feeling is better than any fix in the world.
He didn’t know quite how he came to be lying on the steps of St Paul’s sometime later that evening. Lapses of memory were hardly new to him after all. But before his strange journey through the London air he could have sworn he’d heard a rasping voice say:
“I’d suggest pal, you bugger off and find your own darkness to skulk in.”
The tall demon wiped his hands on the front of his greasy overcoat and leered at his squat companion.
“You got everythin’?’”
“Yeah.”
“Gentleman’s ‘andkerchief ?”
“Yeah.”
“Bottle of chloroform?”
“Yeah,”
“Blindfold?”
“Yeah.”
“Manacles?”
A slightly damp, hissing laugh:
“Oh yeah, got them alright.”
“’acksaw?”
There was a brief pause as the shadow of menace gave out sounds of pockets being turned out and curses being softly hissed, before eventually a rueful:
“Yeah.”
A cigarette flared in the gloom.
“Well then, there’s nothing left but to wait for him to show.”
Rasping lungs drew a thick cloud of nicotine heavily into their tar encrusted depth.
“I’m gonna enjoy this,”
Knuckles cracked in the dark.
“I’m really gonna bloody enjoy this.”
~*~
It is fully dark now. There is an ooze in the air; a dull, clinging mist that seems to twine with the greasy fume emerging from Il Panino’s extractor vents. The sweet smell of over-ripe rubbish bins lingers. The refuse drizzles a milky, sickly fluid out onto the cobblestones and catches the neon. There is no natural light here. There are the ultra-reds and blues of the neon tube that distort the faces of the shadows in the streets. There are green signs for bookstores that make the passers by look livid as dead fish. Neon glasses empty and miraculously fill, neon showgirls high kick and flashing red arrows flash over stairwells, downwards and downwards and downwards.
Someone is driving too fast down Wardour Street. A great black car from the era of Tableaux Vivants at the Windmill crashes through the pea-souper mist and standing water. Someone is driving it with little seeming regard for life or limb, or indeed exposed bosom and thigh, which was the usual inducement in these parts to keep well below the speed limit. Someone is taking the corner on to Brewer Street at speeds normally reserved for Silverstone, until suddenly they are not, and the car is neatly parked at the kerb although it all happened so quickly one could swear the smoke from Greek Tony’s spliff was addling the air.
If Greek Tony, or indeed Christos or Taro or Scottish John had been looking out into the gloomy night they would spit softly at seeing the crisp young man getting out of that expensive old car. It wasn’t like you had to be on Mastermind to guess his game. Italian tailoring, designer shades, snakeskin shoes, cocksucker cheekbones; there were two jobs for men in the skin trade and he clearly had the other one. Odd though, that he was driving alone. Surely, a florid old sugar daddy should spill out behind him with keys to a discreet upstairs flat? But no, he was alone and looking into the murk like he had mislaid something. He flourished a graceful gloved hand at the vehicle and the lights went out then he hurried off into the dark.
In the dark someone was waiting for him.
Clawed fingers clamped a wet, reeking cloth over his mouth and nose. He gasped in shock, and before he remembered he really didn’t need to breathe after all he was sinking unconscious into the arms of a Duke of Hell.
“’ello Crowley. Long time no see.”
~*~
Aziraphale had rented a small shop front in Soho during that brief period in the eighteenth century when the neighbourhood was respectable. He had lived here when it was poor and filled with starving French exiles, when it was scandalous and filled with consumptive chorus girls, when it was bohemian and filled with syphilitic artists. Now it was just plain seedy, but habit made him live here still. There was still a good delicatessen on the corner of Old Compton Street and Midnight Mass at St Anne’s was always memorable. There was no point in moving on just yet. After all, the duty of protecting this small dusty corner of the sentient universe from diabolical machinations rested on his embonpoint shoulders; he had enough on his plate without trying to keep up with the times.
The business of fashions, along with the allied businesses of scandal and trouble he left to his demonic counterpart and sometimes friend Crowley. All told the demon performed that function admirably. As for him, he ignored the yellow plastic signs with the black letters, the empty doorways whose bare stairs led upwards to a hand written promise of Delores or Carlita. He ignored the dusty tinsel in red and gold around the spread thighs and bared breasts and the clanking shower of coins as a slot machine paid out in the gaming arcades. He always tipped his hat politely to the women on the door of the Cabaret and the Fantasia. Seedy was just another of the world’s seasons, bright, brief and quick to change.
Tonight, he was humming to himself and inspecting a small cardboard box filled with shapes wrapped in antique tissue paper. Gently he unwrapped them, bright glass spheres in silver and gold and amorphous shapes like melted tears in reds and purples. They were so old the delicate glass would have shattered under the touch of human hands, but in Aziraphale’s divine care these fragile relics lived on. He threaded them through wiry silver tinsel and hung them, in the mortal fashion by standing on a chair and spearing the tinsel with tintacks, along the edges of the bookshop ceiling. It was good to work at getting things right, he reflected, particularly at this time of year. He hung a large, tartan bow behind the cash desk where it was certain to be noticed by, and annoy, Crowley.
There was no sense in going overboard. There was a small sprig of holly from Berwick Street market still to go on the sideboard in the back room, but for now that was that. He dispelled the small prayer of guidance he had used to avoid any unnecessary meetings of angel-pushed tintacks and brittle Edwardian gas piping, because really plumbers had enough to be doing at this time of year so that miracle could really be considered for the public good, couldn’t it?, and settled down with a cup of tea and the warm sense of satisfaction that came from knowing all was safely gathered in.
~*~
When Crowley came to the first thing he felt was nausea. He’d never liked that chloroform stuff; it really wasn’t a patch on anything Humphrey Davey had come up with.
The second thing he felt was terror. Two sets of yellow eyes were glaring straight at him; one pair from deeply sunken sockets in a gaunt, skull-like face, the other’s bleared from puffy discoloured pouches in a warty, bloated mug.
Hastur and Ligur. He tried frantically to move but he realised his arms were stuck behind him. He struggled experimentally but nothing gave. Hastur ran a bluish-purple tongue over one long, yellow eyetooth and laughed.
“Compliments of the Season, you traitorous bastard. Not wanting to leave so soon?”
Crowley pulled again on whatever was holding him in place. As the bleachy smell of the anaesthetic left his tongue and nose another scent washed forward to take its place. This one was deep and primal and sour and wet. He recognised it like a dog recognising his own territory. The room stunk of sex.
“I’s the season of goodwill Snakey.” The squat demon hissed. “Iss time for giving.”
Grimy, stubby fingers that smelt of sulphur stroked Crowley’s cheek and pulled his head up, so he could take in the full extent of his surroundings. He was, as he’d started to guess, in one of the many upstairs flats in Soho where girls with limbs like matchsticks and eyes like pinpricks could be bought for less than the price of a semi decent bottle of Pinot Noir.
“An’ we hears you are very giving, Crawlee. Very giving indeed.”
Black candles burnt low in the room. The floor was bare wood, stained and scruffy on which someone had been chalking a circle filled with inverse pentagrams and other demonic sigils. His arms were chained behind him to the iron bed frame that had, he guessed, been the main theatre of activity for the room’s previous occupant. Now it was covered with the deep black cloth of a desecrated altar.
He narrowed his eyes. If there was one thing that Anthony J. Crowley believed he had any skill in at all, it was in getting out of sticky situations alive. And this situation promised to be sticker than a tanker of honey colliding with a sweet shop.
“After all, I’d say you owe us one,” grunted Hastur.
“Or two,” interjected Ligur, the more excitable and less proficient at threatening dialogue.
“’Cos jus’ maybe we got you trapped this time. Somewhere small an’ dark where you can’t get out. With jus’ us. Jus’ us playing, over and over like a damn ansaphone tape.”
“Now that,” said Crowley, “was just a misunderstanding. I thought downstairs had already explained how we all got a little fraught over nothing.”
His attempt at diplomacy was met with a steel toe-capped boot in the ribs.
“On yer back you scaly worm.”
Crowley was just about to point out that thanks to the two dukes efficiency in securing him he was unable to turn much more than his neck when there was a whooshing noise as several items in the room re-arranged themselves. One of them was Crowley. He was equally manacled, but now face down on the Satanic Altar, which had been shifted to the centre of the room, and to the centre of the accursed circle.
“Yeah snake, on your belly.”
There was a thick, bubbling noise that was actually Ligur, literally the more phlegmatic demon, giggling.
“I hears yer good like that.”
Something struck Crowley hard between his shoulder blades. His shirt disintegrated and his wings involuntarily burst out.
“I think its mighty fishy you getting let up here at all, stinking little imp like you.” Hastur thoughtfully flexed Crowley’s left wing tip, ruffling the neatly preened barbs of a long primary. “You must have made someone big most happy.”
“You must have spent a long time crawling,” hissed Ligur. Droplets of his saliva splattered Crowley’s naked shoulders. Ligur was always so much dribblier when he knew some act of wanton cruelty was coming up.
“Now its our turn, Snakey.”
He heard that guttural rasp by his ear. The candles smoked and went out. A howl of sickening glee rent the salty, musky darkness and Crowley screeched as silver daggers of pain shot through every nerve in his back.
~*~
“People thought it dreadful of me to have entertained the evil things of life, and to have found pleasure in their company. …I used to feel as the snake-charmer must feel when he lures the cobra to stir from the painted cloth or reed basket that holds it, and makes it spread its hood at his bidding, and sway to and fro in the air as a plant sways restfully in a stream. They to me were the brightest of gilded snakes. Their poison was part of their perfection.”
Aziraphale licked his finger and turned the page smiling softly. He was fairly sure Crowley had left Oscar alone despite the demon’s dark hints to the contrary. Still it was an interesting coincidence. The accursed one had not been best pleased to be woken from an eighty-seven year snooze to find police constables, family values and Aziraphale with a new friend. Even three hours spent patiently explaining that angelic minds didn’t work like that did nothing to mollify him. In fact, after spending considerably longer than he needed to explaining to a sulking demon that he was physiologically incapable of experiencing lust, Crowley had stormed out of the bookshop leaving several Jane Austin first editions smouldering behind him.
It had been their worst argument since the Arrangement. The angel never understood what all the fuss was about, but then the demon always was flaring up over nothing. Being damned must play havoc with the nerves, after all.
To distract himself from such thoughts, he walked across the room to stoke his bright little fire. He gave it an experimental prod with the poker and sparks flew out. He peered into the grate. It looked like a little city in there, with side streets of flame wreathing the black blocks of houses. He wondered vaguely if hell were like that. The flames were the colour of Crowley’s eyes.
He tried to remember if he had ever seen the demon look into a fire. He felt he must have done at some point; after all, fires were common enough in human meeting houses particularly at this time of year. He wondered if it made him homesick, or filled him with dread at the horror he was condemned to, or had some other significance in the head of his fallen counterpart. He recalled no memories of any reaction, and wondered if that was because Crowley kept his thoughts well hidden, or if fire meant nothing to him at all.
He was really thinking far too deeply about Crowley.
He wandered back to his sofa, pulled the travel rug around himself and continued reading.
~*~
The other demons had left him alone in the dark. His hands were bound and sticky with blood, he was face down, blindfold and worst of all stuck in his own shape. He didn’t know how long he had; he guessed it wasn’t long enough.
He had to trust to the two dukes’ stupidity. After all, it had served him well in the past. He tugged at the manacles, which clanked on the metal bed frame above him. The air in the room was stupidly heavy; he guessed the other demons had fixed things so they could not be altered easily. A deep cloud of diabolical energy blocked the door.
He held his breath and imagined the room as it was when he’d last seen it. He visualised the walls, the floorboards, the metal bedstead, the manacles, pushing within his mind for any hint of weakness. His eyes burned red behind the blindfold. He heard a mattress squeak through the thin walls. The manacles wouldn’t give. The walls were paper-thin but he couldn’t get to them.
The atoms of the bedstead shook with the scrutiny. He pushed them further and they began to emit a high-pitched whine.
He ordered them to part with such gut-wrenching effort he nearly burst a blood vessel. They weren’t happy about it. Hastur had clearly had words with them before he left. The atoms grudgingly slunk apart and Crowley was able to jerk the far end of the handcuffs free of them.
He sat on the bed for a moment panting with the effort. He pulled off the blindfold and looked around. There were no windows. The door was locked and emitting an eerie reddish glow. There was no way out that way. He guessed he could try smashing through one of the walls and tried to summon enthusiasm for the idea. It would hurt, he felt sure. It might be embarrassing too. He knew his human form looked rather capable of such acts, but had never actually tested its physical abilities beyond its ability to eat, drink, sleep and - his thoughts were interrupted by sounds of enthusiastic groaning from next door, - yes well, that too.
He rolled his eyes heavenward. It was then he noticed that in the far left corner of the room, the ceiling tiles were cracked. And, he was pretty certain, if he could get above them, he could get somewhere that had the potential for escape.
In the end, his physical abilities proved quite satisfactory. He pushed the bed against the wall, climbed up on it, pulled the ceiling tiles down and, with just a little distortion of gravitational forces got himself up into a crawlspace above the partition wall.
Unfortunately, the ceiling tiles in the adjoining room proved equally fragile. It is perhaps better not to think of what the young lady and her older associate thought of the shirtless gentleman covered in plaster and blood crashing through their roof. Possibly, had the demon had his wits about him he could have erased their memories with one wriggle of his hands. As it was he had other things on his mind. He had a limited amount of strength left in him, and he had an angel to find.
~*~
Outside, in the dark, evil was moving. Creeping miasmas flowed beneath the paving slabs, spirits of putrefaction swarmed in the dank corners listening to the accursed litany summoning them to action. Tongues of sulphurous flames licked through the cracks in the cobblestones and a black rain was falling. Soot was in the air, and the stink of brimstone, and something long sleeping was summoned up from the fetid depth of its hibernation.
On the flagstones of Broadwick Street the two dirty coated and claw fingered Dukes of the underworld finished reciting the black mass. The dark brick buildings sighed in complicity and a bolt of lightening tore through the mouldering night.
“’ss good timing,” said Ligur.
“Shuup you, an’ get them wings fixed in place.”
“They’re ‘eavy.”
“Of course they’re ‘eavy. ‘Ee aint’t no mayfly that flashy git ain’t.” Hastur rubbed his fingerless-gloved hands together. “Of course, now we got ‘im, ‘e might wish ‘e was.”
The two demons cackled as they turned back to the heart of Soho. A faint trail of dark liquid showed their route. They followed it. Now business was taken care of, it was time to have some fun.
Behind them, two great, black bloodstained wings rose into the darkness.
~*~
A bang made Aziraphale look up from his book. The clock showed five past midnight on the twenty third of December. Sleet driven by gale force winds lashed the basement strip window of his cosy back room. He heard the bang again, a rhythmic crash of a fist on wood and glass.
Someone was knocking the on the door of his shop. He paused for a moment wondering whom on earth, or indeed any of the other celestial planes it could be at this hour until the sound of kicking was added to the timpani. Then he resigned himself to the fact that it probably was who it usually was at this time of night.
He wandered into the shop and opened the door.
“Hello Crowley.”
The demon barely nodded at him but made his way over the threshold and towards the back room with no preamble. Aziraphale looked at his retreating back thoughtfully. There seemed to be something different about him. His usual slouch had gone; in fact he seemed to be holding his shoulders with near military stiffness. He sighed and followed Crowley into the back room, wondering what trouble the damned fool had landed himself in this time.
The literal and metaphorical damned fool was already sitting in the back room with his arms folded on the table in front of him. There seemed to be some kind of metal bracelet about his wrists. He looked over at Aziraphale. The angel thought he looked a little clammy.
“I don’t suppose you fancy materialising a syringe of morphine, do you?”
“Dear boy, what nonsense are you coming up with now?”
“Well, do you?”
“Isn’t that illegal?”
“Not,” Crowley swallowed as if struggling to keep speaking, “if it’s used by healthcare professionals for strictly medicinal purposes.”
“I’m a bookseller.”
“You own books on medicine.”
Actually, thought Aziraphale with a swelling feeling dangerously close to pride, I own the original manuscript of Harvey’s “Exercitatio anatomica de circulatione sanguinis,” as well as several medieval transcriptions of the writings of Galen and a crumpled napkin from a Gloucestershire inn on which someone had scrawled, “Must speake with that milkmaid.”
He was distracted from his reverie by the demon wailing softly.
“You’re a bloody angel. You are the oldest healthcare professional there is!”
“My dear, now that’s just stereotyping.”
“Is not. Your lot are always laying hands on things and playing doctor. Now I suggest you get your divine healing mojo on and call up some refined opiates or you bring out that bottle of Napoleonic Armagnac that you have been hiding from me under the sink since 1956 because once I stop using my infernal powers to pretend there are not two gaping amputation wounds cluttering up the upper portion of my back it’s really going to fucking hurt. And possibly ruin your carpet.”
Aziraphale brought out the brandy. He also brought out several old newspapers and placed them around the demon who was pulling off his shirt. Crowley took a long swig and then sighed. He seemed to will himself to relax. His shoulders drooped and he rested his weight heavily on his arms. The pale skin on his back appeared to melt; two deep pink fleshy blotches appeared under the surface that gradually grew darker and more livid until two ugly open wounds burst through it.
The angel shuddered delicately and materialised some latex-free gloves.
~*~
In the shadow of the demon’s missing wings a woman was gently stretching. She looked no more than a girl of fourteen or so, but her white antique gown was stained with age and the curls around her rickets-struck waif’s face were palest grey. She was coruscating slightly. a sick, pinkish phosphorescence clung to her match-girl frame.
Her eyes shone like a child with fever. Her lips were black. She stood up and smiled at the sculpture of the Broadwick Street water pump and reached out to touch the blind fountain with a single lace-gloved finger. Water flowed from the solid metal.
It was good to be home.
~*~
There was a little sprig of holly on the sideboard in Aziraphale’s back room. Crowley noticed it as he was guided to the sofa, which obligingly lengthened by two feet when he lay down on it. He sighed. The angel materialised a thick feather duvet and advanced on him with it. It was a damn good piece of spontaneous creation all told; particularly considering the prissy creature was much less practiced in the skill than him.
“Sss nice here,” he said into his elbow. “Sss warm.”
“I think it might do you some good to try that sleeping thing of yours. You’re still looking rather peaky.”
He was being tucked up. He’d never been tucked up before and he was rather surprised by how endearing he found it. He decided to chalk it up on the list of the things he shouldn’t like but did.
“Do you want some cocoa?”
He shook his head. He still felt less than well. He felt very soft fingers pull the sunglasses off his nose and heard a click where they must have been put down on the dresser.
“I just wish I knew what they were up too.”
“If it’s an infernal machination, surely it’s my job to worry about how to thwart it?” Aziraphale’s hand was back, stroking the hair off his forehead like he was some sick kid on a daytime soap opera.
“If it’s an infernal machination those two will bugger it up and then it’ll be my job to sort out the mess.”
“I’m sure we’ll find out soon enough old boy.” Aziraphale’s hand moved down to his shoulder. He turned away.
“I’m not sure you’d understand, about everything,” muttered Crowley into the sofa.
“Hmm well, probably not. Are you warm enough?”
“Yesss.”
“Nothing I can get you?”
“No.”
The angel waited until Crowley’s breathing became soft and regular and he snuffled a little against the itchy velour of the couch. He touched his hair gently, and it was strangely light. Well, he supposed, the sleeping creature had been an angel once. It was odd, how his familiarity somehow made him precious, so that touching him was lovely. He had been feeling this warm closeness more and more as the centuries passed. It wasn’t a temptation. The feeling was as pure as love itself.
And if I am without love, I am nothing.
The demon smiled in his sleep. Aziraphale continued stroking him as he sighed and rolled over gently. He knew the cold-blooded creature felt the chill on winter nights. He knew he could slip in behind him, if he extended the couch a little to hold him until morning. He told himself it was an act of kindness.
So when the demon turned round and kissed him full on the mouth, he did not know what to think. His body responded anyway, drawing closer to the demon’s and opening his mouth to allow him greater range. They moaned faintly together, Crowley’s body somehow becoming less taught in his arms. He thought dimly that nothing good could come of this but then the sweetness of holding the silly, damaged creature in his arms got to much for him.
He held Crowley until morning.
Part II