Last Week's contrelamontre, redone and finished
People gave me bad ideas a-plenty for finishing this, but I went with graycastle's.
Going Home
“. . . and so I’m being recalled,” Aziraphale said. “Um. I’d have liked to say goodbye in person, but I’m not sure if you’re even in the --.”
Eeeeeeh.
“-country,” he murmured. Blasted Ansaphone. It never took a decent message.
He pottered round the shop for a little, made himself a nice cup of cocoa. He was vaguely proud of himself for drinking it without sniffling or getting all emotional. He’d just have to remember the taste, that was all.
He stood for a moment in indecision. What was he going to do with all his things? He certainly couldn’t take them with him. With a gesture, the shop was filled with sturdy cardboard boxes. What he should do was pack everything up, sell it, and give the proceeds to the poor. What he was going to do was pack everything up and donate it to the British Library. He couldn’t bear to think of his poor collection being split up, not after so long. He got to work.
Hours later he was still packing, and was beginning to wish he’d just miracled it done. It was close to ten o’clock when there was a frenzied knocking on the shop door.
“It’s open, Crowley,” he muttered, waving a hand towards the noise.
“It bloody wasn’t,” Crowley snapped as he came in. “What do you think you’re up to?”
Aziraphale sighed, and went over to the counter. He rummaged round under it and produced a shining scroll. Crowley looked at it in deep mistrust.
“Will I vanish in a whiff of redemption if I read that?” he asked.
“I shouldn’t think so,” Aziraphale said, getting back to the boxes. “It’s not you they want.”
Crowley carefully unrolled it and read silently.
“What do they mean, ‘your case is being reconsidered’?”
“I think they’ve decided it was a temporary posting. You know, let me cool my heels, think about what I’d done and so on.”
Crowley looked at him askance.
“Huh? What did you do?”
“The sword, Crowley. It gave humans a bit too much of a push on the road to progress, in the eyes of some people. I was told I was lucky to only be demoted.”
“I didn’t realise it was meant to be a punishment, you being here. It’s not a punishment for me, you know, just the luck of the draw. So what now? Is Heaven just going to shut up shop down here?”
“I shouldn’t think so. I’d imagine there’ll be a replacement.”
“A new guy. Wonderful.”
Aziraphale gave him a brave smile.
“Well, I’ve been given a day or so to get my affairs in order. I’ve got an awful lot of do, Crowley. I’m glad I could see you, before I went. Now I’m sorry, but I’ll have to get back to this.”
“Don’t be stupid,” Crowley said. “We’re going to get dinner and do some serious drinking. We’ll have to plan this out carefully.”
He pulled Aziraphale out of the shop and bundled him into the car. Within a short space of time they were seated in Aziraphale’s current favourite Indian restaurant.
“I’m all out of sorts,” Aziraphale moaned. “I don’t know if I want any dinner.”
Crowley laughed shortly.
“We’ll only have the set dinner for two,” he said to the waiter. “My friend isn’t feeling all that hungry.”
Aziraphale did find that his appetite returned after all. He even managed to laugh at some of Crowley’s off-colour jokes. His gloom came back when he realised his wallet was still sitting on the shop counter.
“Can you get this? I don’t have any money with me,” he whispered. “I can pay you back when we get back to the shop.”
Crowley lounged back in his chair.
“Don’t have any myself. I was planning on just walking out of here.”
Aziraphale looked at him disapprovingly.
“You can’t do that. I can’t do that.”
Crowley stood up.
“Watch me. My advice is that you come with me. No one will see us go.”
“They’ll think I’m a thief,” Aziraphale said.
“Does that matter? They won’t be able to track you down. Look, you can either create some money ex nihilo, or you can do a runner. You could always alter their memories, if you’re so worried about your reputation.”
Aziraphale glared at him. None of the options met with his approval. Crowley grinned, and started walking. Aziraphale took a deep breath, gestured at the staff, and followed.
“Goodnight, gentlemen,” their waiter said, smiling.
“Good night,” Aziraphale muttered, mortified.
He caught up with Crowley, who was sauntering along, whistling.
“That new French place looks nice,” Crowley said. “Pity you won’t get a chance to try it out.”
Aziraphale agreed. It did look nice, he thought, looking through the window. He did a double take at the reflection, and turned quickly to Crowley, who was hefting a breezeblock ruminatively in one hand. The more alarming thing from Aziraphale’s perspective was that he looked exactly like Aziraphale. With an evil grin, he flung the block though the window, attracting the attention of everyone in the immediate vicinity. Aziraphale found himself the centre of the commotion.
“What the hell did you do that for?” Crowley yelled, looking like himself once more.
Aziraphale was rooted to the spot in horror. It wasn’t till Crowley started yelling “Police!” that he felt he could move.
“Run,” Crowley whispered, and made a grab at him that somehow missed.
Aziraphale found that his feet seemed to be obeying Crowley rather than him, and he ran. A rather large policeman was close behind him. They’d gone quite a distance before Aziraphale remembered that he could make himself invisible. He made his way back to the shop in a rage. After a while Crowley showed up, chuckling.
“What was all that about?" Aziraphale asked.
“I’m getting you in trouble,” Crowley said. “They had to call an ambulance for me, you know. I needed stitches. It was too boring to wait in the hospital though, so they’ll all just remember that that’s what happened. Good going, Aziraphale. You stole, you messed with people’s minds, you committed acts of vandalism-”
“I did not.”
“-and you resisted arrest. Plus you assaulted an innocent well-dressed bystander. Very nice. Tell them you’re not fit for Heaven.”
“I don’t think they’ll care about breaking human laws. And you could have told me that’s what you were doing. I don’t think it’s any use, Crowley. I’ll have to go.”
Crowley looked at him stubbornly.
“I don’t want you to go. What am I supposed to do with some new angel? He won’t understand the Arrangement. You’re very inconsiderate.”
“Sorry,” Aziraphale sighed. “I wish I could stay.”
“You won’t like going back. Just stay here. Say ‘yes’.”
“It’s not a matter of persuasion. Goodbye, Crowley.”
“Don’t do anything. Let me talk to some people. I’ll come back early morning, OK?”
“All right, I’ll see you tomorrow.”
* * *
When Crowley came back the next morning, the shop was gone. No one could even remember it having existed. Crowley stood at the edge of the pavement and dropped the documents and passport to the tarmac where they sizzled slightly. Aziraphale wouldn’t need them now. Well. Time to get back to work. He stood for a moment longer, looking at the adult video store where Aziraphale’s shop had been. Then he bent and picked up what were now just a set of really expensive coasters and got back in the car. Before he left he changed every single video in the store to a compilation of the best of Songs of Praise.
* * *
It took some time to track down Aziraphale’s replacement. He wasn’t basing himself in London. After a fruitless two months of searching, Crowley decided to go on the offensive. After all, he had a lot of experience in offending angels.
The world’s media was somewhat surprised the next time the president of the USA gave a press briefing. While it was commonly believed that an allegiance to Satan made the most sense as an explanation for his foreign policy no one had ever expected him to actually say it. His further revelation that although he loved his wife dearly he loved goats more was perhaps an even greater surprise. He'd never struck anyone as being particularly fond of animals.
Crowley scanned the world’s newspapers over breakfast. The furore was very satisfying. The religious types were often the easiest to get to. If it didn’t attract angelic attention he didn’t know what would. It was most gratifying to see how the scandal died down quickly, as if someone was doing an awful lot of soothing.
Crowley planned on introducing himself politely and welcoming his new counterpart to earth in a civil fashion. You had to move with the times, that was all. Roll with the punches, and see how quickly you could come to an arrangement with the new guy. There was no point in crying over spilt Chateau Lafitte. When he finally saw the new angel, however, he found himself overcome with rage. He’d been drinking alone for two months and he felt he should have been used to it, but he still found himself thinking that he should recommend new restaurants and bars to Aziraphale, and he had a horrible compulsion to look into dingy second-hand bookshops just in case. The new angel looked smug and self-righteous and rather as if he’d consider half a Ryvita and a glass of tap water a rollicking night out. Crowley followed him through a crowd of tourists, watching as he looked down his nose at people and wiped his hand on a shining white handkerchief after blessing anyone. It was infuriating. Aziraphale never looked down his nose at anyone. Well, maybe Australians, but no one else. Almost without thinking Crowley took on the appearance of a senator who was currently in Washington but would have a hard time providing an alibi, given that he was currently visiting his underage mistress.
“Peace, my lord. I would speak a word, I pray thee,” Crowley called in a language no one had spoken for four thousand years. It didn’t hurt to make absolutely certain.
“Yes?” the angel replied, turning fully towards him.
A very large gun appeared in Crowley’s hand. He emptied the entire clip into the extremely surprised angel. The tourists screamed and fled in panic as Crowley dropped the gun onto the body.
“Welcome to earth,” he said, and stalked away.
* * *
It was surprisingly easy to get back in to the swing of full-time messing up of angelic plans. The new guy had no imagination and no subtlety at all. He was easily tracked by both the incredible success of politicians with strong religious faith all across the world, and a general atmosphere of cloying niceness. The politicians were easy to deal with. Crowley usually left them alone on the grounds that they’d be worse than he ever could in the name of their faith. If need be, he hit them with poetic justice by winding up their obsessions so tight that they’d snap in a hypocritical and funny way. Humans didn’t much trust or like niceness, so that wasn’t much of a problem either. Whenever possible he relieved his counterpart of his material body. The challenge lay in thinking of really embarrassing ways to do him in. Crowley was especially proud of having him murdered during an orgy. He wished he could have been a demonic fly on the wall when the angel tried to explain that one. For sheer entertainment value, though, he was very fond of the incident involving heavy machinery. All the amusingly orchestrated deaths in the world couldn’t make up for what Crowley wasn’t going admit even to himself, though. There were after all six billion other people in the world along with him, and that was only counting the humans, so it was statistically ridiculous to feel alone. It wasn’t as if he’d even seen Aziraphale every year, let alone every day, he reminded himself. And he liked people. He liked the speed at which humans lived, the way they made up for mortality by being fast thinkers and doers and coming up with fascinating new things. Still, he had also liked having the option of talking to someone with a longer perspective on things. And the indestructible liver hadn’t hurt, either. Humans who tried to keep up with him while drinking tended to keel over unconscious if they were lucky. The more determined of them usually ended up with short notices in the back pages of the papers.
Crowley looked at all the new and unfamiliar faces passing him in the morning rush hour and sighed. As much as he teased Aziraphale for being old fashioned and behind the times he knew in his heart that they weren’t so very different in some ways. Why else did he drive an eighty year old car if it wasn’t that he liked having old and familiar things around? He enjoyed new gadgets and changed his collection of them frequently, but he only ever ended up using and keeping those that even humans described as classics. He liked a lot of modern music, but turned time and again to music written centuries ago. He even - though he’d never mentioned it to Aziraphale - had a soft spot for impressive choral pieces. He’d make sure no one could hear anything outside his living room and sing along, eyes closed in ecstasy. Sometimes he was half-surprised, although always relieved, to see his own flat around him when he opened his eyes. It was at times like that that he wondered if he’d completely blown his chances of befriending the new angel. He hoped he had. He didn’t want to have to spend a couple of thousand years turning the new angel into a friend, not when there was a perfectly good angel who already knew his taste in wines.
* * *
It was during a routine series of temptings that he had his brilliant idea. A group of young idiots were sitting round and whining on about the evils of religion and their own personal spiritualities and getting in touch with spiritual forces. Crowley was giving them encouraging ideas, mainly because if they did get in touch with the forces he was suggesting they'd become some other department's problem and he could go back to tempting people who washed their hair. Given that their chief resource was a cheap reprint of a wildly out-of-date history of magic he wasn't too hopeful. He was planning that one of them would very soon start hearing a mystical voice advising them to buy some Timotei, the smelly bastards. He only started paying real attention to them when the words summoning angels drifted into his hearing. He put them all to sleep and wandered out with their book, going to a nearby pub to read in peace. As he'd suspected the book was useless but it did give him an idea. The guy it was talking about, some sixteenth century academic, had claimed he could call up angels, even the archangels. From the description of his little experiments, Crowley rather suspected he had called up something. Hmmm. Sixteenth century England. Aziraphale had acted weird for a good bit of it - maybe because this Dee fellow was calling him up. Crowley shut the book. What he needed to do was read the original notes, follow the instructions and maybe he could just summon Aziraphale back to Earth. Brilliant.
He spent months in research, sneaking into the British Library, giving himself headaches from reading hand-written, eccentrically spelled manuscripts. At the end of it he had a large stack of photocopies and hand-written notes. He'd resisted the urge to simply steal what he needed only because he knew Aziraphale wouldn't have approved, and would probably refuse to come when called. Disappointingly, Dee didn't have good instructions for calling an angel to him other than by praying. He did claim that Uriel told him Michael could be summoned by reciting the Psalms. Even though he was the sort of person who tended not to recite Psalms much in his every-day life, Crowley was glad for the warning. Whatever else Dee summoned came of its own free will, it seemed. Crowley rather suspected that it had been his lot that turned up at least half the time. Not that the bastards had said anything to him, of course. Dee did have some interesting, if sketchy notes on something else interesting, though, a ritual that claimed to lift one's senses to the highest heaven. The jumbled description and mystical phrasing seemed to fit rather well with Crowley's memories of the place. Dee claimed to have spoken with the inhabitants of the Heavenly City in a vision in his crystal lens. Crowley tried to imagine the conversation. Nice weather we're having, O Random angel. Yes, quite. Don't call me again, human. Crowley decided to give it a go - it'd be a bit like a videophone, he thought. Not a great reception, but good enough to get a shouted message through. Then Aziraphale could wander off and tell his bosses he'd been summoned, had to rush, terribly sorry, he'd be back at some undefined point in the future.
Another four months went by in preparation. Most of the time he was holed up in his flat, working out abstruse and occultly sensitive equations and reading the Qabbalistic texts he'd ordered from Amazon. The equipment had to be made specially, for the most part. Crowley deposited clear instructions and a great deal of cash with various jewellers and makers of scientific apparatuses, and eventually collected his hand ground crystal lenses, diamond-tipped dividers and assorted alchemical doodads. The extremely expensive hand made candles he got in the nearest New Age shop. He got in one last bout of angelic embarrassment, decoying his opponent past London Zoo just as an extremely hungry lion escaped, and settled down to work.
It was a beautifully sunny day, like his notes said was best. He cleared his kitchen floor, and inscribed the circle on the tiles, consulting his painstaking charts frequently. He drew in the alchemical symbols and wrote the Qabbalistic passages in a clear and confident hand. He lit the candles and very self-consciously invoked the aid of the angels of the cardinal directions. Like those bastards would lift a finger for him. He stepped into the circle, looked into the largest of his lenses and as calmly as he could instructed the cosmos that he was to be shown the highest heaven right now, specifically the bit containing Aziraphale. Nothing happened. He tapped his foot. After another few seconds he laughed at his stupidity. It was a good job no one had been around to see him make a fool of himself. His eye was caught by a pack of chocolate digestives on the worktop. A cup of coffee and a biscuit and back to the drawing board, he thought, reaching for it. As he reached out the circle flared up in a gout of blue flame. It was the kind of situation that should have merited one of his rare blinks. But he didn't have time.
* * *
Crowley opened his eyes and immediately screwed them shut again. The light was overwhelming. He felt around until he located his sunglasses and put them on, then gingerly opened his eyes. It was still bright. He was lying on something hard, but it wasn't his kitchen floor. Not unless he'd had it done up in snow-white alabaster while very drunk. He sat up and frowned at the white floor for a while. Then he raised his eyes and gasped. Majestic palaces of pearl and silver stood on either side of the shining pavement, their facades decorated in chasings of fine gold. Everywhere he looked there were pale, restrained colours and severe architectural beauty. There was nothing dark or shadowed. Except him. He was sitting in the middle of what he was slowly coming to recognise as a public square dressed head to toe in black. In fright he scuttled off to the side like a spider suddenly startled into movement. He hesitantly put out a hand and touched the side of a building. It was cool, smooth and all too real. He pinched himself hard. It really hurt.
"I am so incredibly screwed," he moaned.
Bloody humans and their dabblings in the occult. Why didn't Dee's ritual come with a health warning? Warning: practitioners of supernatural origin may find themselves taken up bodily. He was dead and worse than dead. He was one demon among an infinitude of angels. He was abandoned in the Fastness of the Enemy. Through his own blessed stupidity, which was the most galling thing. This was what sentimentality got you. Friendship was a pile of shit. He desperately wanted to curse Aziraphale but was too afraid to say anything. Instead he cowered at the side of the building shaking until his mind kicked back in and he started wondering why the place was so empty. He peered back out into the square. Rising beyond the buildings he could see other, more impressive palaces. It gradually dawned on him that he seemed to be in an uninhabited part of town. Maybe they were expecting an influx of newcomers, although he didn't think there were any major wars planned on earth just then. He crept along between the buildings, not daring to use the all too open pavement. He took stock of his situation. Right. He was in Heaven. Fine. He had infiltrated the Enemy stronghold. What would James Bond do? Be a lucky bastard, that's what. Crowley almost felt like smiling at the thought. He'd always been a lucky bastard himself, and he had a wealth of implausible tricks from spy movies to play on any angels who grabbed him. They mightn't work, but at least he'd confuse the bastards before he died. And he had a real advantage that 007 usually didn't. Somewhere in the infinity of enemy soldiers, he had an inside man.
"Aziraphale," he murmured. "Where the H -- where are you?"
Maybe he should look for the Hall of Being. He wondered if things were still being thought of there, or if all the work had long since been franchised out to humans. Humans. He should look for some human souls and see if they could point him in the right direction. Some of them would have to know of Aziraphale, and there was a less than infinite number of them, which was also appealing. As he approached the larger buildings he began to see inhabitants of the Heavenly Realm, usually flying overhead. He grimly crept along, worried that changing his appearance would attract immediate attention. At last he saw a crowd of the human Blessed, drifting his way in peaceful contentment. He reached out and snagged a couple out of the crowd.
"D'you know the angel Aziraphale? About my height, likes books? Really likes books?"
They looked at him blankly and happily and he shoved them back and grabbed another few of them.
"Aziraphale? Do you know where I can find him? He was stationed in Eden, way back and has been on Earth since?"
No response. Throw them back, fish out another few.
"How about you? Come on, some of you must owe your salvation to talking to Aziraphale. Cheerful looking fellow, likes music and thinks Mr Kipling should be canonised?"
He'd gone through almost the whole crowd when one of them pointed off to the right. He was very nervous and felt he'd stayed in one place far too long. Also, several of the Blessed were giving him rather hard looks.
"Off that way? Aziraphale? You're sure? Thanks. Thanks!"
He ran. He didn't want them reporting an inquisitive demon until he was well clear of the area. Maybe they wouldn't. Maybe they didn't know what he was. And maybe he'd be welcomed back into the Heavenly Hosts with open arms, no harm no foul, if he was going to think up unlikely scenarios. The streets were getting broader and the buildings more widely spaced. It looked like a nice neighbourhood. He suddenly ran out of buildings to hide behind. The street widened to an immense and shining plain. There was no way he was setting one black shod foot out there. He flattened himself against the last building and looked out. There was noise, he realised. Not awfully loud, but more than there had been. A silvery, clashing noise above him. He looked up cautiously and froze. Squadrons of angels were undergoing weapons drill high above him. Squadrons of them. And only one of him. One weaponless him. Calm down, calm down, he thought as his heart hammered. If he stayed still they wouldn't see him. It was fast movement that attracted their attention. As he watched in horror he saw three angels break away from the shining companies and spiral down lazily. He pressed himself so flat against the stone he thought he'd manage to sink into it. They landed and folded their wings neatly. They didn't look his way, and seemed to be discussing the angels still overhead. Snippets of conversation drifted over to him, about how useless the angels overhead were, how lazy and undisciplined. There was some desultory chat about getting together in the officers' mess later, and they all spread their wings again, ready to go off. Crowley was panting with fright. One of them had said dear boy, he was sure of it. He was going to have to call out. He fought against the instinct to hide and took a half step away from the building.
"Aziraphale!" he hissed.
He'd barely made a sound. All three angels began to fly off to rejoin their soldiers.
"Aziraphale!" he called again, a little louder.
One of the angels turned and hovered, looking around. Crowley risked a quick wave. Even at a medium distance he could see Aziraphale's eyes widen in shock. The angel looked round quickly, and dived straight at him, landing a little clumsily. They stared at each other in silence. Crowley looked at Aziraphale in astonishment. He seemed - taller, somehow. Which was ridiculous, because their eyes were still on the same level. It was the shining white raiment, Crowley decided. People always looked taller in that sort of thing. The weaponry helped too. Crowley had always believed in respecting anyone carrying impressive weapons. He peered closely and shook his head in surprise.
“Did they give you your rank back? I thought you were coming up to sweep the streets.”
Aziraphale shrugged, a little shamefacedly.
“I was as surprised as you, Crowley. Maybe there’s been attrition in the officers and they’re looking for anyone who knows one end of a sword from the other.”
“And yet they picked you,” Crowley grinned. He might be in the stronghold of the enemy, but that was no reason to drop his image, not in front of Aziraphale. “Well, well. To think lowly old me knows a cherub.”
Aziraphale pulled him into a doorway as a group of angels flew past. He half spread his wings, giving them a little privacy.
“What are you doing here?” he whispered. “Are you insane?”
“I came to see you. To check on how you’re doing. I’d have expected a little more gratitude.”
“For Heaven’s sake! You stick out like a, a --”
“Sore thumb?”
“Like a demon wandering the streets of the City! I’ve got to get you out of here.”
Crowley peeped out past Aziraphale's wings. They seemed to be alone, and there was a perfectly legitimate heavenly being right in front of him to take the blame for any supernatural activity. He turned his suit into a nice white robe and shook out his wings.
“There. You’d hardly tell me from the natives.”
“Oh, I don’t know. Sunglasses aren’t much in fashion here,” Aziraphale said.
Crowley was delighted to see he was trying to hide a smile.
“Arrest me,” he suggested. “You could interrogate me over whatever passes for a nice meal and then I could heroically escape and get a commendation for my bravery. Come on, you’ve done worse.”
Aziraphale was wavering. Crowley took off his sunglasses and handed them over. He held out his hands meekly.
“I’m your prisoner, sir. Take me away. It’s a fair cop, guv.”
“Idiot,” Aziraphale muttered.
He put a hand over Crowley’s eyes for a moment.
“Do not make eye contact with anyone. They’ll see right through that if you do. Come on, and behave yourself.”
* * *
By the time they got to what Aziraphale was insisting on calling his humble abode, Crowley was having a lot more difficulty hiding his nervousness. He was feeling very much outnumbered by the Hosts of Heaven, and had to force himself to fly casually along beside Aziraphale. It was a relief to get indoors and have only one angel in his line of sight. Aziraphale magnanimously waved him to the only stool in the place. Crowley looked at it dubiously and sat. He glanced around the rather bare white room as Aziraphale took off his sword and leaned it against the wall.
“Very Spartan. Have you taken some sort of vow against furniture?”
“There’s a table. And some cabinets. Armchairs aren’t very practical with wings, Crowley.”
Crowley didn’t bother answering. He thought it was probably time to come up with a plan for getting out of Heaven again. He gave a little jump as a white plate with some shapeless white stuff on it was shoved under his nose.
“And this is?”
“Manna. It’s all I have, I’m afraid.”
Crowley nibbled at a piece. He put it down.
“I’d forgotten. What do you say we go back down and find something decent to eat?”
Aziraphale picked up the bit he’d nibbled and took a bite. He swallowed it, sighed and put the rest back.
“It’s like Ambrosia.”
“It is not,” Crowley said.
“The tinned rice, Crowley,” Aziraphale said.
“Ah. Yes.”
Crowley looked Aziraphale over. He was undoubtedly getting lots of exercise, being back in the Hosts. And no one could be tempted to overeat manna. And there was no alcohol, or high fat, high salt, sugar laden, or monosodium glutamate filled food available. It was good for the angel. He looked absolutely miserable.
“Make them let you come back,” he said.
“Make them. Is the altitude affecting your brain?”
“Your replacement is an idiot. He doesn’t understand humans, he doesn’t understand me. I’ve taken to killing him as occupational therapy. He must be costing your lot a fortune in material bodies. Ask them to do a cost analysis.”
Aziraphale scowled in the way that meant he was ruthlessly suppressing a smile.
“I don’t see why you think it’s appropriate to boast about killing angels to me. What have you done to him?”
Crowley grinned.
“You know how people get run over by steamrollers in cartoons?”
“Oh, Crowley. You didn’t,” Aziraphale said breathlessly.
“It’s a bit squishier in real life,” Crowley said cheerfully.
Aziraphale turned a giggle into a cough, and then just gave up and laughed. Crowley was disgusted to realise that he’d been missing the sound.
“Thank you, my dear,” Aziraphale said. “I needed that.”
“Come on,” Crowley said cajolingly. “There’s got to be some way to get you back down where you belong. You’re not happy here, I can see that. It’d be good and merciful and compassionate to let you come home. Can’t you appeal?”
“This is home, as far as they’re concerned,” Aziraphale said. “If I could --,” his voice trailed off.
Crowley casually got off the stool and wandered to the opposite side of the table. Aziraphale looked like he needed a hug, and Crowley was by no means so far gone that he’d oblige him.
“Crowley, I miss -- everything,” Aziraphale said in a small voice.
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Crowley said. “So do something about it. Run away. Take a leave of absence. You could even -,” he took a breath, “ -defect.”
Aziraphale looked rather shocked.
“I couldn’t do that. Could I?”
“Suppose I could guarantee you’d be stationed on earth with me? And given protection? I’m not asking you to do demonic stuff; I’m just putting forward a possibility. My people think of you as a very devious powerful opponent of their plans. They’d be happy to accept you in whatever capacity you think fit. I’ve asked, Aziraphale,” he said, in an encouraging tone. “They want you, they do. Think about it - all they’d want is for you not to mess my activities up, and you’re already doing that. Or not doing it. Don’t you want to come back to London?”
“You asked?” Aziraphale said frostily. “You asked Hell about me defecting?”
Crowley ploughed on before Aziraphale could get more annoyed.
“Coffee, Aziraphale. Freshly made strong coffee. Warm, crusty bread with real butter, none of that low fat reduce your cholesterol crap. Marmalade from Harrods. That’s a lot better in the mornings than picking some manna off the ground, isn’t it? Parks full of flowers and trees. Duck ponds. Human music."
He felt a thrill of victory at the expression on Aziraphale’s face and gave the coup de grace.
“You don’t seem to have many books here. I can’t believe you’d stay somewhere without books.”
He stalked back around the table, the better to murmur insinuatingly.
“Early printed books, Aziraphale. Forgotten and overlooked classics. Works that should be in the literary canon but aren’t. Poetry, Aziraphale. Epics and sonnets and terza rima.”
He stepped right up to the angel and whispered very softly in his ear.
“Illuminated manuscripts.”
It did his heart good to see Aziraphale’s face. That was the expression of someone very much enjoying being tempted and resisting only because the anticipation felt so good. He kept his own expression kind and concerned.
“Do you want to come home?” he said quietly.
Aziraphale shuddered and nodded.
“And you’ll do what’s necessary to get there?”
Aziraphale was looking rather wild-eyed as he nodded again. Crowley looked in his face, fascinated. Of all the places he’d thought he might successfully tempt Aziraphale to something serious, here hadn’t been high on the list.
“We should get out of here,” he said. “Should we go now, or wait a while?”
“No time like the present,” Aziraphale said in a far-off voice.
He shook himself and looked round the bare room, then picked up the sword and belted it on.
“Let’s go, Crowley, before I come to my senses. I know how we can get out of here.”
* * *
Every step of the way, Crowley felt sure they would be attacked or arrested or hit with a bolt of lightning. He told himself he had to keep calm so Aziraphale wouldn’t be panicked. Finally they drew near to one of the gates of the City. Aziraphale motioned him back.
“Right. I’ll go on ahead and distract the guards. You make a break for it and get down as quick as possible, all right? I’ll tell the guards to stay here and let me chase you by myself.”
“You said you had a plan! That’s your plan?” Crowley hissed. “Suppose they don’t listen?”
“I outrank them,” Aziraphale said neutrally. “At the very least you’ll get a good head start. Just move fast.”
Crowley clenched his fists as Aziraphale strolled up to the guards and started chatting. They looked well and truly distracted. Right. Here went nothing. He sprinted straight for the gate, shot past the alarmed angels and jumped through headfirst. The ethereal wind tore at his face as he plummeted, his wings tucked in tight to increase his speed. He didn’t spare any energy looking back. Aziraphale would either be successful or he wouldn’t. He could barely see the world beneath, but the first of the celestial spheres was coming up fast. By some miracle there was a gate almost directly beneath him, and he lost very little speed adjusting his course. By an even greater miracle the gate was unguarded. Someone Up There doesn’t consider me an utter Abomination, he thought giddily. He really hoped Aziraphale was following. The next sphere was getting larger in his field of vision. There wasn’t a gate under him. He looked to either side and saw one, and blessed under his breath. There was a squad of angels lounging round it, idly grooming each others’ wings. Only one thing for it, so. The celestial spheres weren’t actually impervious to those originally of angelic stock. He’d crashed through each and every one several millennia ago. It hadn’t been pleasant, but it had been possible. He straightened his dive and arrowed down at the sphere. At the last moment he flung an arm over his eyes, and then he hit. There was a sound like ice or glass shattering and he felt like every part of him had been subjected to one of the more imaginative human methods of dealing with people who had slightly differing religious views. He tumbled down through the ether, completely unable to control his fall. As he struggled to open his wings he looked up and saw shocked angelic faces peering through the gate. Then the bastards jumped through after him. He took one look at their spears and forced his wings to open. Once he got control back he tucked them tight again and regained speed. As long as he didn’t run into anyone patrolling between the spheres he could make it, he thought. And it was highly unlikely that his pursuers would do anything but go through a gate, the law abiding idiots. Let them waste time. He wasn’t going to, even though his skin crawled at the thought of smashing through another sphere. He looked back. Behind the squad of angels, gaining on them, was a solitary figure. It had to be Aziraphale. Hurry up, Crowley thought.
He reached the next sphere and crashed through. There was a strange noise in his ears as he fought to control his fall. He realised it was him crying with pain and forced the whimpers back. There hadn’t been a gate anywhere in sight. Surely he’d lost them. Behind him there was a high-pitched shattering noise. The blessed bastards had more gumption than he’d given them credit for. Despair began to grow in his heart until he realised the voice floating down from above was very familiar.
“Ow! Blast!” Aziraphale yelled.
Crowley got his wings open and stopped falling out of control. He took a second’s wonderful, marvellous rest. They’d be all right. They’d get home and get really, really drunk and find the most extravagant restaurant in the whole city, and never set foot off the earth again. He stopped pretending as the gang of angels reappeared off to his right. There were at least three times as many as before, and they seemed fresh.
“Go! Go!” Aziraphale screamed at him.
Crowley took a breath and dived again. The angels were getting closer. As he got lower he saw another squad come out of a gate beneath him, and knew it was over. He stopped diving and waited for Aziraphale.
“We’re screwed,” he said as Aziraphale slowed beside him.
“No. I’m not letting you give in that easily,” Aziraphale said. “Knock me out. Make it look good and take my sword. At least you’ll have a weapon. You'll have a better chance.”
Crowley hesitated.
“Do it,” Aziraphale said angrily. “Some of them will stop chasing you to see if I’m all right.”
He drew his sword and gave a rather crazy smile.
“Maybe I’ll get demoted and stationed on earth again. Come on, Crowley. Pretend I just made you help me with a crossword puzzle and you can finally express yourself properly. Goodbye.”
He slashed an easily avoided blow at Crowley. It didn’t look very convincing from close range. Crowley gritted his teeth and hit him hard. Make it look convincing, he thought, pulling the angel close.
“I’m so sorry,” he said, and gave Aziraphale a deep bite.
He grabbed the sword and fled. The sounds of pursuit died off above him. The squad of angels coming up from below scattered in fright as he went right through the middle of them. He thought he might have skewered one of them, but wasn’t sure. Once he got through the gate beneath, he found himself alone. His journey back to earth was fast and peaceful.
* * *
No one contacted Crowley about his expedition. He fretted about telling his superiors. It wasn’t like no one had noticed him there at the end. Those pursuing angels must have seen he was a demon. Unless they thought he was just a random angel trying to leave without an exit visa perhaps. In his heart he knew that was nonsense, and that he’d caused a major diplomatic incident. Right now every last detail was no doubt being squeezed out of Aziraphale. There was no way the angel could keep quiet. They’d both end up recalled and that would be that. Maybe he’d be handed over for the Heavenly Hosts to use as target practice. And the new agent for Hell would be just as bad as the new angel, and they’d tear the earth apart. Thinking about that hurt a lot. He’d never wanted to cause that kind of mischief. Everything he did was fucked up, he thought bitterly. He was just a blot on Creation, a nasty mistake that should have been erased a long time ago. And would be quite soon if his superiors got wind of this, he fretted. If only he had something to show for his stupidity, like a defecting angelic agent. He had a feeling that saying well, he seemed interested but sadly didn’t actually make any commitments before he was arrested while saving my skin wouldn’t be very helpful. Oh shit, they were going to skin him and make him into a handbag for Hastur. There was only one thing for it, Crowley decided. He was going to continue life as normal for as long as possible, but he was going to carry everything needed for another assault on Heaven with him at all times. It wasn’t his superiors’ style to have him brought in by stealth. That wouldn’t give him enough time to be sufficiently cowed. They’d contact him beforehand and try to break his spirit before they got round to breaking the rest of him. And the moment they did, he was going to run. All he needed was enough of a head start to set everything out for the ritual. And then it would be him that defected. Aziraphale’s lot couldn’t be as bad as his lot, no matter how cynical Aziraphale was about them. They had that whole thing about angels rejoicing over one single repentant sinner, for example, if it wasn’t just propaganda. And he’d give them penitence like they hadn’t seen for a while. The full and complete details on every damn one of Hell’s plans that he knew of type of penitence.
He took to wearing the sword whenever he went out. A weapon designed to do serious damage to supernatural beings was not to be sneezed at. Humans couldn’t see it, so that wasn’t a problem. It did spoil the line of his jacket though. It was, of course, the sword that made the angel decide to speak to him for the first time. He was walking along wondering which restaurant to have lunch in when there was an outraged yell from behind him.
“Where did you get that, Serpent?”
“I have a name,” Crowley said wearily as he turned.
There was a point, he thought. He’d never bothered to find out the new angel’s name. Maybe he could work to get the new guy on his side, show him he’d turned over a new leaf. He looked at the smug, self-righteous face. The angel was looking at him like he was something unpleasant to be scraped off the sole of a shoe. At his worst Aziraphale had never looked at him like that. Screw it, he didn’t want this guy as a friend anyway.
“Well?” the angel said.
Oh, just one more time, a little voice whispered in Crowley’s mind.
“I took it from a cherub,” he said cheerfully, drawing and lunging in one smooth move.
He pulled the blade back sharply and watched the angel clutch his chest and keel over. The bastard had never watched any classic movies if he didn’t see that coming, that was for sure. Bystanders flocked round in alarm, thinking the unfortunate young man had had a heart attack. Crowley tracked the rapidly retreating form of the bodiless angel.
“You’re complete crap!” he yelled. “The last agent would never have been fooled by such a simple move. You can’t stand up to me for a second, you pathetic excuse for an angel!”
He picked a restaurant at random and sat, head in hands. Great. Wonderful. So much for a show at penitence if and when he had to run off to Heaven. Even if they didn’t know it was him before, they’d certainly know now. Bloody whiny little angel. After six thousand years he shouldn’t be so impulsive. The rest of the day was extremely depressing.
Hell contacted him three days later. He was watching the 10 o'clock News when the newsreader’s eyes suddenly took on a fiery glow.
“CROWLEY. WE’VE BEEN HEARING INTERESTING REPORTS ABOUT YOU.”
“Oh?” Crowley said, casually picking up his bag of supplies for the ritual.
“YOU’VE BEEN A REAL THORN IN HEAVEN’S SIDE OVER THE PAST WHILE.”
“Just doing my job,” Crowley said, feeling for the remote.
“THERE HAVE BEEN OFFICIAL REPRESENTATIONS ABOUT YOU.”
“Hmm,” Crowley said encouragingly, and turned the TV off.
The picture flickered and steadied. The newsreader looked a little puzzled.
“CROWLEY? SORRY, THERE SEEMED TO BE A PROBLEM WITH THE RECEPTION THERE FOR A SECOND. CAN YOU STILL HEAR ME?”
“Yeah,” Crowley said unhappily.
“HEAVEN IS DEMANDING YOUR HEAD ON A PLATTER. YOU’RE WANTED FOR THEFT, ASSAULT, ATTEMPTED MURDER, DAMAGE TO PROPERTY AND CAUSING DERELICTION OF DUTY AMONG THEIR RANKS.”
So much for defecting. He took his hand off the bag. Shit, he had nowhere to run now. The newsreader was openly gloating, and the set was looking more and more like it was made of fire. Crowley frowned.
“I’m sorry, could you repeat that?”
“INTELLIGENCE REPORTS THAT THE HEAVENLY AGENT HAS FLED EARTH. WELL DONE, CROWLEY. NO DOUBT THEY’LL REPLACE HIM WITH SOMEONE MORE DIFFICULT TO DEAL WITH, BUT YOU HAVE AN OPEN FIELD AT THE MOMENT. MAKE GOOD USE OF IT.”
“Those charges - they’re about that bloody idiot?”
The newsreader laughed. Smoke began to creep out of the TV.
“YOU SEEM TO HAVE BEEN QUITE INVENTIVE WITH HIM, CROWLEY. IF YOU EVER WANT A TRANSFER TO TORMENTS I’M SURE IT CAN BE ARRANGED. SEND HIS SWORD DOWN WITH YOUR NEXT REPORT. WE’LL RETURN IT IF THEY ASK NICELY. NOW GO OUT AND MAKE US PROUD -and to return to tonight’s main story --”
Crowley turned it off. He sat there for half a second then ran out his door, down the stairs and jumped into the car. If the building was going to explode he wanted to be far away. By morning he was still alive, and hadn’t been contacted again. He was alternately convinced they were trying to lure him into a false sense of security and convinced that that would be far beyond their nasty, hidebound little minds. A delicious and wonderful conviction was growing in his mind. Heaven was too embarrassed to acknowledge he’d been there. They were pretending they were just upset about that new moron. Hell didn’t really know what he’d been up to, which was just as well, given that “causing mayhem among the enemy” looked a lot better on his record than “stupidly visiting an old pal who just happens to be on the opposite side.” He’d be a perfect little demon and convince his superiors of his usefulness, he thought. He spent the day tempting and tormenting like he actually was interested in it. All humans unfortunate enough to attract his attention found themselves acting in ways they were heartily ashamed of later. Except of course for the ones who found it exciting and thrilling and vowed to act like that for ever. Crowley made notes of who needed special encouragement and positive reinforcement.
After a couple of days he was brave enough to go home. Nothing seemed to be trapped or bugged. The whisky wasn’t poisoned and he was immune anyway, so he had a double. He was on his third when the Ansaphone rang. Whoever it was hung up when the message started. Good. He didn’t want double glazing anyway. The other line rang, and rang and rang. Finally he sighed and picked it up.
“Yeah? What?”
He put his drink down and took off the sunglasses. He rubbed hard at his eyes. He covered the receiver with his hand and cleared his throat.
“It’s about time I heard from you,” he said nonchalantly. “We should talk. You want to try that new French place?”
* * *
It was a very nice restaurant, with a fine selection of wines, and no one remembered about the window at all. By a very great dint of effort both of them managed not to laugh with relief too much. Aziraphale did get a little emotional when he had the first mouthful of his main course, but he felt it was forgivable. By the time both of them had got to the point in their stories where they were praised by their superiors their good humour had made the whole restaurant quite jolly.
“And they asked those angels why they didn’t follow you down, and they - they s-s-said ‘He took out a cherub, Sir, we thought we should wait for back-up’,” Aziraphale sniggered. “And Michael yelled a lot and said ‘See this angel? That’s the spirit you should have! Didn’t think about holding back when you saw the Enemy, did you, lad?’ and I said ‘No, Sir! You know me and demons, can’t abide the creatures’.”
“You are such a liar,” Crowley said admiringly. “Didn’t they question you at all?”
“Raguel’s lot wanted to, all right, but Michael kept yelling about bureaucrats not understanding the military man, and he was damned if he was putting up with any more interference. And then everyone was distracted by the new scandal when Abdiel came whimpering back.”
“Who?” Crowley asked, pouring them more wine.
“My replacement, Crowley.”
“Oh. Never bothered learning his name.”
“Anyway, there were a lot of red faces. I suppose the poor chap was court-martialled. And Michael came to tell me that I needn’t worry, he wouldn’t let Gabriel take me back, even if I was the only one with experience of dealing with such a devious and nasty opponent. I had to be quite insistent in telling him I was content and proud to do whatever duty I was assigned to by wiser minds.”
Aziraphale gave a devious and nasty smile.
“I thought he was going to cry, he was so moved.”
Crowley inhaled a profiterole while laughing and coughed and choked rather a lot. Aziraphale hit him hard on the back until the poor boy managed to catch his breath. He didn't want Crowley dying on him, not when he'd only just managed to get back to Earth.
"Don't ever get yourself sent off again," Crowley wheezed. "One daring rescue attempt was enough for me."
"You really must tell me how you got Up There in the first place," Aziraphale said, not for the first time.
He was enjoying watch Crowley change the subject in increasingly less subtle ways. This time the demon simply pretended he hadn't heard. There was definitely something there for him to tease the fellow about. He decided to show compassion, and ordered another bottle of wine.
"You can rest easy, my dear Crowley," he said, happily pouring for both of them, "I have no intention of going Anywhere."
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Note:
Dr John Dee was a real 16th century mathematician, astrologer and alchemist. His surviving manuscripts are in the British Library. With the aid of assistants he claimed to have summoned and spoken to various angels, including the archangels Uriel, Gabriel, Raphael and Michael. His notes say that his "angelic actions" were frequently interrupted by fallen angels trying to trick him. He may well also have had a specific ritual to reveal the Heavenly City, but I made up the one used in this story.
Going Home
“. . . and so I’m being recalled,” Aziraphale said. “Um. I’d have liked to say goodbye in person, but I’m not sure if you’re even in the --.”
Eeeeeeh.
“-country,” he murmured. Blasted Ansaphone. It never took a decent message.
He pottered round the shop for a little, made himself a nice cup of cocoa. He was vaguely proud of himself for drinking it without sniffling or getting all emotional. He’d just have to remember the taste, that was all.
He stood for a moment in indecision. What was he going to do with all his things? He certainly couldn’t take them with him. With a gesture, the shop was filled with sturdy cardboard boxes. What he should do was pack everything up, sell it, and give the proceeds to the poor. What he was going to do was pack everything up and donate it to the British Library. He couldn’t bear to think of his poor collection being split up, not after so long. He got to work.
Hours later he was still packing, and was beginning to wish he’d just miracled it done. It was close to ten o’clock when there was a frenzied knocking on the shop door.
“It’s open, Crowley,” he muttered, waving a hand towards the noise.
“It bloody wasn’t,” Crowley snapped as he came in. “What do you think you’re up to?”
Aziraphale sighed, and went over to the counter. He rummaged round under it and produced a shining scroll. Crowley looked at it in deep mistrust.
“Will I vanish in a whiff of redemption if I read that?” he asked.
“I shouldn’t think so,” Aziraphale said, getting back to the boxes. “It’s not you they want.”
Crowley carefully unrolled it and read silently.
“What do they mean, ‘your case is being reconsidered’?”
“I think they’ve decided it was a temporary posting. You know, let me cool my heels, think about what I’d done and so on.”
Crowley looked at him askance.
“Huh? What did you do?”
“The sword, Crowley. It gave humans a bit too much of a push on the road to progress, in the eyes of some people. I was told I was lucky to only be demoted.”
“I didn’t realise it was meant to be a punishment, you being here. It’s not a punishment for me, you know, just the luck of the draw. So what now? Is Heaven just going to shut up shop down here?”
“I shouldn’t think so. I’d imagine there’ll be a replacement.”
“A new guy. Wonderful.”
Aziraphale gave him a brave smile.
“Well, I’ve been given a day or so to get my affairs in order. I’ve got an awful lot of do, Crowley. I’m glad I could see you, before I went. Now I’m sorry, but I’ll have to get back to this.”
“Don’t be stupid,” Crowley said. “We’re going to get dinner and do some serious drinking. We’ll have to plan this out carefully.”
He pulled Aziraphale out of the shop and bundled him into the car. Within a short space of time they were seated in Aziraphale’s current favourite Indian restaurant.
“I’m all out of sorts,” Aziraphale moaned. “I don’t know if I want any dinner.”
Crowley laughed shortly.
“We’ll only have the set dinner for two,” he said to the waiter. “My friend isn’t feeling all that hungry.”
Aziraphale did find that his appetite returned after all. He even managed to laugh at some of Crowley’s off-colour jokes. His gloom came back when he realised his wallet was still sitting on the shop counter.
“Can you get this? I don’t have any money with me,” he whispered. “I can pay you back when we get back to the shop.”
Crowley lounged back in his chair.
“Don’t have any myself. I was planning on just walking out of here.”
Aziraphale looked at him disapprovingly.
“You can’t do that. I can’t do that.”
Crowley stood up.
“Watch me. My advice is that you come with me. No one will see us go.”
“They’ll think I’m a thief,” Aziraphale said.
“Does that matter? They won’t be able to track you down. Look, you can either create some money ex nihilo, or you can do a runner. You could always alter their memories, if you’re so worried about your reputation.”
Aziraphale glared at him. None of the options met with his approval. Crowley grinned, and started walking. Aziraphale took a deep breath, gestured at the staff, and followed.
“Goodnight, gentlemen,” their waiter said, smiling.
“Good night,” Aziraphale muttered, mortified.
He caught up with Crowley, who was sauntering along, whistling.
“That new French place looks nice,” Crowley said. “Pity you won’t get a chance to try it out.”
Aziraphale agreed. It did look nice, he thought, looking through the window. He did a double take at the reflection, and turned quickly to Crowley, who was hefting a breezeblock ruminatively in one hand. The more alarming thing from Aziraphale’s perspective was that he looked exactly like Aziraphale. With an evil grin, he flung the block though the window, attracting the attention of everyone in the immediate vicinity. Aziraphale found himself the centre of the commotion.
“What the hell did you do that for?” Crowley yelled, looking like himself once more.
Aziraphale was rooted to the spot in horror. It wasn’t till Crowley started yelling “Police!” that he felt he could move.
“Run,” Crowley whispered, and made a grab at him that somehow missed.
Aziraphale found that his feet seemed to be obeying Crowley rather than him, and he ran. A rather large policeman was close behind him. They’d gone quite a distance before Aziraphale remembered that he could make himself invisible. He made his way back to the shop in a rage. After a while Crowley showed up, chuckling.
“What was all that about?" Aziraphale asked.
“I’m getting you in trouble,” Crowley said. “They had to call an ambulance for me, you know. I needed stitches. It was too boring to wait in the hospital though, so they’ll all just remember that that’s what happened. Good going, Aziraphale. You stole, you messed with people’s minds, you committed acts of vandalism-”
“I did not.”
“-and you resisted arrest. Plus you assaulted an innocent well-dressed bystander. Very nice. Tell them you’re not fit for Heaven.”
“I don’t think they’ll care about breaking human laws. And you could have told me that’s what you were doing. I don’t think it’s any use, Crowley. I’ll have to go.”
Crowley looked at him stubbornly.
“I don’t want you to go. What am I supposed to do with some new angel? He won’t understand the Arrangement. You’re very inconsiderate.”
“Sorry,” Aziraphale sighed. “I wish I could stay.”
“You won’t like going back. Just stay here. Say ‘yes’.”
“It’s not a matter of persuasion. Goodbye, Crowley.”
“Don’t do anything. Let me talk to some people. I’ll come back early morning, OK?”
“All right, I’ll see you tomorrow.”
* * *
When Crowley came back the next morning, the shop was gone. No one could even remember it having existed. Crowley stood at the edge of the pavement and dropped the documents and passport to the tarmac where they sizzled slightly. Aziraphale wouldn’t need them now. Well. Time to get back to work. He stood for a moment longer, looking at the adult video store where Aziraphale’s shop had been. Then he bent and picked up what were now just a set of really expensive coasters and got back in the car. Before he left he changed every single video in the store to a compilation of the best of Songs of Praise.
* * *
It took some time to track down Aziraphale’s replacement. He wasn’t basing himself in London. After a fruitless two months of searching, Crowley decided to go on the offensive. After all, he had a lot of experience in offending angels.
The world’s media was somewhat surprised the next time the president of the USA gave a press briefing. While it was commonly believed that an allegiance to Satan made the most sense as an explanation for his foreign policy no one had ever expected him to actually say it. His further revelation that although he loved his wife dearly he loved goats more was perhaps an even greater surprise. He'd never struck anyone as being particularly fond of animals.
Crowley scanned the world’s newspapers over breakfast. The furore was very satisfying. The religious types were often the easiest to get to. If it didn’t attract angelic attention he didn’t know what would. It was most gratifying to see how the scandal died down quickly, as if someone was doing an awful lot of soothing.
Crowley planned on introducing himself politely and welcoming his new counterpart to earth in a civil fashion. You had to move with the times, that was all. Roll with the punches, and see how quickly you could come to an arrangement with the new guy. There was no point in crying over spilt Chateau Lafitte. When he finally saw the new angel, however, he found himself overcome with rage. He’d been drinking alone for two months and he felt he should have been used to it, but he still found himself thinking that he should recommend new restaurants and bars to Aziraphale, and he had a horrible compulsion to look into dingy second-hand bookshops just in case. The new angel looked smug and self-righteous and rather as if he’d consider half a Ryvita and a glass of tap water a rollicking night out. Crowley followed him through a crowd of tourists, watching as he looked down his nose at people and wiped his hand on a shining white handkerchief after blessing anyone. It was infuriating. Aziraphale never looked down his nose at anyone. Well, maybe Australians, but no one else. Almost without thinking Crowley took on the appearance of a senator who was currently in Washington but would have a hard time providing an alibi, given that he was currently visiting his underage mistress.
“Peace, my lord. I would speak a word, I pray thee,” Crowley called in a language no one had spoken for four thousand years. It didn’t hurt to make absolutely certain.
“Yes?” the angel replied, turning fully towards him.
A very large gun appeared in Crowley’s hand. He emptied the entire clip into the extremely surprised angel. The tourists screamed and fled in panic as Crowley dropped the gun onto the body.
“Welcome to earth,” he said, and stalked away.
* * *
It was surprisingly easy to get back in to the swing of full-time messing up of angelic plans. The new guy had no imagination and no subtlety at all. He was easily tracked by both the incredible success of politicians with strong religious faith all across the world, and a general atmosphere of cloying niceness. The politicians were easy to deal with. Crowley usually left them alone on the grounds that they’d be worse than he ever could in the name of their faith. If need be, he hit them with poetic justice by winding up their obsessions so tight that they’d snap in a hypocritical and funny way. Humans didn’t much trust or like niceness, so that wasn’t much of a problem either. Whenever possible he relieved his counterpart of his material body. The challenge lay in thinking of really embarrassing ways to do him in. Crowley was especially proud of having him murdered during an orgy. He wished he could have been a demonic fly on the wall when the angel tried to explain that one. For sheer entertainment value, though, he was very fond of the incident involving heavy machinery. All the amusingly orchestrated deaths in the world couldn’t make up for what Crowley wasn’t going admit even to himself, though. There were after all six billion other people in the world along with him, and that was only counting the humans, so it was statistically ridiculous to feel alone. It wasn’t as if he’d even seen Aziraphale every year, let alone every day, he reminded himself. And he liked people. He liked the speed at which humans lived, the way they made up for mortality by being fast thinkers and doers and coming up with fascinating new things. Still, he had also liked having the option of talking to someone with a longer perspective on things. And the indestructible liver hadn’t hurt, either. Humans who tried to keep up with him while drinking tended to keel over unconscious if they were lucky. The more determined of them usually ended up with short notices in the back pages of the papers.
Crowley looked at all the new and unfamiliar faces passing him in the morning rush hour and sighed. As much as he teased Aziraphale for being old fashioned and behind the times he knew in his heart that they weren’t so very different in some ways. Why else did he drive an eighty year old car if it wasn’t that he liked having old and familiar things around? He enjoyed new gadgets and changed his collection of them frequently, but he only ever ended up using and keeping those that even humans described as classics. He liked a lot of modern music, but turned time and again to music written centuries ago. He even - though he’d never mentioned it to Aziraphale - had a soft spot for impressive choral pieces. He’d make sure no one could hear anything outside his living room and sing along, eyes closed in ecstasy. Sometimes he was half-surprised, although always relieved, to see his own flat around him when he opened his eyes. It was at times like that that he wondered if he’d completely blown his chances of befriending the new angel. He hoped he had. He didn’t want to have to spend a couple of thousand years turning the new angel into a friend, not when there was a perfectly good angel who already knew his taste in wines.
* * *
It was during a routine series of temptings that he had his brilliant idea. A group of young idiots were sitting round and whining on about the evils of religion and their own personal spiritualities and getting in touch with spiritual forces. Crowley was giving them encouraging ideas, mainly because if they did get in touch with the forces he was suggesting they'd become some other department's problem and he could go back to tempting people who washed their hair. Given that their chief resource was a cheap reprint of a wildly out-of-date history of magic he wasn't too hopeful. He was planning that one of them would very soon start hearing a mystical voice advising them to buy some Timotei, the smelly bastards. He only started paying real attention to them when the words summoning angels drifted into his hearing. He put them all to sleep and wandered out with their book, going to a nearby pub to read in peace. As he'd suspected the book was useless but it did give him an idea. The guy it was talking about, some sixteenth century academic, had claimed he could call up angels, even the archangels. From the description of his little experiments, Crowley rather suspected he had called up something. Hmmm. Sixteenth century England. Aziraphale had acted weird for a good bit of it - maybe because this Dee fellow was calling him up. Crowley shut the book. What he needed to do was read the original notes, follow the instructions and maybe he could just summon Aziraphale back to Earth. Brilliant.
He spent months in research, sneaking into the British Library, giving himself headaches from reading hand-written, eccentrically spelled manuscripts. At the end of it he had a large stack of photocopies and hand-written notes. He'd resisted the urge to simply steal what he needed only because he knew Aziraphale wouldn't have approved, and would probably refuse to come when called. Disappointingly, Dee didn't have good instructions for calling an angel to him other than by praying. He did claim that Uriel told him Michael could be summoned by reciting the Psalms. Even though he was the sort of person who tended not to recite Psalms much in his every-day life, Crowley was glad for the warning. Whatever else Dee summoned came of its own free will, it seemed. Crowley rather suspected that it had been his lot that turned up at least half the time. Not that the bastards had said anything to him, of course. Dee did have some interesting, if sketchy notes on something else interesting, though, a ritual that claimed to lift one's senses to the highest heaven. The jumbled description and mystical phrasing seemed to fit rather well with Crowley's memories of the place. Dee claimed to have spoken with the inhabitants of the Heavenly City in a vision in his crystal lens. Crowley tried to imagine the conversation. Nice weather we're having, O Random angel. Yes, quite. Don't call me again, human. Crowley decided to give it a go - it'd be a bit like a videophone, he thought. Not a great reception, but good enough to get a shouted message through. Then Aziraphale could wander off and tell his bosses he'd been summoned, had to rush, terribly sorry, he'd be back at some undefined point in the future.
Another four months went by in preparation. Most of the time he was holed up in his flat, working out abstruse and occultly sensitive equations and reading the Qabbalistic texts he'd ordered from Amazon. The equipment had to be made specially, for the most part. Crowley deposited clear instructions and a great deal of cash with various jewellers and makers of scientific apparatuses, and eventually collected his hand ground crystal lenses, diamond-tipped dividers and assorted alchemical doodads. The extremely expensive hand made candles he got in the nearest New Age shop. He got in one last bout of angelic embarrassment, decoying his opponent past London Zoo just as an extremely hungry lion escaped, and settled down to work.
It was a beautifully sunny day, like his notes said was best. He cleared his kitchen floor, and inscribed the circle on the tiles, consulting his painstaking charts frequently. He drew in the alchemical symbols and wrote the Qabbalistic passages in a clear and confident hand. He lit the candles and very self-consciously invoked the aid of the angels of the cardinal directions. Like those bastards would lift a finger for him. He stepped into the circle, looked into the largest of his lenses and as calmly as he could instructed the cosmos that he was to be shown the highest heaven right now, specifically the bit containing Aziraphale. Nothing happened. He tapped his foot. After another few seconds he laughed at his stupidity. It was a good job no one had been around to see him make a fool of himself. His eye was caught by a pack of chocolate digestives on the worktop. A cup of coffee and a biscuit and back to the drawing board, he thought, reaching for it. As he reached out the circle flared up in a gout of blue flame. It was the kind of situation that should have merited one of his rare blinks. But he didn't have time.
* * *
Crowley opened his eyes and immediately screwed them shut again. The light was overwhelming. He felt around until he located his sunglasses and put them on, then gingerly opened his eyes. It was still bright. He was lying on something hard, but it wasn't his kitchen floor. Not unless he'd had it done up in snow-white alabaster while very drunk. He sat up and frowned at the white floor for a while. Then he raised his eyes and gasped. Majestic palaces of pearl and silver stood on either side of the shining pavement, their facades decorated in chasings of fine gold. Everywhere he looked there were pale, restrained colours and severe architectural beauty. There was nothing dark or shadowed. Except him. He was sitting in the middle of what he was slowly coming to recognise as a public square dressed head to toe in black. In fright he scuttled off to the side like a spider suddenly startled into movement. He hesitantly put out a hand and touched the side of a building. It was cool, smooth and all too real. He pinched himself hard. It really hurt.
"I am so incredibly screwed," he moaned.
Bloody humans and their dabblings in the occult. Why didn't Dee's ritual come with a health warning? Warning: practitioners of supernatural origin may find themselves taken up bodily. He was dead and worse than dead. He was one demon among an infinitude of angels. He was abandoned in the Fastness of the Enemy. Through his own blessed stupidity, which was the most galling thing. This was what sentimentality got you. Friendship was a pile of shit. He desperately wanted to curse Aziraphale but was too afraid to say anything. Instead he cowered at the side of the building shaking until his mind kicked back in and he started wondering why the place was so empty. He peered back out into the square. Rising beyond the buildings he could see other, more impressive palaces. It gradually dawned on him that he seemed to be in an uninhabited part of town. Maybe they were expecting an influx of newcomers, although he didn't think there were any major wars planned on earth just then. He crept along between the buildings, not daring to use the all too open pavement. He took stock of his situation. Right. He was in Heaven. Fine. He had infiltrated the Enemy stronghold. What would James Bond do? Be a lucky bastard, that's what. Crowley almost felt like smiling at the thought. He'd always been a lucky bastard himself, and he had a wealth of implausible tricks from spy movies to play on any angels who grabbed him. They mightn't work, but at least he'd confuse the bastards before he died. And he had a real advantage that 007 usually didn't. Somewhere in the infinity of enemy soldiers, he had an inside man.
"Aziraphale," he murmured. "Where the H -- where are you?"
Maybe he should look for the Hall of Being. He wondered if things were still being thought of there, or if all the work had long since been franchised out to humans. Humans. He should look for some human souls and see if they could point him in the right direction. Some of them would have to know of Aziraphale, and there was a less than infinite number of them, which was also appealing. As he approached the larger buildings he began to see inhabitants of the Heavenly Realm, usually flying overhead. He grimly crept along, worried that changing his appearance would attract immediate attention. At last he saw a crowd of the human Blessed, drifting his way in peaceful contentment. He reached out and snagged a couple out of the crowd.
"D'you know the angel Aziraphale? About my height, likes books? Really likes books?"
They looked at him blankly and happily and he shoved them back and grabbed another few of them.
"Aziraphale? Do you know where I can find him? He was stationed in Eden, way back and has been on Earth since?"
No response. Throw them back, fish out another few.
"How about you? Come on, some of you must owe your salvation to talking to Aziraphale. Cheerful looking fellow, likes music and thinks Mr Kipling should be canonised?"
He'd gone through almost the whole crowd when one of them pointed off to the right. He was very nervous and felt he'd stayed in one place far too long. Also, several of the Blessed were giving him rather hard looks.
"Off that way? Aziraphale? You're sure? Thanks. Thanks!"
He ran. He didn't want them reporting an inquisitive demon until he was well clear of the area. Maybe they wouldn't. Maybe they didn't know what he was. And maybe he'd be welcomed back into the Heavenly Hosts with open arms, no harm no foul, if he was going to think up unlikely scenarios. The streets were getting broader and the buildings more widely spaced. It looked like a nice neighbourhood. He suddenly ran out of buildings to hide behind. The street widened to an immense and shining plain. There was no way he was setting one black shod foot out there. He flattened himself against the last building and looked out. There was noise, he realised. Not awfully loud, but more than there had been. A silvery, clashing noise above him. He looked up cautiously and froze. Squadrons of angels were undergoing weapons drill high above him. Squadrons of them. And only one of him. One weaponless him. Calm down, calm down, he thought as his heart hammered. If he stayed still they wouldn't see him. It was fast movement that attracted their attention. As he watched in horror he saw three angels break away from the shining companies and spiral down lazily. He pressed himself so flat against the stone he thought he'd manage to sink into it. They landed and folded their wings neatly. They didn't look his way, and seemed to be discussing the angels still overhead. Snippets of conversation drifted over to him, about how useless the angels overhead were, how lazy and undisciplined. There was some desultory chat about getting together in the officers' mess later, and they all spread their wings again, ready to go off. Crowley was panting with fright. One of them had said dear boy, he was sure of it. He was going to have to call out. He fought against the instinct to hide and took a half step away from the building.
"Aziraphale!" he hissed.
He'd barely made a sound. All three angels began to fly off to rejoin their soldiers.
"Aziraphale!" he called again, a little louder.
One of the angels turned and hovered, looking around. Crowley risked a quick wave. Even at a medium distance he could see Aziraphale's eyes widen in shock. The angel looked round quickly, and dived straight at him, landing a little clumsily. They stared at each other in silence. Crowley looked at Aziraphale in astonishment. He seemed - taller, somehow. Which was ridiculous, because their eyes were still on the same level. It was the shining white raiment, Crowley decided. People always looked taller in that sort of thing. The weaponry helped too. Crowley had always believed in respecting anyone carrying impressive weapons. He peered closely and shook his head in surprise.
“Did they give you your rank back? I thought you were coming up to sweep the streets.”
Aziraphale shrugged, a little shamefacedly.
“I was as surprised as you, Crowley. Maybe there’s been attrition in the officers and they’re looking for anyone who knows one end of a sword from the other.”
“And yet they picked you,” Crowley grinned. He might be in the stronghold of the enemy, but that was no reason to drop his image, not in front of Aziraphale. “Well, well. To think lowly old me knows a cherub.”
Aziraphale pulled him into a doorway as a group of angels flew past. He half spread his wings, giving them a little privacy.
“What are you doing here?” he whispered. “Are you insane?”
“I came to see you. To check on how you’re doing. I’d have expected a little more gratitude.”
“For Heaven’s sake! You stick out like a, a --”
“Sore thumb?”
“Like a demon wandering the streets of the City! I’ve got to get you out of here.”
Crowley peeped out past Aziraphale's wings. They seemed to be alone, and there was a perfectly legitimate heavenly being right in front of him to take the blame for any supernatural activity. He turned his suit into a nice white robe and shook out his wings.
“There. You’d hardly tell me from the natives.”
“Oh, I don’t know. Sunglasses aren’t much in fashion here,” Aziraphale said.
Crowley was delighted to see he was trying to hide a smile.
“Arrest me,” he suggested. “You could interrogate me over whatever passes for a nice meal and then I could heroically escape and get a commendation for my bravery. Come on, you’ve done worse.”
Aziraphale was wavering. Crowley took off his sunglasses and handed them over. He held out his hands meekly.
“I’m your prisoner, sir. Take me away. It’s a fair cop, guv.”
“Idiot,” Aziraphale muttered.
He put a hand over Crowley’s eyes for a moment.
“Do not make eye contact with anyone. They’ll see right through that if you do. Come on, and behave yourself.”
* * *
By the time they got to what Aziraphale was insisting on calling his humble abode, Crowley was having a lot more difficulty hiding his nervousness. He was feeling very much outnumbered by the Hosts of Heaven, and had to force himself to fly casually along beside Aziraphale. It was a relief to get indoors and have only one angel in his line of sight. Aziraphale magnanimously waved him to the only stool in the place. Crowley looked at it dubiously and sat. He glanced around the rather bare white room as Aziraphale took off his sword and leaned it against the wall.
“Very Spartan. Have you taken some sort of vow against furniture?”
“There’s a table. And some cabinets. Armchairs aren’t very practical with wings, Crowley.”
Crowley didn’t bother answering. He thought it was probably time to come up with a plan for getting out of Heaven again. He gave a little jump as a white plate with some shapeless white stuff on it was shoved under his nose.
“And this is?”
“Manna. It’s all I have, I’m afraid.”
Crowley nibbled at a piece. He put it down.
“I’d forgotten. What do you say we go back down and find something decent to eat?”
Aziraphale picked up the bit he’d nibbled and took a bite. He swallowed it, sighed and put the rest back.
“It’s like Ambrosia.”
“It is not,” Crowley said.
“The tinned rice, Crowley,” Aziraphale said.
“Ah. Yes.”
Crowley looked Aziraphale over. He was undoubtedly getting lots of exercise, being back in the Hosts. And no one could be tempted to overeat manna. And there was no alcohol, or high fat, high salt, sugar laden, or monosodium glutamate filled food available. It was good for the angel. He looked absolutely miserable.
“Make them let you come back,” he said.
“Make them. Is the altitude affecting your brain?”
“Your replacement is an idiot. He doesn’t understand humans, he doesn’t understand me. I’ve taken to killing him as occupational therapy. He must be costing your lot a fortune in material bodies. Ask them to do a cost analysis.”
Aziraphale scowled in the way that meant he was ruthlessly suppressing a smile.
“I don’t see why you think it’s appropriate to boast about killing angels to me. What have you done to him?”
Crowley grinned.
“You know how people get run over by steamrollers in cartoons?”
“Oh, Crowley. You didn’t,” Aziraphale said breathlessly.
“It’s a bit squishier in real life,” Crowley said cheerfully.
Aziraphale turned a giggle into a cough, and then just gave up and laughed. Crowley was disgusted to realise that he’d been missing the sound.
“Thank you, my dear,” Aziraphale said. “I needed that.”
“Come on,” Crowley said cajolingly. “There’s got to be some way to get you back down where you belong. You’re not happy here, I can see that. It’d be good and merciful and compassionate to let you come home. Can’t you appeal?”
“This is home, as far as they’re concerned,” Aziraphale said. “If I could --,” his voice trailed off.
Crowley casually got off the stool and wandered to the opposite side of the table. Aziraphale looked like he needed a hug, and Crowley was by no means so far gone that he’d oblige him.
“Crowley, I miss -- everything,” Aziraphale said in a small voice.
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Crowley said. “So do something about it. Run away. Take a leave of absence. You could even -,” he took a breath, “ -defect.”
Aziraphale looked rather shocked.
“I couldn’t do that. Could I?”
“Suppose I could guarantee you’d be stationed on earth with me? And given protection? I’m not asking you to do demonic stuff; I’m just putting forward a possibility. My people think of you as a very devious powerful opponent of their plans. They’d be happy to accept you in whatever capacity you think fit. I’ve asked, Aziraphale,” he said, in an encouraging tone. “They want you, they do. Think about it - all they’d want is for you not to mess my activities up, and you’re already doing that. Or not doing it. Don’t you want to come back to London?”
“You asked?” Aziraphale said frostily. “You asked Hell about me defecting?”
Crowley ploughed on before Aziraphale could get more annoyed.
“Coffee, Aziraphale. Freshly made strong coffee. Warm, crusty bread with real butter, none of that low fat reduce your cholesterol crap. Marmalade from Harrods. That’s a lot better in the mornings than picking some manna off the ground, isn’t it? Parks full of flowers and trees. Duck ponds. Human music."
He felt a thrill of victory at the expression on Aziraphale’s face and gave the coup de grace.
“You don’t seem to have many books here. I can’t believe you’d stay somewhere without books.”
He stalked back around the table, the better to murmur insinuatingly.
“Early printed books, Aziraphale. Forgotten and overlooked classics. Works that should be in the literary canon but aren’t. Poetry, Aziraphale. Epics and sonnets and terza rima.”
He stepped right up to the angel and whispered very softly in his ear.
“Illuminated manuscripts.”
It did his heart good to see Aziraphale’s face. That was the expression of someone very much enjoying being tempted and resisting only because the anticipation felt so good. He kept his own expression kind and concerned.
“Do you want to come home?” he said quietly.
Aziraphale shuddered and nodded.
“And you’ll do what’s necessary to get there?”
Aziraphale was looking rather wild-eyed as he nodded again. Crowley looked in his face, fascinated. Of all the places he’d thought he might successfully tempt Aziraphale to something serious, here hadn’t been high on the list.
“We should get out of here,” he said. “Should we go now, or wait a while?”
“No time like the present,” Aziraphale said in a far-off voice.
He shook himself and looked round the bare room, then picked up the sword and belted it on.
“Let’s go, Crowley, before I come to my senses. I know how we can get out of here.”
* * *
Every step of the way, Crowley felt sure they would be attacked or arrested or hit with a bolt of lightning. He told himself he had to keep calm so Aziraphale wouldn’t be panicked. Finally they drew near to one of the gates of the City. Aziraphale motioned him back.
“Right. I’ll go on ahead and distract the guards. You make a break for it and get down as quick as possible, all right? I’ll tell the guards to stay here and let me chase you by myself.”
“You said you had a plan! That’s your plan?” Crowley hissed. “Suppose they don’t listen?”
“I outrank them,” Aziraphale said neutrally. “At the very least you’ll get a good head start. Just move fast.”
Crowley clenched his fists as Aziraphale strolled up to the guards and started chatting. They looked well and truly distracted. Right. Here went nothing. He sprinted straight for the gate, shot past the alarmed angels and jumped through headfirst. The ethereal wind tore at his face as he plummeted, his wings tucked in tight to increase his speed. He didn’t spare any energy looking back. Aziraphale would either be successful or he wouldn’t. He could barely see the world beneath, but the first of the celestial spheres was coming up fast. By some miracle there was a gate almost directly beneath him, and he lost very little speed adjusting his course. By an even greater miracle the gate was unguarded. Someone Up There doesn’t consider me an utter Abomination, he thought giddily. He really hoped Aziraphale was following. The next sphere was getting larger in his field of vision. There wasn’t a gate under him. He looked to either side and saw one, and blessed under his breath. There was a squad of angels lounging round it, idly grooming each others’ wings. Only one thing for it, so. The celestial spheres weren’t actually impervious to those originally of angelic stock. He’d crashed through each and every one several millennia ago. It hadn’t been pleasant, but it had been possible. He straightened his dive and arrowed down at the sphere. At the last moment he flung an arm over his eyes, and then he hit. There was a sound like ice or glass shattering and he felt like every part of him had been subjected to one of the more imaginative human methods of dealing with people who had slightly differing religious views. He tumbled down through the ether, completely unable to control his fall. As he struggled to open his wings he looked up and saw shocked angelic faces peering through the gate. Then the bastards jumped through after him. He took one look at their spears and forced his wings to open. Once he got control back he tucked them tight again and regained speed. As long as he didn’t run into anyone patrolling between the spheres he could make it, he thought. And it was highly unlikely that his pursuers would do anything but go through a gate, the law abiding idiots. Let them waste time. He wasn’t going to, even though his skin crawled at the thought of smashing through another sphere. He looked back. Behind the squad of angels, gaining on them, was a solitary figure. It had to be Aziraphale. Hurry up, Crowley thought.
He reached the next sphere and crashed through. There was a strange noise in his ears as he fought to control his fall. He realised it was him crying with pain and forced the whimpers back. There hadn’t been a gate anywhere in sight. Surely he’d lost them. Behind him there was a high-pitched shattering noise. The blessed bastards had more gumption than he’d given them credit for. Despair began to grow in his heart until he realised the voice floating down from above was very familiar.
“Ow! Blast!” Aziraphale yelled.
Crowley got his wings open and stopped falling out of control. He took a second’s wonderful, marvellous rest. They’d be all right. They’d get home and get really, really drunk and find the most extravagant restaurant in the whole city, and never set foot off the earth again. He stopped pretending as the gang of angels reappeared off to his right. There were at least three times as many as before, and they seemed fresh.
“Go! Go!” Aziraphale screamed at him.
Crowley took a breath and dived again. The angels were getting closer. As he got lower he saw another squad come out of a gate beneath him, and knew it was over. He stopped diving and waited for Aziraphale.
“We’re screwed,” he said as Aziraphale slowed beside him.
“No. I’m not letting you give in that easily,” Aziraphale said. “Knock me out. Make it look good and take my sword. At least you’ll have a weapon. You'll have a better chance.”
Crowley hesitated.
“Do it,” Aziraphale said angrily. “Some of them will stop chasing you to see if I’m all right.”
He drew his sword and gave a rather crazy smile.
“Maybe I’ll get demoted and stationed on earth again. Come on, Crowley. Pretend I just made you help me with a crossword puzzle and you can finally express yourself properly. Goodbye.”
He slashed an easily avoided blow at Crowley. It didn’t look very convincing from close range. Crowley gritted his teeth and hit him hard. Make it look convincing, he thought, pulling the angel close.
“I’m so sorry,” he said, and gave Aziraphale a deep bite.
He grabbed the sword and fled. The sounds of pursuit died off above him. The squad of angels coming up from below scattered in fright as he went right through the middle of them. He thought he might have skewered one of them, but wasn’t sure. Once he got through the gate beneath, he found himself alone. His journey back to earth was fast and peaceful.
* * *
No one contacted Crowley about his expedition. He fretted about telling his superiors. It wasn’t like no one had noticed him there at the end. Those pursuing angels must have seen he was a demon. Unless they thought he was just a random angel trying to leave without an exit visa perhaps. In his heart he knew that was nonsense, and that he’d caused a major diplomatic incident. Right now every last detail was no doubt being squeezed out of Aziraphale. There was no way the angel could keep quiet. They’d both end up recalled and that would be that. Maybe he’d be handed over for the Heavenly Hosts to use as target practice. And the new agent for Hell would be just as bad as the new angel, and they’d tear the earth apart. Thinking about that hurt a lot. He’d never wanted to cause that kind of mischief. Everything he did was fucked up, he thought bitterly. He was just a blot on Creation, a nasty mistake that should have been erased a long time ago. And would be quite soon if his superiors got wind of this, he fretted. If only he had something to show for his stupidity, like a defecting angelic agent. He had a feeling that saying well, he seemed interested but sadly didn’t actually make any commitments before he was arrested while saving my skin wouldn’t be very helpful. Oh shit, they were going to skin him and make him into a handbag for Hastur. There was only one thing for it, Crowley decided. He was going to continue life as normal for as long as possible, but he was going to carry everything needed for another assault on Heaven with him at all times. It wasn’t his superiors’ style to have him brought in by stealth. That wouldn’t give him enough time to be sufficiently cowed. They’d contact him beforehand and try to break his spirit before they got round to breaking the rest of him. And the moment they did, he was going to run. All he needed was enough of a head start to set everything out for the ritual. And then it would be him that defected. Aziraphale’s lot couldn’t be as bad as his lot, no matter how cynical Aziraphale was about them. They had that whole thing about angels rejoicing over one single repentant sinner, for example, if it wasn’t just propaganda. And he’d give them penitence like they hadn’t seen for a while. The full and complete details on every damn one of Hell’s plans that he knew of type of penitence.
He took to wearing the sword whenever he went out. A weapon designed to do serious damage to supernatural beings was not to be sneezed at. Humans couldn’t see it, so that wasn’t a problem. It did spoil the line of his jacket though. It was, of course, the sword that made the angel decide to speak to him for the first time. He was walking along wondering which restaurant to have lunch in when there was an outraged yell from behind him.
“Where did you get that, Serpent?”
“I have a name,” Crowley said wearily as he turned.
There was a point, he thought. He’d never bothered to find out the new angel’s name. Maybe he could work to get the new guy on his side, show him he’d turned over a new leaf. He looked at the smug, self-righteous face. The angel was looking at him like he was something unpleasant to be scraped off the sole of a shoe. At his worst Aziraphale had never looked at him like that. Screw it, he didn’t want this guy as a friend anyway.
“Well?” the angel said.
Oh, just one more time, a little voice whispered in Crowley’s mind.
“I took it from a cherub,” he said cheerfully, drawing and lunging in one smooth move.
He pulled the blade back sharply and watched the angel clutch his chest and keel over. The bastard had never watched any classic movies if he didn’t see that coming, that was for sure. Bystanders flocked round in alarm, thinking the unfortunate young man had had a heart attack. Crowley tracked the rapidly retreating form of the bodiless angel.
“You’re complete crap!” he yelled. “The last agent would never have been fooled by such a simple move. You can’t stand up to me for a second, you pathetic excuse for an angel!”
He picked a restaurant at random and sat, head in hands. Great. Wonderful. So much for a show at penitence if and when he had to run off to Heaven. Even if they didn’t know it was him before, they’d certainly know now. Bloody whiny little angel. After six thousand years he shouldn’t be so impulsive. The rest of the day was extremely depressing.
Hell contacted him three days later. He was watching the 10 o'clock News when the newsreader’s eyes suddenly took on a fiery glow.
“CROWLEY. WE’VE BEEN HEARING INTERESTING REPORTS ABOUT YOU.”
“Oh?” Crowley said, casually picking up his bag of supplies for the ritual.
“YOU’VE BEEN A REAL THORN IN HEAVEN’S SIDE OVER THE PAST WHILE.”
“Just doing my job,” Crowley said, feeling for the remote.
“THERE HAVE BEEN OFFICIAL REPRESENTATIONS ABOUT YOU.”
“Hmm,” Crowley said encouragingly, and turned the TV off.
The picture flickered and steadied. The newsreader looked a little puzzled.
“CROWLEY? SORRY, THERE SEEMED TO BE A PROBLEM WITH THE RECEPTION THERE FOR A SECOND. CAN YOU STILL HEAR ME?”
“Yeah,” Crowley said unhappily.
“HEAVEN IS DEMANDING YOUR HEAD ON A PLATTER. YOU’RE WANTED FOR THEFT, ASSAULT, ATTEMPTED MURDER, DAMAGE TO PROPERTY AND CAUSING DERELICTION OF DUTY AMONG THEIR RANKS.”
So much for defecting. He took his hand off the bag. Shit, he had nowhere to run now. The newsreader was openly gloating, and the set was looking more and more like it was made of fire. Crowley frowned.
“I’m sorry, could you repeat that?”
“INTELLIGENCE REPORTS THAT THE HEAVENLY AGENT HAS FLED EARTH. WELL DONE, CROWLEY. NO DOUBT THEY’LL REPLACE HIM WITH SOMEONE MORE DIFFICULT TO DEAL WITH, BUT YOU HAVE AN OPEN FIELD AT THE MOMENT. MAKE GOOD USE OF IT.”
“Those charges - they’re about that bloody idiot?”
The newsreader laughed. Smoke began to creep out of the TV.
“YOU SEEM TO HAVE BEEN QUITE INVENTIVE WITH HIM, CROWLEY. IF YOU EVER WANT A TRANSFER TO TORMENTS I’M SURE IT CAN BE ARRANGED. SEND HIS SWORD DOWN WITH YOUR NEXT REPORT. WE’LL RETURN IT IF THEY ASK NICELY. NOW GO OUT AND MAKE US PROUD -and to return to tonight’s main story --”
Crowley turned it off. He sat there for half a second then ran out his door, down the stairs and jumped into the car. If the building was going to explode he wanted to be far away. By morning he was still alive, and hadn’t been contacted again. He was alternately convinced they were trying to lure him into a false sense of security and convinced that that would be far beyond their nasty, hidebound little minds. A delicious and wonderful conviction was growing in his mind. Heaven was too embarrassed to acknowledge he’d been there. They were pretending they were just upset about that new moron. Hell didn’t really know what he’d been up to, which was just as well, given that “causing mayhem among the enemy” looked a lot better on his record than “stupidly visiting an old pal who just happens to be on the opposite side.” He’d be a perfect little demon and convince his superiors of his usefulness, he thought. He spent the day tempting and tormenting like he actually was interested in it. All humans unfortunate enough to attract his attention found themselves acting in ways they were heartily ashamed of later. Except of course for the ones who found it exciting and thrilling and vowed to act like that for ever. Crowley made notes of who needed special encouragement and positive reinforcement.
After a couple of days he was brave enough to go home. Nothing seemed to be trapped or bugged. The whisky wasn’t poisoned and he was immune anyway, so he had a double. He was on his third when the Ansaphone rang. Whoever it was hung up when the message started. Good. He didn’t want double glazing anyway. The other line rang, and rang and rang. Finally he sighed and picked it up.
“Yeah? What?”
He put his drink down and took off the sunglasses. He rubbed hard at his eyes. He covered the receiver with his hand and cleared his throat.
“It’s about time I heard from you,” he said nonchalantly. “We should talk. You want to try that new French place?”
* * *
It was a very nice restaurant, with a fine selection of wines, and no one remembered about the window at all. By a very great dint of effort both of them managed not to laugh with relief too much. Aziraphale did get a little emotional when he had the first mouthful of his main course, but he felt it was forgivable. By the time both of them had got to the point in their stories where they were praised by their superiors their good humour had made the whole restaurant quite jolly.
“And they asked those angels why they didn’t follow you down, and they - they s-s-said ‘He took out a cherub, Sir, we thought we should wait for back-up’,” Aziraphale sniggered. “And Michael yelled a lot and said ‘See this angel? That’s the spirit you should have! Didn’t think about holding back when you saw the Enemy, did you, lad?’ and I said ‘No, Sir! You know me and demons, can’t abide the creatures’.”
“You are such a liar,” Crowley said admiringly. “Didn’t they question you at all?”
“Raguel’s lot wanted to, all right, but Michael kept yelling about bureaucrats not understanding the military man, and he was damned if he was putting up with any more interference. And then everyone was distracted by the new scandal when Abdiel came whimpering back.”
“Who?” Crowley asked, pouring them more wine.
“My replacement, Crowley.”
“Oh. Never bothered learning his name.”
“Anyway, there were a lot of red faces. I suppose the poor chap was court-martialled. And Michael came to tell me that I needn’t worry, he wouldn’t let Gabriel take me back, even if I was the only one with experience of dealing with such a devious and nasty opponent. I had to be quite insistent in telling him I was content and proud to do whatever duty I was assigned to by wiser minds.”
Aziraphale gave a devious and nasty smile.
“I thought he was going to cry, he was so moved.”
Crowley inhaled a profiterole while laughing and coughed and choked rather a lot. Aziraphale hit him hard on the back until the poor boy managed to catch his breath. He didn't want Crowley dying on him, not when he'd only just managed to get back to Earth.
"Don't ever get yourself sent off again," Crowley wheezed. "One daring rescue attempt was enough for me."
"You really must tell me how you got Up There in the first place," Aziraphale said, not for the first time.
He was enjoying watch Crowley change the subject in increasingly less subtle ways. This time the demon simply pretended he hadn't heard. There was definitely something there for him to tease the fellow about. He decided to show compassion, and ordered another bottle of wine.
"You can rest easy, my dear Crowley," he said, happily pouring for both of them, "I have no intention of going Anywhere."
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Note:
Dr John Dee was a real 16th century mathematician, astrologer and alchemist. His surviving manuscripts are in the British Library. With the aid of assistants he claimed to have summoned and spoken to various angels, including the archangels Uriel, Gabriel, Raphael and Michael. His notes say that his "angelic actions" were frequently interrupted by fallen angels trying to trick him. He may well also have had a specific ritual to reveal the Heavenly City, but I made up the one used in this story.