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It was a dark night on earth, though not stormy. Still, Hastur thought, you couldn't have everything. He leaned against the graffiti-ed shutters of the long-shut shop, admiring the elegance of the area. It was run-down, neglected and reeking of despair. It had also, two nights ago, been the site of a drunken fight ending in murder. Very nice, he thought. The supermarket flowers laid on the pavement were a bit wilted now and giving off a scent of corruption which added a little extra to the evening. He bent down and idly snagged one or two of the better ones, conjuring a bit of barbed wire to tie them together. Now all he had to do was wait. Probably forever, he thought. The little bastard never did have a good handle on the idea of temporality. He'd better not have to go looking for him.
"Hastur!"
He waved. "Over 'ere."
Ligur scurried up, munching something. "Lookit this, I been to one of them new places where they sell fried fish and spuds."
"Chip shops been around a while, Ligur," Hastur said genially, grabbing a handful of very salty chips. "Cloggin' up the arteries for years and years, like."
"Wot's an artery?" Ligur said, clearly not all that interested. He finished the rest of his snack before Hastur could swipe any more. "Nice ambience they got here - been hangin' around long?"
Hastur shrugged. It was odd how he didn't feel the need to say anything cutting about some demons' lack of attention to things like being on time, he thought. He'd have at least mentioned it to Ligur, once upon an eon, but as it was he was just glad the little bugger was up here, sucking salt and vinegar off his stubby, grimy fingers. Unnatural, he briefly thought. A demon shouldn’t feel anything approaching happy. On the other hand, unnatural was all right, so -
"These are for you," he said, holding out the bouquet. "Don't go reading anything soppy into them."
Ligur took the flowers and something remarkably like a pleasant smile crossed his face. "Hastur, you ol' romantick. Course you're not soppy. Want to do it here? There's a bloodstain right there-"
There was a noise like a distant thunderclap, which was odd as the night was – as Hastur had noticed – quite clear. He also noticed a strong smell of brimstone, not to mention the sudden appearance of a small squad of fully-armed and armoured demons, the streetlights glinting from their tarnished silver spear-heads.
"Fuck. Me," he said.
"Well, yeah," Ligur said, then turned around. "Fuck!" he squawked, dropping the flowers.
They backed up against the shop's shutters.
"Did you bring a sword?" Hastur hissed.
"No. Did you?"
"Fuck. We can still take them. Conjure up some hellfire, quick."
They both sagged with relief neither of them would ever admit as with a loud clash of adamantine hitting concrete the gaudily-armoured officer dropped to one knee, nice and servile, and the rest of the squad went down on both knees behind him, spears laid flat beside them. As his first panic died down Hastur recognized the captain of Ligur's bodyguard in full kit. The captain took his helmet off and bowed his head.
"Your pardon, Your Grace," he said, keeping his eyes deferentially on Ligur's feet. "I crave pardon for interrupting your important meeting with Duke Hastur."
Hastur glared at them one and all, but not a single one looked like they were even considering allowing themselves to think about smiling this millennium. Which was good, because Ligur would probably get testy if Hastur started eviscerating his guards for disrespect.
"Wot are you doing up here, dressed like that?" Ligur said. "I told you, I dint require no guard."
"Your pardon," the captain said again. "Lord Belial –"
Both Hastur and Ligur interrupted him to give their views at length on Belial.
" – precisely, Your Graces. There was more warning than, than the previous occasion of either of you being visited by Lord Belial –" the captain looked like he expected to be torn limb from limb for mentioning the previous occasion, which seemed only reasonable in Hastur's view, but Ligur just impatiently muttered at him to continue. " – so we held his forces off and denied him entrance on the grounds that you were about to conduct a most important ritual. To which he made some impertinent comments about the nature of – forgive me, most dread lord, your interdepartmental rituals, and well, buggered off, making threats."
"And what?" Hastur said. "You decided to grab a bunch of what you hope are your least treacherous lads and came up here just to warn Ligur? Or is Belial on his way? You don't think I'm back-up enough for him, is that it?"
He was astonished to have the guard captain jump to his feet and step forwards more assertively than Hastur was used to having people approach him.
"Duke Ligur is my responsibility," he said. "Six thousand years I've been in my position, and I'm supposed to keep him safe till the end. He shouldn't be coming up to earth without a guard."
The captain's eyes suddenly went wide as if he'd only just realized he was standing up to a Duke of Hell. Trapped now, pal, Hastur thought. Can't challenge me by yourself and live, can't back down and not get speared in the gut by your soldiers.
"Where do you find boys like this?" he said mildly to Ligur, deciding to make a joke of it. Ligur was sentimental about his guards. "If we'd had more like that during the War –"
"Yeah, well," Ligur said, as the captain looked greatly relieved and took a polite step back, "Wot do you think Belial wanted?"
"To mock us? See if he could find a weak spot? We'll come up with some ritual you was doing as a cover story, maybe launch a counter attack on his offices later."
A car went by, slowing and then speeding up again as the soldiers leapt up in alarm, spears ready; its lights vanished down the road. Hastur listened for the sound of a crash, but it seemed to make the turn safely. Pity.
"All right, you lot," Ligur said. "If you were goin' to come up here after me, couldn't you at least have put on mufti? That human's goin' to be runnin' its mouth about seein' a bunch of fallen angels all kitted out like they was ready for a re-run of the War against Heaven."
"What human?" one soldier asked. "Wasn't that an earth animal?"
"How would it know we weren't humans?" another whispered to the one beside it.
Hastur pointed wordlessly at their wings. He supposed they hadn't been on earth before, from the way they were staring around at wonders like tarmac and discarded crisp packets.
"What are we going to do with them?" he whispered to Ligur.
"Well, I ain't into a fourteen-some, if that's what you mean. Yer so jealous you'd only kill them and they're some of my best lads."
"Not what I was getting at," Hastur said, looking contemplatively at an extremely pretty soldier. Maybe he should eviscerate him, just to be on the safe side. "I meant, they'll spoil our night, hangin' round us. They wouldn't be any use in planning what to do about Belial, anyhow. Give 'em the night off as a reward for good service."
"A reward?" Ligur said. "Which side do you think we work for?" He beckoned the captain over. "None of you have been up here, have you? Wot do you think so far?"
"It's very – intoxicating, my lord," the captain said, taking what was quite probably his first breath. He looked around as if he was seeing beauty everywhere. "It all feels so bright and brief. Why isn't everything on fire, or drowned in seas of stinking mud or just generally – well, you know?"
"It's the mortal realm, innit. Full of new sensations. Look, for six millennia of faithful service, I'm giving you and yer hand-picked team here the rest of the night off. I'll be perfickly safe; humans can't do nothin' to us and Duke Hastur'll be right here anyway. Belial ain't coming up here, he gets shocking hay fever."
"My lord –" the captain began, looking very uneasy. A cat yowled nearby and he twitched like someone had let some of Hell's more vocal inhabitants out to play.
"No, you and the boys deserve some fun. That's an order. Go and spread some sin, or consort wiv devil-worshippers or somefing. Just one thing – do you think you can track down that human wot saw you all? It looked like it got a good clear view of everyone, and that's really not allowed."
The captain clicked his fingers and one of the soldiers scurried into the road, pressing his palm against the cracked tarmac and then sniffing at his fingers.
"I have the scent, sir," he said.
"We can find the vehicle and its human operator, my lord," the captain said, eager to please. He put his helmet on again, obviously ready to charge off and kill whoever Ligur wanted.
"Good, good. I know none of you've ever been in Torments, but it's yer night off. Enjoy yerselves," Ligur said cheerily. "Now, git, and get back Below before dawn."
"That's when the sun comes up," Hastur clarified, just in case.
The entire squad saluted, looking very eager indeed, and sprang into the air.
"They're not doin' a very good job at bein' inconspicuous," Ligur sighed. "That Saleos, he's a good officer and all, but not exactly one of the great Infernal intellectuals. They'd better not leave any witnesses." He picked up his fallen flowers and delicately picked a petal from one to pop into his mouth. "Wot now?"
"Dinner, drinks, plot revenge against our enemies and a good hard interdepartmental discussion," Hastur said. "Not necessarily in that order, and some of 'em twice."
He steered Ligur down the road towards the unpleasant pub he'd seen earlier. It looked like it should be ripe with human misery and degradation and that always put them both in a good mood. A proper night of enjoying the delights of earth would set them up for dealing with whatever plot Belial had going as well as setting them up for the next eon of dealing with their underlings. The only people who knew where they were seemed to be bizarrely loyal and no one who counted thought they were anything other than perfectly ordinary possessors of mortal bodies.
Hastur allowed himself a smile and the feeling of anticipating some relaxing time off in Ligur's company. The unnatural feeling of almost being happy was back but that was all right. Unnatural was all right for demons.