Happy Holidays, blueeyedtigress!, Part II
Wednesday
Crowley finally gave in and materialised some dog food for Dog on Wednesday afternoon. He had no idea what the boy, or for that matter Aziraphale, had been feeding the mutt but it refused to eat anything that Crowley had offered it.
Although when he thought about it, perhaps miracling live rabbits and expecting it to hunt its own food was ill advised.
It had seemed like a good idea at the time.
He’d fallen asleep before he could sober himself up on Monday night, and had woken up on Tuesday with a dog whining in his ear and a bitch of a hangover. He’d barely had time to shove the creature away before he bolted for the bathroom.
He leaned weakly against the toilet bowl afterwards and the mutt had started a high pitched yipping that felt like nails being hammered into his skull. He’d snapped his fingers to mute the blasted creature. It had bared its teeth at him and then proceeded to carry out Crowley’s threat to his plants, some of which lost the will to live and wilted.
Crowley hadn’t known that plants could commit suicide.
He’d almost called Aziraphale but he’d never live it down if he’d had to give up in less than twelve hours.
He concentrated, and finally managed to de-hangover on the fourth try. The funny thing was he couldn’t even remember why he’d gotten so drunk in the first place. The problem with drinking to forget is that often you forget what it was you wanted to forget.
He’d decided that the only way to deal with the situation was to go back to bed. Maybe he could sleep through the next hundred years and when he woke up everything would have taken care of itself.
Dog came into his room some time later and pawed at his head. Crowley kept his eyes shut and hoped that if he ignored it, it would go away. When it got no response the mutt grabbed Crowley’s ear and tugged hard.
“Ow! Let go! I’m up! I’m up!” Crowley leapt up, arms flailing wildly, knocking the dog off his ear. Dog then sniffed a couple of times and then threw its head back and howled. Crowley winced. He could only imagine how loud that would sound and was glad he’d left its volume turned off.
After some trial and error that had involved flinging open windows and doors and entreating it to - ‘Fly, little dog! Fly, and be free!’ - he’d established that it was hungry.
It stared glumly after the rabbits Crowley kindly produced and then proceeded to chew Crowley’s shoes; obviously they were a tastier prospect for some unfathomable reason.
Crowley had thrown a couple of loafs of bread at it - well, that worked for the ducks - and then slammed out of his flat, not even caring that he was only half dressed. He was a demon, after all. With any luck the mutt would have climbed out of a window and fallen splattering to the ground by the time he got back.
“It was a tragic, tragic tragedy,” he said to himself, thinking of what he would say to Aziraphale. “I am deeply saddened and will never forgive myself. In fact, my life in this mortal coil no longer has meaning - I think the only thing that can be done is for you to give me a reason to go on, if you know what I -”
Oh. Right. That explained last night’s drunkenness.
Muttering colourful phrases in long dead languages, he headed for… well, somewhere - anywhere as long as it had alcohol and a 24 hour license.
The rest of the day was a bit of a blur. He woke up on Wednesday in front of his television with vague recollections of singing “I will survive” in Leicester Square and talking to some sparkly teenagers in Camden Town about how you could never trust angels and antichrists and how just when you thought you finally knew what it was all about, it turned around and kicked you in the nuts. Ineffable, that’s what it was.
He remembered that they had listened to him solemnly and wondered if they would start a new religion or cult around him. Either that or they had just been trying to not antagonise the crazy drunk and were looking for the earliest opportunity to leg it.
Dog sat on one of Crowley’s formerly pristine leather sofas, a picture of misery and dejection. The rabbits, which were looking obscenely fluffy, hopped about with an almost fiendish cheerfulness, especially given that one of them appeared to have choked on a loaf of bread.
Crowley got rid of the rabbits and felt something uncomfortably like guilt. He was wondering if he was going to be forced to do some actual shopping when an advertisement for dog food came on.
Inspiration struck.
Dog hadn’t looked too impressed, and sniffed it rather disdainfully, but was hungry enough to tuck into it all the same.
“Yes!” shouted Crowley, gleefully. “I am a genius!” He jigged about the room, miracling dog food cans out of nowhere onto all of the kitchen surfaces.
Then he felt terribly undignified and was glad that no-one was there to see him.
He stood under the shower for half an hour, and felt a lot better. He’d never been too big a fan of baths, but thought that humans had got the right idea with showers.
He would bet both arms and both legs that Aziraphale was a bath person.
Dog had finished eating by the time he came out again and wagged its tail. Then it ran and pawed at the door.
“Oh right. You want to go outside, do you?”
Dog sat back on its - no, that wasn’t quite right - his haunches and barked silently. It looked rather cute, but wrong.
Crowley snapped his fingers and then cringed. The barking was loud, high-pitched and had a distinctly plaintive sound to it.
“Alright, alright! Just let me get my sunglasses. For - Go - Sata - for fuck’s sake, shush!”
Shush? He’d obviously been spending too much time with that angel.
Adam obviously had trained the mutt well, it behaved itself commendably on their walk and two youngish women paused to exclaim on how cute it was. Other than their appallingly poor eyesight, they also had ridiculous morals for this day and age. On talking to them, Crowley discovered that the wristbands they wore indicated that they had decided to ‘wait’ until they were married. He took great delight in convincing them that this was a terrible idea, but found fending them off significantly less pleasant.
Crowley always maintained that the future was in thinking big but sometimes a bit of good old one-on-one tempting had its merits. It always made him feel so productive.
By the time they were back home Crowley felt a lot better about everything. This lasted all of twenty seconds.
***
Crowley shut the door and stopped in his tracks. He felt a strong demonic presence - not quite here yet, but very close. He had no time to lose. He grabbed Dog by his collar, ran into the kitchen and threw him into the nearest cupboard - it wasn’t as if he had anything in there.
“Hello, Crowley - I trust we’re not intruding.”
Crowley turned around slowly and adjusted his sunglasses. “Hastur. Well isn’t this an unpleasant surprise.”
“Charming as always,” Hastur said, “Have you met Ulthar? I’m training him to be Ligur’s replacement. You do remember Ligur, don’t you?” he added nastily.
Ulthar was small and weedy looking and appeared to be taking notes.
“Enchanted,” said Crowley scathingly, “New, is he? I can’t say I’ve seen him about.”
“I was recently promoted, sir. They believe I show great promise. They thought of me as soon as the position opened up.”
So he was one of those. A pencil pusher. Crowley shuddered.
“Keen, our Ulthar is,” smiled Hastur. “In fact, if it wasn’t for his due diligence, we wouldn’t be here today.”
“And what’s that supposed to mean?”
Ulthar pulled out a plastic folder from somewhere and rummaged through it. “I was examining the report for your latest commendation, which took place at approximately 11:45 this Monday, when I came upon a curiosity.”
Crowley raised an eyebrow artistically. “Well, you know what they say about curiosity. Best avoid it, if you know what I’m saying. Ligur was a curious sort of bloke, too.”
Hastur snarled. “If you’re threatening us, you maggoty -”
“Now, now, sir,” said Ulthar placating, “You know that threats are to be encouraged. Guidebook says it indicates a healthy attitude for our line of work.”
Crowley stared at him.
“So, Mr Crowley,” said Ulthar, reading from his notes, “Anthony, you don’t mind if I call you Anthony, do you? You received a commendation for the disruption of peace talks over the current conflict of interests between certain countries. This incident involved a hound that had been seen in the possession of a Mr A. Z. Raphale, proprietor of one used books shop in Soho. Can you confirm if this is true?”
Crowley thought fast. While no-one had ever said he couldn’t consort with angels, and they could have hardly failed to notice him working with Aziraphale during the Apocalypse That Wasn’t, he had a feeling that the Arrangement would be frowned upon.
“Could be,” he said airily, “I wouldn’t have a clue. I saw an opportunity and I struck. The dog could have been anyone’s, you know. I didn’t stop to ask. I reckon it wouldn’t go too well. ‘Hello Madam, mind if I borrow your dog for a moment to bite a Cabinet Minister?’”
Hastur made an impatient noise that sounded a bit like “Thcha!”
Ulthar laid a restraining hand on Hastur’s arm and fake-laughed unpleasantly. “Snng sng sg, very amusing, Anthony. And yet I find it curious that you should have so many tins of what, and correct me if I’m wrong, I believe is a leading brand of dog food. And do I detect -” he sniffed a sagging houseplant “a strange stench of dog urine coming from your plants.”
“We’ve got you now, Crowley.” Hastur was rubbing his hand and almost salivating at the prospect.
There was a snuffling from the cupboard door which started to swing open - Crowley slammed it closed and pressed his back to it.
“Curiouser and curiouser,” Ulthar stroked his chin with his pen and looked thoughtful.
“There’s a perfectly simply explanation,” Crowley said desperately, “This is my new pet! I got the idea from the dog… see, it can get rather lonely sometimes. He hasn’t been properly housetrained that’s all.”
“Do you expect us to believe that, you slimy serpent?”
“Now, Mr Hastur, let us not be hasty. After all are we not reasonable men?”
Hastur looked at Ulthar exasperated. “No, you silly bugger! And we aint men either.”
“Sticks and stones, sir, sticks and stones. And I hope I don’t have to remind you, sir, of our new directive? You can’t have forgotten the Policy, surely?” Ulthar’s voice had developed a definite edge to it. His eyes narrowed menacingly.
“No, no,” said Hastur, hastily. “Of course not.”
“If you will satisfy my curiosity, Anthony, and let us see your new canine companion then my esteemed colleague and I will be on our way,” Ulthar smiled. He looked Crowley directly in the eye.
Looking an occult (or ethereal, if you prefer that term) being in the eye is generally not a good idea. You can see things - horrible things, that don’t bear talking about, things that can only be brought through great suffering or great sadness or madness so great that it has passed out through to some other side. Ulthar’s eyes had none of those things. There was simply nothing there.
Crowley found that this terrified him. Aziraphale he thought.
“Tha - that wouldn’t be a good idea,” he rasped, his throat suddenly very dry.. “He’s not very good with visitors. Almost took someone’s leg off the other day.”
Dog whined loudly and pawed at the door.
“Really, Anthony?” Ulthar smiled wider. “You wouldn’t be telling me a little white lie, would you? That would be so disappointing, especially after I was doing my best to be reasonable.”
Crowley wished that the stupid mutt could have stayed bigger. Or at least, silent. The incessant scratching at the cupboard stopped.
Crowley made a last ditch effort. “Look, I’m just saying this for your own good. This is dog isn’t the man’s-best-friend sort you see on the telly, he’s a vicious bastard. He’s a killer - a real hellhound!”
There was an ominous silence. Crowley could feel the cupboard door strain behind his back. He had an awful feeling about this.
“Why don’t you let us be the judge of that,” said Ulthar as slick as an oil spill.
Crowley gasped with the effort of keeping the door closed. Whatever was inside wanted to get out very, very badly. He shrugged at the inevitability of it all.
“Alright,” he said quietly. “But don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
He opened the door.
***
Have you ever dreamt that you were someone else? Or something else.
Imagine that you’re naturally bold and courageous. You’re outgoing and vivacious and never back down. Then you dream that you’re shy and retiring and dislike confrontation. And as far as you know, you’ve always been this way. It might feel a bit wrong, it might feel uncomfortable, but it is what it is. As long as you’re dreaming, this is the way it’s always been.
For the thing now inside the cupboard, this is what it was like: It was like waking up.
It had been asleep and dormant for years, (well, seven years technically, which isn’t that long a time, but in dog years it’s half your life), and now it was awake. There was a fierce joy at finally being free, finally being allowed to do its purpose, finally having a Master who was worthy. And anger too, anger at being subdued for so long. Sheer mindless fury.
You know they talk about hell having no fury like a woman scorned. That’s a load of bollocks. A woman scorned may get pretty angry, but it’s your normal, every-day, anger, just sustained over a longer time period. If you took that anger and multiplied it by
, stoked it with the fires of the core of the earth and then simmered it for as long as before the first angel fell, you would only just scratch the surface of hell’s fury.
OK, maybe that is exaggerating somewhat, but it is a whole heap angrier than your average heartbroken human female.
This was hell’s fury, and it was in Crowley’s kitchen.
***
Crowley opened the door and then ducked behind it.
He didn’t know what would come would come out of the cupboard, but wanted to be well out of biting range when it did.
It wasn’t Dog anymore, it wasn’t even a dog.
Ulthar had stepped back to take more notes, but Hastur had leaned forward eagerly, almost hungrily. If Crowley had been looking at his face instead of scrambling away he would have thought that Hastur planned to eat whatever came out. Knowing Hastur, this was not just being metaphorical, but it was rather ironic in a way.
So when it came out, all teeth and claws and inhuman brutality, Hastur bore the full brunt of it.
Crowley had intended to sneak away stealthily, but when he heard the first scream, that plan went out the window. So did Crowley.
He was immensely thankful that he’d forgotten to close the windows. Not that it would have mattered, but smashing through a glass window was never pleasant.
He unfurled his wings as he fell so that saved the trouble of being messily discorporated.
He landed heavily, bolted into the Bentley and sped off.
Ohshit he thought ohshitohshitohshit.
***
Ulthar was mildly alarmed when the hellhound came rampaging out of the cupboard.
It wasn’t so much the actual hellhound. More that Crowley had been telling the truth.
The same way as employees were encouraged to make threats, they were also encouraged to lie. It showed that they had embraced the spirit of the establishment. Of course they were expected to tell the truth eventually but they were demons after all. Where would they all be if they just keeled over and started telling the truth and coming away peacefully?
That would be another black mark against Anthony Crowley. The hellhound showed enterprise though. Ulthar wondered where he’d gotten one from.
He stepped back, to avoid the spray of blood, ectoplasm and other various fluids. He scowled at the racket Hastur was making. Couldn’t he see that Ulthar was trying to think? Some demons were so inconsiderate.
Crowley was a strange one. There was that business a few years ago with his Lordship’s son, and general insubordination and now this hellhound.
Again, it wasn’t the hellhound per se, but this was obviously an unauthorised hellhound.
You couldn’t just go around sticking hellhounds on people without a permit.
And there were all these rumours about Crowley and that angel. Ulthar shook his head and sighed heavily. There was so much to do and now it looked like he’d need a new partner.
He made a note of it and stepped out of the flat. He was just about done here and besides, he was running late for an appointment. Hastur had stopped screaming. By the sounds of it, the hellhound was almost done too.
***
Dog, (well, it was Dog, regardless of what Crowley thought, only not the same Dog that he had been before), looked up from the mess that had formerly been Hastur, and scanned the room for his master. Who wasn’t there. This did not concern Dog overly. This one had been coming and going for the past couple of days. His master was obviously not like the others, who had expected him to be with them all the time.
The logical thing to do would have been to wait for his Master. After all if someone has gone away, but you know that they are going to come back, it’s easier in the long run to just stay put rather than run around looking for them. Especially if you have no idea where they are. However, this is a human way of looking at things.
(Although not, according to several directors and writers of moving pictures. It is a well known fact that any group of people trapped in a haunted house or foreboding forest with a crazed killer or belligerent spirit on the loose will split up so that they can be picked off one by one. The same way anyone lost in the desert or in a jungle will immediately decide to go into the cave of doom or cross the river of death instead of staying in relative safety where there is a radio and food in cans.)
Dogs do not think like humans, hellhounds even less. The way Dog’s mind worked was something like this -
1. His only purpose was to serve, obey and protect his master
2. His master was not there for serving, obeying or protecting.
3. The only thing to do was to follow the last orders his master had given him.
He’d called Dog a hellhound. Which was what had set Dog free. But before that he’d said something else; he’d called Dog a killer.
Well that suited Dog right down to the ground.
He’d kill.
***
Crowley was going out of his mind. He’d driven to Aziraphale’s bookshop before he had even thought about where he was going.
The sign on the shop said closed, but it was after five, so that’s what it would say.
He’d gone tearing inside without even bothering to knock and stampeded around for five minutes before he realised that Aziraphale was not there.
This was ridiculous because Aziraphale never went anywhere. Not at this time of day.
And then he was struck by a thought so intensely horrifying that it was almost paralytic.
They knew about Aziraphale.
… a Mr A.Z. Raphael proprietor of one used books shop in Soho. Can you confirm if this is true?
Crowley sat down weakly on the dusty floor.
Oh, this was bad, this was unbelievably bad. This was so bad that … that he could not think of a single metaphor to describe how bad it was.
Whatever Aziraphale had that caused his spontaneous miracles without even trying, Crowley now had too. And Crowley had somehow managed to screw things up even more spectacularly. In a thousand years they would be still warning little demons about him. They would speak of him in hushed tones and terrified awe and say things like you must work hard and be diligent, or you will end up like Crowley. And if anyone cocked up in an exceptionally impressive manner they would call it doing a Crowley.
And all that aside, a hellhound was currently wrecking havoc around London and Aziraphale was now in some dreadful pit of dark doom being tortured and it was all Crowley’s fault.
He put his head in his hands and closed his eyes. He couldn’t think about it. He wouldn’t.
He couldn’t think about anything else for a long time.
Somehow he’d ended up outside Regent’s Park with no recollection of how he’d got there. He apparently driven there, because there was the Bentley parked on the pavement but he didn’t remember when he’d left the bookshop. He must have stayed there quite a while because when he’d gone to the bookshop it was early evening, now the sky was dark and the stars had come out.
He was numb and he felt small and confused and very alone and horribly guilty and he didn’t know what to do.
He started walking, not paying attention to where he was going, so it was not entirely surprising when he stepped into one of the lakes.
Well, it didn’t surprise Crowley. The ducks were extremely surprised. They splash - flapped away, squawking indignantly.
It was rather mild for September, but the water was still pretty cold. Maybe it would clear his head, Crowley thought. He felt overwhelmingly tired. He could hear someone shouting in the background. He ignored it and sat down.
The water felt blessedly cool as it closed over his head. It was quiet and peaceful down there and almost comforting. Maybe he could just stay here. Maybe he could just stay here and let the world take care of itself and he wouldn’t have to think about how to fix it and what he’d done and how that stupid Arrangement had been his idea.
Aziraphale had been a bit hesitant at first but Crowley had insisted and how was an angel supposed to resist someone asking to be friends? And now they were attached and it had all gone wrong and if anything had happened to Aziraphale, which let’s face it, it probably already had Crowley would - would -
There was a loud crashing - splashing sound and then someone forcefully grabbed him under his arms and yanked him out of the water.
The ducks flapped manically and protested as noisily as they knew how. It must be a very interesting night for them, Crowley thought detachedly, as his rescuer grunted and panted. They’ve probably had more excitement in this one night than in their entirely pointless ducky lives.
Part III