Title: Untitled
Recipient:
RikacainPairing/Characters: Aziraphale, Crowley
Rating: PG
Word Count: 1107
Notes: This was an interesting couple months for me, so this isn't anywhere near as long as I'd hoped to manage at all. On the other hand, nobody had to figure out what to do when somebody has to drop due to being a touch dead, so there's that.
Summary: Ezra Fell is a rare book (alleged) dealer in late Victorian London. He didn't expect to his newest rare manuscript to come with a demon...
It was strange enough to return from overseas with little memory of one's past, aside from a rather confusing manuscript that had been among your things after the Accident. It seemed clear to me that I must be an aspiring author as well as a dealer in rare books.
The contents of the journal made more sense that way, though precisely why I would be writing a novel in some language nobody else could identify, no less read, is something I wish I had thought to write down.
Finding a rather serpentine gentleman awaiting me outside of the door to my shop and home (according to my papers) despite the late hour of my return was perhaps moreso, especially with how he shifted from an elegant slouch to attention as he saw me approach.
Then his eyes caught the crutch tucked under my left arm, the no-longer-awkward roll of my steps, and for some reason unknown to me this seems to alarm him rather more than I would think quite normal for a friend given I had been abroad.
I suppose it might be understandable, in a way, given that from my papers did have a remarkable number of visa stamps. If this was as it seemed, and the first time my travels met with quite as drastic a misfortune as this one had, perhaps he was used to my returning with all limbs intact.
Then I got close enough to note his eyes behind the darkened glasses he wore, and realized just how appropriate my earlier thoughts had been. Serpentine indeed, and not human.
I was tempted to change destinations and spend the night at an inn or the ilk, but the weight of the book I clearly had risked my life to get reminded me that there was a reason that I had hurried to return to my home.
When I had gone through my sparse possessions, I had not found in among them any sign as to why I had wanted a rare tome in some obscure and likely dead language, unless one counted the part-done novel passing as my journal. I suspected it was for a buyer, but I would only know by consulting my records at my shop.
I knew that it was, perhaps, a very slim chance as I seemed to be rather paranoid about such before the Accident.
In some ways I suppose I was less paranoid now, given that I kept heading for my home despite the demon on my doorstep. At least, I did not feel as much dread as I would have expected to feel.
“An… Ezra, you look like you’ve had a rough time.”
That prompted a slight, bone-dry smile. “I did. Excuse me if I don’t remember your name, I was in a rather bad accident.”
His head tilted a little. “So I see.”
“They did say it was a miracle that I was the worst hurt…” It had been a freak accident. The rearmost passenger car had come uncoupled while transversing some rough terrain in the Alps, and this might not have been quite so bad if the bridge that marked the lowest part nearby had not quite inexplicable collapsed suddenly… I knew I ought to be glad that by some miracle I was alive still, but the fact that the rest of passengers in the car, mostly children, had been fine aside from a few bruises.
I’d lost a decent part of my leg and my memories, and only been identified from the papers within the remarkably ugly plaid bag I had with me.
“You’d said you were worried about it costing you an arm and a leg…” I couldn’t tell if the familiar stranger’s smile was joking. “I’m Anthony Crowley.”
“Ezra Fell, though I suppose you already knew.”
“We’re old friends.” He glanced up the road, seemingly seeing through the gloom of the moonless night as easily as if it was a sunny day. “Did you know you were being followed?”
I almost managed to resist the glance back. Anthony, to whom I must have been close given that apparently we were on a first-name basis, was not the first demon I had thought I had seen, though he was the first to approach me.
He was also the most human-looking one, able to pass with his darkened glasses as one. The ones that had followed me, and which nobody before had seemed to see, were holes in the fabric of the world, moving black silhouettes that were vaguely human. Their limbs were too long, though, and fingers seemed clawed.
They had said that the connector that had linked the train car to the rest of the train had looked like it had been slashed with something incredibly sharp, able to cut through steel like a hot knife through butter…
I was not sure quite how I had been managing to keep ahead of them. I suspected that the prior owner (owners, perhaps?) of the strange tome had been taken care of them, given that the exotic leather cover seemed stained with blood. I had simply taken care to keep moving and tried once I realized the danger again to stay away from innocents.
Something told me that Anthony was no more an innocent than I was, though I really had no idea quite why that would hold true for either of us. He did, however, seem rather strangely nervous. “You do still have the key to your place?”
The answer was both simple and complex, and I held up the set of a dozen keys. “I’m not quite certain which of them might be it.”
A frantic demon, it turned out, could be quite good at quickly figuring out which of a group of quite similar keys was the one needed, though quite why he was in such a hurry to get inside was not something I could quite guess at the time. Those shadowy demons had not seemed to need any invitation to follow me inside other places.
A glance up above the door as he locked it behind me stirred a scrap of knowledge, carefully carved characters saying to me that nothing evil might enter without permission.
It would be nice to know why I knew that, but I suspected I had a better chance of finding out from the demon who had pulled out what apparently was one of my bottles of wine and two glasses.
“So, I suppose you forgot you were getting a cursed manuscript?”
That explained a lot, I suppose. “What do I do now, though?”
Anthony smiled, teeth looking fangy. “Now? I help you.”
Happy Holidays, Rikacain, from your Secret Writer!