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Crowley hated seeing cities burn. He had been on Earth for over 5,000 years, and watching cities burn to the ground was the absolute worse thing. He’d rather spend eternity in the 14th century than watch more pointless destruction if he could help it. [1]
His instructions from Downstairs had been quite clear; push Sultan Mehmed to violence and make him raze Constantinople. Crowley was inside the besieged city trying to convince Constantine to surrender. If they surrendered, the whole thing would be more civilized than if they waited for the wall to come down. It still wouldn’t be pretty, as war never was.
But he was supposed to be encouraging it. All that senseless destruction and death, and he was supposed to revel in it all. The thought of the city falling turned his stomach. The differences between good and evil were known to humanity since that fateful day in the garden. So why couldn’t the people of Constantinople see the difference between safety and stupidity?
By day, he wandered the streets of the city sowing the seeds of discord and doubt, pushing people in favor of surrendering. But their faith was stronger than their fear of death. Their god could not be contained by death, and so they were unafraid in the face of certain defeat. Changing even a single mind would take time that Crowley simply did not have.
The ground burned his feet and sent slivers of pain throughout his entire body. Demons were not meant to go into churches. The strength of the faith of the people of Constantinople made the experience even worse. They loved so much, and believed in the Almighty so wholeheartedly, Crowley could hardly bear it. But bear it he must. When the minds of people were so focused on worship, they weren’t defended against demonic suggestion. [2]
He slid onto a pew next to a family with small children. Sensing desires had never been hard for Crowley. It was always much easier to tempt people when he knew exactly what they wanted. All the mother wanted was for her children to be safe. And the children wanted to do was not be afraid of the monsters waiting in the dark.
“Sssssurender,” he whispered into their minds. “Give the city up, and you can all be sssafe.”
Their minds pushed back against his suggestion, so Crowley nudged them again. “Your god does not care from where you worship. Saving yourselves is not selfish, it’s ssssmart.”
One of the children, a girl of about eight, took notice of Crowley’s presence in her head. “Are you the devil?” She was curious, but not afraid like Crowley expected.
“No, not the devil. Just sssssomeone looking out for your mortal soul.”
The girl poked her mother beside her. “Mommy, there’s an angel in my head!”
“Theophania, ssshhhh. You must be quiet.”
Crowley saw an opportunity, and focused his efforts on the mother. “Lisssten to your daughter.” The woman jumped as Crowley continued to tempt her. “Let her grow up in a city that is alive. Under the wings of death is no place to raise a family. You can sneak out tonight by the eastern gate.” The burn in the tattered remains of Crowley’s soul was nearly unbearable, but he was so close to saving this family.
“This city is all I’ve ever known… But I cannot ignore the divine.” There were no words to describe the mix of gratitude, belief, disbelief, awe, and fear that washed over Crowley’s mind.
Crowley leaned over to whisper in the woman’s ear. “You and your family will be safe and healthy once you leave the city. An unexpected windfall will protect you from destitution, and you will find happiness outside of these walls.” When he spoke the words out loud, they became true. In the midst of all the death and destruction and misery, no one Downstairs would notice that one of their own had performed a miracle. [3]
Even though there were hours yet left in the service, Crowley left. He slumped against the wall of the nearest non-holy building as soon as he got out, aching through his bones and the very essence of himself. There was no way to save Constantinople. He was going to get very, very drunk.
Even in the middle of a siege, the pubs were open. Or perhaps reality bent itself around demonic will just a little bit more that night. Either way, Crowley surrounded himself with as many bottles of wine as he could, and methodically made his way through them.
10% through his stockpile and he felt hopelessness. What was the point of life if humans were just going to go around coming up with new reasons to kill people? 25% of the alcohol consumed and all Crowley had was rage. Rage against heaven, against hell, against the Ineffable Plan.
Crowley had lost track of how much he had consumed by the time he reached self loathing. “I didn’t mean to become a demon,” he slurred into the table, his head pillowed on his arms. “I hung around the wrong people at the wrong time.” He was, without a doubt, the worst demon in existence.
When there was nothing left but empty bottles, weak sunlight filtering through the windows, and a foul taste in his mouth, Crowley made a decision. If he was a demon, he might as well act like one. Sow discord and despair, and generally muck things up for whomever got in his way. Somehow he got himself vertical. A knife that hadn’t existed a moment before appeared in his hand. Desperate times called for desperate measures. It was convenient that political assassination was so in fashion these days.
Crowley stumbled out of the pub, the street weaving nauseatingly in front of his eyes. It couldn’t be too hard to find a political advisor, or a general. At least, not for him. Things seemed to work out for him, when it came to getting close to politically important people. He only made it as far as the next church when a hand reached out from the shadows and dragged him into an alleyway.
Crowley would have stabbed his attacker, but the knife was gone from his hand. “You… you dissscorporated my knife,” he hissed sadly. “Why?”
“How drunk are you right now, Crowley?”
Ah. Not an attacker. Not in the traditional, human sense, anyway.“‘Sssss worse than Rome, my dear.”
Aziraphale sighed softly into Crowley’s hair. “Will you sober up, please?”
“Nope.”
Crowley was propped up against the wall by his angel. “There is something of grave importance I must speak with you about! I think there is another angel in the city.” Aziraphale sounded well and truly worried.
Well. That would be a problem. Getting rapidly sober was much, much worse than getting methodically drunk. Crowley swayed a bit, only remaining upright because of Aziraphale.
He waved. “Hey, angel. It’s been a while. Is this armageddon?”
“I don’t think so, but I felt a miracle be performed yesterday. In a church. Which means there’s someone else down here with us.”
Crowley hiccuped unpleasantly. “Don’t worry about it, that was me.”
Aziraphale nearly dropped the demon into the trash heap in the alley. It really was a dirty meeting place. “What do you mean that was you? It was a miracle, performed in a church.”
Crowley flopped his head to the side so he was looking at Aziraphale. “I mean, that I went into a church, convinced a family to flee the city tonight, er last night now, and performed a tiny little miracle to get them out safely and have a chance at a decent life.”
Aziraphale did drop him then. “Crowley, you went into a church,” he shouted at the demon now sprawled across the ground. “Why? What if you had holy water sprinkled on you?”
“I hadn’t thought about that. Not important.” Crowley dragged himself upright again, and cleaned his clothes with a wave of his hand.
Aziraphale was in his face, looking for once in his life like an avenging angel, full of rage and power. “You could have died. Not just discorporated, but killed, permanently!”
His shrug managed to convey disdain with his entire body, not just his shoulders.
“Why? Why would you put yourself in danger like that, Crowley?”
“It’s all so pointless, isn’t it? Both sides believe their god is the only correct god, so they need to slaughter innocent people to prove their point. All of this —” Crowley gestured broadly to everything. “— will be destroyed. Everyone who survives the Ottoman army will lose everything they know.”
“I know that,” replied Aziraphale, still not sounding entirely like himself. “Human wars happen all the time. Head Office is perfectly content to let them fight.”
“But why?” Crowley growled. He turned so that he was the one in Aziraphale’s face, crowding the angel against the wall. “Why do your bosses like to sit back and watch the humans destroy themselves? Senseless destruction is something my lot is in favor of, which is why they sent me here!”
“It… it’s all part of the divine plan. I have nothing to do with it!”
“Oh that’s rich. We’re stuck here on earth until armageddon, with very little direct oversight from head offices, and you think you can’t do anything? I went into a church! To save people! Because I cannot stand seeing people suffer like this.” By the end of his tirade, Crowley had dropped his head onto Aziraphale’s shoulder, hiding it from view.
Tentatively, Aziraphale wrapped his arms around Crowley. “I’m so sorry, my dear,” he whispered. “What can I do?”
Crowley shrugged again, but this time only his shoulders were involved. “I suposssse you can’t stop the war?”
“No, I can’t.” He sighed. “Come back to my house. I have a bed. We can sort this all out after you get some rest.”
Over the next few days, a fog of low grade miracles covered the city of Constantinople. When the walls fell, families would find the Ottomans passing over their hiding places, no matter how bad they were. Aziraphale convinced Crowley that assassinating political leaders was not a good plan, and so the two of them spent their nights stealing holy relics. It was an activity justifiable to both sides.
When the walls fell, the empire came crumbling down as well. In a small house in a dying city, an angel and a demon hid from humanity. Aziraphale spoke of better times, that time in Rome when they had lunch, and do you remember… The good in the world outweighed the bad, even if they couldn't always see it.
Tomorrow, when the world was irrevocably changed, the Hagia Sophia still stood over the city. Aziraphale couldn’t stop the city from falling or the world from changing, but he could save this one beautiful thing. And it could always stand as an apology, and a promise to never be too far removed from humanity.
1 He could justify progress to downstairs by saying that the further away from the 14th century humanity got, the worse it would be when modern society collapsed, thus returning them to something like the 14th century. He was playing a long game of chess with humanity. return to text
2 It was the mental equivalent of putting a tank behind the front door of a house for defense, and forgetting about the windows. return
3 Or so he hoped. return to text