Chapter Text
Sometimes, Crowley felt a twinge of something being decidedly off.
It was to be expected; he was a demon, after all, and thus came equipped with an extra sort of sense for things being wrong, or bad, or something of the sort. Truthfully, it had been a bit rusty as of late in his retirement, but one quiet night in Mayfair, London, the demon felt distinctly uncomfortable.
It was in the air. It was in the energies of the city. It was in the oddly quiet streets outside, and in the hum of his flat’s electronics. It was the feeling that something wasn’t quite right, perhaps even very wrong.
Whatever it was, it was none of his business. Not anymore.
In normal circumstances, he would pick up the phone and call A.Z Fell and Co., just to make sure his senses weren’t warning him of a looming threat to one entity in particular. However, circumstances were not normal. They were very much unusual, in fact, given that if he called the bookshop now, a very different voice would answer.
Crowley’s perpetually bad mood worsened. He decided that he wouldn’t spend the evening indoors, staring into space and gathering dust. He wouldn’t spend it fast asleep, or wishing the world away. Such activities had already occupied much of his time, and would undoubtedly continue to occupy much more. Other nights were reserved for quite generous amounts of alcohol. Yes, that was what he felt like. It always drowned out the feeling of something not being quite right eventually.
He ended up in Camden Town. It was busy. He wove seamlessly between the hordes of humanity, seeking out his next haunt. Vacant, and otherwise not really concentrating on where he was going, he eyed up an alternative bar just off the high street and contemplated going inside. His former drinking partner certainly wouldn’t have enjoyed the atmosphere, so why not try something new?
Before he could enter, however, a male human in a long trench coat sidled up to him and leaned in, uncomfortably close. Crowley regarded him with a cocked eyebrow, unimpressed.
Something … wasn’t right. The person looked human, seemingly a bit inebriated on alcohol or something or other, but there was something else. Something that didn’t belong. Crowley detected the hint of something vaguely holy about him, as though the man had not long been rolling around on consecrated ground.
The man didn’t seem to have his wits about him, not entirely, so it could have been anything.
“Hey, mate,” the human greeted with uncertainty, words slurring a little. He smiled, seemingly at peace with the world. “Have we met before?”
“I very much doubt it,” Crowley muttered, and made to ease past him into the bar, but a hand on his shoulder made him stop. He curled his lip in a vague scowl.
“Sorry. Thought I recognised you from somewhere. Weird … You must have one of those faces, eh? Feels like I’ve seen you around a hundred times before now. Oi, you look like a distinguished sorta gent,” the man said with a toothy grin, looking Crowley up and down. “Like you’re one with the stars, innit.”
“You what?” Crowley grunted, immediately losing interest. Much to his irritation, the man only leaned closer.
“You know. You want to see the stars, mate. I just know it.”
Crowley stared at the man for a moment. “Look, if this is some sort of sex thing, you should know that I don’t partake, thanks. I think you need to go home.”
The stranger blinked, looked confused, then nodded slowly. “Yeah. Right you are. But, are you sure we’ve never met before?”
“Quite sure,” said Crowley.
And that was that, or so he thought.
In keeping with the theme of things feeling just a bit out of place, a grand total of four people approached Crowley while he drank alone in a booth, claiming to know him or recognise him to a degree. Once was an odd little nonsense event, but five times in one night? And each and every person that came up to him with recognition alight in their strangely sleepy eyes had that same sort of feeling about them: a touch of the holy, the faintest spark of something that didn’t truly belong.
There must have been a church in Camden that rested on particularly potent holy ground. Crowley couldn’t quite explain the way people were looking at him, though. It just made him feel all the more out of place.
Putting the discomforting feeling of wrongness behind him, the demon drank until he felt just slightly less under the weather, and caught the Tube back to Mayfair as the clocks struck midnight.
None of it mattered, anyway. Nothing mattered. It was all going to be a big old pile of burning goo at some point soon, so what was the point in even thinking about it?
Crowley dropped into bed and slept for three days.
Despite his best efforts to ignore it, the feeling continued.
It was like the stars were out of place. It was something most wouldn’t notice, but he did. It was a feeling he couldn’t, or didn’t want to, put a finger on.
He put it down to the impending Second Coming. If anything was going to make the world go all a bit out of sorts, it would certainly be the looming judgement of humanity, the inevitable war between angels and demons, and the End of All Things. Even Crowley, a very old and eldritch entity heralding from before the Beginning, was perturbed by the concept of creating something so magnificently chaotic and beautiful, only to destroy it six-thousand years later just because.
It made him feel all of a bit put out, to be honest. Not to mention that he would be watching it all unfold very much alone, glass of wine in hand. Any other time, he probably would have been more than a bit pissed off about the matter.
Things were different now, though. He felt more ambivalent towards the Apocalypse, these days. He had something of a dullened, dispassionate, perhaps even detached outlook on the world, life, everything. Nothing really existed that caught his interest anymore, nothing thrilled him, nothing gave him the drive to persist, so indeed, he fell towards his more demonic instincts of letting the suffering unfold without the usual fight.
There would be no more suffering, eventually. It would all just be gone. No more Earth. No more London. No more ducks, quaint little cafes, no secretive meet ups, no retirement, no coffee, no books … No sauntering about the place like he owned it, no gentle, manicured hands, stormy grey eyes, nor a smile that could banish the shadows within even the most crooked of demons …
Crowley snarled and pulled his pillow over his head.
No more hellos, and definitely no more goodbyes. He could live with that.
With a half empty bottle of whiskey and a DVD box set of The Golden Girls for company, Crowley gave himself to the inevitable and wondered, dully, when the fireworks were finally going to start.
But, as usual, things just never went entirely as planned.
Somebody knocked on his door.
Nobody knocked on his door. He had a warding spell on it to quite specifically stop humans from knocking on his door. Otherworldly entities were another matter, but there had only ever been one that would be polite enough to knock. Only one that he had cared enough to open the door to and welcome inside. Those days were long gone.
Gritting his teeth, Crowley ignored the interruption and sank so deeply into his leather armchair that he was all but lying down.
The stranger knocked again, a tight and urgent but polite little sound that was somehow so familiar. Crowley’s chest ached in response to it, and he did his damndest not to get his hopes up. His former best friend would have tried calling, first. Not that he was hoping to see him. Not in the slightest, in fact. Crowley’s new thing he was trying out was not caring, and he would continue to do so until the Earth was obliterated and Heaven and Hell had fought each other into a disparate nothingness.
He indulged in a brief fantasy of one angel in particular, standing there on the other side of the door with desperation in his eyes and an apology brewing on his lips. Something was wrong, and as per usual, he needed Crowley’s help. Crowley was the only one who could, or would help. He was the only one who had ever made the effort to help.
Well, not this time.
The demon clenched his jaw upon the third knock. He was slightly too inebriated to really focus in on the stranger’s energies, but he could tell that they didn’t belong to the new Supreme Archangel. They just weren’t insistent enough, nor remotely as agitated. Maybe something had changed him up there in Heaven. Maybe he was, somehow, at peace. Maybe Heaven had actually done what Crowley had never been able to do.
Was Aziraphale … happy? Had he made the right choice, after all?
A heavier, angrier knock rattled his front door. That was someone else, without a doubt. He thought he could hear voices just beyond. Despite his new resolution of not caring about anyone or anything, Crowley’s curiosity was mildly piqued.
More wary than annoyed, now, Crowley ventured to the door and leaned suavely against the doorframe before pulling it open.
He blinked. Right. It wasn’t entirely what he had expected, or hoped for.
It was the new caretaker of Heaven’s embassy - Muriel, was it? - finally out of their ridiculous police constable uniform. They looked a little more human and at home, now, dressed in a neatly pressed white blouse and a long, beige pleated skirt. And was that - was that Aziraphale’s cardigan they were wearing?! It was of course oversized on their slighter frame, but it bore his former friend’s wretchedly pleasant and painfully evocative scent.
Muriel wasn’t alone. Maggie was there, wringing her hands in a manner so like Aziraphale that it was agonising. Nina was there, too, arms folded, wearing a stoic expression of vague concern.
The group regarded each other in silence for a long, awkward moment. Crowley hissed lightly through his teeth, a quiet but bone-chilling sound that succeeded in sending shivers across Muriel and Maggie’s shoulders.
“Can’t say I’m not intrigued as to how you found me, but I can safely say that whatever it is you’re here for, I’m not being part of it,” Crowley greeted dully. He folded his arms and regarded them all with a sneer. “I’m retired. Toodle-pip.”
“No, wait!” Muriel bleated insistently, their eyes widening in alarm. “Please, Mr. Crowley. We just need to know if … you know?”
Crowley should have just closed the door in their faces. As it was, a fleeting curiosity and a pang of dread manifested unpleasantly where his evil black heart was quickening in pace. If something hadn’t felt so decidedly off as of late, maybe he could have walked away without feeling any sort of regret.
“If I know what?” He snarled, running a hand down his tired face.
Muriel, Nina, and Maggie glanced at each other, something terrible going unspoken.
Oh, for Someone’s sake.
“Go on. Spit it out. Make my bloody day,” Crowley continued, aggravated. “What’s so bleeding important that you’re rocking up to my front door having mysteriously located me like a bunch of stalkers? It’s a bit weird, actually.”
Muriel smiled, but it was entirely nervous, bearing no humour in it whatsoever. “Oh! I found your address written on the inside of one of Aziraphale’s more recent diaries, the one from the year 1984. The diaries have been making for some really interesting reading, actually! They’re even more exciting than some of the books in the embassy! You and Aziraphale had so many adventures together, I thought -“
“You thought wrong. Whatever this is about, you’re wrong,” Crowley cut in bitterly. “A small word of advice, don’t get humans wrapped up in celestial affairs. It never ends well. Especially merchants from Whickber Street, nosy old lot. Besides, they only have a short while until their lives are turned upside-down and they’re put to an untimely Judgement, so it’s best just to leave them alone.”
Muriel bounced anxiously on their feet, looking pleadingly up at him. “I had to get Nina and Maggie involved. In fact, they’re the ones that came to me looking for answers, but I don’t know anything about - well, anything! Except for being a scrivener, of course. And being a fount of knowledge regarding Heavenly laws. That’s it! But, something strange is happening and I’ve been told that it’s not usual.”
Just close the door. Just close the damn door.
Crowley pulled a face. Alpha Centauri was always nice that time of year. He’d consider going if an Archangel and demonic Prince hadn’t already stolen his sunbathing spot.
Against his better judgement, he asked, “What is it?”
Muriel smiled again, but it was a pained thing twitchy with nerves and dread. “It’s the, um, Supreme Archangel.”
Crowley glowered. “What about him?”
“He’s gone missing.”
Just close the door, you idiot, you sympathetic, sentimental, blithering old twit.
Shit. Shitting … shit.
It couldn’t have been as bad as it sounded. Could it? Not that Crowley cared, of course.
“What do you mean missing?” He growled through his teeth, immediately vexed. “I take it that wasn’t part of Heaven’s grand plan?”
”Well, not at all! The role of the Supreme Archangel is instrumental in bringing about the Second Coming! He is the one meant to safeguard the Book of Life and use it to cast the miracle that will raise all the dead. He is meant to be leading us through this momentous occasion! But … all of a sudden, he’s just disappeared. The Second Coming can’t go ahead without him.”
An age old pain gripped at Crowley’s heart. It was an ancient, formidable fondness, a need to protect that which was always in the firing line. His throat tightened somewhat, and he had to clear his throat just so that he didn’t choke on his own horror; the prospect of Aziraphale just being gone was one that had haunted him for a long, long time. Then, it had happened. Now it seemed as though something even worse was afoot.
“What’s that got to do with me?” He said, weakly.
Nina rolled her eyes. Maggie sighed softly, and Muriel appeared confused for a moment, watching him searchingly.
“But - you and Aziraphale … I thought if anybody might know where he is, it would be you,” Muriel retorted urgently.
Crowley shook his head. “Well, I don’t know. I might be the last person he would tell if he was going to mysteriously disappear. We didn’t exactly part ways on the best of terms, actually. So, you being here is just a massive waste of time. Unless you think he’s in immediate grave danger, I’m not getting involved.”
He didn’t like the way the three of them looked at each other. He really, really didn’t like it. His heart sank, and a familiar, dreadful fear crept in to drag away whatever sort of reluctant peace he might have found for himself ever since he and the angel had parted ways.
“There’s more,” Nina put in, sullenly. “Something weird is going on, which is why Maggie and I went to Muriel. They went on to investigate, erm … in Heaven. God, this all still feels actually insane. Are you going to invite us in, or what?”
Reluctantly, Crowley stood aside and granted the three of them entry to his flat.
“You might want to be sitting down,” Nina advised him plainly, glancing in judgemental fashion about his modern, sleek home, which was currently cluttered with mess Crowley hadn’t had the wherewithal to clean up. “This is your demonic lair, is it?”
“Out with it,” snapped Crowley, leading them into the living room. He was too nervous to sit down, instead pacing like a caged lion about the room.
Nina narrowed her eyes at him, but said nothing, raising her eyebrows in a disconcerting sort of way, as though she was at a loss for words.
“Mr. Crowley, there is something very wrong,” Maggie said, glancing nervously at Nina. “I don’t know how much you keep up with current events, but -“
“About as much as you do, probably,” Nina cut in dryly. “Hard to miss what’s going on out there, though.”
Crowley raised his head from his hands, watching them with no small degree of vexation. “Something’s off, but I don’t know what you’re getting at.”
“Been sulking in here since he left, have you?”
“No. Demons don’t sulk,” Crowley insisted, annoyed. “We brood. There is a difference.”
“Alright, then. While you’ve been brooding, London’s gone to the dogs. That’s why we went to Muriel, just to see if they knew anything about what’s happening. I wouldn’t have thought much of it, but it’s too big a coincidence to ignore if you ask me. Mags?”
At once, Maggie located the television remote and switched it over from DVD to the BBC News app.
Crowley couldn’t remember the last time he had watched the news. It was all of a bit depressing, truth be told. However, his interest was caught at once by images of rampant destruction on the screen. A journalist was navigating what looked like a street near torn apart, shop windows smashed in and fire trawling the pavements.
His heart sank. At the bottom of the screen, it read:
Soho phenomena: latest images of city’s worst riot in decades.
Soho Square Gardens was burning. Flurries of people moved between the smoke, either running away or contributing to the destruction.
“What on Earth?” Crowley mumbled, staring at the television in alarm. “You were really downplaying things, you know. What’re you lot rioting about this time? Why Soho, of all places?” He paused, a note of fear entering his voice when he spoke again. “The bookshop …?”
“I’m looking after the bookshop, Mr. Crowley! It’s all exactly as he left it!” Muriel exclaimed proudly, puffing their chest out a little. “The domain known as ‘Whickber Street’ is entirely safe, but my power won’t extend far beyond it. I’m only a lesser angel, you see! Apparently, all of this is very unusual!”
“Not really,” grunted Crowley, turning up the volume of the news. “Humans are a destructive force to be reckoned with. It’s nothing new at all. I don’t understand what this has to do with Aziraphale going missing.” His voice cracked slightly upon the last few words. “You lot coming to me is just a waste of time, I assure you. I don’t know anything about … erm, anything. Not now.”
Nina rolled her eyes again. Maggie appeared far more sympathetic, her features softening so gently that Crowley had to look away.
“Oh, Mr. Crowley,” she began. “They’re calling it a phenomenon for a reason. They can’t find a reason behind the anger, you see. And it isn’t just rioting and violence affecting people there, there’s just this really intense … looming cloud of sadness. Nina thinks I’m silly, but I can feel it, too. Whenever I step foot anywhere near my shop, I just want to …” With that, Maggie immediately teared up and put a hand to her mouth, distraught. “I just want to cry. It’s not silliness. I feel it so deeply, and it feels wrong. Nobody can explain it! And we were wondering …” Her voice caught.
Nina stepped in to help her. “You had a tantrum, once, and sent bloody lightning all over the place. My shop’s alarm system got knackered because you got pissed off. You lot, angels, demons - whatever you are - you have this outward effect on the world that you’re absolute pants at reigning in, apparently. You can bend humanity to your will. I saw it at Mr. Fell’s weird ball, too. So, you’re upset and pissed off because you had a break up with your boyfriend, and now the whole of Soho is suffering for it.”
Crowley looked between them and the television a few times, eyebrows reaching for his hairline. He gestured frantically at the footage on the screen.
“You what? You really think I’m behind that nonsense? I’ve been drinking myself silly and watching good TV, I’ll have you know. What’s mad is that you’ve come here to tell me Aziraphale is missing and you actually think I care that some humans are doing the very human thing of going bonkers and hurting each other! You, Muriel!” He exclaimed, pointing at the angel. “Why don’t you tell us how Heaven lost its one Supreme Archangel?!”
“Um!” Muriel attempted nervously. “As easily as they lost the first one, I suppose!”
”And now that you know Mr. Fell is gone, Soho is about to get a lot worse,” Nina added lowly, as though mildly inconvenienced.
Crowley glared at her. “Whatever is going on in Soho, I am not behind it. I’d know. What, because I’m the only demon you know, I must be responsible for every bad thing that happens in this wretched bloody city?”
Nina appeared suitably abashed by that, if only for a moment, shuffling on her feet and glancing away. “Well, if you’re a demon, what is it that you do, then? Except when you’re not locking women in coffee shops.”
“Ssssnhghrh! That was one time! All you need to know about me is that I have absolutely no idea why some Londoners are losing the plot. I’m not involved in any of this, nor do I want to be, thanks very much! And you two are better off not getting involved, either! Find somewhere safe to go, not that it really matters given that the world is ending any day now.”
“Technically -“ Muriel began, but Crowley dismissed them with a wave of his hand.
“Right. It can’t go ahead without His Royal Highness, Prince of Heaven, Lord Holier-Than-Thou, Bane of My Immortal Life. You know what? I know that idiot better than he even knows himself. He’s having second thoughts about the whole thing, an entire moral quandary and he’s out there somewhere panicking about what’s right and what’s wrong. And then he’ll come back and do something clever to get out of it, mark my words.” Crowley spoke firmly to convince them all, including himself, of the truth. “Aziraphale found himself in trouble a lot, but it was almost always on purpose.”
”On purpose?!” Muriel exclaimed. “Why would he do something like that?!”
“No, no, it was like … it was a game. Me ‘n him, it was … oh, never mind!” Feeling his face heating, Crowley waved his hands about to abandon the point. “This time, I’m not going back for him. I’m not helping him. So, you lot had best go.”
Crowley didn’t know what to do with himself. Aziraphale was missing. Missing. He thought he’d sworn off the angel for good, but what a fat load of nonsense that was. How was he supposed to put millennia of wanting and affection behind him in the space of a few years? He would never just get over Aziraphale. It just wasn’t possible. He couldn’t just leave him to deal with the cards dealt to him, not if it meant he would end up hurt, or worse.
Aziraphale had thrown himself right in the firing line, the great, daft idiot. It had only been a matter of time until he was hurt and betrayed by his peers yet again, but now that the time was here, Crowley couldn’t look past it. He could be as angry and resentful as he liked. His need for Aziraphale to be safe overpowered everything else.
“Mr. Crowley? Are you alright?” Maggie asked gently, watching him with big, shimmering eyes.
Crowley shook his head. He ground his teeth together, staring down at the ground as though it had severely offended him.
“Aziraphale, what have you gotten yourself into, now?” He spoke to it, agonised. “Why couldn’t you just listen to me? Blast it all.” He held his face in his hands for a moment, attempting a deep, shaky breath, before rounding on Muriel. “How long has he been gone? What information did you get from Heaven?”
Put on the spot, Muriel regarded the demon with a touch of fear. “I, um … Oh, I … I’m only a lesser angel, you see. Barely even that. I’m not allowed to know the important things. The other scriveners like to gossip, though. It gets … dull, down there in the Archives. They think he has been gone for at least three months, but there’s no way of knowing. They also think he wasn’t on good terms with the other Archangels. There were a lot of arguments! And then there was nothing.”
“The bloody Archangels must know more than they’re letting on,” Crowley growled, disturbed. “They never liked him.”
”Well, um, that’s the thing! They’re the ones that have charged me with finding him! Like I said, the Supreme Archangel is a really vital part of the process of Armageddon, and they’re really insistent that he has to be the one to do it.”
“Why? Why him?” Crowley put to them, furious. “They tried to destroy him in hellfire, once. Why are they suddenly so desperate to have him back?”
Muriel glanced downwards and shrugged their shoulders. Maggie and Nina looked at each other, too, a form of alarm on their faces. Of course, none of them knew of the true nuances of everything Aziraphale and Crowley had been through. They didn’t have any idea at all.
Still, Muriel was Crowley’s only contact from Heaven, now, and Maggie and Nina … well, they seemed to care enough about the whole thing to have come and found him. For that, he was inwardly grateful.
He turned and paced a bit, trying to come to terms with what he was hearing. Lord, he was so tired, and he didn’t even know where to start with what was rapidly unfolding into an absolute disaster.
“I can’t sense him,” he admitted, pained. “If he’s on Earth, I can’t feel him anywhere. Are you sure he isn’t …?”
“He definitely isn’t in Heaven, Mr. Crowley! His energy signature can’t be located anywhere. The Archangels seem certain that he is somewhere on Earth. I just …” Muriel gulped, and forced a smile. “I just have to figure out where to find him, that’s all! We were just a stone’s throw away from getting the whole Second Coming business started.”
Distraught, Crowley remained silent. Nothing was adding up. There was no chance of thinking clearly all the while Aziraphale’s whereabouts and wellbeing were unknown. He ran his fingers back through his hair and shook his head, torn and confused.
“I don’t … why are you lot even here? Maggie from the record shop and Nina who makes coffee across the road? Why?”
Maggie stepped forwards, glancing fondly at him. “That’s just it, isn’t it?” She offered, a resolve to her soft voice. “I don’t think that … I don’t think for a second that Mr. Fell was going to let something like Armageddon happen. I’ve known him since I was a little girl. He was always so lovely and kind, and if it wasn’t for him, my family’s business never would have gotten started. I owed him so much money and he just didn’t care, he would just tell me not to worry, that it would be his loss if my shop was gone. He was always so … enthusiastic, about everything. I can hear my grandmother in my ear, telling me to help him. It’s the least I can do. I know he never would have left by choice.”
She teared up again and seemed on the verge of breaking, until Nina put a firm, calming hand on her shoulder.
“I’m here for her,” Nina muttered.
Crowley didn’t look at them. Their heartfelt words tugged at him, though. If he looked at them, he would see something there all too familiar, something that he craved and missed so much that it hurt beyond all reason.
His need to find Aziraphale was nearly entirely selfish, but the angel’s presence wasn’t just integral for Crowley’s existence; he didn’t doubt for a second that the entire world was relying on the choices Aziraphale made.
He swallowed thickly, lowering himself down onto the leather sofa.
“Maybe he ran,” Nina said idly. “Maybe this is a decoy so they stop looking for him.”
Crowley just shook his head, chewing on a bit of loose skin near his thumbnail. “No,” he mumbled, staring into space. “No, that’s what I do. I’m the one that runs. Aziraphale never runs from anything. Not Heaven. Not even Hell. He wouldn’t have left you all to fend for yourselves. That’s why he went to Heaven in the first place, supposedly.”
“He left everything behind to protect us?” Nina’s brow furrowed. “That doesn’t make sense. How’s he supposed to protect us from up there?”
“That’s …” Crowley’s voice broke. He pressed his hands beneath his sunglasses and rubbed his eyes. “Heaven isn’t what you think it is. The leaders, they’re … awful. It was a broken system. Despite everything they did to him, to us, he went to try and fix it. Now he’s gotten himself in trouble, just as I thought.”
There was an uncomfortable silence. Crowley could feel himself being watched, and he didn’t care for their pity. All he wanted … all he needed was some form of confirmation that Aziraphale was even alive.
“Who’s powerful enough to cause trouble for a Prince of Archangels?” Muriel asked him fearfully. “Maybe a powerful entity from - from Hell? I don’t really know anything about demons, you see, only what I’ve been told from Heaven’s guidebooks.”
Crowley snorted dismissively. “Of course. The usual rubbish, angels are good, demons are bad. Spare me. All I need you to do is stay in Heaven’s good books and keep an ear out for anything suspicious, and to make sure none of those bloody tomes of his get sold. Have you sold any?”
Muriel fervently shook their head, appearing quite pleased with themself all of a sudden. “I haven’t sold any books, not a single one! People try to exchange things for them, but I don’t really know what I’m supposed to use coins and those little paper things for. I just … read them. And his diaries. I’m sure he wouldn’t mind!”
Crowley felt an iota of relief, then. At the very least, the bookshop was in good hands.
“Well, where do we begin looking for him?” Maggie asked tearfully, dabbing at her eyes with a tissue. “Oh, to see his kind face again. We do take these things for granted.”
Crowley gritted his teeth, trying to ignore the swell of emotion tightening his chest. “Haven’t the foggiest. If Heaven can’t detect him and I can’t sense him down here, your guess is as good as mine.”
“Is there nowhere he liked to go?” Nina asked impatiently, keeping her hand poised on Maggie’s shoulder. “No favourite holiday destination? No hiding place for when things went wrong?”
Crowley sank further into the creaky leather sofa and shrugged. “He mostly just stayed in London. He loves it here. Or, I thought he did,” he said, bitterly. “He liked being around his stuff. He liked eating out, going to the barber, getting manicures. He liked his bookshop. Loved it, actually. He loved watching all you weirdos going about your day. I don’t know where else he would prefer to be.” Frowning sullenly, Crowley glanced towards the ceiling. “There’s only two ways to make an angel really, truly disappear. They tried it once with him before. Killing him, that is. With hellfire. The other way is to erase them from the Book of Life, to make it so they never existed in the first place.”
Maggie immediately sobbed and buried her face in a Kleenex. Shooting Crowley an accusing glare, Nina put both hands on her in a meagre attempt to comfort her, shushing her. Off to one side, Muriel’s eyes widened and their face fell slack with shock.
“It wasn’t the Book of Life, or we wouldn’t be having this conversation,” Crowley continued, swirling the remnants of whiskey around in a nearby tumbler. “The thing about hellfire, though, is that it destroys every part of an angel, and makes them entirely extinct. There’s no coming back from that. I was there when the Archangels tried to destroy him, once. I had to pretend as though it didn’t bother me at all, when what I really wanted was to tear them all apart, one by one.” Tensing his jaw, Crowley turned his head towards Muriel. “Let me tell you, I’ll do worse than that if I find out they’ve touched a single hair on his head. If the Archangels are lying about not knowing where he is, I need to know. Do you understand?”
Muriel stared at him for a moment, searching him with their bright, innocent gaze, then gulped and nodded hurriedly.
Crowley got back to his feet. He took one last swig of whiskey and dropped the tumbler on the coffee table, inwardly raging and terrified all at once. He clapped his hands and rubbed his palms together, as though about to announce he was doing something as inane as going for a walk.
“Right. I’m off to the bookshop. Let it be known that I’m only in this to make sure the idiot is still alive. After that, I’m out.”
With that, he stalked out of the flat and held the door open just long enough for the others to get the message and vacate. With a snap of his fingers, the television turned off and all the mess that had accumulated over the past however long miraculously tidied itself up.
With a sneer did he regard the world as he ventured out into the day. The sky was overcast, the light and warmth of the sun banished behind the dull clouds overhead. It looked as though it could begin to rain at any moment, dark clouds rolling slowly in across the vast cityscape of London.
Crowley glared accusingly up at the sky, regarding it with a grimace.
“Don’t think you’d get off scot-free, either,” he snarled quietly up at it. “For your sake, he’d better turn up right as rain.”
Scowling, he ushered the others into the Bentley and left Mayfair behind.
He didn’t say a word the entire way there. He glared ahead, pointedly ignoring the fact there was an angel in his passenger seat that wasn’t remarking on the moderate breach of the speed limit. The only thing that annoyed him more than having his driving remarked upon was a giddy, oblivious silence.
Nina and Maggie talked in the backseat, but he wasn’t listening. He kept a firm eye on the city outside, observing that there was a heavier police presence than usual. Mounted police guarded street corners, but there didn’t seem to be much trouble at all.
Not until they reached Soho.
The strange feeling of decided oddness suddenly piqued. Crowley’s spooky senses were rattling their proverbial chains, aggravated by the nagging sensation of something being wrong. It was like reality itself had been struck by a freight train, fractured and straining beneath the weight of … something. The police patrolling the blockades outside of Soho looked to be in a sleepy daze of some kind, and weren’t doing a particularly good job of limiting the flow of traffic in and out.
Journalists with their camera crews did a better job of blocking Crowley’s way in, as did curious crowds of people gathering around the riot vans and making daring trips into the carnage beyond. Honking them out of the way, he slowed right down and wound his window shut the moment he breached a veritable wall of smoke pouring out from a steadily burning building nearby. He was inwardly relieved to pull up to the coffee shop on Whickber Street, which was remarkably unscathed, but in Muriel’s absence, there was a marked increase in activity there.
Crowley stepped slowly out of his car, surveying the strangeness unfolding around him.
There were several denizens of Soho wandering languidly along the street, crying their little hearts out. They appeared truly distraught, too absorbed in their own sorrow to notice anything else occurring around them. The sadness was truly palpable, as Maggie had said, as though a layer of gloom had descended down and sent a few sensitive souls into a period of grieving.
A couple of people were seated outside of Nina’s coffee shop, staring blankly into space, as though they were so entrenched in depression that they were simply feeling nothing at all. It was a different story for the rest, however; three men were engaged in a tussle nearby, punching and pulling furiously at each other. For no apparent reason at all, a woman screamed to the high heavens and launched a chair so hard into Mr Brown’s carpet shop that a window shattered and a blaring alarm disturbed the world yet further.
Crowley subtly wiggled his fingers, attempting a miracle that might calm the minds of the humans around him, but he was met with a force so stubborn that his power stopped dead in its tracks. He turned and stared expectantly at Muriel, but they stepped out of the Bentley and regarded him with some alarm, shrugging. Their power wasn’t doing anything, either.
The demon ensured the safety of his Bentley, instead, and even extended a miracle to the shops in his near vicinity. No matter how hard they were pummelled, no damage would come to them. Mr Brown would just have to suffer the loss of his window, Crowley thought with a very brief stab of amusement.
“And it’s definitely not you doing this?” Nina asked him bluntly, quickly checking the doors of her shop to make sure they were locked. “This isn’t just you getting worked up because your boyfriend left?”
“No,” Crowley snarled, irritated by the accusation. If it weren’t for what was at stake, he might simply have gotten back in his car and driven home. “I’d know if it was me. It isn’t even demonic in nature. It’s …” He paused and shook his head, somewhat intimidated by the strangeness of the phenomenon. “I don’t know. They’re angry, they’re upset, I don’t bloody know what’s causing it.”
He suddenly recalled the evening a few days ago, wherein he’d had a few strange encounters with people who hadn’t seemed entirely with it. He’d assumed they were high, or drunk, or something or other … maybe it had been something else. There had been a distinct trace of something decidedly holy about every single one of them. If he focused hard enough, if he blocked out all background noise, he could detect the very same inkling of power within Whickber Street, too.
“It’s holy,” he said slowly, looking off down the street towards the humans that wept or made their rage known. “It isn’t just Soho, but it’s concentrated here. Some humans on the outside are affected, too, probably those more sensitive to the supernatural.”
“So it is one of your lot,” Nina grumbled. “I don’t think any of our insurance covers paranormal entities having temper tantrums. Acts of God, my arse. If someone puts a chair through my window -“
“They won’t,” Crowley assured her flatly. He turned to the bookshop, reluctantly drinking in the sight of its flaking red walls and the gold signwriting above well used doors. He closed his eyes and took a deep, steadying breath, forcing back the waves of anger and sadness that threatened to take him out of the equation entirely. Were the feelings his own, or was there further influence from the outside affecting even his vast mind?
“They’re angry …” he murmured, shoving his hands in his pockets and heading towards the bookshop. “They’re upset. They’re haunting Soho. Something happened up there, didn’t it? Something … And there’s nowhere to hide, not from them, not really.”
“Mr. Crowley?!” Muriel called, but he ignored them.
Crowley stalked the pavement outside of the shop, going back and forth a few times. He heard the pitter-patter of rain beginning to fall, and he could sense that dense, holy presence even within the raindrops. It was everywhere, he realised. It wasn’t just the humans, it was everything. All of Soho was accommodating the presence of an enraged entity, its spirit leaking out into sensitive minds and altering their moods so adversely that they had forgotten themselves.
But, it couldn’t be.
Once Crowley recognised that the unusual events were tied together, he stopped and focused on it for a moment, focused on the whole rather than the bits and pieces of scattered holy energy inhabiting the place. His heart sank as a great old wave of recognition washed over him, then, a feeling as comforting as it was disturbing.
At once, he turned and went back to his car.
“Wh- Mr Crowley! What are you doing?” Maggie cried, landing a gentle hand on his arm. “What’s the matter?”
Crowley paused, then tugged on the handle of his Bentley, only to find the stubborn old thing had locked herself. The car chuffed and revved her engine excitably, bouncing on her suspension.
”What the …?“ Nina said, staring at the car in alarm. “Oh, the bloody car is alive, too! Of course.”
”I can’t be here,” Crowley explained, desperately rattling the handle of the Bentley. “Oi, you! I know you want to see him, but I don’t!”
Maggie’s face lit up, then, even though her eyes were still flooded with tears. “Is he here? Has Mr. Fell come home? Where is he?!”
“He’s …” Crowley sighed heavily and dropped against the Bentley, lightly bashing his forehead against it. “He’s the phenomenon.”
There was a moment of silence, wherein only the falling of rain on the road and shop canopies could be heard. There was a fresh chill to the air now that the heavens had opened. The shrieking and sobbing of humans had ceased quite suddenly, and all of them had since entered a quiet, sleepy state, staring into nothingness.
Crowley stopped desperately trying to escape if only for the absurdity of the situation. Aziraphale was alive, but that didn’t mean he was unharmed. In fact, all evidence was pointing to the fact that something quite dire had happened, and now Crowley was entangled in the angel’s web once more.
Just as he was contemplating simply walking away, instead, one of the people sitting outside of the coffee shop rose to her feet. She was a young lady, no more than twenty years old. With an awfully blank and uncomfortable look to her eyes, she meandered over like the living dead and stopped directly in front of Crowley, regarding him with a long moment of silence.
“Do I … know you?” She asked, her voice faint. “Sir? I’m sorry. It really feels as though I’ve seen your face before, somewhere …” She smiled, then. “I see stars when I look at you. It’s strange.”
Crowley swallowed tightly, unease creeping in alongside his absolute dismay.
“Aziraphale?”
The young woman blinked, then shook her head. “No. Who’s that?”
“I know you’re in there, you bastard. What the hell are you doing? Do you have any idea how much suffering you’re causing?”
The woman didn’t seem to like that. She took a step back, appearing furious for a moment, then her distant eyes filled with fresh tears and she regarded him with a wounded expression. “There is no suffering. There will never be suffering, never again. You’ve lost faith too quickly. That really … hurts. It hurts so much.”
Crowley didn’t know what to do. Aghast, he froze in place and stared at the poor human before him.
“Aziraphale, is that you? Are you listening?” He attempted, disturbed.
The woman smiled again despite the tears falling down her gaunt cheeks. “I’m so sorry. I thought I recognised you.” With that, she frowned and continued on her way, dragging her feet down the road.
Crowley watched her go. He felt sick to his stomach.
“What was that?” Nina asked, her voice uncharacteristically shaken. “What’s wrong with them all? For God’s sake, why here?!”
Gulping, Crowley turned to Maggie and surveyed her, finding the most intense sorrow and devastation in her watering blue eyes. “You tell me,” he muttered, watching her closely. “It seems that your empathy has tuned in. What do you feel? Where is this sadness coming from?”
Maggie wobbled on her feet. She blinked heavily, sending tears cascading down her cheeks. Confused, she touched at them and gazed down at the moisture on her fingers as though thoroughly puzzled by it.
“Mags?” Nina said, a note of sudden nervousness in her voice. “Oh, shit. Not you, too. Mr. Crowley, snap her out of it.”
“The sadness … it’s coming from …” Maggie began softly, looking all around herself with a conflicting mixture of joy and sorrow. She put a hand to her heart and closed her eyes, smiling sweetly there in the rain. “It’s been so long. It feels like it’s just been … so long. Mr. Crowley, it really feels as though I … Did I know you before we properly met? Did we listen to music together, or … something?”
“Right,” Nina snapped. She seized Maggie by the arms and turned her about on her heels, giving her a gentle shove towards the bookshop. “Get in there. It’s probably the only place on this bloody street that’s going to be safe. And while you’re walking, snap out of it.”
Maggie was pushed unceremoniously into the waiting doors of the bookshop. On the road, Muriel looked between the shop and Crowley a few times, evidently perturbed by what they were witnessing.
“Earth is very strange, Mr. Crowley,” they observed, before following Nina and Maggie inside.
“You don’t know the half of it,” Crowley grumbled, making his way back to the pavement outside the bookshop. He stopped there, and he turned slowly, finding to his great horror and irritation that humans had also stopped in their tracks and were staring unblinkingly at him from all directions.
It was like they were expecting something. He would know that look anywhere.
“Aziraphale,” he lamented with a growl, balling his hands into fists. “You’d better be listening. I don’t care what happened. This needs to stop. The humans are hurting each other, and getting so blimmin’ upset they might even hurt themselves. You know what they’re like. And as bloody usual, I’m the one who has to come and clean up whatever mess you’ve gotten yourself into. We’re not even talking! It’s not fair, Aziraphale! Put their minds at ease, will you?!”
The humans resumed staring, confused and upset, even if they didn’t really know why.
“If you want Soho to destroy itself, be my guest,” Crowley continued, gesturing dramatically at them. “If you want these humans to become twisted in the presence of your power, so be it, but I know that you won’t forgive yourself. You never liked the idea of bad things happening to them! Not unless they pissed you off, obviously. Why start now? Get it together, angel! Can you even hear me?!”
There was no response. The rain continued falling, and the humans continued staring.
Cursing, Crowley backed into the bookshop and hurriedly closed the door behind himself. He felt holy wards settle in place at once, and the debilitating, heavy gloom of Soho lifted from his psyche so quickly that he almost face planted the ground.
Inside, Maggie was rubbing her head and gazing forlornly outside. Nina was lingering close and watching her with an intense expression. Muriel lingered awkwardly by the writing desk, their hands wringing nervously at their front.
“Mr. Crowley, what …?” They began, sounding awfully pained. “There used to be so, so much love in this place, but it’s like it has all just been sucked out! I don’t understand. Is it really Aziraphale behind the humans behaving weirdly?”
Crowley leant back against the door, dropping his head back and taking a deep breath.
“It’s him, alright. Something is wrong, though. Very wrong. I couldn’t sense him because he’s scattered like sand in a storm. I’ve never seen anything like it. What the hell happened up there in Heaven?” He snapped, pushing away from the door and approaching the angel, squaring down to them. “You must know something. You’re all the bloody same, you lot -“
”I don’t know!” Muriel squeaked, hiding behind a sheet of parchment paper seized from the desk. “All I know is that he was there, and then he wasn’t! I’m just a scrivener, Mr. Demon! I mean, Mr. Crowley!”
“Oi, you leave them alone, will you?!” Nina scolded in a raised tone. “How are they supposed to know anything when they’re here in the bookshop most of the time?”
Crowley spun away from the angel and rounded on Nina, instead, fury brimming over. “What would you know about anything?”
“Just as much as you, apparently,” Nina shot back, disappointingly unfazed. She folded her arms and looked him over, apparently unimpressed. “What, you think you can swagger about the place yelling because you’re a demon, or what? You don’t even look like a bloody demon.”
“Oh, don’t I?” Crowley snarled, and he whipped off his sunglasses to reveal the furious yellow glow of his serpentine eyes.
Nina blinked, falling silent. She gaped at him, then quickly looked away and returned to Maggie, who was paying no attention to the argument at all.
It was the reaction Crowley had expected, but not the one he had wanted. Only one being had ever been able to look him comfortably in the eye, and that being had not only left him and their lives behind, but was currently fragmented across Soho and actively working towards the city’s slow destruction.
Aziraphale was there, technically. He was all around them, formless and out of sight. His presence, however, was not accompanied by a comforting and sturdy reassurance, as it usually was. It was only marked by that insistent fury and grief, and there was absolutely no sign he even knew that Crowley was there at all.
Did he know and was simply refusing to show himself? Or was it somehow something worse? Crowley ran his hands down his face, agonised and torn between indifference and a sickening dread. It was all made all the worse by the fact he had suddenly found himself in the very place where he’d seen Aziraphale for what he’d thought was the final time. The place he had, secretly, called home for some decades. It all still felt like Aziraphale, it all still smelt like him, bore his angelic mark.
Before an argument could unfold, thunder rumbled suddenly overhead. It was immediate and all too loud, so loud that it shook the very foundations of the bookshop and send a few small ornaments clattering to the floor.
Brilliant lightning flared blindingly through the windows. It flashed several times, enveloping the shop in cold, white light. Above their heads, the electric lighting began to flicker, and then the chandelier suddenly dropped so violently that it broke off its chain and smashed into hundreds of pieces across the wooden floor.
Maggie screamed. Nina immediately stood in front of her, shielding her from the scattering crystals. Muriel was frozen in place, eyes wide and terrified.
When the noise of rolling glass eventually ebbed, Crowley slid his sunglasses back on. He was freshly pummelled by waves of energy so intense that it had startled him. He knew full well that had been no ordinary lightning.
His heart leapt into his throat. Slowly, he made his way back to the door and observed the blurry white mass somewhere beyond the glass windows.
“Mr. Crowley!” Maggie yelled, distraught. He ignored her.
He pushed the bookshop doors open. The rain was heavier than ever, but he barely noticed it as he left the safety of A.Z. Fell & Co, his feet carrying him numbly out into the cold towards the source of the disruption.
Three pairs of enormous white wings were stretched across the dark road. Long, beautiful feathers drifted in the wind, freshly scorched. All six wings belonged to one lone being lying prone on their front on the tarmac, a pale hand stretched towards the bookshop as though reaching for it.
Aziraphale.
The angel didn’t move. His other hand was curled beneath him, and his fair head was turned away from Crowley, his hair sodden from the rain. The faint, silver light he gave off did little to banish the dullness of the incoming storm.
Crowley felt static tingling up his spine. Or was it fear? He stopped, and he stared, so distraught by the sight of the angel lying motionless in dirty puddles that his mind momentarily just shut down.
The curse afflicting Soho seemed to have lifted. The humans once entrenched in the looming presence of an Archangel seemed to be waking up from whatever trance they had been forced into. London was free, but at what cost? What had happened? Why was Crowley’s most terrifying fear of seeing the angel hurt actually happening?
Crowley shook himself out of his shock. He left all his anger and loneliness and fear at the door, for a time. With a gasp, he ran straight into the road and dropped to his knees at Aziraphale’s side.
Aghast, he gave the angel a gentle shake, trying to stir some life back in him.
“Aziraphale. Aziraphale,” he attempted, desperate. Aziraphale’s eyes remained firmly closed, and his face so pale and gaunt that he appeared ill. “Aziraphale. Angel. It’s me. It’s alright. Whatever this is, it’s alright. Just wake up. What’s the matter with you? Just wake up.”
Aziraphale did not wake up. Crowley couldn’t sense the barest flicker of life in him. Everything was shut down, closed for business, seemingly empty of anything. There was a corporation, but whether there was an actual entity inhabiting it remained to be seen.
“Aziraphale!” Crowley bellowed, his voice breaking.
No, no, no. This couldn’t be happening! Not him, not him.
To the demon’s great despair, the angel did not, or would not, wake.